Finding beauty (and selling it)
Dallas-based fashion photographer Dixie Dixon '07 is emerging artsy entrepreneur.
by Darren White | Special to The TCU Magazine
Dixie Dixon '07 credits her entrepreneurial management training in the M.J. Neeley School of Business with her quick rise in the photography world.
Dixie Dixon '07 is probably shooting a photograph right now.
The 24-year-old Houston-raised, Dallas-based fashion photographer started her own business, Dixie Dixon Photography, in May 2006, and since then, she's seldom been far from a camera.
Her client list boasts a mix of high-profile names, including country music star Jack Ingram, and up-and-coming local businesses, like Darian Thomas Designs and Billy Jealousy. She regularly travels to New York and Los Angeles for shoots, and as if that wasn't enough, in July, Dixon guested as a photographer on Doheny Models, a reality show slated to hit television this fall.
"I've always had that 'fire in your belly syndrome' as [Neeley Entrepreneurship Center William M. Dickey Entrepreneur in Residence] David Minor calls it," Dixon says.
Her peers are taking notice as well. In 2007, Dixon won the Hy Sheanin Emerging Photographer of the Year from Wedding & Portrait Photographers International. Her work has also been published in Rangefinder, a professional photography magazine.
Dixon says the business lessons she learned, as well as the relationships she made, while receiving a bachelor's degree in entrepreneurial management at TCU aided her quick rise to in the photography world. For Dixon, doing good business is crucial; she spends hours each week following up with clients, sending them mini-portfolios and thank-you notes, the latter a lesson she learned from Minor, who she says was one of her favorite professors at TCU.
"I'm an artist first, but the business side of photography is everything," Dixon says. "You can take beautiful photos, but you have to sell them to make a living in photography."
Business aside, Dixon says she's always looking for new people, places and things to photograph.
"I'm always looking for beauty in the world," Dixon says, "and I want to find the beauty in every person."