The summer job that made Michelle Valberg learn behind the lens

Over four decades with a camera in hand, wildlife and nature photographer Michelle Valberg has travelled to all seven continents to snap bears, wolves, leopards and lions in action. How did the future Order of Canada honoree and Canadian Geographic’s very first photographer-in-residence snag an actual dream job one summer? She hired herself, naturally.

When I was 18, I really wanted to be a golf pro. Then I discovered my dad’s camera and went back to him and said, “I’m going to be a photographer.” He looked at me and said, “You’re not going to make a living being a photographer.” Even trying to become a golf pro was more realistic. I thought, I’ll show you!

I planned to start at Blacks, which at the time had camera stores all across Canada. I prepared and applied and got all dressed up and got a flat-out “No.” I was devastated; I still remember the day and what I was wearing and my big 80s hairdo. I’d tried so hard. Then I thought maybe Blacks was too competitive, so I applied next to Dairy Queen, and they said no, too! That’s all it took for me to give up.

I was stubborn enough that I figured, “Fine, if none of you are going to hire me then I’ll just hire myself.” By 19, I was studying photography at the University of Ottawa and needed a job in the summer, so it made sense to continue shooting and learning my craft. This was 1988, so video was brand new, but everyone doing it was either really low-end or really high-end. Not that I knew what that meant. I just thought that video was taking off and it would be lots of fun to do weddings and special events.

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Video was so new then that it wasn’t even really taught; I had to learn it myself because I had no idea what I was doing. Nobody did, though, as nobody had a video camera then. I kind of fell into my first clients – not fun weddings, obviously, but insurance videos. I’d slowly walk around people’s homes filming all their stuff to make a video for their safety deposit box. I did this for friends first, sometimes for free, and then they’d recommend me to their friends.

I advertised with posters in camera stores – not Blacks, obviously, independent camera stores. At one point they noticed me and I was actually hired in the job I thought I’d wanted. I only lasted a few months. By then, I’d realized I wanted to be doing something more exciting and for myself. I wanted to be out there in the community.

So I quit and went back out on my own. By then, my parents had changed their minds and fully supported my photography career. I’m so grateful to have supportive parents because I’d never have had the confidence to do this without them. I went all in: I spent about $3,500 to upgrade my tech; I got an Amiga computer to generate titles and Genlock to get it from the computer to the VHS. I had to teach myself editing, which was slow-moving.

I did 10 weddings in my first year, then 45 the next year, then 60. I did weddings, bar mitzvahs, events, commercial work, a hockey video. There wasn’t anything I said no to, really. I was working 100-hour weeks sometimes, so I had to hire support staff. The more people I hired, the more equipment the business needed. It got bigger and bigger, which is what business is all about.

As a young female in a male-dominated industry, earning people’s trust for their wedding day wasn’t easy. I mean, the first wedding I shot had Jann Arden performing, so I get why people were reluctant to hire a teenager. But I did that wedding, then another and another. Every time people asked me how old I was, and every time I had to prove myself. I realize it would have been a lot easier to just work at Blacks, but way more boring. What a gift it was that Blacks didn’t hire me.

As told to Rosemary Counter