You may all be thinking: how does she have her own business? Is it really a business or is she just hyping herself up?

The answer is: yes, I do have my own business, and it's fairly successful. I have practiced photography and videography for several years now, and decided that I wanted to start making money off of my skills. I received a pretty good camera for Christmas last year, which was the first, and arguably the most important, step of the process. I then bought some more lenses, a tripod, and other equipment to use for my business. I then made a business plan: including what type of photography/videography I wanted to specialize in, who my target audience was, marketing strategies, etc.

Once I had everything planned out, I had to go and practice, and try and get my name out there. My sister was on the varsity softball team at her high school, so I started going and taking pictures of the players at their games for free. Everyone really enjoyed these pictures, and I even got a few of them as future clients for senior portrait photography! With all of these pictures, I created social media accounts for my business, like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. I also created a professional website, which I will link down below for reference: https://www.amberbeltzphotography.com/

The two fields I specialize in are portrait photography and event videography, so I had to practice those. It was fairly easy to practice portraits; I just asked friends of mine if they would let me pose them and take pictures of them, for free of course, and this way I could add those photos to my portfolio. Event videography, on the other hand, was a bit more difficult to practice, but fortunately enough, my cousin and her fiance were getting married and wanted a cheap videographer, so they asked me if I would do it. I said yes of course, and that was my first official wedding video. I booked another wedding video after that and a few more portrait sessions.

I am still continuing to grow, but for just a few months I am off to a pretty good start so far.