Dreams to Reality: Path of First Two Years

With most things in life, there is an equilibrium to events. You plan for terrible events to reduce their impact, hoping they don’t happen. The better the planning, the faster you can recover from them or limit the damage. On the opposite side, you try to put yourself in a position to seize opportunities when they reveal themselves. Especially if you work towards creating them yourself.

So, in January 2021, I started my photography business, Pharr Out Media. I created a website, a few social media accounts and started networking with like-minded people. A first big step completed.

Remember when I talked about terrible events earlier? In February 2021, they diagnosed my mother with kidney cancer. A gut punch of epic proportions. The prognosis wasn’t good. I had a brief time to prepare for this. My sister and I did the best we could, but in less than a month, she was gone. The largest of all knock out blows.

Then in March I got Covid. It knocked me down to my knees. After several hospital visits, an antibiotic infusion, and two weeks in bed, I recovered. The helplessness I had during this time crushed me. It took another three weeks for all the effects to dissipate. I consider myself a lucky one to get that close to death but survive. Some people were not that lucky, including my cousin. He was a year older than me and didn’t make it.

Time marched on. I wanted to improve my quality of life. After waiting five years, I scheduled to replace my left knee damaged ten years earlier. It looked like things were on an upswing. I could get back to some activities I enjoyed when I was younger, like hiking and nature photography. But at the end of April, after eleven years, my employer eliminated my position three days before my surgery. I felt like Rocky Balboa, constantly getting knocked down, only to stand up and get knocked down again.

So, after successful surgery, there aren’t too many things you can do with a seven-inch incision going down the middle of your leg. So worked on the backend parts of my business while I started physical therapy. I think you know how this is going to go, right? Yep, I got a skin infection. Ten days of IV antibiotic infusions followed. Another fun thing is the pain meds kept me pretty much in and out of consciousness. Three weeks later, I could walk without a cane and drive again. Yippee!

Now it is July and time to do it all over again. Remember when I told you about opportunities before? Well, this was mine. Since I didn’t have to go back to work, I scheduled my other knee to be replaced. Since I knew what to expect from my first knee replacement, it went better with no setbacks.

Then in October 2021 I started strongly. Instead of working on my business, I could finally work in my business. The first big break was in real estate photography. I started shooting for a few realtors, then picked up some rental contract work that kept me busy the rest of the year. Things were moving forward, and the future looked bright.

2022 saw my business expand into new photography areas. Thirty years ago, I did portrait work for several years as a side hustle. So, I started this again with headshots, portraits, and personal branding. Then, in the summer, I picked up another contract to provide images of swimming pools from all over Atlanta.

Then in August my apartment lease ended, and the rental company told me the apartments in my building were to be renovated. I could either move to another apartment that was recently renovated with a higher rent for the same size apartment or move out of the complex. Since my mother’s passing, I wanted to move closer to my only sibling. My sister lived in Florida, and I was in Atlanta. It left me with a choice. Continue to build my business and make it tougher to move in the future or take the opportunity of my lease ending to move to Florida.

In September 2022, I move to Lakeland, Florida and restarted my business. Knowing what worked for me the first time, I started networking with other business owners. Slowly learning the area, how businesses worked down here, I moved forward. Business was slow, but it picked up a little.

The grind was real as I chugged along in 2023, gradually building up the business. In June 2023, the business expanded again with Fine Art images. The goal was to slowly launch this and try to get into galleries and art festivals. I got into a small online gallery. I really enjoyed showing my work, and this was the most logical step forward.

Then in August the business expanded again into equestrian photography. It was fun to shoot the different disciplines of horse shows. They all are different and have their own way of capturing them. I even shot a polo match. Very exciting.

Now my first year in Florida is over and the third anniversary of Pharr Out Media is coming up in January 2024. It’s still growing, but not as fast as I want it to, but that’s always the case, isn’t it? Patience and persistence. Stay the course. Keep grinding. That’s what I’m doing now.

I’ve learned so much from so many people in the trenches of running a business just like me. The list is too long to mention them all, but I want to thank them for their critique, advice, and mentorship, even if they didn’t know they were giving all that to me. I’m glad to call them my friends.