Miles Witt Boyer | How to create a life & business with intention

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Nadia Meli
March 10, 2022

Welcome back to OpenFrame, a podcast by Pixieset, where we have honest and inspiring conversations with photographers and creatives, to help each other build a life and business that we love and are proud of.


For episode #2, we have fantastic Miles Witt Boyer as our guest - a wedding photographer and creator of The Photographic Collective. Miles is based in Arkansas, US but photographs weddings all over the States and beyond.

In our conversation, we dive deep straight away and speak about living and working intentionally, setting your priorities and sticking to them, as well as defining what success and community mean.

Here are some of our favorite ideas from our discussion with Miles Witt Boyer:
  • The best thing that can happen to a photographer is a crisis of self, where you come through the other side, less focused on your art, your place in the story, and more focused on the actual story you’re telling, and the actual people hiring you to do that.
  • Create in a way that feels authentic to you, rather than following industry trends. Otherwise, it won't be long until you lose excitement towards your work and start doubting yourself.
  • When you start being more intentional and do exactly what you want to do, your social media engagement and popularity might actually go down. But the people who are hiring you - know exactly who you are, and that’s what matters. On top of that, you produce work that you are proud of and can stand behind.
  • When you post online, do you know who you are speaking to? Most of us don’t. We’re casting this very wide net, a mile wide and an inch deep, desperately hoping for people to affirm us and our work.
  • To build a valuable and sustainable business - connect to like-minded people and create a community around you. Invest in your relationships first. The commercial success with follow.
  • The product you provide isn’t the photograph, it’s the service of being present. It’s not about the photograph, and it never has been.
  • Often we hustle and struggle for the idea to gain new clients, but are we investing enough in the clients that we already have? Our existing customers can be our greatest marketers if we take good care of them!
  • Why invest hours and hours in other people liking your content, if that is hours and hours that can be spent with your family.
  • The purpose in opening a business wasn’t to turn your hobby into a profession, it was to provide for your family. If your work comes at the expense of your family then there is no longer a purpose.

Miles Witt Boyer’s approach to life and business is a great reminder to be more intentional. It can be so easy to get caught up in ‘running’ our businesses, tackling our to-do lists, booking more and more clients - that we forget why we got into this industry in the first place.

When was the last time you stopped to assess your business choices? Do they still align with your life goals? 


You can follow Miles Witt Boyer’s work via his website and Instagram page. Or check out his Photographic Collective Podcast. Our host is Nadia Meli, you can find her work at nadiameli.com

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to share it with the people you love, and be sure to subscribe to Open Frame podcast via your favorite streaming platform (Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, etc). This conversation is also available on Youtube if you prefer to view our lovely faces!

Other links mentioned in this episode: Simon Sinek “Start with why” / The golden Circle Video TED Talk

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Nadia Meli
March 10, 2022

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