We were lucky to catch up with Krista Rogers recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Krista, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
I love this question because it implies we can learn how to take risks – which feels really on point for where I am/have been the past 2 years. I left my job as a school counselor after wrapping up the 21-22 school year in pursuit of taking my photography business and clay earring business full time instead.
My job was secure, though toxic, and I had good benefits. Other than not being happy where I was, I had no “logical” reason to leave – it felt like a massive risk.
Something I’ve learned though, over time, is I will always be able to figure it out. I didn’t have a Plan B lined up if my businesses belly flopped, but I told myself that, no matter what, I would be able to find another job – in fact, there are plenty of jobs if I really ended up needing something. I could work at Target, Starbucks, a day care, a telemarketer, dog walker, WalMart greeter. Instead of looking at what I wanted as something I had to make successful overnight, I looked at it as something that would take time – as a risk in the short term, but a reward in the long term.
Because, ultimately, even if I didn’t get my businesses off the ground before I’d have to figure something else out, I knew that my mental health was worth the risk of taking the leap and allowing myself the grace of figuring it out as it unfolded.
I won’t lie and pretend it didn’t feel terrifying. It’s a lot easier to say, “I’ll stock shelves for awhile if I need to,” than it is to actually quit your job and realize that may be a reality. However, without taking a risk I don’t think I would have ever found out what potential I had – and still may have.
Taking the first risk has built up my ability to take more risks – to be more creative, to trust my gut, to attempt new things, and to be willing to fail in the process.
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?
I currently am a wedding and family photographer as well as polymer clay earring maker (that’s a mouthful, but I’m not sure how else to word the title).
I began my photography career back in college, 12 years ago, while pursuing my BFA in photography. I never really knew what I wanted to do but had always loved photography and telling stories, so I thought I would be a photojournalist.
To make money, I started taking photos at friend’s weddings and senior portraits and eventually settled on following a career doing portrait and wedding photography instead, but by the end of college allowed the fear of owning my own business to overtake my belief in myself.
After taking a year off, I returned to school and got my masters degree in school counseling, followed by spending the next 5 years working as a professional school counselor.
It didn’t take long to realize I missed creating, though. I missed the freedom associated with creating and the outlets it provided me personally. This feeling grew even more in 2019 when my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer – it was during her illness I most needed to be creative, as that has always been my way of processing events in my life.
After my mom’s passing in 2020, I knew I needed to stop living in the fear of not being good enough and pursue a career, and life, that brought me joy. Photography was always on my mind, and earrings are honestly a misunderstanding that’s just gone way too far (it’s a whole other story – I never even wore earrings before I began making them in 2022).
What I find most exciting in my creative ventures, both photography and clay earrings, is the way I’m able to use these artistic mediums to still learn so much about others and get to know their stories through my work. As a photographer people invite me in to some of the most intimate moments of their lives and allow me access in to very personal parts of their world. I am trusted to document such special moments, and the enormity of this trust is even more overwhelming to me on this side of my own grief – knowing how important these images will one day be to those in the photographs.
With clay earrings, I also get to learn and know others in more intimate ways than I ever envisioned initially. Often I am working at markets or festivals and find the medium that I work in, and the designs I create, are great conversations starters. Some dear friendships have begun with the sentence, “How did you start doing this as your career?” Usually, after I share a summary of how I got to where I am today, I find everyone can relate to some facet of the story, which allows them to share parts of their own story.
Creativity has always appealed to me because it forms connection. And while I absolutely love the act of creating, the best part of being able to create is the seeing the connections it forms along the way.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
1. Being willing to take risks. Once I allowed myself to take risks and not look at it as, “What if I fail?” but rather “So what if I fail?” my businesses began to take shape in to what I had envisioned and so much more.
2. Being a reformed perfectionist. I’m not saying being a perfectionist is a good thing, but I do think that it allowed me to hone a lot of skills in my crafts and pushes me to continue to work on my craft and refine areas where I need. Natural talent will only get you so far if you aren’t willing to put in continued work, and my desire to perfect parts of my craft has helped me from being stagnant.
3. The best advice I ever received, that has become my mantra in my work is, “Make your rut your art”. I went through a really tough year in college – it was obvious to everyone, including my professors, how much my mental health was impacting my life. Instead of working hard or even trying, I allowed myself to start to give up. Then my photography professor told me to “make your rut your art” and gave me permission to really express myself and use my art as a vessel for my vulnerability. Until that moment, I had either had personal art for myself and the public art I made. This one statement helped me recognize that I didn’t need to keep the two separate, and that if I was willing to put myself fully in to my art it could be even more meaningful – to myself and others.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I’m always looking for people to collaborate with!
Anyone willing to be open to collaborating in new and unique ways – I love meeting!
I’ve designed an earring collection based off characters from a local authors book for it’s release, have worked with a baker to make specialty gift boxes, used my photography to provide a mini photoshoot for moms and daughters in a small group, and so many other collaborations.
The ideal person(s)/business to collaborate with are those who may have an idea of what they are wanting to do, but are also open to allowing the collaboration to grow/change organically as we work through the idea together.
Contact Info:
- Website: kristacampionephotography.com
- Instagram: @kristacampionephotography
- Other: The initial website and instagram are for my photography business, the following are for my earrings: alittleselah.etsy.com @alittleselahdesigns
Image Credits
All images are taken by myself.
