Today we’d like to introduce you to Maggie Cheatham.
Hi Maggie, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started taking photos when I was in junior high after I moved to a new town in Wharton County, Texas. At the time, I had a little Nikon point-and-shoot that my mom used to take photos at my brother and I’s sports games. In junior high, kids start having supervised parties, and where we were from meant lots of dance parties in parents’ barns or on parts of their farmlands. I was never one to be shy when making friends, but I think bringing my camera to parties made me feel more confident in such an awkward phase of my growing up. At the time, Facebook had just become mainstream and though I’m not sure other 13-year-olds in 2008 experienced this, but we all updated our statuses and posted incessantly. Those Facebook memories will never let me forget that “OMG my mom just made the yUmMiEsT cupcakes ever lolz!!! :D” on a random Tuesday in the early 2000s and it got 114 likes. Man, I wish getting traffic on a social media post was still that easy. Having all of my peers online combined with Facebook’s ability to create and share photo albums gave me a platform to post all of the photos I took at friends’ parties; photos that had terrible edits applied to them, I might add. At the time, I had MacBook’s native iPhoto application, and I took the contrast, exposure, and color balance tools to the extreme. I’ve since tamed my heavy editing hand. I even made myself business cards to give my friends to start taking home and show their parents. Called myself “Tamed Intensity Photography”. I thought it was so edgy and creative. I never bought that domain, so have at it y’all. That point in time marked when my life’s direction turned towards the path to becoming a photographer. Fast forward to high school, I had formed the reputation of “girl with the camera” around town, and with our entire high school only having 250 students at most, we pretty much all knew or at least knew of one another. Once my 12th-grade friends started nearing graduation in the spring, I started asking if I could take their senior photos for free mostly just to get one last guaranteed opportunity to hang out with them before they moved away for college. After a couple of shoots and album shares on Facebook, the parents of my friends started offering to pay me. That rocked my world. That was when I learned about the warm satisfaction and feelings of fulfillment to have someone cherish what you made, so much so that they would pay you for what you created. I chased the opportunity for that experience again and again as I unknowingly was building up a portfolio of work. This portfolio led me to land a summer internship with PaperCity Magazine in Houston, TX as a Photography Assistant going into my junior year of high school. It sounds cliche, but I felt like a small-town girl that made it to the big city. I’m not sure if my brain was even fully formed enough to feel imposter syndrome because if you knew me after that summer, my whole identity was centered around being a Professional Photographer. This led me to want to get to the next level: go to school for photography. I put together what was equivalent to a scrapbook of my photos I took over the last 5 years, made 12 copies, and sent it as my portfolio with my application to 12 universities around the country. Ultimately, I accepted an offer to attend Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. I learned how to shoot film cameras and develop my photos in a darkroom, as well as gained the knowledge of how to market and conduct myself as a business. Throughout college, I worked different jobs year-round that all utilized and exercised my growing photography skills and knowledge. During the summer of my junior year of college, I took the opportunity to travel to Jingdezhen, China with artist Jennifer Ling Datchuk, Trinity alumna and sculptor who I met during an artist visit hosted by my university. I was there for 3 weeks to learn more about sculpting- a second art I’d added to my focus during school- and documented my trip with my used Nikon D60 and kit lens. With this experience, my perception of the ceiling on things I could do as a photographer was torn down and I started climbing higher into the space where my dreams were. Now, 14 years since looking through the viewfinder of a camera for the first time, 6 years after graduating college, and 2 years since establishing my small business, I’ve been working as Owner and Operator of Red Shot Photography. I’ve met more people and traveled to more places than I’d ever thought possible in my first 26 years on this planet. Being a photographer started as a way for me to make friends and have something fun to do during time spent together. It is still exactly that for me. I found the tool that would help me build a life that I truly, whole-heartedly enjoy living every day, and I honor all that it has given me by sharing it with others. Providing people with special moments in time that they can revisit whenever they wish that capture the feelings and thoughts, they hold dear from those experiences is the best way I can serve others with kindness and compassion. My desire to become a photography grew from my love of people, and that love has nourished my career and personal life. I feel so fortunate that still get to experience those first feelings of fulfillment I got when that friend’s parent offered to pay me for a senior photo session. Someone, somewhere, sees what I’ve made and likes it so much so that they want me to create something for them. I’ll never get over how awesome that is. Truly, I’m always in awe of the kindness people show me by offering me the opportunity to document the moments and nuances of their lives. I believe I will always be a photographer.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It’s not always been rainbows and dreams come true in trying to become a photographer. So much of my potential success is rooted in how well I can market my work and the characteristics that make my style of photography and editing unique. Even if every day of the my month is booked with shoots, I fight with myself internally over feeling like I should be posting more and faster. I’m constantly aware that I have all of the tools and parts around me to make another Instagram Reel or add more to my website, and I’ve always struggled with feeling that if I have more, I should be doing more with it. But eyes get tired, hands get achy, and muscles get stiff from handling 30 lbs of equipment then sitting, unmoving, while editing for hours at a time. I’ve recently stopped feeling guilty for letting myself spend time making meals that take more than a minute in the microwave to make or playing video games with friends on Xbox. I’ve been building for so long, and there’s so much more I want to create, but I’m realizing that I don’t have to work towards my goals like I’m running in a race, especially not when I’m fortunate enough to be in a position where I manage my own time and pacing. I’m hoping this wards off any feelings of burnout that could fester in the future.
We’ve been impressed with Red Shot Photography, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I’m currently based out of Conroe, Texas, though I serve anyone anywhere in the world. I previously spent the last 3 years of my career in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (Plano, specifically), where about 65% of my clients come from at this point. I don’t mind traveling at all- in fact, I don’t apply a travel fee to any of my session rates or packages unless it’s out of state or country. Growing up in an area where the nearest mall was an hour away conditioned me to feel like long drives are pretty casual. It also helps to have wonderful friends around Texas that open up their homes to me so that I never have to pay for lodging for work. In addition to being a photographer, I also provide editing and retouch services for other photographers. Having spent most of my free time for the past decade playing with all of the tools in Photoshop has given me the skillset to be able to specialize in high-end portrait retouching as well as creative photo editing. I collaborate with other photographers as their editor, and this has become a new favorite part of my career. To be trusted with other creatives’ work is an honor, and I strive to elevate every photo I go over to achieve balance and flawlessness. To my fellow camera owners, I offer maintenance services such as sensor cleanings, lens calibrations, and firmware updates. I have Mackenzie at FWC to thank for those skills. As soon as I moved to Fort Worth after college, I was hired as a sales associate by Fort Worth Camera. This became an invaluable point in my growth as a service provider in the field of photography. It was there that I not only learned about current and future cameras and photography equipment, I also learned how to services cameras as a maintenance technician. In regards to my specialty as a photographer, I market myself as a wedding and engagement photographer, but I have a deep portfolio in most styles of photography that feature people. Family, maternity, boudoir, events, headshots, portraits, etc. So really, I specialize in people photography. My personal Instagram may say otherwise though, I really love shooting pet portraits of my dogs, Lana and Lou. That being said, I always welcome pets of any species to my shoots! The most important quality of my brand is inclusivity. I welcome any and all walks of life to hang out in front of my camera. Some may think it’s an unwise business strategy to not target a particular market or audience, but it just doesn’t feel right to me, for me, or for my clients and potential clients. I want everyone who visits my website or social media to find something or someone in my work that they can identify with that lets them know that I’d happily work with them as well. My guiding philosophy in my work and personal life, which is often one and the same, is “It’s chaos, be kind.” I even have it tattooed on the back of my arm. It is my reminder to remain sympathetic and empathetic in everything I do with anyone I cross paths with throughout my pursuit to provide a creative relationship with people. It also serves as a reminder to me that providing my services as a creative professional is the bare minimum of what I can do for someone. I am a service provider to clients, but I am a person that enjoys connecting with other people first. From the moment I accept a client request to work together, it is very important to me to initiate the project with the compassion and empathy. I’ve also found through this practice that it leads to a more open line of communication about the client’s wishes for the photo shoot experience and results that they trust me to provide, and in return, I am better able to execute for them.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
The best part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area for me as a photographer comes from the diverse types of landscape. There are lakes and shores while right up the road, there are rolling hills and woodsy foliage. Then once you hop back on the highway, you’re in an awesome urban area that has every type of photo studio you could want as a photographer. DFW has everything, even if you don’t want anything. Need an empty field away from the city lights to practice your astrophotography? Just head a bit north or south of the metroplex and it’s waiting there for you. While living in Plano, I learned to appreciate city’s parks and recreation staffs, as well as city landscaping staff. DFW has some of the most beautiful parks that, despite being utilized by nearly 6.5 million residents, are excellently maintained and have provided my clients and I some wonderful locations to shoot at.
Pricing:
- 2023-2024 Wedding Packages start at $1800
- 2023-2024 Micro/Alternative Wedding Packages start at $900
- Photo Retouching/Editing Services are $12/photo
- 1-on-1 Education Sessions are $85/hour
- Printing Services & Heirloom Album Designing are available upon request.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.redshotphotography.com
- Instagram: @redshotphotography
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaggieCheatham.REDSHOT/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/RedShotPhoto
- Other: www.linktr.ee/redshotphotography
