Today we’d like to introduce you to Audra Miller.
Hi Audra, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
From an early age, I always loved photography. My father was into cameras and always took our family photos on summer vacations. When I was in high school, my mother, who was the high school librarian, told me that there was a senior who did not have enough money to buy the very popular at the time senior portrait sessions. My mother asked me if I would do it for free. I tried my hand at it and this girl was so incredibly happy to have photos she could give her friends. This was incredibly inspiring for me. As I went through college, I used portrait photography as a way to make side money, taking headshots of actors in the school productions, getting my name out in the community. As the years passed, my client base grew. After I graduated, I wanted to move to a much larger city to try my hand at my craft in an urban area. I grew up in a small rural town in the middle of Kansas, so traversing to a metropolis area was a big step.
When I arrived, I made sure to start reaching out to small businesses and promote myself as a photographer. I also worked really hard to build my connections and community since photography gigs come from word of mouth mostly. One tactic I tried was to reach out to other photographers in the area and ask if I could shoot with them. This led me to shoot for a cat tea shop, to cat furniture makers, to startups promoting small locally own businesses, to larger food brand companies. I started and stopped my own dating profile photography business. I curated four large public photo exhibits, one bringing new light to the population experiencing homelessness. My most recent exhibit features portraits of women as superheroes depicting their own strengths and sharing stories of resilience. I work as a full-time freelancer now and mostly take portraits for actors, people’s websites, fashion, weddings, and engagements. It’s been incredibly fun to meet so many different people and give them images that they will treasure.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Throughout this process, it has not been easy. Working as a full-time creative is an incredible hustle. In order to make ends meet, I had to rely on working with photography services that did not value their photographers, which was really hard. there were times that I took jobs at a few nonprofit organizations in their marketing department and I began picking up graphic design and illustration gigs on the side. I started taking absolutely any photography gig that paid and would even accept projects that were free at times to gain visibility. When you do what you love to only please a client, what you take joy in soon becomes tedious.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Each time I take out my camera, I am learning new skills or new ways of looking at photography. My work is constantly changing but also constantly improving. One of the things I am known for is developing photography projects that include thought-provoking content and ones that really genuinely captures the individual featured in the shot, no matter how fantastical. Taking photos of humans is actually quite difficult. You not only need to take great photos, but you also need to take a genuine photo of that individual and at the same time, make them look like the best version of themselves. It’s a tricky balance. I’m most proud of the work that I have done for a project called She Rose which features women as superheroes. Women deal with a lot and are absolutely some of the strongest people that I know. I wanted to celebrate women and their resilience through hard times and came up with a photo series that showcased each female-identifying participant as their own customized inner hero. By creating epic movie poster-styled images along with each participant’s written story of turning pain into power and struggles into strength, I have been working to create an art show that empowers everyone that witnesses it. It has been so humbling to meet all of the women I have shot with so far and I can’t wait to continue this project.
How do you think about happiness?
I get immense joy out of seeing a client become ecstatic about one of the images I took for them. We are all our worst critics and many individuals are self-conscious when it comes to having our photo taken. What I wish for everyone that I meet is that we can find a way to give them a photo of themselves that really captures the magic that they are. There’s a realness that a photo has. It captures a moment in time, it captures a visual of who we are. If I can get a fantastic picture of each person I’m with, I am immensely happy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.millerstudios.net
- Instagram: @_audracity_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MillerStudiosSF
Image Credits:
All my images. Photos by Audra Miller
