Turning Your Passion Project

Into a Full Time Job

How this Winnipeg mom took her photography business to the next level.

Guest post by: Lynsey Corbett

You know the saying, if you love what you do, it will never feel like work? As cheesy as this sounds, this quote holds true to exactly how I feel about photography and capturing families and their loved ones. While on maternity leave, about two months after having my third baby Clara, I was asked by dear friends of mine over at Glitter & Glue to shoot a cake smash and I thought to myself why not? What do I have to loose? I loved every single minute of it, from the screaming baby who did not know why she was plopped in front of a cake and suddenly forced to eat something sweet to the icing covering her darling little feet and the smile she had when she looked up at her mama.

Lynsey Corbett Photography

Articles

01/

02/

03/

04/

05/

How I Bought My Business

By: Kayla Wan

Pitching Your Idea to Investors

By: Giovanna Minenna

How to Network When You Hate Networking

What is the Experiential

Store Trend?

Stress and the Menstrual

Cycle

By: Courtney Rae Jones

I had never felt so inspired and could not take a smile off my face the entire shoot! Weeks later, Laura, Michelle and I decided to host our first “mini styled shoot”. We sold out 15 spots in less than a day and officially gave it our first go!

Fast forward a year and a half later and I am coming up on photographing my 200th family/job. It has come with a lot of sweat (literally…. just imagine chasing a room full of babies and bunnies), tears (when you work for an entire day on editing and accidentally press one wrong button in Lightroom and bam need to start over), feelings over being extremely overwhelmed along with feelings of so much love. I have found exactly what I want to be doing in life alongside my #1 job of being a mom.

Balancing mom life vs. work life

Lynsey Corbett Photography

Have I found the perfect balance? Absolutely not. This is something I am still working on and not sure if I will ever have it perfectly figured out. But I do love the fact that I can pick up my kids at school every single day, chat about the things we did in the car and fuel my passion for photography on a schedule that works for all of us.

I am so blessed to have clients that are extremely understanding of my family and are often checking in on us! I can definitely say that this has been the most rewarding job next to raising my children, but it is not always easy and although those 9 squares may say differently it is tough work.

I would not be able to be doing any of this without the help of my mom who is over a minimum 3 days a week. She helps out with the kids, around the house and drop offs to activities, so I can go to shoots and edit. Also my husband… I definitely hit the jackpot as his constant love and support for what I do is endless. Yes, I probably need to get a little bit better at sharing my schedule with him opposed to telling him "oh by the way I am leaving in an hour to go to a shoot" but he is always so encouraging and continues to say good

luck before I head out the door each day! He is always so encouraging and has been so supportive since day one. I would not be doing this without him!

All in all, if you find your passion for something in life go with it and don’t give up! I have found a wonderful community in this city of other local photographers who are always so incredibly loving, encouraging and supportive. It is definitely a community over competition feel and I love it.

I never thought starting this business while on maternity leave would bring me to do this full time and I cannot thank the city of Winnipeg and my beautiful clients enough for this.

I am so incredibly thankful to do what I love every single day and capture