Meet Thousand Oaks Photographer: Ellice Boone

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ellice Boone.

Ellice, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Photography has been a passion since I was about 13 years old. At 16 I decided to look for a job doing photography and was hired at a portrait studio in my area. During the week I would crop negatives and design wedding albums and on the weekends I would volunteer my time to train under the main photographer. After 2 years I became the main photographer. That’s when I was talked into to doing a friend of a friends wedding… so at 18 years old I shot my first wedding. I was so nervous I was sick to my stomach! Thankfully everything went well and soon I was shooting more weddings. Still I wanted to take my wedding photography to the next level and one day while eating lunch with my mom we stumbled across an amazing wedding studio- I loved every image on the wall- they were vibrant and elegant and full of emotion and beauty. This is how I wanted to shoot! We went inside and spoke to one of the photographers. They had a team of 6 men who shot for them. Later that month I tagged along on a job with one of the studio owners and after was invited to have a meeting with him and his partner. They hired me and I started working for them the following month at 19 years old.

I shot for that studio for 4 years and learned so many things about photography and the industry and was able to grow in so many ways. Not to mention I had the privilege of shooting with 100’s of couples and documenting their love stories!

After 4 years it was my time to move on … the grand opening of my new baby ES Photography was August of 2005. It has been a roller coaster for sure! But I highly recommend owning your own business- there are few things more exhausting and rewarding! To date I have not done any sort of advertising yet the phone keeps ringing which I gratefully attribute to my wonderful clients and amazing vendors that keep referring me!

I love photographing all sorts of people, and the cherry on top is capturing someone in the moment. I enjoy sharing each moment with my clients as much as I enjoy documenting them. My goal on any shoot is to know my clients well enough to understand their vision and capture their beauty & uniqueness. I like to keep things fun and carefree whether I’m shooting a portrait or a large event. Because my clients enjoy the overall experience their natural and happy spirit is reflected in their final images. There are highlights of life that are just too important to let slip by. As a photographer my greatest reward is the gift of stopping time. When your images help you remember the details, relive the romance, and feel the joy, then I’ve done my job!

Has it been a smooth road?
Its been pretty good so far. I would say the hardest thing was finding a balance between owning my own business and becoming a mom. Right now my husband and I who met at 18 working for the same studio are finally combining our companies and rebranding ourselves as Boone Studios. It has been a challenge to merge and create this new brand while still keeping our individual styles and identity.

When you look back, what are you most proud of?
I would have to say recently… I have been working a lot with St Annes, a non-profit that provides care for underprivileged under aged moms in Los Angeles. I had the opportunity to photograph some of their “Angels” and hear firsthand their incredible and inspiring stories. Many of the girls were born into poverty, abuse, drugs and everything else that you can imagine which in one way or another led to them getting pregnant as teens. Each of them found Saint Annes and were able to recover and heal as well as provide care for their babies and eventually hold down jobs, go back to school, get permanent housing and schooling for their kids. To hear their growth and success and to document their strength was such an honor. After a year of building these relationships and documenting their stories I showed up at the Charity Gala to shoot the Event for Saint Anne’s where I knew their stories would be shared to help raise awareness and money for the programs they benefited from. But I had no idea the images I shot would be blown up into life-size posters and placed all around the room. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes looking at my photographs, larger than life, of all of these women and children whose stories were now dear to me. I was overwhelmed with emotion and so proud that I was a part of telling their story.

Were there moments when you had to struggle?
Oh yes, of course, there are always moments of struggle & in every season of life they are different. It’s hard to pinpoint one particular thing but I think owning your own business there is always the heavy weight of knowing you are solely responsible for making the phone ring. No one else can carry you or your business. So you have to stay motivated, no matter what’s going on in your life. On the flip side you have to have a life outside of business or you will quickly get burnt out. So it’s a constant balance / juggling act. I never wanted to have a job that I didn’t enjoy and I wasn’t passionate about and that requires staying inspired and constantly reinventing yourself. I’ve had to treat photography like any other long-term relationship, there are highs and lows, I’m always learning and trying to nurture and expand my art, and always looking for ways to keep that passion burning for what I do. Sometimes that feels much harder than others. Sometimes you feel stuck and uninspired, just doing the same things over and over bc its easy and comfortable. You can be isolated being a small biz owner and feel disconnected from the world. That’s when you have to get outside your box meet people in your industry or just do something completely outside of the normal grind to get your creative juices flowing again.

Is there something we can do as a city to improve the outlook for professionals like you?
I think LA is an amazing and complex city. I was born and raised here so I know it well. There are so many people who come here with a dream and that makes it an amazing melting pot of talent and culture but it also makes it fiercely completive. That being said I feel like there is a niche for everyone and enough work to keep everyone pretty content if you have the drive and you’re good at networking you can succeed here. It’s all about being open and making connections.

Pricing:

• Packages for events start at 3500
• On location shoots start at 350

Contact Info:

• Website: esphoto.com ( soon to be changed to www.boonestudios.com )
• Phone: 310.600.5281
• Email: ellice@boonestudios.com
• Instagram: @boonestudios
• Facebook: facebook.com/boonephotographers

Image Credit:
all images (c) ES photo