Today we’d like to introduce you to Joel & Kari Powell.
Hi Joel & Kari, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
As a husband-and-wife team, our journeys started off separately as you might imagine. My wife Kari, has been a creative person since she was young, but never really had an opportunity growing up to explore photography or digital media. It was different for me. My uncle was a producer for Paramount, and so I was frequently around digital media and cinema production. I had access to still cameras and video cams, and editing software from an early age. I even had the opportunity to be an extra in a feature film. All of that experience led to the creation of a digital media company when I was in college. Kari and I married really young at 22, and though we didn’t have much money, one of the first gifts I got her was an interchangeable lens Fujifilm camera. She and I immediately got involved at our local church in the video ministry, and God truly opened the door for us when one of the members, Bill Petterson, asked if we could shoot his daughter’s wedding, both photo and video. We told him we didn’t have any experience shooting weddings, but he said he didn’t mind and he was confident we’d do well based on the content we produced for the church. We agreed, cobbled together the little money we had, and purchased a Canon video camera to complement the Fuji Film still camera. We shot the wedding, edited it, the couple loved it, Bill loved it, and he began sharing the work with others. The next thing you know, we’re getting calls to capture weddings, and Kari and I realized… ”Hey, I think we have something here!”
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? Noooo way! There’s a great quote that I love, though, which states, “Straight roads don’t make skilled drivers.” Challenges are part of life, but they help to build resilience and character — at least, they do if you choose to embrace the opportunity of a challenge rather than fight against it.
We’ve experienced all kinds of obstacles along the way, building a business and brand takes a lot of time and effort, a significant investment of time and resources. Owning and developing your own company, especially as a married couple, can be extremely rewarding, but it also can be a source of friction because you have to go home with your co-worker every day, and some days, I would get on her nerves and vice versa. But it was mainly me annoying her, I’m sure!
One of the major challenges is and continues to be distinguishing yourself in a saturated market. There are a glut of photographers and now more wedding filmmakers, and everyone has a camera (iPhone or DSLR); everyone is a “content creator,” so there’s definitely a lot of options out there, but we focus on things we do really well — providing a high-quality service, being great storytellers, connecting with our couples as people and not just as clients, and working with a great team of professionals. I think remaining committed to those principles and, most importantly, keeping God at the center of everything we do has been the primary catalyst for our success and longevity for the past two decades. So, even though there have been challenges along the way, and still some now (LOL), ultimately, we’re grateful for them because they have definitely made us more skilled at what we do.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As a film and photography company, we’ve truly been blessed to work with a myriad of individuals, companies, organizations, and artists. From working on commercials in and around the Los Angeles area to independent documentaries, we’ve been fortunate to work alongside some really amazing people. Our primary work, though, involves creating wedding love stories through film and photos for couples. This is what our company, Pom Photo has become known for, we tell couples all the time, “your love is the story, our lens is the scribe.”
We love LOVE! We’re really not sure how many weddings we’ve captured at this point, hundreds, I’m sure, but we never get enough of seeing people in love and sharing in that experience and then being able to create something special that allows them to live in that moment again and again. It’s one of the greatest privileges for us to not only be invited into the intimate space of a wedding but to build a relationship with the couple.
One of the things that we’re so grateful and proud of is the real connections and lifelong relationships we’ve developed with so many of our couples. From being invited as guests to baby showers being asked to be God’s parents, or vacationing with them, for us, capturing the wedding is just the beginning because building relationships and community with people is really one of the most important things in life. This kind of connection, paired with the quality of our work, is something that really distinguishes us as a company but, more importantly, as people.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out.
There are so many things that are different now than when we first started, and ironically, so much that’s still the same, just disguised a little differently.
For us, and I know it may not be for everyone, but the most important thing we learned when starting out was to trust God. Life can change without warning, which can certainly impact your business. So, having a firm foundation that’s rooted in Christ has been a blessing for us.
A few other things that have helped us along the way as well:
Time is the most precious commodity you have. You can always make more money or buy another car or a house, but you can’t get more time, so focus on those projects and endeavors that bring you joy as a creative. Try not to spend too much time doing things that don’t align with your creative goals and passions.
Definitely have a business plan, understand the market you’re in, and just because you have a camera doesn’t always mean you should have a business. Spend some time learning your craft and not just posting endlessly, you’re better for it in the end.
Lastly, develop relationships with other creatives. Early on, you sometimes get nervous about your skill compared to others, or you feel like everything is a competition with other creatives. And it can be if you make it, or it could be something different if you’re open to collaboration. We had to learn that over time. With that understanding, though, we have built a really strong team of talented creators that we love partnering with, and our business and opportunities in the creative space of photography and videography have actually expanded because of it. Share your talent, collaborate, and grow together. Rising tides raise all ships!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pomphoto.net
- Instagram: Instagram.com/pomphotography
- Facebook: Facebook.com/pomphoto
Image Credits
Pom Photo
