15 Years of Tisha Pol Photo

June 10th, 2010 TP.Creations Photography became an official thing. I wasn’t convinced my camera was ever going to take me anywhere but since I was making a little bit of money snapping photos at horse shows I thought why not try my hand at photo sessions, weddings, and anything else people would pay me for because I was a broke college kid. Sometimes I wish I could go back and tell younger Tisha to take this more seriously and to stop doubting her talent but then I think that the reason it flourished the way it did is because it was never the plan. Fast forward to today, TP.Creations Photography has morphed into Tisha Pol Photo and that little side hustle turned into full time career that I am so proud of.

Over the last 15 years I have been honored to photograph world and national championship shows, been internationally published and recognized for photographic arts, photographed thousands of horses and made friends with the people that love them, and built an amazing community of photographers from all over the world. As I look to the future, I am pretty content with where I am right now — serving the equestrian community through timeless photographic art and hosting small, creative retreats for fellow photographers however I may have some ideas rolling around in my brain that I am not ready to share quite yet.

Every year I like to take a little look down memory lane of some of my favorite photos from each year in business. I know many creatives hate looking at their early work but think it’s important for me to remember where it all started so I keep a print of my first paid photo session framed on my wall above my desktop so when I start beating myself up while trying to learn a new Photoshop tool or fighting with my color grading wheel in Lightroom I look up and humble myself. So let’s take a scroll through the archives together…

2010

I was obsessed with color-pop editing and whatever that black boarder situation was. I promise I was not alone in doing these edits…it was a whole thing. Fun fact my first photo sessions were $25 and my first wedding was $400 👀

2011

I played around with a lot of different editing styles this year — I remember delivering the same photo in multiple edits because I just wanted to make everyone happy and I didn’t know what I really liked yet.

2012

I started to niche down into horses being my main focus however weddings and horse shows were still how my business name the most of my income. I was still playing around with my editing style.

2013

Still haven’t nailed down my editing style but at this time I was doing photo sessions consistently on top of working a full time job and starting to get asked to go to breed shows to photograph them.

2014

I finally decided on an editing style and really focused on refining it. I was also photographing a lot of breed shows and it was the first year I was the official photographer for the Iowa State Fair. This is also the year I quit my full time job to pursue photography as my career.

2015

I attended my first photography conference, focused a lot on perfecting my skills behind the camera, and was photographing multiple horse shows all over the Midwest 2x a moth all year and weddings filled the other weekends. Started traveling outside the state for clients photo sessions.

2016

The year I had my first magazine cover, won an international award, and really started to feel like this was real. Still was photographing a lot of breed shows across the Midwest but started scaling back on weddings.

2017

This was the year I hosted my first ever photography class for other photographers in my area. It was just one day but it sparked an interest in wanting to include more teaching into my work. It was also the year that my computer and all my hard drives crashed during the state fair in some freak occurrence no one can understand and it cost me a lot of $$$$$ and tears.

2018

The year I pretty much quit offering weddings unless you were an established client. I was still regularly photographing horse shows all over the Midwest. Also the year I fell in love with Arizona.

2019

This year I started scaling back on horse shows. I loved the people at the horse shows but felt like they were suffocating my creativity. I only wanted to keep a couple shows that made me happy — I say this but this was the year where I agreed to become the official for the Minnesota State Fair which was back to back with Iowa State Fair….I am fully aware of how insane that is.

2020

Despite a global pandemic and dealing with a lot of personal loss 2020 was a great year for my creative and business growth. I photographed a lot of cool things.

2021

I hosted my first photography retreat outside of Iowa (in Arizona of course!) and expanded into offering more mentorships.

2022

I hosted my 2nd photography retreat in Arizona and traveled so much this year for sessions. I also got to see my photo on a billboard in Vegas for an event.

2023

This was the year I got to photograph horses in the Netherlands, hosted another desert retreat, and hosted my first ever Hawaiian retreat. I also got recognized for my work by Canon and because of social media got a couple small brand deals. I also celebrated my 10th year photographing the Iowa State Fair.

2024

The year of retreats — I hosted a retreat in Iowa, California, and Hawaii and traveled to many more places for amazing clients in between.

2025 — so far

I invested more in my continued education in the winter months, hosted a retreat in Arizona again (yes, I am obsessed), fell back in love with direct light, and in two days I will be kicking off the Equine Photographer’s Summer Camp for the 7th year so you better stay tuned to see what shoots I’ve styled for that….

If you stuck around all the way to the end, are rewarded with a prize! When you buy a gift certificate of any amount for a 2025/2026 session you get 15% off when you mention this post — this deal is only good through 6/20. To claim, message me here >>>