Meet Liesl Walsh

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

Liesl, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
My purpose right now as a landscape and cityscape photographer is to do two things: show what is special about the Gulf Coast of Florida for my clients, and teach photographers the strategies I’ve used to market and sell my images so they too can make money with their work. I want to help photographers reach their goals faster, to skip the slow start that I endured.

When I started as a full time photographer in 2012, I wanted to make a living with my photography, but it was a challenge. I was new to social media, and had no audience other than friends and family. Not many people knew about my work, and I didn’t have a website. I dreamed of selling prints and working with businesses, but had no idea how to make it happen or where to start. I had been an art teacher and was ready for a change. My husband Mike and I had been very successful with his car paint repair business, so I was determined to make this work using the skills we had honed being self-employed.

So I studied to become a better photographer. I joined and attended photo clubs, read books by Scott Kelby, earned a Masters of Photography from famous French photographer Serge Ramelli, and worked with Serge as an assistant teaching photography to students around the world.

As time went on I created a stronger portfolio, built a website, became more active on social media, and connected with more people. After some time things started to happen. I began to get known locally for my images of coastlines, historic buildings, and cityscapes. After about 6 years I developed a strategy that helped me grow much faster, built an audience to over 28K followers, and now sell regularly with over 938 print sales online and hundreds of images licensed to clients. My work has been on billboards, published dozens of times, and displayed in an art exhibit for famous pop artist Roy Lichtenstein at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida.

After seeing my success, Serge Ramelli encouraged me to make a class teaching other photographers how I did it.

So in 2023 I expanded my photography print business to education, and it feels good to mentor again. I teach photographers how to strengthen their images, market their work to expand their audience, and boost their print sales. The results have been life-changing, and I’m thrilled to see their success! One student set an all time record of watching my entire course, setting up his website, and selling three prints only three days after buying the course!

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m originally from Pennsylvania where I was an art teacher, but now live in Venice, Florida. I’ve loved art since I was a child and wanted to be an artist when I grew up. My love of painting and drawing has influenced my photography.

As a professional photographer my goal is to create images that not just show the beauty of a location, but make the viewer feel it. People say that my images have a mysterious, peaceful feeling, and they enjoy the feeling my art gives them when a print hangs in their home. This feeling makes my images stand out online, and it’s helped me get work with clients, get published, and sell prints. I’ve been selling prints of my work locally and internationally since 2015.

I also capture historic locations to appreciate our past and preserve it for future generations.

Recently my photo of the 1927 historic train depot in Venice, Florida was published on the cover of the book, “Venice: A Century on the Gulf” by Larry Humes, a book about the hundred years history of Venice, Florida, which is celebrating its Centennial this year. The train depot was used by the Ringling Circus and was restored.

Since 2023 I’ve been creating online courses for photographers which are available on my website https://www.lieslwalshphotos.com/. I have classes about how to market and sell prints online using Fine Art America, editing using Lightroom and Photoshop, how to do sky replacements, and I offer personal coaching sessions and portfolio reviews.

After getting excellent feedback and results with my students, KelbyOne hired me as an instructor. KelbyOne is a longtime respected online education community for thousands of photographers around the world. I’ve recorded two classes at KelbyOne, and appeared four times as a guest on their podcast The Grid. My classes are “Selling Your Prints on Fine Art America”, and “Marketing & Selling Your Photography”. It’s an honor to be a KelbyOne instructor especially since Scott Kelby’s books were influential in my growth early in my career.

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?
One of the skills that helped me grow the most in my business was social media skills. Understanding how social media works, what is effective, and how to communicate to my audience to develop trust improved sales much faster.

I also learned that to build an audience with clients you have to go find them and not wait for them to discover you. I looked for people and businesses in my niche and started conversations. Doors opened much faster and exciting things started to happen. As my audience grew I understood what was important to them and created images that were meaningful to them, which brought me more business.

Being self-employed with my husband’s business for 15 years taught me valuable lessons, and the number one thing that helped us build a strong successful business was to give excellent service with high quality work. It made us stand out from our competitors, and we developed long term client relationships. How you treat your clients and working with honesty goes a long way to build trust and an excellent business reputation.

The advice I have for business owners early in their journey is to really think about their target audience and understand what is important to them and create content with that in mind. Once you think of your social media as a conversation with your target audience, it will draw people to you and keep them connected with you, and they will become your clients, and even collectors of your work.

I teach how to do this in my courses at KelbyOne.com and in my course “Selling Photos Online: How I Broke the Code” at https://www.lieslwalshphotos.com/.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
Businesses and individuals may contact me to license my images. My images may be used for websites, office and home decor, publishing, book covers, magazines, etc. I’ve had clients print my images on vinyl wraps for vehicles and large office murals. My images are very high resolution so they can be printed large on wall art up to 72”-108” and on billboards up to 20 feet long.

My portfolio is mostly cityscapes and landscapes in Florida, Michigan, and Europe. Local businesses on the Gulf Coast of Florida and businesses worldwide may contact me for images and commissions. Corporate art buyers and interior designers may contact me for bulk wall art orders. My photos are ideal for places that need images of local landmarks, architecture, seascapes, piers, beaches, historic places, travel locations, and serene moods for hotel rooms, homes, and offices.

View my entire portfolio here to order prints:
https://liesl-walsh.pixels.com/

To learn more about me as an artist, what my prints look like, and what I offer for businesses visit here:
https://www.lieslwalsh.com/

Photography teaching organizations who need a speaker or someone to teach a class may contact me to collaborate. Learn more about what I offer and my career history as an educator and photographer at:
https://www.lieslwalshphotos.com/

Students who want to boost their photography skills, editing skills, social media skills, and marketing techniques to boost print sales can join my photography community. I teach the easiest way to sell art online using Fine Art America.
See my courses and excellent student reviews here:
https://www.lieslwalshphotos.com/

Contact Info:

BEST to post

Venice is an amazing city in Florida. It sits on the Gulf of Mexico on the west coast and has a beautiful beach, jetty, and pier. You have a couple places at the coast to watch beautiful sunsets each night. Venice is just south of Sarasota and is near Englewood, Nokomis, and North Port. This photo was taken at Venice Beach. It portrays the quiet peacefulness you feel on the beach at sunset. As the sun goes down the sky lights up with beautiful colors, and an aqua lifeguard stand catches some of the light. A sailboat sails off into the distance, silhouetted against the bright warm colors of the sky.

Image Credits
Liesl Walsh

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