Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Williamsberg.
Elizabeth, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I always loved photography, but I never believed it would be a career. I spent hours upon hours in the darkroom in my high school photography lab, but it was just for fun–and to avoid religious studies class! It wasn’t supposed to be a job.
Then, one day, I saw the photography studio at the mall was hiring. I went home, got my portfolio from class and typed up a very quick resume–which wasn’t hard to do since this would be my first job. I returned and spoke to the woman at the desk about applying for the advertised job–before she could finish retrieving an application, I’d slid my portfolio across the desk and asked her if she could give that to the manager while I was filling out the application. When I returned to the desk, she asked if I had time to sit down with the studio manager right then and there–it turned out that she WAS the studio manager. It also turned out that they were only hiring for a front desk receptionist/scheduler position, but she’d liked my resume enough that she wanted to talk more anyway. An hour later, she hired me on the spot as an associate photographer.
I worked at that studio for the next six years while I finished high school, attended college, took a year abroad, and then returned to the US to begin my actual “career” in psychology — specifically child custody mediation and custody hearing recommendations for court. I put my engagement photo, which I’d taken myself, on my desk at work and within weeks had co-workers asking if I could take their portraits as well. Initially, I was paid in free lunches for my time, but eventually, the quick ten-minute headshot sessions turned into 2+ hour full portrait sessions that my co-workers paid me for with actual cash!
Eventually, I realized my heart wasn’t in my family court/child psychology job, so I gave up on my graduate school applications and instead opened up my first photo studio in Princeton, NJ in March 2010. I didn’t specialize at the time–I just shot everything. I quickly started gathering clients for both portraits and publication work, including in New York and Philadelphia for fashion week!
In 2015, my life changed dramatically again; my fiance lost his job and we were suddenly adrift. We took the time to travel the country, and the first time we landed in Denver, we were obsessed with the area and knew we needed to move here immediately. I shuttered my photography business, sold most of my equipment to finance the sudden move, and moved to Colorado with my husband that summer. Immediately, I put that child psychology degree back into use and became a preschool teacher. And, once again, I started getting inquiries for my photography almost immediately–on the first day of class, I made sure every student had a brand new headshot for their cubby, and right away, several parents asked for copies of the photos to frame at home or use for their holiday cards! Soon, I was again building a client base, and after two years, I quit teaching to re-open a photography business.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The biggest challenge was moving across the country suddenly and without warning. My husband was in a business partnership with a relative who is known for being mercurial with somewhat volatile opinions and ideas. He’d “fired” my then-fiance several times in the past, and always rehired him just as suddenly, usually over trivial matters such as inappropriate noises in the office or my then-fiance’s bodily noises. This time, it was over a very slight difference of opinion regarding politics, and this time, my then-fiance decided enough was enough, he was tired of walking on eggshells and never knowing if he would have a job from one day to the next, and he would not accept the job again, should his business partner offer to re-hire him.
Going suddenly from two incomes to one was impossible for us; even though I was steadily gaining momentum in my business, it was not enough to keep us both afloat. Combined with the fact that his now-ex business partner was our landlord and that, while they co-owned the building, his business partner was already making statements regarding making sure my fiance got nothing and pushing us out, we knew we needed to leave immediately. We packed up all of our belongings, sold what we could, and became nomads for six weeks while we traveled the US looking for a place to settled and jobs to help us ground ourselves again. Shuttering my business and selling equipment I’d owned for a decade at that point, some of which had been gifted to me by my late father, was heartbreaking, but we did what we had to in order to survive.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
Currently, I am a portrait and personal brand photographer, specializing in women’s portraiture. Growing up, I had an eating disorder and suffered from undiagnosed (and therefore, untreated) depression for decades; one of the biggest problems was hating how I looked and being bullied for the entirety of my public school education because of it. As such. My business is guided by one principal: everybody is beautiful at every size, shape, and color. Whether I’m photographing a high school senior or doing a glamour photography session for a woman to gift to her husband (or just as often, herself) my eye is always on making sure the woman in front of my camera feels confident and beautiful as she is. This means I do very little Photoshop, if any, on my portraits. I may fix a glaring red blemish or smooth out a scraped knee from an athlete, but I do not add or subtract curves. The beautiful woman in print is the woman that exists, and any woman who sits for a portrait with me can feel confident that the way she looks in her images is how she looks Every. Single. Day.
Also, I am a full-service photographer, meaning I do not show up for a few minutes, shoot a few dozen images, and then hand over a CD or USB drive of negatives. Everything about my sessions is deliberate and done with the utmost care. I pre-plan every session with my clients including hair, make-up, wardrobe, location, and props. After the session, I apply fine art imaging techniques refined in years spent in a darkroom working as a film photographer, to make sure every image is a beautiful, perfect work of art to be treasured in my client’s home for decades to come. I custom design everything including albums, folio boxes, custom framing and canvas artwork, and more.
I am passionate that life belongs in print. Unlike other photographers who’ve come into the business recently, I’ve been doing this for two decades, and I’ve seen quite a lot with my clients. CDs sit in drawers until they no longer make computers that include CD drives; USB drives get lost, damaged, corrupted, overwritten, or broken. After Superstorm Sandy, I had clients come to me with print images that were water damaged–I was able to recover decades of family history with tried-and-true image restoration techniques that have been used on photographic prints since photography was born; people who brought me water-soaked hard drives, however, were absolutely out of luck. After twenty years in business, I’ve seen too many people heartbroken at lost memories to ever “shoot and burn” images, hand over digital negatives, and call it a day. They say there are only three things certain in life: death, taxes, and data loss–and you might be able to cheat your way out of the first two! Our memories, our self-esteem, and our art are too important to risk losing to a hacker or spilled a cup of coffee.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Janie Hermann in Princeton, NJ and Laura Occhipinti in Glen Rock, NJ for taking a chance on an unknown photographer and making me the go-to photographer for the Princeton Public Library and New Jersey Young Professionals, respectively. Dij Sparkx in Denver, CO for always recommending me to every person he meets who is looking for a photographer.
Pricing:
- Session fee is $249 for two+ hours of photography including up to five locations and five outfit changes.
- Portrait packages start at $399.
- Event packages start at $2499
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elizabethwilliamsberg.com
- Phone: 720-391-6575
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: instagram.com/ewilliamsbergphotography
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabethwilliamsbergphotography
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