Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Pomilla Hagood.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I carried around a little cheap film camera when I was younger. I never did anything particularly artistic with it, just documented everything I saw. When my friends were taking smiling pictures, I was looking for a real moment to connect with to remind me of the emotion later. Then, I started writing; I thought that might be a better avenue to convey feelings and memories, for being descriptive. After college (I had entered UT as an English major – really bent on that writing!), I realized I could combine those things by having images that catch real moments and tell the story while still being beautiful to look at. I want couples to hang these on their walls, to make albums, and when they look back at them to feel exactly what they felt in that moment. I want them to smile involuntarily, to almost smell their bouquet again and remember the feel of warm sunshine on their backs as they laughed and made promises for forever.
Please tell us about your art.
Most of what I make is centered around milestones and families. A husband and wife coming together, that’s a new family. I create memories for them from the surprise proposal to the engagement, bridal, wedding. Most of my clients come into my circle, we’re integrated as friends into each other’s lives. They watch my ridiculous workout videos, I see them play with their beloved pups. It’s no surprise (though incredibly humbling!) when the phone rings again when they’re announcing their first child, updating photographs before their baby starts kindergarten, doing styled sessions because they’ve designed their own kid’s clothing line. My inspiration all comes from the childhood family photographs I have with my loved ones. I want better versions of those for my clients. Not dark, blurry snapshots of a tender moment, but rather beautiful, vivid photographs of that tender moment.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
Success is a feeling for me. When I photograph a session or am rolling through the couple portraits at a wedding, there’s a moment I hit that I KNOW we have achieved some amazing memories for them that will be part of their home and part of their lives forever. Anything I get after that magical feeling is icing on the cake. That’s success for me, as an artist. As for me as a business person (and you have to be both artist and business person to hang around for 10 years), the measure of success is the client being emotional. They’re feeling something. Happy, nostalgic, bittersweet, ecstatic, you can see it all across their faces (and the amount of !!! and caps lock in the emails!).
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
You can find me most often on Instagram www.instagram.com/amandapomillaphotography
More extensive work is on www.amandapomillaphotography.com
And occasionally on the Facebooks www.facebook.com/amandapomillaphotography
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amandapomillaphotography.com
- Phone: 512-663-8202
- Email: amanda@amandapomillaphotography.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/amandapomillaphotography
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/amandapomillaphotography
Image Credit:
These are all my images, Copyright Amanda Pomilla Photography
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