Generally, work and play are not synonymous and are not usually coexistent. However, for junior Alex Vanderheyden, a happy medium between the two has been found in which he is able to both work and pursue a passion.

Vanderheyden began his business dutifully named “Alex Vanderheyden Photography” in order to pursue his passion of photography with his entrepreneurial perspective.

Vanderheyden said, “I started because, a couple years ago was when I actually started taking pictures of people.”

“I started out with a friend of mine and just went from there and began taking lots of portraits of people and just built that up more. Then I just decided to go ahead and make it into a business, you know, have people pay me for pictures like senior pictures, family pictures and others,” Vanderheyden said.

Vanderheyden has also been receiving a few tips on running a photography business while working as an assistant photographer for a friend’s father.

Vanderheyden explained, “A friend of mine’s dad is a photographer, and so he contacted me about working as an assistant to him. So, I assist him when he takes pictures of people like he took pictures of the Marquette hockey team and he is going to do Lafayette hockey.”

He continued, “I help him with those kinds of things or if he has a group thing and he needs assistance in equipment then I will help him with setting things up and taking things down.”

However, the passion is the most important part to Vanderhayden and he said the passion comes out of the pure artistic side of photography.

“I guess I would say that my favorite part is taking a picture of something or someone in a place that you might see every day that might not seem spectacular and then taking a picture of it and really making it look special,” he said.

“I love making something that might look really boring look very interesting or making an outfit, or a person, or a location artistic. Just looking at the unexpected and seeing it in an artistic way,” Vanderheyden continued.