Lost: Betsy Blue Photography

When she’s not taking photographs or editing, you can most likely find her with her family in her backyard. You may also find some chickens while you’re there! This multifaceted wonder is Betsy Tomasello of Betsy Blue. She is an editorial, commercial, wedding and lifestyle photographer who carries herself with grace and class. It is our pleasure to share with you a moment of her journey, especially the moment where she felt her ground shaking underneath her. That’s one of the only things you can hope for during a time like that, isn’t it? Ironically, Betsy used the holes in her foundation to dig deep and re-root herself stronger than ever.

What was it like after the excitement of beginning your creative journey faded away?
My creative journey into photography began over 16 years ago, born out of a need to find more beauty around me. I had been in the legal field for many years and found myself yearning to just focus on simple, pure beauty more in my life. The images I created were so comforting and rewarding but it was the stories that came with them that blew my mind.

Through it all, I have never lost the excitement of my creative journey. Days have definitely been challenging, and I have never had a month go by in those 16 years that I didn’t learn something new, but overall the drive to fill my life with beauty, by serving those around me, has kept my creative fires burning richly.

Have you ever experienced a time when you felt lost in your business or life?
After my first child was born, I definitely struggled to find my footing with work. I have always been dedicated to the idea of raising my own babies, but juggling a baby, having a busy hubby, keeping up with our small farm, and managing my own business, took some re-prioritizing. 

Questioning whether or not my work was a good fit for our family seemed preposterous even to voice, since being a creative is such a big part of me. But beginning with my first child, and a few times thereafter, I did put words to that question. My saint of a husband gently waged war together with me over our family's priorities and where and how being a photographer fit in. Whether or not I would capture life around me was never the discussion, but harnessing my creative gift as a business was. 

Each time I wrestled, it took less and less time to figure out. I believe it’s healthy to reassess goals and priorities, and those wrestling matches soon turned into just that…an intentional annual realignment of my creative business with our goals and priorities as a family. 

Now taking those assessments in stride, helps keep me from feeling deflated by the challenges of being a business owner. If running a business were just about doing what I love (aka taking photographs), the struggle would never be real. But running a business requires so much more…I am my own Chief Everything Officer. And there’s nothing simple or quick about that. But learning to hold onto what I love doing, and send the rest out the door, has really helped me manage the requirements running a business demands.

If you could travel back in time to share advice with yourself before this happened, what would it be?

Shooting film was definitely the biggest turning point in my entire career. What I sought to capture with digital + hours of editing, is exactly what my lab returns to my inbox. Goodbye hours of mundane image processing…hello beach days with my family. I just wish I could have found that perfection from the start. But alas, that’s part of my journey too. Learning to perfect my technical skills to shoot well digitally, requiring very little post-processing, helped me transition absolutely smoothly into film. 

Leaning on a few dear mentors was the other key, and I’m beyond grateful for their guidance. Now, in turn, I love mentoring others to share wisdom the years slowly provided me…in the hopes that I can save them at least a decade of learning on their own. ;-) Nobody has that kind of time…and there’s just too much beauty out there to enjoy instead.

PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY

STORY DETAILS

Photographs by Amanda K. Photography | Makeup by Renée Bruhn