This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? Chris Guillebeau here from Sida School. Oh my goodness. Welcome to Throwback Thursday slash Where Are They Now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved quite a bit since we first featured them.
It's been really fun to have these features as kind of a blast from the past and catch up with folks and see what they've learned, how they've advanced, any struggles they've experienced, any challenges, et cetera. We've had all kinds of features, including a New York City musician with a blog teaching jazz that becomes a multiple six-figure business. Just to name one example, last week was a blog. It's now, I believe, also a multiple six-figure business, a blog about Hoboken, New Jersey. So today, in our latest feature, we will hear from a guy I've known for a long time.
He's a friend of mine, actually. He happens to be a civil engineer who had a wild idea a few years ago to offer wedding photography services through Craigslist. Well, what's happened since? Let's hear directly from him. His name is Oliver.
I'll be back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
My name's Oliver Aces. I am located in San Diego, California. My side hustle is Oliver Aces Photography, and I was featured in a really early episode, episode number nine. The way I started with the side hustle is I was always a visual person, and I've always enjoyed the arcs, and been doing photography since I was really young.
And over the years, when you're kind of young, you're still learning photography, and you start off in the film days, and you don't have a job to pay the film, you basically just kind of stop. But then what happened, with this particular side hustle in college, I gained a reputation being known as the guy with the camera. And in my senior year, I got asked by a friend to photograph for a wedding. And so I said yes at that time. I didn't really know, I didn't even start doing any wedding photography at that point, but I knew I was excited to try it.
And when I kind of sat down and excitement stopped, the realization of, oh my gosh, I'm about to photograph my friend's wedding, and I've never done this before. So instead of calling my friend saying, hey, I don't think I can do it, I decided to go with it, and I made a post on Craigslist saying, hey, I am starting out of photography, and any bride and groom's are looking for a photographer, an inexpensive photographer. And so posted up on Craigslist, and a couple days later got a reply, and bride and groom hired me really quickly off Craigslist. I still have the day job, and I'm still loving this day job up to this point. I just celebrated my 12th year of employment with my current employer, so I'm really happy with that.
So I am still a civil engineer, and still loving it to this day. Since being featured on the show, a lot of things have changed in photography. With the weddings, I've slightly increased my prices from the 3,500 when I did the episode, to just about a little bit over 4,000 at this point. And that was primarily because I started getting a little bit more business, but then I also wanted to kind of concentrate on other parts of the business. And so I thought, okay, let me raise my prices, maybe that'll slow it down.
It did slow it down to a point where I could start investing more time in other parts of the business. And so now I am, depending on what hat I'm wearing, I'm either still a wedding photographer, and that's usually primarily March through September. And then throughout the year, I can either be doing commissions for landscape, and now with the newest thing with architecture, I'm slowly getting into trying to work with architects and engineers on photographing their projects. For anyone wanting to start their own photography business, the most important aspect is know how to use your camera. Because the thing is, as photographers, we're basically trying to problem solve.
We're trying to capture an image given the conditions, whether it's light conditions, weather, and you are being paid to photograph that given whatever it is. I mean, sometimes it is gonna be your call going, hey, I cannot get that shot for you today because of A, B, and C. And if you don't know how to use your camera, you can't tell your client competently that you can't make that happen. And lastly, the best thing that anyone can ever do as a photographer is just go out and photograph every day, practice that skill set, because there's always a lot of new technology, there's a lot of techniques. There is no one finite way to get an image.
There's multiple routes to do it. So always trying to keep up fresh with your skill set and understanding how things go and evolving. I think that helps you start off in that business. - Well, there are a lot of photographers out there, a lot of them who are struggling, trying to get their first clients and such. So if that's you, if you know somebody, you might wanna go back and listen to Oliver's original story.
If you missed it, basically he offered to do his first gigs to strangers on Craigslist for a very low amount of money. And that came to be after a friend of his asked her to shoot his wedding. And he, you know, he said, yes, of course. And then he realized, I don't actually know how to shoot a wedding. Even though he was a photographer, he had some photography skills, but he'd never done a wedding before.
So that Craigslist experiment then led him to an unexpected side gig doing lots of weddings for $3,500 when we first talked to him. And now as you heard up to $4,000 while continuing with his day job that he enjoys as an engineer. So thanks so much, Oliver, for helping us out with this segment. I will be doing these features throughout 2020. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured next from our archives of more than 1,000 stories.
2020 is our year of interaction. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your hustle, if you'd like me to shoot your wedding or perhaps officiate your wedding, whatever you're into, just respond to my ad on Craigslist. But for everything else, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1251. That's for episode 1,251.
I'm so glad you're out there. Be sure you're subscribed because so much more is coming up. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From The Onward Project.
