We were lucky to catch up with Abby Judd recently and have shared our conversation below.
Abby, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
I get my work ethic from both of my parents. My mom has been a stay at home mom since I was born. She works so hard to raise the kids (and dogs) we never had to worry about having each and every meal taken care of. This woman would wake up and run several miles every day, on top of going to the gym. She has completed 15 marathons in her life! She can no longer run anymore due to multiple injuries, but continues to go to our local CrossFit gym 6 days a week and works so hard through those injuries. She never gives up.
My dad works as an accountant running his own business from home. It wasn’t always like that, when I was growing up he worked countless hours for accounting firms, never getting a break. The first couple years after he started his own business were rough as he was gaining his own clients and figuring out how to manage a business at the same time. Similar to what I am going through right now with photography. My dad never gave up, no matter how tough it got to run his own business, failure wasn’t an option.
By growing up watching my parents give each and every day their all, I learned to do the same thing. As long as you are trying your best each day, no matter what that looks like, that is all that matters.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a elopement, small wedding and portrait photographer. I have tried a little bit of everything from capturing landscapes, large weddings, families, wildlife and even products for different brands before settling into my niche. I have been a photographer for 8 years and it has taken me a long time to finally find what brings me fulfillment and joy.
At the moment, I am still shooting almost everything just to be able to make a profit and pay bills to hopefully one day quit my 9 to 5 and only do photography full time. While working a full time job and doing photography when I am off the clock, it feels like I have two full time jobs. As soon as I hit the punch out for the day, I am always either heading off to a shoot or editing a previous one. It feels like I never get a break at the moment, but I know if I keep working hard and being consistent I will be able to switch to doing only photography full time. Once I do this, I will probably niche down and only take projects that fit what I feel makes me happy. I have announced that I will continue taking family pictures until January 1st of 2024 but after that, I won’t be doing family photos anymore. I just don’t have a passion for capturing families, but I do know a lot of talented photographers that do! I will be referring my clients wanting family photos to those photographers instead of taking on those projects myself so that I can focus on more small weddings, elopements and portraits.
There is something about capturing a groom and his bride in a dramatic wedding gown and a stunning backdrop of sharp mountain peaks, pine trees or red rocks that just makes my heart happy. Elopements and small weddings are much more intimate. I have noticed that the weddings of these kinds are much more relaxed and focused on the couple, rather than having a huge wedding and the couple being able to greeting each guest for maybe 5 minutes. When the bride and groom have an elopement or smaller wedding, they are much less focused on pleasing other people, and are able to focus more on enjoying their day.
Right now I am still focused on building my wedding and elopement portfolio since I have only recently been interested in those kinds of projects. I have been taking on second shooting jobs to be able to shadow other photographers at weddings and see how they run the show. However, its been hard to find those kinds of projects with a small wedding portfolio because other photographers see that I am inexperienced, and have hesitation trusting me. I keep putting myself out there when I can. I always comment on photographer Facebook posts just shameless plugging my name away so that maybe, just maybe, someone sees my potential and will put that trust in me to shoot their wedding, elopement or second shoot for another wedding photographer. Its all in being consistent and never giving up!
I am also working on my fashion portfolio, I would love to shoot for brands like Free People one day. For fashion, I am currently working on reaching out to local brands to see if I can borrow pieces for models for planned shoots, in exchange for photos for those brands to be able to use however they would like. This way, I can build up my fashion portfolio, while getting my name out there to local brands and just working my way up from there.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I took a photography course back in the fall that completely changed my outlook on photography. I used to think that the market was oversaturated and that there wasn’t a place for me in the photographer community. I understand now that there is a place for each and every photographer no matter what niche. In the U.S. there are approximately 2 million weddings each year. There are only about 34,000 wedding photographers in the U.S. which leaves each photographer about 4 weddings a month. Based on the math alone, that’s enough to make a living off of. It isn’t about how saturated the photographer market is, it is how you present yourself and making your brand stand out in the world. What do you bring to the table that is different from the next person? This is something I am still dealing with, trying to stand out and own my differences. I don’t want my work to look just like every other photographers and neither do my clients! So I would definitely say, be different and learn what makes you different. Because a client that wants bright and airy won’t book someone like me, and that is okay! I want my clients to love my style of work because that is what will bring them true happiness. Don’t try and be like someone else. Also to add to this, is have confidence in yourself. If you don’t have confidence in yourself first, no one else will!
Another thing I would say is don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Things happen sometimes that you cant fix, like a corrupted SD card or hard drive and you lose everything. These mistakes will help you learn and you will make sure that never happens again. I back my clients raw files and edited files onto 4 different hard drives because I am terrified of losing images. Why am I terrified? Because it has happened before, early on in my career. So now, I will try my best to make sure that never happens again! Other mistakes like missing focus on a picture that would have been amazing or accidentally setting the camera sensitivity too high so that there is too much noise in the photo are things that have helped me learn my camera better. These mistakes are sometimes necessary to learning and being a better photographer with each photoshoot.
Something that I had to figure out on my own was networking. No one really told me how important that is. In Utah, we have such a word of mouth community. I’ve heard in other states that having a really good SEO or using paid advertisements works wonders, but not here in Utah. Its more about who you know. That is such a hard thing to compete with. One thing that I did was join any and all Utah photographers Facebook groups and go to all the photographer meet ups or styled shoots. This way you can get your name out there and meet other photographers in your community. It is a good way to make friends and stand out. I have actually hosted two of my own that were super fun and taught me that being a host, isn’t all its cracked up to be, its hard work!
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
My ideal client is someone who is free spirited, and sees the beauty that nature has to give. For elopements and small weddings, my ideal client is a couple who is adventurous. Someone who wants to go hike to a gorgeous lake to get the most stunning images. Or travel to somewhere they have never been that has always been on their bucket list. I have always loved being outdoors and traveling to beautiful places so having a client that loves to do the same would be a dream come true. I actually traveled to Moab not too long ago for an elopement and that was breathtaking! We woke up at 4 am in order to make it to the park for sunrise pictures. It was so worth it and they turned out gorgeous.
My ideal client for portraits for brand photography would be a brand that is focused on nature, sustainability and doesn’t feature unhealthy skinny models. I love seeing models I can relate to. Sounds woke, but truthfully I have always had body image issues and just in the past couple years I have accepted my body as amazing and its perfect just the way it is. A brand that I have noticed that jumped on this train pretty early was American Eagle. I love them for doing this and I would love to be able to shoot for them one day! Another thing I love seeing that brands do is having lifestyle photos outside of the classic website photos with just a white backdrop. I love seeing pictures of their clothes outside because it kind of gives the consumer ideas of where they could wear that outfit and relate to that more. I feel like that is something I would be interested in shooting a campaign for.
Contact Info:
- Website: geminimoonphoto.com
- Instagram: @geminimoon_studio
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abby.judd.3
