Meet Reba Durst aka Reba Faye in North Dallas

Reba, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I remember buying my first low-grade digital camera with my very first paycheck my freshman year of high school. Then three years into college, I decided to take a leap of faith and start my own side photography business, now known as Reba Faye Imagery.

Skip ahead a few years, I moved to Dallas and fell in love with this city and everything it had to offer. I’m from a very small town, so living here was almost a culture shock. I’ve always loved fashion and have always wanted to start my own blog. It wasn’t until last August I took another leap of faith and thought “what the heck, what do you have to lose?” Dallas had given me the encouragement to start wearing the outfits I wanted (versus my normal tee shirt and Nike shorts), the urge to explore, and the support system I needed. Since starting the blog, I have met tons of empowering and encouraging women that have been my backbone throughout this entire adventure. I also want to acknowledge some other special people that are helping me turn my dream into a reality: my family and friends have been nothing but supportive, my photographers Lindsey, Andi, and Katherine Gail Co for bringing my ideas to life, and most importantly my husband for being supportive, patient, and my personal photographer. I would not have started this journey without all of their support.

Great, 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?
There has most certainly been ups and down following this path. I feel life, in general, is never actually smooth, and that’s what makes following your passion so great. Even though the rough spots, you still love what you do and have the drive to make it through them. The hardest part for me has been balancing my time.

I hope one day to turn my blog and photography hobbies into full-time gigs, but right now, it’s finding the balance between them and my everyday work life. I tend to become a workaholic and focus all my energy when I’m home in the evenings into creating content for the next week. Although blogging and photography are considered a hobby, they are honestly a full-time job. I spend anywhere between 4-8 hours per blog post (creating the style, picking the location, taking photos, editing them, and then writing the post) and 4-8 hours with my client’s photos. Also, engagement with my followers by replying to comments takes a little bit of time but has honestly been my favorite part. My goal right now has been to post at least two blog post per week and one post each day to my other social media outlets. Obviously, there are some weeks that this goal is not reached. At the beginning, I really let this bother me until I realized I’m not Superwoman and I cannot do it all, and that’s okay. It’s okay to recognize your limits and be proud of the things you do get accomplished from your list. I’m only considered a part-time blogger/photographer, so my hat goes off to all the full-time bloggers and photographers.

This journey, even with its frustrations, creative ruts, and sleepless nights, has been the best journey of my life. I would not trade it for anything! Taking pictures, whether it be my own photoshoots or those of my clients, brings me so much joy and makes the sleepless nights well worth it.

Please tell us about your work.
My blog, Reba Faye, is focused around the things I love: fashion, adventures, and travel. I love sharing my personal stories, recipes, things around Dallas, my travels, and my style. Being able to incorporate my photography into my own life has been a whirlwind of joy. My goal for this upcoming years is to take a couple of trips around the world to photograph the cultures, the beauty, and of course the fashion. Iceland is number 1 on my list.

My Reba Faye Imagery business focuses on seniors, families, maternity’s, engagements/couples, influencers, and bridals. I hope to use my camera to capture images for individuals all over the world. There is nothing more beautiful than looking at a photograph and witnessing proof of pure joy and serenity.

I believe what sets me apart from others is my story. I’ve only recently found my voice and confidence, and I want to encourage the rest of the world to find theirs too. My story is still being written, I still have things to figure out, confidence to gain, fears to slay, knowledge to be acquired, and places to explore.

My own personal self-reflexivity proud moment would be when I realized success isn’t determined by how much money you make, but by how much joy the job brings you.

Momentary happiness, tangible items, money, all of those things can be replaced and taken away, but joy is something that sticks with you. Failed attempts are bound to happen, but it’s how one responds to these failures that is the most important. I truly believe my failures are not failures at all, but instead new doors opening that will lead me to the places where I’m meant to be. While most of those failed attempts will not make you happy, the key is to focus on your reason for choosing this path. If it doesn’t bring you joy, why follow that path? I would rather get knocked down a couple of times trying to achieve a dream that overall brings me joy, even though the hardships and small victories.