by Zack Schnepf

One of the most common questions I get on workshops and at art shows is how I got into photography and how I turned photography into my profession.  In today’s article I talk about the journey that led me to a career in landscape photography.  I always find these types of articles about other people fascinating.  What circumstances led them to where they are now,  what their upbringing was like, what they studied in school, who their influences were and who helped them get their first break?  My own journey begins in the redwoods of northern California.

My early childhood was spent in the mountains, forests and beaches of northern California and the Big Island of Hawaii.  My parents instilled a love and respect for nature from the very beginning.  I grew up playing outside most of the time. My father was a professional artist and my mom was a stay at home mom who later became an occupational therapist.  When I was nine years old, we moved to Portland, Oregon where there was a much better job market.  Portland has easy access to mountains, the coast, the Columbia River Gorge, and the high desert.  I spent a lot of time camping, hiking, skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, biking, and generally recreating in all of these places.  Those experiences have a lot to do with eventually taking up photography as a hobby.  I remember feeling very frustrated when I would see an amazing sunset while camping in a beautiful location, because I couldn’t capture and share it with my friends and family.  That frustration eventually led me to take my first photography class at Portland Community College.  I didn’t know it at the time, but this was my first step toward a career in photography.

I loved my college experience, so much in fact, It took me 7 years to finally get a degree.  The issue was, I really didn’t know what kind of career I wanted.  Luckily, most of that time was spent in community college trying out every course that sounded interesting.  Every aptitude test I took suggested I should be a biologist, or an engineer so I starting by pursuing biology and I really liked it.  I really enjoyed art as well, but didn’t consider art as a possible career path at first.  My father was an artist and most of our family friends were artists so you would think I might have considered that as an option.  After a while, I couldn’t ignore how much fun I was having in my art classes and in art history.  Along with more traditional art forms like painting, sculpture, ceramics and photography, I was also getting into video editing, web design and 3D animation.  Eventually I decided on multimedia.  It was a brand new program and seemed very promising and fun.  I loved it.  I was really getting into computers and software and this seemed like a great way to combine several interests.  During this time I taught myself Photoshop, and started tutoring fellow students on some of the more advanced functions of both Photoshop and Final Cut Pro.  I was also a teaching assistant for the Photoshop class as well.  This proficiency in Photoshop really helped when I started getting into photography.

Once I graduated, I started doing freelance web design, and video editing.  I picked up my first real camera during this time, the Canon 10D.  I had been doing a lot of research and this camera was coming along at the perfect time for me.  It was the first affordable digital SLR that seemed to produce high quality images.  As soon as I got my hands on the 10D photography became an obsession.  Using a DSLR and shooting in RAW helped me learn a rapid rate.  Having the instant feedback and seeing first hand how changes in aperture, shutter speed, and ISO effected the image was incredible.  I progressed quickly and was producing high quality images.  At the time I was shooting everything I could think of.  Much like my college experience, I started focusing on the subjects that were the most interesting to me.  Because I was already a pretty outdoorsy person, I naturally was attracted to landscape photography.  I also found it to be the most challenging kind of Photography, but I was still experimenting with many types of photography.

I was acquiring some studio equipment and soon found I could find paying jobs doing various types of studio work.  I was lucky early on, I had some family friends in the art world who were able to get me some paying jobs with good clients.  I had another family friend who was an artist representative, she saw the work I was doing and started to promote my work for me.  She was able to land me some big clients like Nike and Hewlett Packard.  Photography quickly took over and was my main source of income and just like that I was a professional.  While I was doing commercial work, I was also trying to learn all I could about landscape photography.  This was where my passion was and I was going on as many landscape photography trips as I could afford.  I joined several web forums and groups related to landscape photography to help me learn as much as I could. Three of these were incredible resources for me: NPN, flickr and The Luminous Landscape.

NPN in particular was an incredible resource.  Anyone who was a part of NPN during that time will tell you it was special.  It was a place where you could get honest feedback on your work.  It reminded me of critique sessions back when I was studying art, but with less ego.  I met many of my photography friends on NPN including all five of the other members of Photo Cascadia.  It was also a fantastic place to find inspiration.  There were so many talented photographers contributing like: Guy Tal, Marc Adamus, Adam Gibbs, Marsel Van Oosten and so many others.  We all progressed as a group, it was in invaluable resource to me and many others.

The luminous Landscape website and video magazine was also a huge resource for me.  Michael Reichmann and his colleagues are incredible educators.  I subscribed to the video magazine back then and it was fantastic.  It was kind of like a video workshop following Reichmann and his friends on their adventures in the field and talking about the emerging world of digital photography.  I eventually took several field workshops through the Luminous Landscape and found them to be tremendously helpful, so much so that I still try to emulate the experience in my own workshops today.

While I was enjoying landscape photography more and more, I was burning out on commercial photography.  I had to make a tough choice.  I could continue as a commercial photographer and make some decent money, or I could take a huge gamble and try to make it as a landscape photographer.  To make this decision even harder, my wife and I were starting a family, I really struggled with this decision.  I didn’t really have any idea how I would make a living in landscape photography, but I thought it was worth a try.  It was a rough transition, and there were some lean years in the beginning, but I started to figure out a business model that would work for me.

Another photographer I met on NPN was Mike Moats, he encouraged me to give art festivals a try.  Once I had honed my craft to a level I was really proud of, I started applying to juried art festivals.  These are a lot of fun, but they require a large initial investment in show equipment and inventory and are also a lot of work.  I was also starting to teach one on one and small group field and processing workshops.  I also started teaching processing sessions online.  I was working on building a library of images with several stock agencies and submitting images to publications as well as licensing images on my own.  All these slices started making up an income pie.  Most of the professional photographers I know have a similar business model.  Some specialize more than others, but they all have diverse income streams.  It took several years, but I was finally making about what I was making as a commercial photographer.  The difference is I still absolutely love what I do and still get excited to get out and shoot. Even though it was really hard, it was definitely the right decision for me.

It’s been quite the journey.  I hope you enjoyed hearing my story and the decisions that led me to where I am today.  Cheers!

Zack-ColoSnow

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