Meet Tracy Elena | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Tracy Elena and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Tracy, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
I started working in retail at age 15 and have had an abundance of jobs since, both in retail and food service. Throughout that time, I found myself never being truly fulfilled or content with where I was, and I was constantly looking for something new and different. While initially starting in retail, I already knew I had a love as well as an eye for photography, and I was semi aware of the fact that I did eventually want this to be my career, I was just never fully focused or fixated on making that happen. However, after a few years of working mindless day jobs, I realized that I needed to start putting in an effort to make my photography a full time career. I wanted a life for myself where I could be my own boss doing what made me happy, as well as have the ability to travel and explore new places while simultaneously making a living for myself. I feel lucky enough to not have chosen photography because it allowed me to do those things, but have chosen it because I fell in love with it as an art form, while later on realizing that it did in fact just so happen to also allow me to do exactly what I was inspired to do as well. Though retail still plays a role in my life currently, my business, Wavering Seas, has also been born and is slowly but surely growing into everything I’ve envisioned it to be.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I started photography in my early teen years, mostly messing around with a cheap DSLR and phone camera, using random editing apps to make weird collages or “abstract” photography art. As I grew a bit older, I discovered my love for traveling, and naturally expanded my photography by shooting my travels and places outdoors that I loved. I began shooting hikes I would go on, various landscapes, wildlife, etc., and eventually began falling in love with surf photography. After I graduated high school, I made the spontaneous decision to hop on a plane to O’ahu, Hawaii, where I ended up residing for a little under a year, where when I wasn’t working in a small vegetarian store, I’d spend most of my time on the North Shore, shooting different surf conditions and surfers in the water. I fell in love with it, and took the hobby back home with me to where my true home-base at the time was, New Jersey, and eventually created my business selling surf and travel prints, and named that business “Wavering Seas”. After some time consistently shooting surf, I also decided I wanted to make the effort to dabble in portrait photography. I’ve always been an introvert, so portrait photography wasn’t an idea that ever came naturally to me, but more so was a challenging subject in my mind that I wanted to be educated on. Though for me, every portrait shoot I do tends to come with a bit of social anxiety, it lessens every time, and I’m still learning that I truly do enjoy meeting new people and getting to hear their stories while photographing who they are. My photography is ever changing, both in subject and editing style, and though I shoot various subjects, I’m still trying to find my niche, which at times can be frustrating, but knowing that there is something out there for me that I’ve yet to discover is equally as exciting as it is frustrating, and I look forward everyday to learning more about my chosen medium and seeing where else it will end up taking me.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
If I were to show anybody around Colorado, we’d end up exploring and discovering places together. Anywhere in the mountains is a place I would be interested in going. I love challenging hikes and remote places, so being tucked away in between different peaks is always ideal, grabbing food at whatever place we end up passing by, just for the adventure and spontaneity of it all. I’ve spent only a short period of my time in Colorado, but would love to revisit Mount Bierstadt as well as Chasm Lake, but in Colorado the list of where to go is never ending.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d love to pay a shoutout to my few friends and select family members who have never stopped encouraging me and motivating me to grow my photography as well as my business, and have always been a spark of light in my life.

Website: waveringseas.com

Instagram: waveringseas