LIVE AMA with Karlie Place

[alpha-jessica-a]

Karlie Place @karlieplace is a travel and adventure content creator who uses stunning visuals to tell stories of places and empower others. You can check out some of her work on her TikTok.

It’s our pleasure to announce that Karlie will be participating in a text based AMA here on the forums on July 18th at 6pm ET!! Karlie will be answering any questions about content creation, building an online community, storytelling, editing, and more!

If you’d like to ask a question ahead of the event, post it in this thread and our forum moderators will make sure that they’re posted for Karlie to answer during the event. 

We hope to see you here!

[avmil]

I LOVE her TikToks! Karlie inspires me so much, I read the article about her on Alpha Universe and I love how she talks about storytelling. I will be there! 

https://alphauniverse.com/stories/with-over-1-million-followers-on-tiktok-see-how-this-travel-content-creator-shares-authentic-experiences/ 

[Esheeran]

So excited to see Karlie in this forum! I’d love to know what Karlie’s first paid project was and what a few of her unpaid portfolio building projects were in the first year of her career?

 

Does Karlie do any 1:1 training/mentorship programs? 

[avmil]

Okay sorry for posting a bunch but I did think of a question I wanted to ask Karlie! When you first started did you feel self conscious? I want to start sharing more stories about myself and my adventures but I feel nervous, like I have imposture syndrom! 

[alpha-stormy]

Question from social: Do you always custom-edit photos? Or do you use your presets for each batch of edits? Specifically for your clients.

[karlieplace]

5 hours ago, Esheeran said:

So excited to see Karlie in this forum! I’d love to know what Karlie’s first paid project was and what a few of her unpaid portfolio building projects were in the first year of her career?

 

Does Karlie do any 1:1 training/mentorship programs? 

I remember the first time I got paid for photography was in high school when I took a friend's senior pictures and their parents offered to pay me for my work - It blew my mind that someone was willing to offer money for something I loved doing for fun. 

You're probably more interested in my first-ever brand partnership in which I received payment. I went door to door, (or maybe better said email-to-email) around Minneapolis pitching my creative services to different small businesses. I landed a local busing company that needed headshots of staff, lifestyle images of the owner, and new branding for the company. Since I also have a background in graphic design I upsold my services and also did a rebrand for them with business cards and social graphics. It was all about figuring out how my skillset could fulfill their needs and make me money.

For years I worked unpaid as a photographer for the Gophers since I was a student athlete at UMN. This built up credibility in my portfolio and ultimately landed me a full-time job with the Minnesota Vikings. 

[karlieplace]

7 minutes ago, alpha-stormy said:

Question from social: Do you always custom-edit photos? Or do you use your presets for each batch of edits? Specifically for your clients.

Every photo I've ever delivered or posted on socials has been custom-edited. It's truly one of my favorite parts of photography. Over the years I've built up so many personal presets that I use as a jumping-off point in Lightroom. From there I add masks, spot retouching, and even drop my photos into Photoshop depending on the need: If I need it to be a different ratio for 4:5 or 9:16 ratio. If I need to remove something tricky. If I need to add a golden light flare. ect.

[karlieplace]

2 hours ago, avmil said:

Okay sorry for posting a bunch but I did think of a question I wanted to ask Karlie! When you first started did you feel self conscious? I want to start sharing more stories about myself and my adventures but I feel nervous, like I have imposture syndrom! 

There will always be some level of risk when putting your creative work out there! But that is also your super power. If you care about your work, its only natural that you want others to appreciate it too. The risk of other people's criticism is NOTHING compared to the rewards of a fulfilling career as a creative. 🙂  

[alpha-stormy]

Question from social: Basically your storyy!! How’d you get started? I know we all start from 0, but the limiting believes have been getting to me! It's so easy to think its too late for me. Can you touch on this?

[avmil]

3 minutes ago, karlieplace said:

There will always be some level of risk when putting your creative work out there! But that is also your super power. If you care about your work, its only natural that you want others to appreciate it too. The risk of other people's criticism is NOTHING compared to the rewards of a fulfilling career as a creative. 🙂  

That makes so much sense, thank you so much! 

[avmil]

I love your editing! When you edit do you use Photoshop or Lightroom? Or both?! How did you find your creative style?

[alpha-stormy]

Question from social: If you were only to bring 1 lens on your trip, which one would it be and why?

[miar]

Karlie, thanks for talking with us today! I love your social media so much, you really inspire me! I was wondering, looking ahead, what are your goals or aspirations for the future of your career as a content creator? Are there specific projects or destinations you're excited to explore next?

[karlieplace]

Just now, alpha-stormy said:

Question from social: Basically your storyy!! How’d you get started? I know we all start from 0, but the limiting believes have been getting to me! It's so easy to think its too late for me. Can you touch on this?

MY STORY:

My creative career started when I studied Visual Communication and Business in college at the University of Minnesota. I got a job with the Minnesota Vikings out of college - which was a total dream job for me at that point. Photography has always been a core pillar of what I share online from Reels to TikToks. So I naturally was sharing all about my life and the things I was creating on a day-to-day basis. Whether it was a day in the life of an MN Vikings graphic designer, or doing a mini-styled shoot with friends in my neighborhood, or taking pictures for a cool airbnb while on vacation and sending them a gallery for free - I always naturally was generating a lot of creative work. It was a shock to me when people/businesses started to want to pay for that type of work. With the rise of influencer marketing and the growth of my platforms, I started getting more confident, and got really good at pitching my services to brands in the travel niche. Now almost 3 years later, I've quit my 9-5 and make 6 figures doing brand partnerships!

IS IT TOO LATE?:
It's never too late to change your life! Vincent Van Gogh famously didn't have his first art gallery showing until he was 32. The industry always has room for originality and creativity. Despite the travel/photography industry seeming saturated, it continuously changes allowing room new voices. My advice is to focus on creating unique content and honing your storytelling. It doesn't have to be perfect at the start - But you have to start to eventually become perfect! 🙂 

[Minimooch]

Hi! Love your work! Wondering how is your strategy when it comes to back content up and storage them long term? Especially with a million photo and videos taken for each trip! 

[Minimooch]

Also wondering the monetizing process- for hotel collaboration do you negotiate and charge a fee or are you happy to do contra collab?

[Minimooch]

How do you delivery videos to your clients? Thank you so much Karlie - you’ve been a huge inspiration! 😊

[karlieplace]

4 hours ago, alpha-stormy said:

Question from social: If you were only to bring 1 lens on your trip, which one would it be and why?

For years I ONLY had a 35mm f1.4 in my bag. The way it captures light is unmatched in my opinion and gives everything this dreamy feeling that I've never been able to achieve with other lenses. Even now, with 4 lenses in my bag, I go back to the 35mm if I want to guarantee a good shot that lives up to my personal style.

[karlieplace]

4 hours ago, Minimooch said:

Hi! Love your work! Wondering how is your strategy when it comes to back content up and storage them long term? Especially with a million photo and videos taken for each trip! 

As I have shifted from only shooting photos, to now also capturing drone & video footage I have had to invest a bit in storage. I've tested a handful of SSD (solid state drives) to store content. Lacie brand always get bogged down once it's full becoming unusable. SanDisk have crashed leaving me in panic and recovery mode. Right now I love the Samsung T7 2 TB drives.

For efficient organization on a hard drive, it is beneficial to adhere to a consistent naming convention for all your project folders. A method that can prove effective is structuring your folders based on categories or themes such as trips, using a format like "YY-MM-DD-Destination_ProjectName" to easily locate and manage your content. An example could be "24-4-9-Japan_EFUltimateBreak" for a project related to a trip to Japan on April 9, 2024. I’ve been doing this since 2018 and its a breeze to find any project on any harddrive.

[karlieplace]

17 minutes ago, avmil said:

I love your editing! When you edit do you use Photoshop or Lightroom? Or both?! How did you find your creative style?

Thank you! I didn't realize I had found my personal style until a friend of mine told me "I always know a 'Karlie Picture' on my feed before I even read the username." I think your personal style can only come from years of trial and error. I encourage you to go out and shoot concepts that come from your own mind or are a combination of other ideas that inspire you. Then over time you should fine-tune your editing technique and eventually, you'll have a really solid pattern of Ideation > Shooting > Editing > Curating that will feel uniquely your own. 

[Lori Place]

You have accomplished so much personally and professionally. How are you going to continue to challenge yourself and continue to find things that excite you and keep yourself so upbeat!! 🥰

[karlieplace]

18 minutes ago, miar said:

Karlie, thanks for talking with us today! I love your social media so much, you really inspire me! I was wondering, looking ahead, what are your goals or aspirations for the future of your career as a content creator? Are there specific projects or destinations you're excited to explore next?

Hi hi, thank you so much for the kind words! 🥹

I'm particularly excited about the possibility of organizing a highly curated group trip, where I can share my creative vision and all these tips with others. I'm also recently feeling really inspired by some of my fellow creators and their ability to help other people break free from the 9-5 grind and do content for a living. I'd love to write an EBook or Guide on all my photography tips that help take my images to another level.

A bit selfishly - I want to continue to push the limits of where this career will take me. I've done a lot of cool tourism destination work but I'd love to get more into storytelling of lesser-known destinations like Son Doong cave in Vietnam or other wild locations like Namibia. 

[alpha-stormy]

We are almost at time, so please submit any last-minute questions you may have for Karlie.

[karlieplace]

8 minutes ago, Lori Place said:

You have accomplished so much personally and professionally. How are you going to continue to challenge yourself and continue to find things that excite you and keep yourself so upbeat!! 🥰

It always seems like other people have it all figured out! Personally, I feel like there are so many things I have yet to venture into due to anxiety or fear of it not working out. I'd be so excited to position myself as an educator in this space ✨which I'm kinda doing right now.✨ I'd love to put out helpful materials for others looking to go down the same route I have.

I also think it's important to reflect on what I've already built for myself. I'd be happy to continue my career as it is now without any huge changes because I'm already so lucky to be living this life I have!

[karlieplace]

23 minutes ago, Minimooch said:

How do you delivery videos to your clients? Thank you so much Karlie - you’ve been a huge inspiration! 😊

I use Pixieset.com  to deliver client galleries! Don’t underestimate the power of professionalism, it can go a long way!

I use DropBox to deliver video files.