Courtney Slazinik from Click it Up a Notch

Creators Chat

Great to be back on the Creators Chat Podcast and what a great guest to come back with. Our guest today was Courtney Slazinik from the ClickitUpaNotch.com blog and Instagram feed. I ran across Courtney’s blog about 7 or 8 years ago when I was trying to learn photography. She had a great Lightroom tutorial. Come to think of it, I think this is my first experience with doing any sort of virtual challenge as well. Courtney would often create little photography challenges to go with her tutorials and they were really effective in improving my skills.

My guest host for this one was Jen Bell from Jen Bell Yoga. Jen is a previous guest, and it was so great having her back to help me host this podcast. I didn’t realize at the time, that both ladies are military wives. I really wish I had the recoding started as they immediately bonded. Definitely a very tight sisterhood, which is something that Courtney talked about later in the podcast.

Courtney was always interested in photography, but it started in earnest when her husband bought her a fancy point and should camera. Unfortunately, while she was in labor with their second child, he accidently knocked it off a chair and broke it! Luckily her mom and her sister had their DSLRs there. The next day, while holding her newborn baby, she informed her husband that there was a DLSR on hold at a local camera shop and he should go and pick it up. What was he supposed to do under the circumstances? Say no?

Courtney soon realized that despite having a fancy camera, her pictures were still not what she expected. She talked to a friend of hers who showed her some of the basics and convinced her to buy a 50mm lens (much to the chagrin of her husband).

While her husband was stationed in Japan she decided to do a project 365 where she took a photo everyday and posted it to her family blog. (challengesare a great way to get better at anything). As she was browsing various blog, she realized that one of the blogs she visited could be making as much as $1,000 a month on ads. This inspired Courtney. She though if she could start a blog, she might be able to make maybe $200 a month.

So, she started posting 3 times a week. Whenever she would learn something, she would write a blog post about explain how to do it. Her audience was literally learning with her.

It took three years, but she met her first benchmark. Today, Courtney gets up to 70K visitors a month to her blog and has over 20K IG followers. All of that without showing picture of her feet (you’ll have to listen to the podcast to understand that reference)

Thanks for all your great content, Courtney. WE had a great time with you!

Also, I have posted my own photography challenge on ifUiWill. It’s a 7 day street photography challenge. Join today and post one Street photography picture every day for 1 week!