My Photography Journey
Hi, I'm Haley! Here at Red Cedar Ranch Photography I am the owner, photographer, social media coordinator, chief financial officer, event planner, location scouter, full time editor and any other title you can think of that goes along with running a small business. Along with my most favorite titles of wife to Greg and Jett and Hattie's mom.
Red Cedar Ranch Photography was originally created my mom, Glenda, who took up photography as a hobby to shoot my brothers and I extracurricular activities. Dance, rodeo, showing livestock, football you name it. We were in it and mom was there with her camera. My mom's hobby quickly grew into a business as friends and family began sharing their photos and soon enough she was booking a full calendar of shoots!
Now back to me- while in college around 2013 my mom gave me one of her old cameras she had recently upgraded from. I had a love for the back end of photography, the editing side. I would often edit shoots for my mom, but now that I had my first DSLR camera I began to take my own photos. At the time it was usually of my dogs, a couple friends or my little brother who was still in high school at the time. As I learned more and more from practicing with the camera, soaking up as much as I could learn from Pinterest, and YouTube videos I began to really improve my work. As I shared my work with friends and co-workers they began to ask me to do photoshoots for them. This was a win-win for this poor college student who missed being creative and needed extra cash for groceries!
For the last 2 years of college I did photography as a side gig and loved every second of it! As graduation approached I slowly stopped doing photoshoots simply because life was too busy. I was focused on graduation, planning a wedding, buying a house and starting my first full-time career. In May of 2016 I graduated from Oklahoma State with a degree in Agribusiness and accepted a job with a local bank in their mortgage department. The next month, June, Greg and I got married, two months later we bought our first house on outskirts of Stillwater and by October we were expecting our first baby. (highly do not recommend putting that many life altering events into one summer). After that summer I did not pick my camera back up for several years. While at the same time my mom, slowly stopped taking on photoshoots once my youngest brother graduated high school and Red Cedar Ranch Photography became dormant for several years.
Flash forward to spring 2021. I am now a stay-at-home mom with TWO littles back in my hometown of Chandler, OK. Remember that baby I got pregnant with in 2016? Yeah, he was playing his first year of T-ball! Just like my mom's start, there I was with that camera in hand ready to document it all! Having the resources I volunteered to take team pictures, and game pictures. This snowballed into taking other team's pictures. Which turned into a couple seniors parents asking me to do their kids senior photoshoots and so on and so on.
Flash-forward to spring 2023, having a steady flow of shoots for the past two years I decided to take a leap of faith and try and making this photography hobby I love a full-time gig.
Present time I am deep in depths of running a small business. I am continually working to grow, and learn in the photography world that is rapidly changing. I have made several significant investments in gear and tech and education to make sure that my images are up to par with the leaders in the industry.
Now if you have managed to read this far - THANK YOU! It truly means the world to me that you are interested in my journey. Know that every shoot, like, share, comment or personal recommendation to family and friends means the world to me! To be able to be present and available for my kids and husband while also being able to financially contribute to our household is such a blessing and being able to do this and call it my job is truly a dream. I hope you have enjoyed reading about my photography journey and I look forward to continuing the journey for many years to come!
-Much Love!
Haley
