About LAUNCH
Stacy Larsen is a natural light Photographer in the Tampa Bay area, she has been in business since 2004 and has combined her years of experience and passion for photography to bring you two super informative and amazingly fun workshops. Stacy believes that it is crucial to not only master your skills behind the camera and in Photoshop but also build a strong foundation and business plan in order to be successful in this industry. Opening up shop before you are armed with confidence and skill can be overwhelming and frustrating. It can leave you feeling under qualified and frankly quite scared. We are beyond thrilled that you found us and can’t wait to meet you for a weekend that is sure to leave you ready to live your dream.
Stacy’s Story
I did not find photography, photography found me. About fifteen years ago I discovered that if I put black and white film in my point and shoot camera, I could on occasion get some really great pictures of my kids. I would follow them around snapping away and out of a roll of 24 get maybe two frameable pictures. I thought this was the coolest thing ever. Then, when my third child was born in 2003 my grandmother gave me her old film camera and in the right light it took breathtaking images. I was hooked.
But I think my journey into becoming a professional photographer actually began when a friend asked me to take pictures of her daughter. Watching her as she gushed over the images I captured of her daughter left me feeling inspired, I wanted more! Now looking back, the pictures were not technically perfect; they were nothing that I would even dare to show a paying client today but her reaction was enough to get me hooked. I had an eye for the creative side of photography and I could learn the technical side.
So, I bought my first digital SLR camera, a Nikon D70. When it arrived I pulled it out of the box, so excited at the future that awaited me, so anxious to go out and find more people that I could share my magic with (LOL). And then a funny thing happened. I realized that I did not know the first thing about how to use this camera. How do I get the person in focus and everything behind them blurred out? How do you get their skin tone to look so creamy and delicious? How do you get the evening light to light up the crown of their head like that? I opened up the manual; surely it would give me some morsel of information into how to to achieve these things. Nope. No such luck. So, I put the camera down for three months. I picked it up to take an occasional picture of my kids just to be reminded of how little I knew. After I got over pouting about how frustrated this expensive piece of equipment could make me feel, I decided to do something about it. No more sitting around feeling bad about myself, I was going to figure it out no matter how long it took me. I spent countless hours surfing the Internet, looking at other photographers’ sites and one day I discovered a photography forum! I hit the jack pot, more information than I could possibly imagine was laid out before me. So I slowly pieced all that information together, took some photography courses, read every book I could get my hands on and eventually pieced together what I needed to get where I am today. But I did not get where I am without countless mistakes, after all, with as little as I knew about Photography, I knew even less about running a business.
Looking back, I spent an incredible amount of time and energy (not to mention money) trying to break into this industry. I truly believe that anything worth having is worth working for, and it is hard work. But I also believe that there is an easier path than the one I took. Photography means so much to me in so many ways and I am eternally grateful that it found its way into my life. I am even more grateful that I am in a place where I can share what I have learned with others, hopefully saving up and coming Photographers from making many of the mistakes I made starting out.
