224: Finding Success as a Part-Time Photographer with Lydia Fine

It's a conversation between two photographers about a topic that I know for a fact that many of you feel needs more attention , and that is this idea of running a part-time photography business , not because you can't go full-time , but because , for one reason or another , you choose not to .

It puts you in kind of a strange untalked about place , and after now a few conversations with photographers on this podcast , I know that that is something that needs to be talked about more in the industry .

So I'm excited to share Lydia's take , which is different from that of some of the other photographers that I've chatted with here , and her circumstances are different .

Her ideas about it are different , and I think you're gonna find this one really valuable , particularly if you are one of those photographers who , intentionally or otherwise , is currently part-time in your business . Welcome to this . Can't Be that Hard . My name is Anami Tonkin and I help photographers run profitable , sustainable businesses that they love .

Each week on the podcast . I cover simple , actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way . Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard . You can do it and I can show you how . Lydia Fine , welcome to this Can't Be that Hard .

It is so great to have you on the show today . How are ? you , I'm great thanks so much for having me . Oh , no , thanks for volunteering to come and chat with me about a subject that I know 100% is gonna be really valuable for people .

I guess it's been about a year since I had my friend , aaron Brown on the podcast and we talked about being purposefully part-time and that single episode got so much traction .

I heard from so many people and I know she did too Basically saying thank you , thank you , thank you for addressing the elephant in the room , which is that so many photographers are part-time not because they can't make their photography business work to the extent that it can take over their day job , but because , for one reason or another , they need to stick

with their day job , whether that's working outside of the house or working at home running the house . And so when I got your email a little while ago about the fact that you are also purposefully part-time , but for a different reason , I was like , yep , let's shed some light in this corner of the room as well .

So I'm gonna shut up and lie , which I always have to remind myself to do , and let you introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about , kind of what your angle on being part-time is .

I am a family newborn , senior and sometimes school photographer based in North Liberty , iowa , which is a suburb of Iowa City , iowa , and my take on purposely part time is that it's hard to describe myself , because it depends on who I'm talking to whether or not I introduce myself as a photographer who is also working full time as a marketing technology specialist ,

or a marketing technology specialist who's working part time as a photographer , because I feel like there's these two very different sides of my life , but they're both very valuable to me .

My take on being purposely part time , though , is that in my particular situation , I'm kind of holding back the growth of my photography business , based solely on my most scarce resource , which is time .

I am a mother of an eight and a 10 year old , and I am a wife to my husband , nathan , who is a standup comedian and content creator and podcaster and author and all of the artistic things that , when you are at a certain level , don't make that much money .

So when he and I met , I was just about to start my MBA , he was a comedian , and we met exactly the way you think we would Girl audience , boy on stage right , very cliche , but I knew what I was getting into .

I knew that he didn't have the giant paycheck that you know some executive guy might have , that I decided to marry but I was okay with that because that was my path and that's , that was the balance that we agree to . But photography kind of found me by accident and I realized that I loved it and I sort of found my artistic side .

And now the business woman me supporting the artistic guy is now the business woman slash artistic person supporting the artistic guy and our whole family , right .

It's not a guaranteed thing and when your family is depending on you , I think that it's very reasonable , especially since it doesn't sound like you hate your job , you , you know it sounds like you get a lot of fulfillment on that side as well . But it is kind of a balance and that balance can be tricky .

I never , I never pay a dime for prescription Now usually . Usually our salaries are depressed a little bit to exchange in exchange for those amazing benefits , and that's just kind of the bargain that public employees make . Yeah , but it's very difficult to leave that when you've been used to it , and I've been at my current job for 14 and a half years .

So let's go back to the identity piece of the puzzle , which I think is one that , regardless of your like the reasons that someone might be part time , if you are , if you have two jobs and this was true for me when I was working as a nurse and starting my photography business it can be really there's like a lot of weird identity struggle that goes into .

I walk into a room you know full of strangers and I'm meeting people and they say what do you do ? And then I fumble and like end up you know the person's like whoa , whoa . It was supposed to be a simple question . Talk to me a little bit about how you manage that or like what your struggles are with that .

And if I am among friends , though , or in a more social setting people , especially here locally , who I know I might get to work with or maybe I would get to photograph their family then I almost always mentioned my photography first , because that is the part of my two jobs that is and I don't want to say it's more fulfilling , but it is slightly in that

nobody ever calls me crying with joy because I just built them a really great marketing automation .

In fact , when I'm talking about simple sales , one of the things that I sometimes get pushed back around , especially from someone who does in-person sales , is like yes , I would love to spend less time on the selling part , I would love to get away from having have all these meetings and like all the handholding . I hate it , I hate it , I hate it .

But you know what I love ? Seeing people see their photos for the first time , and so that is something that a lot of photographers struggle to give up , because it is really gratifying . I mean , I think it's an amazing gift . I've trained myself to find satisfaction in just the knowledge that that happens , and many times people will share it via email .

You know they'll say , oh my gosh , we burst into tears or whatever , and I'm good with just that version of it . But , like , I thank my lucky stars all the time to have a career where I do get that kind of fulfillment and knowledge that I'm making this really direct impact on people's personal lives and something that will last for generations . So I get it .

That's a bit of a sidebar , but it will never get old , no matter how long I've been in this business . So yeah , like it kind of depends on who you're talking to , it kind of depends on where you are .

But I imagine it's hard like you've got one foot on one side of the line and one foot on the other and like you feel kind of like where do I belong , like which category do I belong into ? And maybe there's a bit of like I'm not really telling the whole truth , because the whole truth is more complicated than just a single answer .

who's doing this full-time and that , just in general , that it's something I should be embarrassed about or something that I should hide . And I try to kind of tamp that down because I know that doesn't make sense logically , because people are not paying me for my lifestyle . They're paying me for the end result of the photos that they're going to get .

So that's probably my imposter syndrome speaking more loudly than anything else . But you're right , there is an identity crisis in what I do . That makes it tricky . Yeah .

I do think that there is sort of that narrative out there in the world and so feeling like you always have to explain your position or like debunk that particular myth in your situation , yeah , it's like it puts you in this kind of defensive position . It's not where anybody wants to be when they're talking about what they do and who they are . Right yeah .

Yeah , that has absolutely been part of my plan , because I got started in late 2020 , just that's when the first person asked me hey , I know you have a nice camera . I was no good at using it , but they asked if I would take their Christmas card photo and I was sort of like well , I know , okay , but they're gonna be terrible . And they were .

They were absolutely horrific . But then I am very type A in that if I see something that I really want to be good at , I will Sure , becomes slightly obsessed until I am , and that's exactly how that went down for me .

But even from those early days , I just packed my schedule as full as I possibly could and it didn't take long before my children were like oh , we don't ever see you , mommy , you're always editing .

And that just tore my heart out and I was like all right , now it's time to set some boundaries and start deciding what this is really going to look like and how it affects my children , because they're only young once . We don't get a second chance at this .

If they're a stay-at-home parent or something like that and they are earning money as a photographer when they can , then sometimes they can fit that into the hours when everybody's gone at school and partners at work or whatever . But when you really only have the weekends and the evenings , you have to be really choosy about what you're doing .

And I think that that is actually a really valuable piece of the conversation too , because I talk to a fair number of people who , with their side hustle , they don't need the income , whether because they have another full-time career or their partner has the income for the family .

Those people will often put themselves in the position where they're like well , I don't need to earn money , so I'm going to charge less , and then they end up in this weird spiral of they're basically working a part-time job for less than minimum wage , which doesn't serve anybody , and that my go-to advice there is stop charging people .

Just do photography for you . If it's a hobby , keep it as a hobby . But if you want to have a business , no matter how big or small , set it up in such a way that it's worth your valuable time . You've totally hit the nail on the head Whether you've got kids and they're only young .

Once we all have this , what's the Mary Oliver quote like one wild and beautiful life . How are you going to spend it ? So I think making art is a wonderful way to spend it , but running a business , unless you're going to make it worth your time , it's hard .

there . Just again , having someone reinforce that idea that I'm on the right track , that , yes , it's OK to do less work , charge more and make it worth my time . And then , in the course of this , my father died in March of 2022 from ALS , and my dad wasn't sorry , thank you , but he was the ultimate workaholic like so bad .

And he didn't retire until he was 68 . And he was excited to enjoy retirement and was diagnosed with ALS six months later and he just always thought he'd have all this time when he was done working . So that was also a really good reinforcer of like nobody ever dies and puts on their tombstone . I wish I'd worked more .

So if I'm going to do this , which I do really enjoy it I need to make it worth my time . So , yes , my prices have gone up dramatically since I started and I try really hard not to apologize for that , but it's tricky .

But , yeah , the boundaries around what I'm going to do were a really important part after that first fall when my kids said we don't even see you anymore , all you do is edit . So the next year I said , ok , I did . How many sessions did I do that October ? I think I did 21 in that month . Very , very , very good decision . And I said how did that feel ?

So let's pick a different number as our goal . The next October , and instead the next October I did 14 . And I believe this year I'm down even a couple more than that , just because I've started outsourcing all of my editing . I was only doing a little bit last year , but this year I'm like again .

It's just I don't like turning people away but I still have to , but I really like having that time back with my kids and my family .

And I think that if we get rid of all of the voices in our head about what we should be doing in terms of I should be aiming to make this my full-time job or I should be spending X amount of time with my kids , I think that if you really check in with why you got into photography as a business in the first place and really kind of lean into , now

you're getting inquiries , you're getting bookings , you're making money . Now it's up to you . How do you want this to go ? How do you want , at the end of your photography career , when you retire from photography and maybe your other career at the same time , what do you want to be able to turn around and say , like , what's your legacy in photography ?

Because , unlike your day job you know , assuming that I mean there are people who have day jobs , who that are really like legacy oriented . But when you're Right , exactly .

But I mean if you're , if you've got a tech job or an office job or whatever , like those things that the legacy is I paid my bills , I saved for retirement , my kids were able to go to college , what you know , whatever our legacy as Photographers as portrait photographers can be kind of bigger than that , but you have to you know , whether it's that you want

to work with the same families over and over again and like , have that kind of long-term relationship it whether it's that you want to make Photos available to people in your community who you know may not be able to afford them otherwise because you have these once a year . Whatever , I mean , I'm just like pulling stuff out of thin air .

I think that it's really good to envision that endpoint , that ideal endpoint , and then build your business accordingly . We all have 24 hours in every single day . You have a different parameter in that you don't have Every single day to devote to photography , and so you're just building at a different scale .

Yeah , sorry , mom . So Whenever I come down here to do my full-time job , if I also have photography work that needs to be done , I try to do it as soon as I sign off from my my full-time workstation .

Actually , I have two workstations side by side , one for my full-time job and one for photography , and so I , as soon as I sign off that one , I come over here to the photography one and I try to just get through a whole bunch of work really quickly , because I don't want to go upstairs , have my children see me and then have see me go back down again ,

and sometimes closer . You know , after dinner I'll feel a little bit more comfortable saying okay , guys , I'm gonna go edit for an hour , I'm gonna go , you know , do some photography work for an hour and I'll be back up to tuck you in . So you know , we've kind of established some , some bargains

like that yeah . I think , the spouse part of it , the partner part of it is what a lot of people are really curious about is like how exactly does this work like ?

And , and I'll say right off the bat , I have an ultra supportive spouse who is not the least bit concerned with traditional gender roles in our marriage and With traditional yeah , he never has been .

When , when we met , when we decided we were gonna get married and I wanted to keep my maiden name fine which I don't know why anybody would ever give up such such an awesome life I did not want you and I was like kind of worried how he would react and he was like I do not care .

Yeah what your last name is as long as you're married to me , I'm like , okay , cool , we're good . So he Understands that this balance means that he will be taking on more of the child care during the times that I'm really busy , especially August , september , october In Iowa . That's when things get kind of crazy .

But he's always actually taken on a greater share of the housework , with me having a full-time job that has full-time hours and him having a Job that's mostly weekends at , you know , traveling to comedy clubs around the country and , and you know , things from home that are more flexible as far as podcast recording and making videos for his TikTok , which is got

like a bajillion followers and I can't even keep up with it . So this balance works really well , but one of the keys to it is the communication , because we actually I'm such a huge fan of therapy because I believe therapists are worth their weight in gold and we actually see a marriage counselor once a month .

It's not because our marriage is on the rocks , but because we need a way , an avenue and a safe space to talk about these little Resentments that pop up with this arrangement that we have , because that's how little Resentments turn into big ones if you don't talk about them , and so we we try to make communication a high priority , and that works really well for

us . That's amazing .

So my shoots I would try to schedule them as far in advance as I possibly could , and but his comedy gigs were also scheduled quite far in Advance so I could see his calendar , he could see mine were very , very big into the shared family calendar , but if something popped up I'll last minute comedy gig .

It's always kind of assumed that in his line of work saying no to work means it may never come your way again , sure , whereas for me saying no might mean it actually comes my way more because you know a little bit more demand . But so it was easier for me to turn down work than it would be for him . So I would usually end up hiring a babysitter .

We don't have family in town To help care for kids , they're all a couple of hours away but we did find a way to make it work , even though you know you could argue that I would go out and do a shoot and make about as much money as he would showing and doing a Comedy show . But I asked I know it's important to him , right .

That's where he feels fulfilled Artistically and now that I do a more creative job , I feel like I can better understand that artistic fulfillment in a way I never could before .

Running your own business , whether it's full-time or part-time , navigating that with partners and children , and life and Explaining yourself as an artist like these are things that we all All go through .

You know struggles and seasons of struggle around , and I , you know I I didn't bring you on here because I have any sort of magic wand to wave and say like , oh no , when you walk into a room , you just own it , that you're this , like I totally get where you are and I don't know that that is necessarily something .

I think that over time , you know you're , you're three years into business , you Will be , you've probably got many years ahead of you . I do think that time makes that sort of thing easier .

I think that when you Sort of make peace with your own Relationship to these two careers and how that works in your heart , that is when you Just answer the question and somebody at a cocktail party with a bunch of parents says what do you do ? And you say I'm a family photographer and somebody at a networking event for work says what do you do ?

And you say I work in marketing tech . Like it just becomes a much easier answer Because it's easier on the inside . But that is work . That it does take time and it sort of is one of those things that we all wrestle with .

I have no doubt that you'll get there , but in the meantime I just I'm excited to have had the opportunity to talk with you about this , and it's sort of the thing where it's like I Would sit down and chat with somebody over coffee about this , because I think that it is , if nothing else , it's valuable for all of us to remember that like these are not

unique Struggles , problems , issues , and they don't have super simple solutions . So if you are struggling with this , that doesn't make you like why haven't you figured this out yet ? It just kind of is . But I think that you know , at its best , that sort of thing can really fuel our art .

Those kinds of like parenting struggles and relationship struggles and and I don't mean struggles in like with a capital S , I just mean like it is this discomfort and this whatever they make us more attuned when we are paying attention to them . They make us more attuned to the little things that make our art great .

So I think that you know , channeling that a little bit can be really good as well .

And so I really enjoyed Aaron Brown's show on your podcast because that was the first time I was like okay , yes , I know these things .

It is , and you can find me on Facebook under Apollo and Ivy , and also on Instagram I am at Lydia underscore Apollo and Ivy , lydia's Lyd I a , so you can find me on Instagram there .

I'll be back same time , same place next week . In the meantime , you can find more information about this episode , along with all the relevant links , notes and downloads at this . Can't be that hard , com slash learn . If you like the podcast , be sure to hit the subscribe button . Even better , share the love by leaving a review in iTunes .

And , as always , thanks so much for joining me . I hope you have a fantastic week .