We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Megan Burch. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Megan below.
Hi Megan, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I was a part of the electronic music world from a young age, going to my first rave at 16 years old. I became immediately hooked on both the music and the experience and feeling I had attending these types of events. I met a girl the same age as me in the music scene named Ashleigh and we ended up starting our own promotion company called White Noise Promotions, working alongside people twice our age and a multitude of other EDM promoters in the Dallas Fort-Worth area. We were in charge of a promotion team of over 15 people all over the metroplex that sold tickets for us and soon into this journey we were scouting venues and booking our own talent. This lasted a couple years, up until we graduated high school.
Although throwing and promoting shows wasn’t what my heart was truly set on, I absolutely loved electronic music and knew I wanted to work in the scene in some capacity in the future. When I turned 18, Stereo Live Dallas opened and I began attending shows there every weekend. After a few months, I reached out to the woman in charge of the promotion team for the venue and asked to join the team – free shows AND commission on ticket sales sounded like a fantastic deal! I did this for a couple years- it made a great side hustle!
At the time I went into college at UT Dallas, my dream job was working for Insomniac, creating behind the scenes on shows and music festivals. I had a 4 year plan, majoring in marketing. As the year went on though, I was completely uninterested in my classes, feeling like I wasn’t working towards what I really wanted to do. Each month, I grew more and more depressed and lost. I was unable to hold a job or focus on completing school work. The only thing I looked forward to was attending shows on the weekends and being able to be and work in that environment. After a semester, I was considering taking a year off to figure things out but by the end of my first year of college, I had decided to fully drop out.
Within a year after dropping out I was serving tables, unsure of what I wanted to pursue or what I even liked to do enough to commit full time. During that same time frame, I met my now fiancé, Gage. He was producing music and DJing, already having toured with a couple of bigger artists. For the first couple years of our relationship, I hopped around service industry jobs, miserable in every place I worked. I even went back to college online, this time trying PR and advertising, but in less than one semester I knew college still wasn’t the right decision for me. On weekend nights though, I would attend shows or watch Gage play a set at various venues. Each time, I would take photos and videos on my iPhone and show him at the end of the night.
One day, Gage told me I seem to have a really good eye for photography and that I should get a professional camera to try it out and see what I thought. I had never considered photography to be a potential career or something I would be able to make a living off of but I told my parents what he had said and my dad ended up giving me a Sony camera to test the waters. After my first photoshoot, I fell in love. Being able to capture moments in time and then bring them to life through editing was an incredible feeling.
Through connections in the music industry from promoting in the past, I reached out to one of the artists in the electronic duo Slumberjack about shooting their upcoming show in Dallas at The Lizard Lounge. He said yes, and that became the first show I ever got hired for! The more shoots I did, the more I wanted to be able to pursue this as a real career. It gave me the excitement and diversity that I needed to love what I was doing.
I was still stuck in random jobs for a while, but slowly inching closer and closer towards being able to achieve what I really wanted. COVID hitting marked the end of my life in the restaurant world. I started working the front desk at a tattoo shop and eventually body piercing there for a short period of time. My next venture was the closest I had been to my goal – doing content creation and social media for businesses in the DFW area for a marketing company located in Deep Ellum. This was my first real experience with commercial work and it helped me build a portfolio more than music and portraits. Unfortunately the company didn’t end up working out and I had 2 options : find another job, or go freelance full time. At this point, I was already booking a wide variety of work, so I decided to take the leap and put my all into a photography and videography career.
I’ve now been shooting for going on 6 years and freelance full time for almost 2 and a half. I can’t even put into words how surreal it feels to be able to do what I genuinely love more than anything in the world and capture all types of different moments for a living. I am endlessly grateful to Gage for recognizing the talent in me and pushing me to pursue this career, causing me to finally feel like I had a purpose in life and something I could constantly achieve more and more in.
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?
I do photography and videography freelance full time – music & events, portraits, commercial & brand work, couples/engagement and more! My style combines mixing bright, vibrant colors with a darker, sexier vibe while bringing an individual’s or business’s vision to life.
My favorite part about my career is that it is impossible to get tired or bored of what I do! Working in both Dallas and various other cities across the country, I am constantly in new environments getting to capture new things and meet new people. I get the luxury of the perfect balance – being right in the action without being directly in the spotlight! It’s been a crazy experience listening to artists when I was younger and getting to work directly with them now or seeing major companies in my daily life and getting to create something they use or publish.
Just this past year I’ve gotten to work directly with artists such as Sean Paul, Chase & Status, and Illenium, I shot a BOSS x NFL collaboration with Patrick Mahomes for Complex Magazine, captured the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight for Most Valuable Promotions, was a part of my first festival media team shooting content for Wakaan Music Festival, got to shoot at and attend the awards show for the Academy of Country Music Awards, and I worked with companies such as Live Nation, Park Place Dealerships, and Electric Shuffle USA.
One of the wildest things it’s been hard to get used to since starting to build a career and name for myself is having fans of my work that will come up to me when I’m out at shows or message me on Instagram! I love that I’m able to tell a story through my work and inspire others! Photography has me constantly excited for the future and ready to see what’s to come next.
I WILL be moving out of the Dallas area and creating in a new place in the future….more details will be coming as the year goes on!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The top three things that have been the most impactful in my journey are –
1. Being outgoing and personable as well as a team player – people will be significantly more willing to hear you out, work with you and want to help you if you are a genuine and enjoyable person to be around and work with. Network and connect with as many people as possible everywhere you go, you never know who you may end up meeting! One of my favorite sayings is ‘your network is your net worth’ – it is 1000% true.
2. Hustling and being hard working & determined to succeed – any freelance job is going to be lots of work, especially when you are first starting out. Send lots of emails, go in person to businesses, reach out to artists and managers about working together – put yourself out there and advocate for yourself and your work to manifest the opportunities you want!
3. Try new things and practice!!!! – I think the best way to learn something like this is to just practice practice practice and try new things while shooting and editing. Shoot from a wide variety of angles, try different lenses to see what different focal lengths can do, try out some FX filters. Try photographing lots of things – all kinds of different people, objects, buildings, events, cars, whatever interests you! Experiment in Lightroom and Photoshop or whatever editing software you prefer and see what you can do to change the different aspects of the photo.
I wanted to add a 4th piece of advice to this list – valuing yourself and your work! It’s extremely important to be confident about what you bring to the table and what you can provide. That will always come through in the way you present yourself and your work to others.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
The most impactful thing my parents have done is unconditionally support me chasing my dream instead of taking the traditional route that was originally expected of me.
My dad not only got me my first camera but has gifted me the majority of the camera equipment I own and use today, which gave me a head start in pursuing this and has greatly helped me be able to apply for and take on a wider variety of gigs and opportunities.
They are both always so excited about everything I get booked for, all the goals I accomplish, the experiences I get to have and places I get to travel to because of my work. My mom even has a photo album on her phone full of the work I’ve taken that I send to her!
I am beyond grateful to have parents that love and support me even through the ups and downs of a freelance creative career, because they know how happy this makes me and see the way it is already paying off.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://megandaniellevisuals.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/megannnburch
- Other: Email – megannnburch@gmail.com
Image Credits
Megan Burch
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