For a long time, I thought being a photography educator meant I needed a shop full of templates, mini-courses, and downloadable resources. But anytime I tried to create those resources, something felt off — like I was handing people a spoon when they needed a kitchen renovation. In this episode, I’m sharing how The Photo Fuel Retreat & Mastermind came to life. This retreat for family photographers is my most passionate project yet and I really believe it’s the most meaningful avenue for impact I can make.
The problem with digital products
When I first started teaching photographers, I sold a few templates and even made a small course about workflow and systems. But I had trouble talking about them and selling them, because deep down I wasn’t bought in. I knew they were helpful, but only with a lot of context.
And as fast as the culture and tools and software were changing, it felt insincere to provide such tailored solutions that would be out-of-date in a few months.
The group coaching experiment
I loved doing 1:1 mentoring, so eventually, I explored the idea of small group coaching with The Homestyle Accelerator. The first round sold out quickly and got good feedback — but I left it feeling like we had crammed a lot of content into a short amount of time, without a lot of space to develop relationship, feedback, or implementation.
Something was still missing.
My experience with family photography retreats
In 2022, I attended Brooke Schultz’s Love Soaked Mastermind in California. At that point I wasn’t teaching, wasn’t mentoring, and didn’t have a podcast. I was a family photographer ready for something more and not sure how to get there.
That retreat was transformational, and it had everything to do with the trust and experience that came from being in the room. The same thing happened when I attended Rachel Larsen Weaver’s retreat and mastermind in 2024.
I started my business fresh out of graduate school when I turned my attention away from the classroom to pursue photography. The idea of marrying these two passions of teaching and photography was there from the beginning. But it wasn’t until I began attending in-person events that it really made sense in the way I’d imagined.
Why online spaces weren’t enough
I still believe there’s real value in courses and workshops for learning specific skills or even in certain seasons of your life or business. There are also certain things a PDF just can’t fix – things like creative stagnation, burnout, shifting your style, raising your prices without losing all your clients.
You can hear advice about all of those things while you’re folding laundry, but it doesn’t give you the accountability you need to make them happen. Sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty and really do the work.
Designing the retreat for family photographers
Once I let myself take the retreat idea seriously, it felt both terrifying and freeing.
I decided the first retreat would be close to home and an easier foot in the door for me to manage. When I imagined what the actual sessions would look like, I knew I didn’t want styled shoots. I wanted the them to be closest to what photographers would actually experience with their real clients.
Challenging homes, resistant toddlers, the full range of it. I didn’t want to just open the door for creating pretty photos, but to practice skills they could weave into their sessions down the road.
Community over competition
One of the things I kept coming back to when creating this retreat is what happens when you sit across a table from five other photographers and you know their names and their stories.
You stop being jealous of people’s work and start becoming their biggest cheerleader.
Comparison is one of the biggest problems I hear about from photographers these days. We need more of collaborative energy in our industry, and small group by small group, I’m hoping to help foster more of it.
Believing in your offer
I don’t have a huge following or a big team. By a lot of metrics, an in-person experience like this shouldn’t make sense. All the coaches told me to “scale” through “passive income.”
But I’d rather make a deep impact on a handful of people whose faces I know and whose growth I get to witness than sell a bunch of of $5 templates. I’d rather my work be face to face than working on systems logistics and delivery funnels.
I know for certain that the photographers attending these retreats will experience transformation that will impact their lives and business. To me, that’s the absolute best use of my time as a photography educator.
Find It Quickly:
0:00 – What I thought being an educator was “supposed to look like”
2:00 – What wasn’t working
4:00 – Group Coaching
6:40 – The initial idea for a retreat
10:00 – Where online resources fall short
12:30 – Deciding to go all in on in-person
14:00 – Designing the retreat
17:00 – The transformation
Mentioned in this Episode:
PhotoFuel Retreat Waitlist >> https://www.leahoconnell.com/retreat
You might also like:
Episode 9: Connecting with clients by owning your story
Episode 37: What I’m working on in slow season as a family photographer
