Daily Inspiration: Meet CJ Horton

Today we’d like to introduce you to CJ Horton.

Hi CJ, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a music photographer and I LOVE my job! I never expected to be in this line of work at all. Not only does my current career have nothing to do with my university degrees, but I work 11,000 miles from where I grew up. I’m originally Australian, I moved to North Carolina after getting married to my American husband. I had just started working as a wedding photographer in Charlotte when I began selling merch for a band my husband was playing in. The band asked me to try taking photos of their show. Of course, within the first few minutes I realized that this was the most fun it was possible to have at a job! We decided to move to Nashville and I quickly sought out every opportunity for concert photography that I could find. I’m so thrilled I can make a living from photography. I’ve been fortunate enough to see so much of the country, I’ve traveled to 40 states while photographing bands so far!
Hopefully I’m just starting out, but my ethos thus far has been to put my clients first and work hard to keep them. My regular clients are extremely important to me. If they need photos with 30 minutes notice, I’m going.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
A lot of people want this job, which means we’ve all got great taste because it’s so much fun! But it also means that every job and every opportunity is incredibly competitive. I have had plenty of unreturned enquiries and plenty of discouraging moments. One of my struggles is that I don’t feel that I’m great at networking, which is absolutely essential to getting work in this field. I try to let my work speak for itself, however that’s not always enough and one of my struggles is putting myself out there and making new connections.
As I’m sure is the case for a lot of creatives, an ongoing struggle for me is pricing. I try to be as flexible as possible for local bands who don’t have big budgets for their shows. Balancing that with being paid for the work I do can be tricky, particularly when most of the work to deliver a gallery of photos comes in the hours of editing at home that people don’t see.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I do all kinds of photography; weddings, engagements, boudoir, family and newborn, however I specialize in concert photography. Personally, I think what I’m best at is making dark environments look bright and bold in photos. My photography and editing style aims to make even the most dimly lit bars look vibrant. I also love to use prisms to get different effects in my photos and people often tell me they recognize my work from the kaleidoscope or sparkle effects I use.
The feedback I’m most proud to get is when clients tell me “you made it look even cooler than it looked in real life.” That means I’ve found the angles to maximize the crowd size, I’ve made it look dynamic and I’ve captured the atmosphere. Every time I hear that I feel very proud and feel like I’ve done my best.

How do you think about luck?
I have had a lot of great luck and everyone I’ve worked with has been incredibly kind. There are so many amazing concert photographers going for the same opportunities that any time I get a foot in the door with a band it feels like winning the lottery! It was amazing luck that I happened to know someone who knew someone who was a wedding photographer and wanted to teach me photography. It was also great luck that a band asked me to give concert photography a try. There have been times of good luck when people have seen my work on Instagram by chance and it’s led to great jobs, but there have also been times when I was certain that photos I took would be a big break and for whatever reason the algorithm determined, they didn’t get seen. Overall, I consider myself extremely lucky that I get to do this at all. I just try to be consistently excellent for my clients and any extra luck I get, I will take!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cjhortonphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjhorton_photo