Meet Helen Pace

We were lucky to catch up with Helen Pace recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Helen, thank you so much for agreeing to open up about a sensitive and personal topic like being fired or laid-off. Unfortunately, there has been a rise in layoffs recently and so your insight and experience with overcoming being let go is relevant to so many in the community.

In March of 2020, I was recovering from an emergent hysterectomy and almost ready to return to work as a tasting room associate at a local vineyard. I’d been out of work for 6 weeks when suddenly the kids were sent home from school on Friday the 13th. We thought surely whatever this was would blow over in a week or two, but we had no idea that we were at the precipice of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Although we’d prepared the budget for the 6 week loss of income, we could never have anticipated what came next: the tasting room where I worked closed, the restaurant where my husband is a manager closed to dine-in service, the broken unemployment system in North Carolina failed, and overnight we had two kids doing school from home. I waited months for my first unemployment payment to arrive and quickly learned that the $200 a week I qualified for was just a drop in the bucket compared to what we needed to catch up. I decided that I could never be in a position to rely on someone else to provide me with a paycheck again, I had to do it for myself.

I had taken classes through Shultz Photo School in 2017 and 2018 to learn to take better pictures of my daughters, and I’d started very casually taking on clients in 2019. I had covered my first wedding and photographed a few families that fall. I had bit of knowledge, and I had a DSLR and some equipment. I did not, however, have a business plan, enough clients, or any clue as to how to provide a face-to-face luxury service in the midst of a global pandemic. By the end of 2020, I’d photographed engagements, a pandemic elopement, done some commercial work for a few businesses, and added 25 families to my client pool. I’d participated in my first photography competition and done well, and that was a boost to my confidence. By the start of 2021, I was ready to roll!

It’s always been very important to me to show my daughters, Sarah, 17 and Lilah, 14, that they can accomplish anything they put their mind to. Being a photographer was my “when I grow up” dream and I made it happen at 39. I hope that they will learn that it’s never too late to meet a goal, to make something big happen for yourself, to change course in your life. While I had dreamed of being a photographer, I never believed in myself enough to think I could actually do it. They say that necessity is the mother of invention and I would say that’s true for me – the pandemic was the push I needed. I learned so much that first year, and every year since, and I’m so thankful for all of my beautiful clients and for the experiences I’ve had with them, watching them get engaged, get married, and grow their families and businesses. Being a photographer is a special privilege and I’m so proud of myself for being brave enough to take a leap into the unknown.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Being a photographer is really very cool. I get to be there when my clients don’t have words, just their emotions. I get to see their children grow up, get to see freckles develop and hair grow long. I document love stories from proposal to wedding reception and beyond. How many people can say that their job is to show their clients how beautiful their life is? I like to say that my superpower is that I can freeze time – I create permanency where there is none. I make it possible for you to remember just how a moment in your life felt long after the moment has passed. I feel very lucky to get to do what I do.
It’s important to me to provide my clients with a simplified, relaxed experience every time we work together. Whether it be a family session or a 12-hour wedding day, my priority is to make things easier for my clients, in any way that I can. I focus on emotion in my photographs, vivid color, accurate skin tones, and making my subjects look their very best.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

There are several qualities that helped me along my journey: blind determination, willingness to learn, and the ability to adapt and overcome. Having a plan is great – but having the ability to know when your plan needs to change is even better. I am one of the most independent people I know, almost to a fault, so I know that if I can figure out how to do something on my own, I can build on that knowledge later. I also really enjoy learning! I think that being curious and being driven to master new techniques behind the lens and in editing has really helped me grow as an artist.
Building a business, a brand, a client base, a website, a culture, all of that is hard! I have so many friends who are strong female business owners, and I’m eternally grateful for the knowledge they’ve shared with me over the years. My advice to someone just starting out in any business is to surround yourself with people who have been where you want to go and learn to take – and learn from – constructive criticism.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

I struggle with imposter syndrome, as do so many other people in artistic industries. Continuing to educate myself and participate in competitions has helped, as has being published in a few magazines. The best thing I did to defeat my imposter syndrome, though, was to achieve the designation of Certified Professional Photographer this year. Going through that process, which includes a written test and a technical photographic evaluation, gave me irrefutable proof that the imposter syndrome I feel is just a figment of my imagination.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://helenpace.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/helenpacephotography
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/helenpacephotography
• Other: hhpace@gmail.com

Image Credits

All images provided are my own.