Local photographer Jacob Bownds has taken his successes (and some less-than-successful experiences) and applied them to his life as a freelance travel photographer.
His travels around the globe have led to a lot of valuable lessons and varied experiences, as he shared in a recent interview with The Scoop:
Being a travel photographer is not all that glamorous.
“I have heard a lot of people say that they wished they could just travel and take pictures for a living; I wish I could, too,” Bownds says. “The majority of my job is not getting to travel to exotic places on nice airplanes with champagne and staying in five-star hotels and snapping a few pictures when I feel like it. Being a photographer is hard work. I’ve been in situations where I feel unsafe and unwelcome, and I’ve definitely been in situations where I expend a lot of effort to get the perfect shot, only to realize that it did not turn out the way I wanted.”
Being a travel photographer does not pay the bills.
“The reality is I cannot afford to just travel and be a freelance photographer; it’s just not possible right now,” Bownds says. “I have to pay all of my own expenses, so most of the time, my trips are actually costing me more than I am making. My full-time job is managing a photography studio in Springfield called Portrait Innovations. It’s drastically different than what I would be photographing if I were traveling, but it keeps me involved in photography so it’s still a great job.”
Doing what you love really is worth it.
“The truth is that I will probably never work for National Geographic and get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to photograph the coolest places on Earth,” he says. “While I understand and accept that, it is still nice to hope that maybe one day, I will be able to own my own studio and have that fund my own personal travel. Really, that’s all this is about: following your dreams. Five years ago, I never would have imagined that I would be managing a photography studio today. It’s just kind of one of those things where you won’t know if you don’t try, and I’m trying very hard to make my dream a reality.”
To see Bownds’ work, visit his website Captured By Light Photography. He can be reached at j.bownds@gmail.com.
