We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Matt Ehnes. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Matt below.
Hi Matt , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
I think early on in my career I quickly learned that as an artist you have to be OK to FAIL. This industry (as is many others) is heavily saturated with others chasing a similar dream and in order to succeed you have to continually pivot to pave a way that is unique and works for YOU. Additionally, you have to always remember to celebrate the wins – Big or Small. Those are what keep me pushing onward and upward.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Hello.
My name is Matt Ehnes and I am professional photographer. Although you will find that I share and showcase mostly my portraiture work, simply put I love shooting anything that involves connecting with and sharing someone’s story. As cheesy as it sounds, I have always picked up my camera with the intention that a pictures tells a thousand words.. and then some.
Recently I have also launched a travel blog with a friend, that is growing quickly and has become one of my biggest joys in life.
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?
Have a strong work ethic. As I mentioned earlier, being that Photography is a very oversaturated market, you have to commit 150% to finding your path and what makes you different. Early on in my career, I was working 40 hours a week at a hotel and another 30 hours a week on my photography to make this dream a reality.
Find YOUR community.
I feel like investing in like minded relationships/ individuals is one of the most priceless gifts the world has to offer personally and professionally. I have a strong group of people around me who I can always go to for perspective, insight, and to ultimately look at things things from a “different lens” (no pun intended).
Don’t get comfortable.
I believe in an industry that is evolving everyday, it’s important to constantly invest in continued education and follow people who inspire you/ challenge you to find ways to better your craft.
Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?
My biggest area of growth/ improvement was finding something to find purpose in outside of my own photography brand.
A friend and I had conquered a version of The Stairway to Heaven Hike in Hawaii that like many others, was a bucket list thing to do. I happened to get some great shots of him hiking, and once shared on social platforms we had an overwhelming outreach of others wanting all our insight to take it on themselves. This lead us to launch a travel blog: Jared’s Detours. He is an incredible news anchor/ journalist and can write, and I come in and make everything visually as appealing as he writes it to be. The perfect dynamic duo.
We have spent the past year traveling both state side and internationally journaling our experiences and “Detours” along the way and it has opened up doors to now be hired by different brands and tourism boards.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mattehnes.com
- Instagram: mattehnes
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattehnesphotography/
- Other: Travel Blog: Jared’s Detours
