About three years ago, I left my 9-to-5 to pursue photography full time. Although I can genuinely say that I am living the dream now, that doesn’t mean it’s always a breeze. The thing about turning your passion into your career is that you have to rely on it to pay your bills – and you may go through rough patches where it feels like more of a burden than a blessing. If you feel this way, don’t worry. We’ve all been there, and thankfully there are a few things that I’ve found that help me stay passionate about photography in times where work feels like … a lot of work.

When I graduated from college and moved to Utah, I had to start all over again from scratch. Nobody knew who I was, and I had to figure out a way to start getting paying clients so that I could follow my dream of eventually running my own photography business full-time. Aside from things like networking, posting consistently on social media, and doing a lot of work for free, there were three things that I did specifically that helped me start getting paid clients.