Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Campbell.
Hi Amanda, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
Oh man, where do I start. Do I take it back to the late ’90s where I would constantly climb my way up our closet walls built-in cubicles to reach the camcorder and polaroid I-Zone cameras on the top shelf to make mini movies with my sisters and take photos of the roses in our backyard? Or do I take it back to the first time I begged my sister to hold her Nikon DSLR that that she had just gotten for Christmas circa 2006? I guess it doesn’t really matter where I began as long as you get the gist that I’ve been fascinated with photo and video for as long as I can remember. There was something about solidifying a memory and turning it into tangible evidence that my little brain just couldn’t get enough of.
High school is what gave me an entry point into the world of turning this passion into a career. I remember it being a tough decision to quit the Varsity Tennis team I had worked for years to become a part of, but standing firm in that decision when only a few months later I was winning JEA awards with my photograph submissions through my intro yearbook class, taught by the infamous Ms. Toni Marsh. I spent hours and hours in her classroom before and after school until I would be kicked out by the Janitor, eyes glued to the screen as I worked in Photoshop CS4, CS5, and then CS6 (those were the days… I do NOT miss the crashes LOL). Needless to say, I was hooked.
And then the time came to beg my mother for a camera of my own after using the school cameras for so long. I wanted to get to know my own camera like the back of my hand and make it an extension of myself so that I could bring it wherever I would go without the limitations of needing to have it back to the classroom by a specific time. I asked her for the brand-new Canon T2i *cue sparkly sounds*, to which she said, “this better not turn into the guitar gathering dust or the gymnastic leotards hanging in your closet or the tennis rackets sitting in the garage….” (I had picked up a lot of thrown away hobbies over the years). And, after much convincing and proof that I was seriously looking to this [photography] becoming a part of the rest of my life, I received the canon T2i as my first ‘real’ camera in 2011. From there, everything took off.
I hardly left the house without it around my neck. My friends and family were sick of my experimentations on them with it so I started shooting senior portraits instead, to which my entrepreneurial mother made sure I was charging for these services regardless of being just 16 years old. Senior portraits soon turned into teacher’s weddings (which I charged a whopping $500 for at the time, rightfully so), and before I knew it high school was coming to an end and I was shipped off to college (reluctantly, as I wanted to stay in Frisco and continue on with becoming a photographer, to which my parents said, ‘absolutely not’) and I’m sure glad they did.
Looking back, 2014-2018 was just 4 years straight of constant unfurling of new layers I never knew I had. I finished with a Double Major Fine Arts Degree in Filmmaking and Graphic Design, and a minor double major in Photography and Ceramics. I’ll leave my university experience at that because I could write an entire book on the life I lived while at Stephen F. Austin State University.
And alas, I ended my college career with working in Cannes, France at the Cannes Film Festival. Let me just say- nothing preps you more than having to mic up Penelope Cruz, assist photographing John Travolta, his wife & Kevin Connolly in their hotel suite, or trailing camera gear around the entire city for Michael Bremmer of Deadline Hollywood. This truly was the trip and opportunity of a lifetime.
At the time, I was navigating where I wanted to end up after graduation, eventually landing on becoming a segment producer for a local Dallas Reality Show. This didn’t last long, as I was yearning to find my way back to my clients, I had such an amazing relationship with before leaving for college. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I decided to leave my corporate job and venture my way back into portraiture and documentary photography.
With many angels placed on my path along the way, whom I still have very close and intimate friendships with, I was able to rebuild my business from the ground up from 2018 to now. Amanda Campbell Visuals, once upon a time Amanda Campbell Photography, was re-birthed in late 2018, serving internationally with the service of their choice: photo or video. Of course, it didn’t happen overnight. I worked 3 jobs including running my own business until 2021 just to stay afloat with bills and living expenses, but I reflect on the deep valleys and high mountain tops I’ve climbed over the last 5 years and am filled with gratitude. Everything truly worked out exactly how it was supposed to and I wouldn’t trade any of the challenges for the world!
Present day, January 2023, I am pretty settled into my niches: Weddings+Portraiture and Corporate+Real Estate, incorporating photography and videography into both. I am truly living out my little 5-year-old Amanda’s dreams by saying I am a full-time Photographer and Videographer, something so many people along the way, both people close to me and perfect strangers, told me was not possible to do as a career. I guess being stubborn got me further than I thought it would, ha!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I was very fortunate to grow up with such a supportive mom who also spent the majority of her career as a very successful entrepreneur. My first camera was bought for me, so I had a really blessed start being that money was fruitful enough that I was able to receive my golden ticket, aka my Canon T2i, in the form of a gift.
That being said, where there was an abundance of support, there was an extreme lack of it, too. People close to me and of course perfect strangers would constantly tell me the same thing, “How do you expect to make this a career? This isn’t a real job. You need to do something that will actually make money. You’re going to be a starving artist. You should do something that actually makes a dent in this world.”
I constantly struggled from a very young age in any subjects that were math/science/reading, usually ending up with C’s and D’s even with extensive tutoring. However, I was very musically inclined and really enjoyed+excelled in my art & computer science classes. Growing up in the western world not being good at the subjects the western world wants you to be good at can be very discouraging, especially at such a young & impressionable age.
I think if anything, my stubbornness to push past the comments of others, even my own family members at times, was what got me where I am now. “Persist anyway” is a phrase that has constantly rang in my head from a very young age, because let’s be honest, in a field like this, some of the biggest drivers in success are consistency & persistence.
The struggles I faced as a ‘starving artist’ were nothing that weren’t backed with enough support to keep me going. It’s also worth noting that I never lacked the ‘crave’ to do well within my art and because of that, I just always made it happen, I always made the impossible work no matter what.
The struggles that we go through in our journey to success in this industry are a huge reason we end up where we do, so truly, the struggles were just as big, beautiful and important as overcoming them.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m most known for my portraiture work, and beyond that, my directing. I owe my skillful directing to film school, for sure.
But funny enough, I’m most proud of the shots I get that are truly documentarian style. The shots that no one knows I’m taking. These ‘sniper shots’ as I call them happen far and few between, simply because everyone’s first reaction to a camera in the room is to pose and smile. So, on the rare occasion I can capture a moment as a true ‘fly on the wall’ is beyond fulfilling for me.
Something that sets me apart is something that was passed down to me from one of my mentors, and that is over the top care for my clients, especially my brides and grooms. You won’t see me leave the house on a wedding day without my sewing kit, boob glue, white and black safety pinned, extra ring boxes, Vaseline, extra mints, gum, tums and ibuprofen, deodorant, individually packed Kleenex, Tide to Go Sticks, etc. On a wedding day, I was taught that I am not just a photographer (or videographer). The moment I acquire my couples, they are under my wing from start to finish. From DJ’s quitting last minute & helping find a new one, to bustles breaking in the middle of the dance floor and sewing them back together, my services extend way beyond just taking photos. I love on each of my couples the way I would want to be taken care of on my wedding day.
We’re always looking for the lessons that can be learned in any situation, including tragic ones like the Covid-19 crisis. Are there any lessons you’ve learned that you can share?
I’ve learned that nothing, not even a global pandemic, will keep people from loving each other. I mean, people were RELENTLESS in their efforts to make things happen in the name of love.
On a personal standpoint, I’ve learned to stop sweating the small things. There used to be a negative autonomic bodily response that would occur inside of me when things started to go south on a wedding day (dresses being ripped, floral displays falling apart, food not being served at the right time, etc). Now, after dealing with COVID, truly there is no task too big or scary that has come up at a wedding. Working through the pandemic gave me a really strong sense of inner peace on wedding days that I never expected I would have, and it’s been really beneficial to my work as I learned to step back and take a deep breath and truly look at the frame in front of me, rather than rushing through shots.
Pricing:
- Yearly pricing updates happen every year on February 1st to give my newly engaged holiday couples a chance to lock in the previous year’s pricing
- 2023 Pricing will base at $4150
Contact Info:
- Website: amandacampbellvisuals.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandacampbellvisuals/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Amanda-Campbell-Visuals/100063440305221/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-campbell-0925b6147
- Other: https://vimeo.com/campbellamanda
