How a Female Videographer Books 80 Weddings a Year in a Male-Dominated Industry

In today's wedding video business market, the female demographic is vastly unrepresented and is far outnumbered by men. In this insightful video, discover the ways that one female videographer found success and is booking 80 weddings a year! 

A common question that comes up in the wedding video business or even the filmmaking industry is that if you're a female, can you succeed in making a living doing video? The answer is yes! In this video from Parker Walbeck, he highlights one of his students, Kaylor Ficklin. The video shows how Ficklin, who picked up her first camera just three years ago, is making a full-time living out of it. Walbeck gives the audience an inside look on how Kaylor shoots her weddings, how she markets herself, and how she continues to succeed in the business. The biggest takeaway from this video for me was the way she works. She explains that the way she got to where she is today was with pure dedication. After watching this video, I was inspired to go out there and keep shooting even when it's hard in order to accomplish my dreams.

Do you have any tips on what it takes to be successful in video industry? Share them in the comments!

Eli Dreyfuss's picture

Eli Dreyfuss is a professional portrait photographer based in sunny Miami, Florida. He focuses on making ordinary people look like movie stars in his small home studio. Shortly after graduating high school he quickly established himself in the art world and became an internationally awarded & published artist.

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87 Comments
Previous comments

Really? If you don't want to be stereotyped, don't act stereotypical.

Humour passing you by again, Sam?

I didn't realize it was supposed to be funny but now that you mention it, I don't think it is but okay.

Now, that IS funny! I'm the least fragile person you would EVER meet. But that's okay. I hope you feel superior now.

Well, your comments on this thread have been a bit patronizing. Not a lot, but a bit. Either I've misread them (a possibility) or you feel superior to those of us you ridicule. Based on your comments, it was no jump but rather, a natural progression.

Oh, not in jest at all.

I didn't think so.

There's hope for you yet.

Be patient, God is still working on me! ;-)

God really has nothing to do with it; if he's our hope we're truly lost.

If I'm right, we'll see. If you're right, we won't! ;-)

Nope. Not feeling superior at all. smh

stfu? lol

🤦‍♂️

Thanks for taking the time to comment on the post! Really appreciate if

I've never even seen that emoji. What is it?

I don't really know and don't really care too much either

1. Find a mentor (not gender specific)
2. Advertise using social media and referrals (not gender specific)
3. Guy makes ridiculous comment, female photographers give out candy.
4. Females have an advantage communicating with the bride and people in general.
5. Continually learn more (not gender specific)

Female specific challenges:
People think less of female videographers? (What? If anything the bride has more input into wedding decisions than the groom, so brides secretly sexist?)
Glide cam is too heavy for females (sexist)

Thankfully this video doesn’t play the victim or worse, the feminist.

Equality already exists, feminism is now about domination.

I was actually going to post the summary but wasn't allowed to. Glad you did so in the comments. The point I was trying to make is that the industry is clearly dominated by males so I wanted to highlight that notion. Additionally I wanted to bring attention to great work by her. Did you get a chance to check it out?

Since you seem to be amenable to debate, something that gets written a lot in the comments, but never addressed is: Is there any reason the video/photography/whatever industry SHOULD reflect society as a whole? I mean, I can easily accept that some percentage is the result of overt and/or subconscious sexism but isn't it possible a much smaller percentage of women are interested in those careers? I don't know the answer but nobody will, while the question continues to be dismissed. To be fair, you didn't offer a reason for the disparity but most people will latch on to sexism as the cause.

She is definitely very talented and deserves the success because she worked her ass off and earned it.

I just get annoyed when non gender specific stuff gets dragged through the SJW movement and connected to “isms”. In my opinion it diminishes her achievements.

That is the most sophisticated put down. Why don't you send that to her personally?

Because she is awesome!

She sure is!! Have you seen her work yet? SO good.

Top drawer!

13 minutes for her to explain that the challenges she faced were 1: the Glide cam setup is heavy, and 2: being nice to people will be good for your career. Also, being an assistant to a professional is a better way to learn than watching YouTube videos ( ironic much? ). Not much actual useful information in this video. Just advertising mixed with fluff.

it's all what you take from it. I personally gained some useful information from it. Even if it was just a simple reminder to work harder to achieve my dreams.

I get the sense, from your portfolio, you work pretty damn hard now!

Can’t stand these “how a FEMALE blah blah blah” what ever happened to “how THIS ONE blah blah is doing blah blah very well” and what you could do to improve

Well done Kaylor. Keep up the good work!

Suggestions for future Fstoppers articles:

- How a bald photographer achieved...
- How a left handed photographer...
- How a red headed videographer...
- How a right-eye-dominant videographer...
- How a left-eye-dominant photographer...

Feel free to add to the list!

Not taking a dig at anyone or being a “soft male” or whatever the argument in here was about but these types of articles highlight traits of people and take away from how good these photographers are at their craft.

This photographer is good and successful. How about we highlight that without the extra? Her being female and a kickass photographer are two different things.

Or, we could just label every article “male/female, black/not black, color blind/not color blind, schooled/YouTube, Instagram famous/sells fake moon photos like Peter Lik...

It’s tiring to see this every week.

I thought it was also just an long advert for the Glide Pro :) Curiously though, is audio not a factor when using the Glide Pro and DSLR? I do not see any external mics etc...

I can't stand the word "underrepresented" in this context... I mean this stuff gets really old. The idea that ANYTHING in life should be evenly split between the sexes is ridiculous. There's no quota when it comes to female videographers or any other occupation. If there are fewer women doing it than men, it's not because someone stopped them from doing it.

Was the photographer with her wearing jeans to fancy wedding? Come on!

What the heck FStoppers, these comments are full of dudes complaining about any segment that chooses to highlight women in a male dominated industry. Can you not take a look at these comments and real there is a reason this needs to be highlighted? Its just a bunch of dudes arguing among themselves about who's an "SJW" and why some people don't want to talk about the gender skew in videography and photography.

Research has shown that showing examples of women who counter stereotypes, helps to reduce bias.
Does this content really hurt anyone?
I rarely see women behind the camera, especially with videography, I go to conferences and events that are heavily male dominated. People assume I can't carry my Ronin S for a full day shoot.

I find videos like this encouraging and inspiring. If your a male photographer/videographer, maybe this video isn't aimed at you? Don't get all offended by that.

What a Joke. You guys must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for new content.