I’M AN INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER AND ENTREPRENEUR CURRENTLY RESIDING IN AMSTERDAM. I’M THE FOUNDER OF PICT.LY AND PHOT.ME AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ONGOINGPRO.COM.

THE EARLY YEARS

At my core, I am an idea person. I was born with an intrinsic, unquenchable drive to create. At five years old I sat at my father’s drafting table and sketched out inventions on huge sheets of plotter paper. By the time I was ten, I had a full portfolio of work—drawings and paintings from years of artistic expression, notebooks filled with ideas. In high school I joined theater and fell in love with backstage roles, spending years directing plays, running lights, building sets. A life of creativity.

With the new millennium fast approaching and the age of the internet in its infancy, I took to technology as a new medium for my art. I reveled in the degree of precision I could achieve using software as an artistic tool. I was in awe of how elegantly we could combine aesthetics and technology; how easily we could all connect to one another to exchange knowledge and services. With strong entrepreneurial roots, it was only natural that I would take to the internet. In no other format is it possible to wake up with an idea in the morning and launch by nightfall. I was hooked.

AN ENTREPRENEUR IS BORN

In the year 2000, during my first year of college, I began developing my ideas into full-fledged online businesses and sold them one by one to an eager crowd of internet entrepreneurs. I learned everything I needed to know as quickly as possible, often outsourcing my large workload to freelancers around the country. I was just seventeen years old. I quit my job that year. Not long after that, flooded with work and feeling confident in my success, I quit school just shy of a degree. I have never regretted it.

More than twelve years later, I’ve launched over a hundred startups online—businesses catering to entrepreneurs; unique concepts focused on internet privacy, financial transactions, contractual agreements, online trust, and standalone improvements to popular products and marketplaces.

Through it all, I learned first-hand how to build, sell, and communicate better in the real world. This is what I know: There are few things more liberating and rewarding than running your own business; no lessons better learned than through experience. Education, formal or informal, is a lifetime pursuit for anyone determined to succeed. Passion will get you far, knowledge and action will get you much further.

THE NEW PURSUIT

Artists are always seeking new methods of expression, new sources of inspiration. Soon, I began to branch out. I picked up my first DSLR and started traveling extensively throughout the US and abroad. I launched into stock photography with the compositional approach of a graphic designer, and did quite well. I opened a studio in Metro Detroit, and was offered a contract with Getty Images. My commercial, architectural, and editorial work was used around the world, published in every medium—the internet, print advertising, television, books.

I experimented and explored different genres and found myself taken by travel photography: from the sunny vistas in the Southwest USA, to the cold ruins of Detroit, to the culturally rich and rugged South African countryside. I spent a month in Cape Town learning from Yuri Arcurs, the world’s biggest commercial photographer. Fully inspired, I moved to Amsterdam and shot cityscapes, immersing myself in another language and culture. I fell in love with the traveler lifestyle.

Today, I’ve combined my passion for photography and travel with my entrepreneurial spirit, developing tools and resources for budding photographers, hosting photography meetups and workshops around the world, and seeking out groundbreaking collaborations. My next goal is to branch out again, working towards a lifelong dream of producing more exotic and meaningful editorial work coupled with philanthropic pursuits.

ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB:

http://hillaryfox.com

http://phot.me/hillaryfox

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2013 PLANS: PHOTOGRAPHY, ART & TRAVEL

Spend New Years in Europe - Host photowalks and workshops in Amsterdam - Visit Silicon Valley, California - Meet up at Facebook HQ for a photo hack and photowalk - Join a San Francisco photowalk - Shoot landscapes in the Mojave Desert - Shoot abandoned buildings in Detroit, Michigan - Write and publish first photography book - Drive across the USA on a great American road trip - Host a Southwest USA workshop - Attend Photoshop World 2013 Las Vegas - Camp at Zion, Bryce, Death Valley National Parks - Host a fashion workshop in Paris, France - Begin an editorial collaboration in Africa - Spend New Years Eve in Cape Town, South Africa

PAST TRAVEL HIGHLIGHTS

Spent a month living and shooting in Africa - Studied under Yuri Arcurs in Cape Town - Shot editorial work in Gugulethu, South Africa - Shot editorial work in Juárez, Mexico - Backpacked across Western Europe - Moved to a foreign city (Amsterdam) - Drove cross-country 10+ times (USA) - Visited 47 US States and 10 countries - Swam with sharks off the African coast - Spent a month camping in US National Parks - Climbed to the summit of Angels Landing, UT - Hiked Death Valley in 122°F (50°C)