Megan Breukelman is a new york city based wedding photographer who had an unconventional start into the industry. Today Im excited to chat about how to grow a Personal Passion Project.

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In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How Megan got started in photography

• How Megan shot her first wedding at 14

• What Megan struggled with most when learning photography

• What is a photography passion project

• Why you would you want to grow a photography passion project

• How much detail we need to have when putting together a plan to start a personal project

• What to do if we dont have everything we need

• How we can ensure we dont fail at something new

Premium Members Also Learn:

• When to turn a passion project into a business

• How even if you are not making money with your personal project can grow your career

• Different ways to make money with your camera that you have already

• When to start considering other people opinions on what your project should be

Resources:

• New York City Wedding Photographer Megan Breukelman’s Website

• Megan Breukelman on Instagram

• Megan Breukelman on Twitter

Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!

Full Episode Transcription:

Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.

Raymond: 00:00 Today's guest is Megan Breukelman, a New York city based wedding photographer who has an unconventional start in photography. So today I'm super excited to chat about how to grow a personal passion project. Megan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Megan Breukelman...: 00:18 Thank you so much for having me.

Raymond: 00:21 I am really excited to chat with you today. When you reached out to inquire about coming on the podcast, oftentimes I get many emails that are just from people trying to sell something or it's just like, Hey, can I be on your pot? Or just something really short. But I really felt like you took the time to not only understand the podcast, but give a bunch of great topics that were totally relevant to new photographers. And then digging into you a little bit deeper because I have to vet everybody who comes on the podcast. You really do have a very interesting start in photography and kind of to kind of journey as to how you got to where you are today. So before we get into growing this passion project and even potentially turning it into a business, can you share with me how you got started in photography?

Megan Breukelman...: 01:08 For sure. I started in photography in now. I was always interested in arts. Like this is the, this is the classic artist story of, Oh, I was a little kid and I was drawing, but I was always really interested in the arts and I picked up a camera and when I was 14, I shot my first wedding. And yes, I was 14 and you would not believe how many uncle Bob's I have encountered because of that. To, to put it, I don't know how else to call them, but so I started shooting weddings then and I was shooting a lot of portraits, a lot of like quote unquote fashion photography where it was my friend friends in like their prom gowns. You know, forest and you know, I was really interested in taking photos and it ended up becoming a career pursuit and I ended up going to college for photography and that is where I decided I wasn't going to be a photographer.

Megan Breukelman...: 02:06 A I decided I was going to go into production and photo editing and magazines and I basically had the thought process once I got to college and realized thing. There's a lot you can learn technically in photography, which is awesome. And I learned a lot of that. But there are also a lot of other ways to make a living adjacent to photography and being able to kind of express your passion for the art without, without the hustle of being a photographer. So I had set my sights completely differently on being a fashion photo editor. I was going to work in magazines not understanding what the economy actually looked like, cause you know, when you're 17, 18, 19,

Raymond: 02:52 None of that matters

Megan Breukelman...: 02:54 Who does not the prime time to make life altering decisions. But I ended up starting a fashion magazine with my friends, Olivia Bossert that I met online. I met her in a young photographers Facebook group and I messaged her and I said, do you want to start a magazine? And she said, sure. So we did that which we can definitely dive into on the passion project front. But that ended up leading me into a bunch of opportunities in fashion and agencies and working with brands and overall kind of in the sphere of production and, and fashion photography. So I ended up working in that after college and doing a lot of photo-shoot and fashion show production. And a year into it I made the complete switch, became a tech marketer. In the meantime, I started dating, you know, my husband, my now husband who is also a passionate photographer and who I initially met in photo school.

Megan Breukelman...: 04:02 And he was dead set on being a photographer, like a photographer, period. That is what that is, what he wants it to do. So I started producing shoots for him and putting together these little editorials and things. And that ended up leading to me picking a camera back up. And we ended up building a photography business up together all over again and kind of in the midst of all this, I was sprinkling in wedding photography here and there over the 10, 11, 12 years that this happened. And now we're full time wedding photographers and there's a lot in between there that we can dive into.

Raymond: 04:41 Yeah. Let's start from the beginning. I want to know how did you, how were you shooting the wedding at 14 was this for a family friend? Was this like a commission thing? Did somebody search you out? How did that happen?

Megan Breukelman...: 04:53 So I was shooting a lot of portraits in my area and where I grew up. [inaudible] Yeah. And I am a go getter as I say, no

Raymond: 05:07 14. It wasn't nothing. I was just hanging out and I was doing nothing. Of course.

Megan Breukelman...: 05:11 I mean it was basically between Neopets and photography at the time. So but no, so I was shooting a lot of portraits and I caught the attention of a local wedding photographer. And weddings were a huge thing where I grew up because I grew up in the Niagara region of Ontario, which is just wineries and weddings. That's all you do there. And I caught the attention of her through a family friend and she said I have this wedding and I'm going to be in the bridal party. Do you want to shoot it? And I was like, okay, what? And let me, yeah, so she let me use her lenses. I guess they were looking for a budget wedding probably.

Raymond: 05:58 I mean, I mean like, I'm sorry, not, not on their part. Like for you, like what was going through your head at that moment? Like, surely that's, that's a big commitment.

Megan Breukelman...: 06:07 It is a big commitment. But I was like, yes, why not? Like, what if I say no and then I never get to do this? You know, so I, I did get my foot in that tiny little door. I showed up to the wedding day. I hadn't even told them a price because I was just willing to shoot it for no money. And when I was leaving at the end of the night, they were like, how much do we owe you? And I'm like 200. And they gave me like 600 bucks cause they were like, what are you talking about? Are you high? Like sorry. But no. So that was, it was a bizarre experience. And the photographer who had given me the opportunity, she let me use all of her like L series lenses on my Canon 20 D body. Which, you know, I thought I was, I was big stuff at the time. And that really propelled me into actually shooting more and more weddings where people, you know, on Craigslist called Kijiji. There were a lot of people looking for like [inaudible] wedding photographers, student wedding photographers. So I would answer those ads and I would be like, I'll do this for 400 bucks, which is big, big money to afford.

Megan Breukelman...: 07:30 And I ended up doing that pretty much until I went to college. And then even when I came home in the summers, I was still doing that.

Raymond: 07:38 So that brings me to my next question because this is something that a lot of people ask about, which is, you know, is is going to school for photography something that that you need to do. Like as, as, as a photographer, you can technically just buy a camera and now you're in the industry, right? If you know what it is that you're doing, you could brand yourself as here I am. So what was it as somebody who was already shooting weddings, what was it that made you think, you know what, I think photography school is a, is the right choice for me.

Megan Breukelman...: 08:06 I have a lot of feelings on this actually. Because I don't think you need a degree to be a successful photographer by any means. I think actually a lot of photography VFA programs are lacking in, they're not lacking in technical skills. They are lacking in the business and marketing aspects that people need to actually be successful. So I think if you are planning to study photography in a certificate program or a bachelor's program, it is definitely important to find a minor or find online education that will fill in the gaps for business and marketing. Because that is how you actually get to be a photographer. It's not like you get to graduate and apply for a job for the most part, a to be a photographer, unlike most degrees where it's like a degree is required for those things and learn a lot of stuff.

Megan Breukelman...: 08:59 It's very different. But that being said, it was completely worth it for me to get that education. I think I mostly got a degree because I went to a very academic school growing up and I came from a very kind of academic family where like, my, my parents had several degrees. You know, it's, it's, it was a very academic culture. And when I was approaching graduation, you know I think I could have probably just gone out and been a wedding photographer forever in my small region, but I wanted to have a college experience and I wanted to understand what it was to get out of my bubble, which I think is one of the biggest parts of going to college for young, young photographers. It's getting out of your local bubble if you can or if you stay in your local bubble for college, then it's at least giving you new experiences with new people.

Megan Breukelman...: 10:02 So kind of getting to the point as the question is, is it even worth it to get a degree? I think you don't have to get a degree, but there are a lot of technical things that you learn being in that environment and being surrounded by other people who are striving for the same thing and being in critique environments that actually do help you grow. So regardless of whether it's a bachelor's or a certificate or something, it's, it's worth it to think about photography education. If you are at that point in your life when you're trying to decide if postsecondary education is something to look into.

Raymond: 10:38 I love that. That's such a, that's such a, a rational perspective of the whole, of the whole thing. And I, I, I totally get it. I went to film school originally to go for cinematography and it wasn't until after I graduated that I realized, Oh, I could have learned all of this. Like, like onset. Like I could have done all of this. There was no degree required or anything. But I too agree that for me, the experience of going what it was that I learned in that amount of time, for me it was worth it. And then ultimately, obviously it led to all the technical skills translate over into photography. So that's great. That's great to hear that. We have a very similar view on that. So when you said that, did you learn a lot of technical skills when you went to school? That's kind of where they focus and that totally makes sense. I feel like the business and marketing for photographers, especially a few years ago, it's very changing very quickly. It would be hard like in a, in a educational sense to teach that longterm. But as somebody who, since 14 was shooting portraits and even weddings, you know, would you say that you are already very technically minded where you shooting an auto? Like how, well on a scale from one to 10, would you say that you knew your camera before you went to school?

Megan Breukelman...: 11:52 Hmm, I would, I did not. I would say I'm still not very technical as a photographer. Like I understand all of the technical aspects, but I don't, I don't care so much about them. I'm sorry, I don't care if the wrong is the wrong thing to say, but it's more so that like it is not my biggest focus in the business, which is why I'm glad that I work with my husband on the wedding photography business because he is extremely technically minded and I am extremely, you know, business and marketing focused. Like he set up the light for my, for my video. Raymond: 12:28 Oh. And it looks great. You did a great job.

Megan Breukelman...: 12:30 Yeah, I have nice. Even lining, I was like ready to just go by the cold glow of my computer and he's like, no, I'm going to set this up. So I think, you know, when I hopped into weddings at that age, I knew what aperture was because I had been Googling all the different parts of my camera. Didn't think to read a manual, just went right to the Google. So I was looking into what aperture is, what shutter speed is. I didn't really understand how they correlated with each other at the time. Like I didn't, I didn't understand that like a higher shutter speed means you can like capture faster emotion, which would've been great to know for a wedding. And how to balance all that stuff out. So there was definitely a lot of relying on probably aperture priority, but even in certain instances now I still switch from manual to aperture priority just cause like sometimes it's nice to have things on auto so you can actually focus on the rest of the moment, you know? Right.

Raymond: 13:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with that. I agree. I shoot all of my, just like personal family stuff just didn't have put your priority because I feel like in that, in that, in that sense it's like, you know, these photos are going to be printed large, like potentially lots of wedding photos could. And I just kind of want to be more present with my family and that, that allows me to do that. And I'm okay with giving up a little bit of that control. That's very cool. That's very cool. So let's go ahead and start talking about passion projects. Right? So you talked about fashion, you talked about this magazine. Tell me where this idea of a passion project started for you.

Megan Breukelman...: 14:06 Right. So I am so grateful that literally one day seemingly I woke up and I was like, I think I'm going to start a magazine because honestly what happened was I was applying to internships at the time and they were all like, you're too young. Come back later. Or you don't have enough experience come back. Which I find interesting because to get a lot of jobs you need experience but to, to get the job, that's the experience anyway. So I was applying to a lot of things. Nothing was really moving for me in the fashion sense and I was, I was very convinced I was going to be in fashion forever. So I decided to make a project on my own and I found a website that did flippable magazines, which is issue.com, which is ISS Q U and it makes a very realistic page flip for a digital magazine.

Megan Breukelman...: 15:08 Cause I had seen there were a lot of people starting blogs at the time and I am not keen on being a fashion blogger ever. Cause I honestly, I didn't know that much about fashion. And even though I was very passionate about it, I wasn't ready to like dive into garments and what they all meant. So I had to figure out something to do with my time. And I did end up, yeah. So I did end up messaging Olivia and we ended up starting the magazine which we truly didn't know how to do, but we decided we were going to do it

Raymond: 15:42 Real quick. Before you get into that, I want to know, you know, you said that you woke up with this idea of like, I want to start a magazine. Did you have an idea on how you would help people, how you would share information just to share your photos? Kind of what, what, what was that goal from the beginning for you?

Megan Breukelman...: 15:58 Sure. So from the beginning, hang on, sorry. So, so from the beginning it wasn't about me wanting to share my own fashion photography because I had seen other fashion photographers work and it was way better than mine and I wanted to, I wanted to share what other young people were doing. And that was the initial thought process. It was that we wanted to share the work of young creatives and give them a platform. We, we put our own work into the first and second issue is because we didn't have other people's work, like we had some suspicions. So we put out a submissions call on Facebook, which was really big at the time. There was not really Instagram at that point. Like it was just starting. And yeah, the goal was to give a platform to young photographers and young creatives cause cause at the time we were like, is it going to be a fashion magazine with like music people who knows what it's going to be. So the first issue is just a mishmash of like, here's a fine artist next to this fashion editorial. But yeah, we ended up niching down obviously. But yeah, that's kind of, that's how that went.

Raymond: 17:12 So is that you think the kind of natural progression of how, of how most photographers start these things, which is just like, Hey, I have a crazy idea. I'm just going to dive in and then refine it later.

Megan Breukelman...: 17:26 I think so. I think that's how a lot of things get started. Most of the time those things don't get put public until people are fine ideas, but sometimes you just have to publicly sort yourself out. But yeah, I think when starting a passion project, you know, figuring out you got to at least figure out what it is that you're setting out to. Like we had set out to give a platform to young creative people who were into fashion and we had no idea what that looked like. Like I had no idea it was going to end up being a magazine that was in print and had a big Instagram and all that stuff. I had no idea that was what it was gonna look like. But I did know that it was going to be a space for people, a platform for people.

Raymond: 18:12 So then let me ask, I guess how, how detailed do you need to be in the beginning? Because a lot of people get stuck on that idea of, well, if it's not perfect, I'm not even going to go ahead and start it. So how much detail that has to be some sort of plan. How much detail do we need in the beginning just to get going?

Megan Breukelman...: 18:30 Sure. I am not a perfectionist by any means. I wish that I could say I was, but I am more so a person, like, like I mentioned, like I will just throw it out there to see what comes of it and keep building from there. So I think if you're scared to put something out there that you're working on, don't be, because we are living in a world where there's so much stuff that if you put something out there and then a week later you decide you don't love it. So, okay. Cause no one knows about it. They don't remember. It's, it's some, yeah. So it's something that like, like, yeah, if you are, if you're trying to think through the details of it, that's something that can be started out behind the scenes. But at least starting to build on some brand recognition. If you're creating a project where it's, it's branded like throwing, you're throwing your name out there, making an Instagram. Even if you don't know what that looks like yet making a tic talk, I'm guessing you know it. Yeah. So throwing yourself out there and, and creating that brand recognition at very least will help you when you do grow and know what you're doing.

Raymond: 19:43 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Do you think the, Ginny does start with, you know, in your case you said that you didn't start with the magazine, the Instagram, the everything all at once. Do you think that it, that it helps to take it one step at a time or do you think that it helps to create cohesion, like you were saying in a, in a, in a brand sense to do it all together?

Megan Breukelman...: 20:02 I think doing it one step at a time is the, is the easiest and most sensible thing to do. Which, you know, for some people that looks like building a website, even if it's a landing page that says coming soon. If it's like an on-brand coming soon page, then you can then you can add a newsletter signup portion where people, you can end up being in contact with people and that's barely any work, but it's still got a lot of payoff if you start building that list. And then, you know, from there you're creating a Facebook page and from there you can make your Instagram business account. And from there you can start looking into hashtags that are relevant to your niche and finding other people and connecting with them. And then it becomes little web of like small actions that lead to big change.

Raymond: 20:51 So I love this obviously, you know, it sounds like what you're saying is that like you're building a community around the things that, that you like. And I love that idea, but tell me like why as, as many kinda, how do I phrase this? What I've seen is that there are many, there are many new photographers or beginning photographers specifically, like in the beginning of photography podcast, Facebook group who will say things like, you know, or the undertones are that, who am I? Who am I to be doing something like this? I have this great idea, but I'm not a proven photographer. Who am I to do something like this? So why would, why would we set out to do something like this rather than just keep our photos on our computer?

Megan Breukelman...: 21:39 Why not?

Raymond: 21:40 Why not?

Megan Breukelman...: 21:41 I mean, that's like, that's my honest answer. Why not do it? The worst that can happen is no one ends up caring. But the best thing that can happen is that you're trying, you're putting in effort and you're working on something that feeds you creatively. Like we worked on Atlas and it fed us creatively until it didn't, and that's when we put a stop to it. You know, it was seven years and that's a long time. So I mean, who were we to start doing that? We were literally no one, literally like you know, I had no online following really besides my deviant art account at the time. That was like a few thousand people and Olivia didn't have a following. We, we who were we to do that? And it's the same with building my photography business when I was 14. Who was I to do that? That's insane. If I saw a 14 year old doing that, now I would ask that question too. But it led me here, you know,

Raymond: 22:43 I'm trying to imagine what I would think in my head if I showed up to a wedding and the like, clearly the photographer was 14 years old. I'm trying to think. I mean obviously, you know, you just gotta be excited for that person. You're like, wow, this is really cool. But you know, they're getting a shot like this. I wish I would have been that ambitious at 14 instead. I was not, I was just playing Xbox all the time. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So. So at what point, cause as you said, this was feeding you creatively, creating this magazine was in the name of the magazine was Atlas, right? Yes. Okay. So this was feeding you creatively, but at a certain point it has to take up a lot of your time. So when do you start looking at this project and turning it from a passion project into a business? When does that happen?

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Raymond: 23:56 Okay. So let's first of all, thank you so much for sharing all of that insight when it comes to, you know, turning a passion project into a business because obviously that stuff is people have a lot of questions about that. Everybody loves the idea of a passion project. Everybody wants to go off and do something on their own. I know that when I w was in high school, and I've told this before on the podcast, my dream was always like, you know, following the band, you know, until they got there, their Grammy or like following the team until they won the world series or something that was just like that long term story that at some point later you could curate into something, into a, into a real project. But obviously something in that capacity takes up all of your work, right. All of your time and you need to be paid in some sense, I guess before then.

Raymond: 24:41 So again, thank you for sharing everything that you did there, about kind of the business side of, of turning a passion project into, into a business. My next question here, let's talk more about the whole idea of the, of the passion project, right? What if we don't have everything that we need? What if I want to photograph clouds from airplanes, right? I mean, I love clouds. I love looking at clouds. I love being in airplanes. What do I want to photograph? Clouds from airplanes, but you know, air travel, obviously right now in this point in history where we're at is not, you know, safe but also you know, it's also, it can be rather expensive for say a passion project. So how do we make, do with the idea that we have compared to the vision that we want it to be? Sorry, that was a really roundabout question. I feel like that wasn't really filled out at all. I still hear these kids playing basketball upstairs. I apologize. Did that question make sense at all?

Megan Breukelman...: 25:43 It's all good. I mean I'm trying to think about everything in respect to clouds from airplanes cause that is, that is a particularly difficult when we are in a pandemics or no? Let me think about that. I mean making do with what we have. That's hard.

Raymond: 26:01 Oh, well I guess in your situation like do you want me to create a magazine, right? You wanted to create a magazine from the beginning. Did you want it to be in print or did you think, you know what, if people just view it online, that's, that's, that's good enough for me.

Megan Breukelman...: 26:13 I didn't think it was going to be in print ever. I thought that was a pipe dream. But we really did build up enough of an audience and I think that's important to consider if you are putting a passion project out to the world beyond just like putting it as a page on your website and forgetting about it and leaving it there. If this passion project is something that you want to have eyes on than it is something you should be also looking for feedback on. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying before on, on when does it matter what other people think. If this is something you truly do want to build on, then it does matter to have public feedback, which also goes back to the whole aspect of critique that I really appreciated about being in college environment.

Megan Breukelman...: 27:00 Because having critique helps you build and having feedback from an audience helps you build. So if you don't have the ability to get in an airplane right now and photograph clouds, what you can do is take all the cloud photos you have right now, do something with them, put them out to a public audience, whether that's Instagram, whether that's Facebook, whether that's Twitter, cause there is actually a big photo community on Twitter and get that feedback. Let people know what you're doing and make them aware of, of your project. And from there, you know you can build that brand awareness. You can build on on, on that recognition of, of what you're trying to accomplish. And then that's, that's a stepping stone, that's a building block. And then next time you get to get in an airplane and photograph clouds, you have the ability to, to get more feedback on that. You have, you have that reception from your audience. Does that make sense? That felt like a really roundabout answer.

Raymond: 28:03 It felt like you were working your way through that answer and it felt like gold came out there for sure. Now, absolutely. I, you know, if, if you put it out there, and I think, I think that what you're saying is that like if you love this thing, you can see if other people love this thing and then if it grows, perhaps you'll have more resources to do the thing that specifically you want to do in this sense. Rent an airplane.

Megan Breukelman...: 28:29 Yeah. Support leads to more recently, sorry, can you hear my radiator?

Raymond: 28:33 No, I can't. We just got all sorts of noises going on.

Megan Breukelman...: 28:37 New York radiators are like haunted. It's the whole thing. Anyway,

Raymond: 28:42 Like a new passion project haunted New York radiators.

Megan Breukelman...: 28:45 Shoot, I completely lost my train of thought, but what I was trying to say is, is yeah, the more, the more support you have with your project, the more resources you end up with. Because at some point, maybe there's someone who's like, Hey, I've got a plane. You can come photograph clouds wrong. Or, or there's people who are like, Hey, there are cheap flights from here to here. Maybe you should consider doing those. It's getting that community help and, and I know building a community is like well talked about being on your podcast, you know, cause it's, it's super important. So yeah, building a community around that passion.

Raymond: 29:23 I think you would agree with me when I say that. Like building a community though can be hard, right? It can be, maybe, maybe it's not hard. It just takes time, right? And persistence. So how do we, how do we ensure that we don't fail at something? Like if you do, let me ask, jeez, these questions I apologize. How do we ensure that we don't fail at something like this? In the sense of when you first started the magazine, did you, did you have like a yes or no? Like, Oh, if this thing happens, we're doing good. If this thing happens, I'm going to give up.

Megan Breukelman...: 30:01 I mean, I look at failure. Let me think about how to phrase this. I have a tough time looking at failures as failures which is, you know, a strength when you are a brand builder. Because I look at a lot of failures as opportunities. You know, we, we made it for three years in print and then we ran out of money. That wasn't a failure. That was another opportunity for us to build up our digital community and continue with, with our digital friend. And we went hard on the website at that point. So, I mean, I don't think there really is such a thing called failure in a passion project because what's the worst that can happen? Like you lose your passion, that's the worst thing that can happen and that's, that's, that's not going to harm you. And it may harm in an emotional sense, but in the rest of your life, you know things will be okay if your passion project does not end up with 100,000 followers and it doesn't end up going viral on Buzzfeed. You just got to keep things in perspective in that sentence.

Raymond: 31:15 I love that answer that you gave, but I think that I asked a bad question. So let me rephrase into a different question. How important is persistence and consistency in a passion project?

Megan Breukelman...: 31:28 It's everything. It is everything. If you are, if you're a cheerlead passionate about it, then then that persistence is what will take it to the next level. That being said, when you're working on something probably for free for a long time and it feels like there's no like reward coming back to you. I understand how hard it can be to wake up and keep on working on it and keep on doing something day in and day out and being persistent and consistent with it because some days you just want to like, you want to shut it all down and just, just give up on that. But yeah, I would say I would say it's very important to keep consistent and to keep persistent if this is something you really, really care about. And the second that you stop caring about it and you don't want to be persistent about it for like more than that, more than that bad day that week, it's like there's a difference between having a bad day, having a bad week or just constantly like dreading starting your day, you know?

Raymond: 32:32 So tell me about that for you then. Tell me about that for you because obviously you said that you've had those days. I've had those days, I've showed up to weddings and that to myself. I'd rather be at home right now than right here. So when do we, when do we know to keep going? When do we give up?

Megan Breukelman...: 32:51 Sure. We've all had bad days at work. We all know what that feels like. It's about finding the balance of what, what matters more, you know, does it, does it matter? Is the problem that you're having with what you're doing right now? Is it going to matter in a day? Is it gonna matter in a week? Are you just lacking in motivation today or are you seriously, is there a root of that problem? Like some people give up on wedding photography for example, because the root of the problem is, is their passion for it and they've lost their passion for it. There are a lot of people who stopped shooting weddings because one day they do show up to a wedding and they're like, this isn't for me. And then they keep going and they keep trying and they feel like that every single wedding. And at that point, the, the root of the problem is pretty obvious. When, when we stopped Atlas for good, it was, it was enough days of me being like, this is not worth my time and my energy and my emotional energy for me to continue being like this. And it's the same for if you're leaving a bad job, which we've all probably done once or twice. If you wake up every day dreading going to work, then something is wrong there and it's not you, you know.

Raymond: 34:09 Do you think that every passion project in a sense has to end or is it in the case of Atlas, was it that things change so far from their original view that you weren't enjoying it anymore or, or had it just run its course and everything runs its course?

Megan Breukelman...: 34:25 Everything does run its course. I think there are some people who have passion projects that last forever. There are photographers who photograph certain personal projects for 60 years, you know, and that's super impressive. For Atlas in particular, it had really strayed very far from where I ended up because, you know, I ended up focusing a lot on weddings and consumer photography in my, in my relationship and marriage with Kenneth because we both decided this is, this is something we're actually, we're actually excited about doing every day. We're excited about talking to happy couples who are getting married and we're excited not to have a lot of distress over email and over text and over our communications with clients versus you know, with Atlas it was getting harder and harder to like have people emailing me if something didn't go up exactly on time and being like, why isn't this on Instagram right now? It's seven in the morning, you know so for Atlas and definitely run its course and it was, it was very far off from where I ended up and that is why I started a weddings magazine this year.

Raymond: 35:35 Perfect. That was going to be my next, what is your next passion project? This is it.

Megan Breukelman...: 35:39 Yeah. That is my passion project. Besides my business, which really feels like our, our wedding photography business seriously feels like a passion project because it's so exciting to, to work with our clients and edit our photos and keep building the business. But my, my no money passion project right now is VITROS magazine, which is a New York based wedding magazine focusing on the art and the heart of a New York wedding. And what that means is that weddings in New York are often very, very, very, very, very, very, very expensive. And as someone who ended up with a 30 person wedding and a photo studio, I realized that's not the, that's not the only way you can do a wedding. And there are tons of people in this city who aren't going to spend like, presumably their life savings on a wedding. You know, I'm sorry. Did you hear my buzzer go off there? I didn't shoot. This microphone's too good. Okay. it's, it's the day of distractions.

Raymond: 36:45 Gotcha. Yeah, that's, that's going to be the title of this episode, David.

Megan Breukelman...: 36:49 Yeah. But anyway. So the magazine focuses on the vendors and the couples who are having unique experiences in the wedding industry because not everything is what, you know, I love the not, I love it so much, but not everything is the pristine, perfect wedding and not puts out there. And I wanted this platform to showcase that and there's a lot of vendors in New York city that I wanted to showcase who are working with queer couples, who are working with couples of color who are, you know, people in marginalized audiences. And it's, it's, it's a lot of fun to work on it and to collaborate with wedding vendors who are just so happy to, to be working on things like this.

Raymond: 37:32 Well, I can tell that you're really excited about this as just seeing your face when you were ending that last question about Atlas versus this new question about your new magazine here. Just completely lit up. So I think that you're on the right path and obviously if you feel that you are then, then that is all that truly matters at the end of the day. Megan, I've asked you a bunch of questions. This is kind of a world that I'm not perfectly attuned to. So is there anything that I didn't ask you today that you think that listeners should know about, about the idea of a passion project?

Megan Breukelman...: 38:07 I think in general, what people should know is these things take a lot of work and they take a lot of time and they take marketing efforts. If you plan on putting it out to an audience, I know that I already said this, but I need to drill it into people's heads because regardless of whether you're working on a passion project or if you are just straight up a photographer, you need to work on marketing. You need to learn about business, you need to think about those essentials that actually help get recognized and pay the bills. And even in, you know, Atlas reach, you know, 100,000 followers across the board in different places. Yeah. And that created an awesome audience. But with my magazine, with 2000 followers, my, my wedding magazine, you know, there's still a lot of people talking about it. There's a lot of feedback there and it really, you know, we're still getting a lot of submissions and it doesn't matter the material numbers and everything you see at face value, what matters is your connection to people and creating that connection through your marketing or through, I don't, you know, it's hard to call it marketing for passion projects, but through, through your community and building that community,

Raymond: 39:22 That is a huge message right there. And I hope the listeners rewind back 30 or 40 seconds to hear that whole thing again, that I think that that was more powerful than most people will think. So thank you again for, for sharing that, for sharing that. Megan I'veh, like I said, I've asked you a bunch of questions today. You've been an open book sharing your story. And I really appreciate everything that you have shared before I let you go it, can you let the listeners know where they can find you, learn more about you online and all the fun places.

Megan Breukelman...: 39:56 Yeah, my name is kind of a mouthful. So I hope these will be spelled out in the show notes, but yeah, it's Megan Brreukelman on Twitter, on Instagram. It's, you can search in Facebook for my name as well for, for that page. And then I have a podcast called the photo op podcast and I talk a lot about photography, business and marketing and we have a lot of different people come onto the podcast to talk about sad things. And then yeah, Pinterest is my name, my website is my name. It's pretty straight forward. And then wedding photographers in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania betrothed magazine is my magazine that you should definitely submit your work to.

Raymond: 40:42 I guess that's the the benefit of having a, a, a nonconventional name. There's not many other Megan Brooklyn's out there, so you can just snag up all those URLs. So that's awesome. Well, again, Megan, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate everything that you shared and I look forward to keeping up with you, your magazine as well as the podcast here in the future.

Megan Breukelman...: 41:02 Thank you so much for having me.