Life and Work with Mason Huckabee

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mason Huckabee.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Mason. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I feel like it’s so cliche because every-time I talk to other photographers, they seem to have a similar answer, but in middle school my mom had an old Nikon laying around, and I asked to borrow it. The pictures were literally awful. I mean, I was putting a weird purple filter over the images and then putting them into Picnik collage maker thingy. Like really terrible. I honestly just messed around until I got to be a senior in high school. I didn’t really take it that seriously, but I wanted to take real photography class, so I went to New York City one summer and took a class at the School of Visual Arts. And I hated it so much I actually cut out a week before the program was over. They kept asking me, “Well, what does this photo mean” and did not like when my answer was, “Nothing.” I kept shooting, though, literally anything: My sister and her friends, my middle school graduation party, random flowers in my backyard. I discovered that I didn’t have to explain my images to anyone because they were for me, and if I didn’t want them to have any meaning, well, then they didn’t have to.

So, in college, my friends started graduating. They knew I liked photography and was in some photography class (which I also hated, by the way) so they asked me to take theirs. I think that is when I really started falling in love with it. I took as many as I could, learned to advertise myself, and landed an internship in New York City with a blogger as her graphic design intern/photographer. I took over 50,000 photos in those three months and it started up this passion inside of me for wedding photography. I know it sounds a little weird because I was shooting for fashion campaigns and social media ads, but it brought me back to that photography class before college. It made me realize that I actually did want to have some meaning behind my photos, and not just some made up concept or selling point for a product. I wanted my work to really mean something to the people I was photographing. Que Wedding Photography.

I poured for hours over wedding photographers just to see what they were doing and how they were doing it. And let me just tell you, it is not an easy business to break into. But having had a glimpse of it (I’ve now photographed weddings and elopements) I see why people love it so much. It is an incredibly rewarding business to be in! You are being invited into a very intimate and special moment of someone’s life that is literally only going to happen one time (at least with that person).

I like to call myself a memory hoarder, which is something I am sure most photographers can identity with, in that I hate that time moves so quickly and that one minute you’re say getting married at your wedding and the next it’s been three months. Just like that, something you’ve been planning for years is over in a blink. So, I like capturing things on my camera so that I will never forget a thing. Even if that memory fades, you look at an image and instantly get a feeling from it. It takes you back to that time and there is something I love about that! So that’s kind of my weird story and how I fell in love with photography!

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I hate to be like yeah it has been. But it really has been a smooth road for the most part. The struggles along the way would probably just be myself. I have great ideas and creativity but have trouble with my follow through. I stand in my own way more than anyone else. So, that would probably be my advice to anyone wanting to start their own business: Get out of your own way! When you do, trust me, you will succeed.

Please tell us about Mason E Huckabee Photography.
I am a photographer, first and foremost, but I specialize in weddings, couples, boudoir, lifestyle and brands. I am really always up for any type of project, but mainly do work in the wedding world! I get proud when people really see who I am and like what I do. There are tons of photographers out there that they could’ve picked, but when someone chooses me and they tell me it’s because I made them comfortable, made them laugh, made them forget they were even taking pictures, that is when I can truly say I’ve done my job.

Standing out in this day and age is really difficult to me because everyone is trying to be different and have something that makes them not like everyone else. So, instead of focusing on standing out, I just try to be myself! I know it sounds cheesy but that’s literally all there is to it. I’ve never been one to conform or try to be someone I am not just to fit in, and I feel like it is the same thing with standing out in this industry. I am not going to pretend to be someone just to get clients and book shoots. If I’m not being myself then what am I even doing, you know? Being true to myself is what is setting me apart.

What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
It is not going to happen overnight. It sucks in this day and age with the Instagram influencers and YouTube famous peeps because we are seeing these people posts just skyrocketing and going viral, and the rest of us are sitting over here with our normal amount of followers getting an average amount of post engagement going what are we doing wrong? And the answer is nothing. Those people hustled for their turn at being at the top, so let them have it! If I can get my couples to look a picture, I took of them and be completely happy with it then, to me, that is the same as getting a viral post on the explore page of Instagram. And that is the mindset you have to have when going into an industry that is this competitive.

Pricing:

• Couples Start at $250

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.masonehuckabee.com/
• Email: mehuckabee55@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/masonehuckabee/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masonehuckabee/

Image Credit:
All photos taken by Mason E Huckabee

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