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Josh Beaton of www.joshbeaton.com and www.thetweenesteemproject.org creates and photographs luxury portraits with an edge. If you check out his clean but attention-grabbing website, you'll see he is one of Chicago’s Premier Portrait Photographers.
His portraiture has a distinctive, dark, romantic look, and it's easy to see why clients would be drawn to him and his photography.
What's interesting about his journey is this is all relatively new! He only recently left his full-time job and has gone all in with his photography business, including taking on a lease for a new and large studio.
Josh popped up on my radar when Premium Member Kerry Struble emailed me to say…
Hi Andrew!
Have you heard about photographer Josh Beaton? He runs a teen-empowering non-profit called The Tween Esteem Project and just had a beautiful gallery show.
It's not just a portrait promotion, but rather, an entire program for underprivileged teens and teens that have self-esteem issues, struggle with bullying, addiction, etc.
There's a whole self-help component that includes connecting with a mentor, social media training, and more. He's actually started a legit non-profit organisation!
That was enough to have me reach out to Josh for this interview, where he shares how he was able to use his photography to finance a project that helps underprivileged children in his community and, hopefully, the country. At the same time, being paid for his photographic skills and mastery.

Here's some more of what we covered in the interview:

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My business wasn't ready when I took the jump. I just, you know, jump and the net will appear. We kind of really leaned on that. — Josh Beaton
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What is your big takeaway?
Following this interview, I’d love to know if you're taking anything from what Josh shared. Is there something you heard that excited or motivated you to the point where you thought, yeah, I'm going to do that! If so, leave your thoughts in the comments below; let me know your takeaways and what you plan to implement in your business due to what you heard in today's episode.
I don't want to lower my price, because I don't want to devalue the work. It's a lot harder to go from $100 shoots to $10,000 shoots versus, you know, kind of just going a little bit in the middle there. — Josh Beaton
If you have any questions I missed,

551: Josh Beaton – How to use your photography to finance a passion project and get paid

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