 
Carole C. Wilbourn: The Story of the Cat Therapist! Career Transitions: Corporate to Creative - An Interview with Photographer Chantal How to Become a Day Trader How to Be a Voice Over Talent How to Make Money as a Wedding Singer How To Be A Cat and Dog Therapist Business Networking Sites: a Review A List of Mobile Networking Sites The Internet: Soon to be One Global Language Your Safest Lipsticks How Drinking Affects Your Complexion Role Models: Why Women Need Them The Afterglow Boutique: Vegan Cosmetics |
Transitioning from Corporate to CreativeAn Interview with Photographer Chantalby Suzann Kale
page 1 of 2 While putting in 40 hours a week for her company as a high profile market research executive, Chantal also finds the time and energy to lay the groundwork for her burgeoning career in freelance photography. Key #1: Impeccable Organization Transitioning into a new career is not wishful thinking. It's impeccable organization, planning, and determination.
Getting Started in a New CareerChantal began taking photographs 10 years ago, as an off-shoot of her hobby, which is taking her vacation time to travel in each of the 50 United States. "The total freedom on the road," Chantal says, "and the beautiful scenery got me into wanting to chronicle my travels. And on top of that, I feel very comfortable as a single person just hopping in the car. I've got 3000 miles from coast to coast - a big, huge playpen." She's already traveled and documented 39 states, taking exquisite photographs, especially in the state parks. |
"When I really started doing the photography," Chantal explains, "I realized I didn't want to spend 50 or 60 hours in corporate America. I wanted to do something for the soul, so to speak." continued below
Key #2: Passion"The whole idea of criss-crossing the country and being on the open road - there's a freedom. And then you stop and you see so many beautiful things and you just want to capture them. Everything I see, I think: how could this be represented in a photograph." 
Key #3: Financial StabilityChantal sees her transition to full-time photography as a journey. She's not going to jump right into it and hope for the best. She's going to budget her time carefully, and when the income is right from the photography, ease out of the corporate. Her plan is to keep her income stable, rather than what many corporate people do when they've had enough, just jump into the freelance life and hope for the best. There will be very little left to chance for Chantal. "It's not that I didn't fill out What Color Is My Parachute about 22 times, it just never yielded anything. What mattered was just being on the road by myself, taking pictures, and coming home and realizing how beautiful it was there and then just being able to blow up the pictures, frame them, and show them in their best light." To ease from one career into another, Chantal is careful about how she plans each day. "The fact is that even though I love photography," she explains, "you can't do it if you're doing more than 40 hours a week in corporate. If you're doing more than 40 to 44 hours a week in your day job, you're just zapped and no matter how much you like the creative projects, you just don't do them. So I basically just cut down my day job to 40 hours. And sometimes I alternate by actually ending my days early, because I started early, and then I have a good long evening to do my photography stuff. Sometimes I'll just interrupt the middle of the day because I have flexible hours and take a couple of hours at lunch and do something with photography and get back to work a little later." Key #4: Using Management SkillsIronically, Chantal's many years as an executive taught her the discipline and project management skills she needs to be successful in her creative career. "The trick is to make the photography just another assignment in your day." She laughs. "So then photography is a 2-hour meeting I have to have every day." Continue to page 2 of Corporate to Creative - An Interview with Photographer Chantal 
|
No portion of this article may be copied without written permission from the author.