Grace Chon is a commercial and editorial animal photographer, acclaimed for her highly expressive portraits of animals and authentic photos of people and their pets. Her clients include ad agencies, pet brands, magazines, publishing companies, celebrities, and TV shows.

While working in the ad industry in 2008, Grace started a side hustle as a family pet photographer, which grew faster than she could have imagined. 9 months later, despite the massive economic recession, she quit her day job to focus full time on animal photography and has never looked back.

From creating award winning, viral ad campaigns to personal photography work that has gone viral multiple times, Grace knows how to craft ideas that get noticed. She believes the key to life is tuning in deeply to what your natural gifts are and sharing them others. She is passionate about empowering and teaching others how to do the same, which you can listen to in her podcast called Creativity School. 

She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and 2 rescue dogs Maeby and Zoey.

In this conversation we talk about:

• The misunderstanding our communities have over having a career in the arts;
• Why it took Grace so long to call herself an artist; and 
• What you can do to build trust in yourself and your art.

Watch here:

Special thank you to Grace for putting up with my pup (you, my dear viewer, too) and sharing her wisdom with us. View her photography work at www.gracechon.com and listen to her podcast here.

You can also catch the interview she mentioned with Andrea Jones about social media here.

And if you want to join me live for a future Creator Profile be sure to join our free Facebook Group called Becoming Artist Strong. Request membership here.

Now what’s your biggest takeaway from today’s conversation? Don’t forget to comment below and get the conversation going!