Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Karl Moore. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Karl, 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?
Mooreshots LLC started as a result of my Dad. Growing up, I watched him taking pictures of trains, depots, and railroad related items as a hobby. In his retirement, my Dad started his own business selling his images all over the world, and saw his pictures grace the covers and pages of railroad magazines and books.
Years later as my own kids started to play soccer when they turned 4, I wanted to capture those moments in pictures, as a way to document their lives. Picking up a camera allowed me to do this, as well as spend a little more time with my Dad. Over the course of the years, this side hobby started to grow more serious and I was shooting sporting events for the local paper covering everything from local news stories to junior high, high school, college and even pro sporting events. Working in media also allowed me to hone in on the ability to tell stories through images and pursue other opportunities to grow my skill sets.
Throughout the years of pursing my interests in photography on the side, I worked in the corporate healthcare world doing business development, marketing, and client relations. One day I got laid off. With 3 kids in college, now was not the most ideal time to be without a job and certainly not the best time to start doing my photography as a full time business.
I didn’t tell anyone of my predicament as that was something that I didn’t really want to share. I started having people come up to me and ask what I was doing with my photography and why wasn’t I doing it full time. Finally, after much prayer and guidance, I asked God if this was what he was trying to tell me that if he would open the doors that I would run through them on one condition that no weddings or babies and I swore I heard, deal. I wanted to shoot the things that I love instead having to chase the dollar.
Ever since that moment, it’s been the ride of my life. I now work two to three times harder than I’ve ever worked, but I having ten times the fun. When I told my mom about this decision, she told me she had known this is what I was supposed to be doing my whole life. This provided me with the strength and vision to finally take my shot. Every year since that moment seven years ago, I’ve continued to be blessed and thankful for all of the success that I’ve enjoyed along the way.
Today, I am pursuing my dream as a professional photographer and visual storyteller specializing in Sports, People, Commercial, and Corporate Events. Working as a photojournalist for over a decade taught me how to tell a story through images and how to capture the details. It’s fun being able to take the ideas of my clients and exceed their expectations through my artistic vision. I’m very blessed to work with a great group of clients that include some of the top pro sports teams, universities, law firms, tech companies, ad agencies, and magazines in the Atlanta area.
I love using photography as my medium, to translate the visions I see of the world around me into images of all kinds. Now, just like my Dad, many of my images have graced the covers and pages of books, magazines, billboards, stadiums, commercial properties, and numerous media outlets. I now know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Today, I am pursuing my dream as a professional photographer and visual storyteller specializing in Sports, People, Commercial, and Corporate Events. Working as a photojournalist for over a decade taught me how to tell a story through images and how to capture the details. It’s fun being able to take the ideas of my clients and exceed their expectations through my artistic vision. I’m very blessed to work with a great group of clients that include some of the top pro sports teams, universities, law firms, tech companies, ad agencies, and magazines in the Atlanta area.
I love what I do working with such a diverse group of clients where every day is different. One day I’m on the sidelines shooting an NFL game for the Falcons or the next, I’m traveling to a fun location to shoot on the beach for an ad agency. One highlight that I’ve enjoyed is seeing my photography come full circle. As I mentioned, I started shooting soccer when my kids began playing sports. Fast forward 20 years later and I’m now on the sidelines shooting for Atlanta United winning the MLS Cup with several of my images used on posters, billboards, and elsewhere.
Working with the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United has been a great experience since a lot of my work for them is what happens away from the field. Not only do I help shoot media days, but I’ll do photoshoots with the Falcons Cheerleaders, work VIP events, and accompany our corporate partnership groups for premium sponsor trips to away games to document their experience. One of my favorite groups to work with is the Community Relations team where we get to tell and be involved in some amazing moments where the organizations give back to the community.
Not only do I love to shoot sports for colleges and universities, but a big part of what I do are media days with them to shoot the athletes for the individual sports. It’s fun to see images show up on stadiums, billboards, and all kinds of social media channels. I’ve also been blessed to be a part of athletic department activities to tell stories about the fan experience on game days, launching uniform reveals, helping to create imagery for all kinds of promotions and many other things.
My background in the corporate world has also given me the experience to work with companies not as just a photographer, but also how to shape and create their marketing by bringing their visions to life. This is one area where I try to separate Mooreshots LLC from just being another photographer.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
If I ever write a book about my journey in the photography business, the title of the book would be, “I Know A Guy.”
One of my strongest skill sets that I brought over from my time in the corporate world was client relations. During this time, I developed relationships with a wide variety of people. You just never knew how building relationships would pay off in other ways. This has translated over into my photography business because the vast majority of my business has come from those 4 simple words. When someone reached out to another person if they know someone or could refer someone, the 4 simple words, I Know A Guy, just keeps coming out. Networking and building the relationships has helped build the base for my success today.
I also believe in being a referral for other photographers as well. If people referred business to me, then I wanted to be able to give back to others. If I couldn’t do a job because it was outside of my business model, or the timing didn’t work out with my schedule, instead of telling a potential client no, I always try to offer or find a photographer that could. You wouldn’t believe how many times this has paid huge dividends for me.
Another skill set I developed was to focus my business on what I enjoyed doing. I didn’t want to be a photographer who does everything. Instead, I focused on areas that I knew I was capable of succeeding in and then worked to always challenge myself to improve in those areas.
Building the business from scratch is a hard proposition. I worked on developing my business model to create a steady stream of work from clients where we could develop a long-term relationship instead of trying to just do one-off projects. This helped provide me with steady business instead of always having to rely on new clients for business. Today, a large percentage of my work is repeat business from my clients.
What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Right now there are two main challenges that I am trying to work through. The biggest reason for trying to resolve these issues is because I work a lot of hours.
1. The first thing that I’m looking to do to help this is add more people to the team. I was very fortunate to bring on an assistant that helps me when I”m onsite during a project for a client, but she also helps edit the images that come from these shoots. She’s been a god send in taking away all of the time that I would spend editing images. I’m also trying to develop more relationships with someone to come in and help with the backend side of the business. That’s one area that always seems to be put on the back burner and then I’m constantly trying to play catchup.
2. Secondly, I’m always evaluating my pricing and services. Each year at the end of the year I spend time looking at ways to maximize my time and revenue. This includes looking at where my rates are currently and seeing what I need to change going forward. The goal of this is to work less hours, but still continue to grow the business and have time to find that work/life balance.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mooreshots.com
- Instagram: @mooreshots
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/mooreshots
- Linkedin: @mooreshots
- Twitter: @mooreshots
Image Credits
Mooreshots LLC
