Meet Katie Taylor

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Taylor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.

I feel like all creatives out there can struggle from time to time with imposter syndrome no matter how successful they are. With so many social media platforms where everyone has access to everyone else’s work, it’s hard not to compare yourself to other people in your industry and can make you feel like you’re not as experienced or knowledgeable as others. It’s important to remember a few things that also help me to get out of that “imposter syndrome” mindset.

First off, pretty much every professional out there has felt or still feels imposter syndrome, (it’s not just you), never stop learning or trying to improve your skill set which will help you feel more confident in your field, and stop comparing yourself to others and focus on your own journey (the only person you should be comparing yourself to is your past self)!! It can still be hard for me at times even with these tips but I always try my best to focus on my own journey and to not compare my journey to others and those successes. Not one person’s success is the same and success is not linear, it has highs and lows, especially in a small business.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a photographer based in Raleigh, NC that specializes in couples and adventure elopements. My goal is for my photos to evoke emotion with my clients, I want you to really feel something when you look at your photos. I do that with my style which is candid, documentary, storytelling and even cinematic. One of my favorite things to do is to create a “movie scene” which is made up of 3 photos in something that looks like a movie clip where you can anticipate what happened next or what emotions they were feeling in that moment. The reason I love this style of photography is because it can take you back to a specific moment and make you relive those joyous emotions you felt in that photo all over again. I love that photography has the ability to do that and I love being able to provide that to my clients.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Learn the basics!! It’s so important to build a solid foundation in anything that you do and want to pursue full time. For me, it was learning the ins and outs of my camera gear, editing software, and then expanding on that knowledge from there so no situation could stress me out if something didn’t go ideally. I also highly recommend connecting with others in your niche or field for support. It’s so important to have a supportive community in anything that you do and having those friends in your life is so critical to your growth and success. They can also give you guidance on getting around roadblocks that they’ve already experienced. I was and still am a very heavy user of the Facebook groups and Instagram to meet local photographers.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents being 110% supportive and excited for me to pursue my dream and passion of being a full-time photographer. It means everything to me and I am so incredibly grateful for them.

I would also like to give a huge shoutout to my husband, there is absolutely no way I would get to be living my dream life without his support every day. I’m so incredibly lucky to have him on this journey.

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