In this episode of Photography Adjacent, I sit down with Sissela Johansson — an editorial portrait photographer from Denmark, based in Sweden — to talk about burnout, hustle culture, and what it really means to build a photography business on your own terms. Sissela shares her experience of chasing the American dream, reaching six figures, and ultimately realising that outward success felt hollow without inner alignment. The conversation weaves through the pitfalls of copy-paste photography education, the underrated power of community, and the importance of knowing your own values before making any business decisions.

I've had six studios over the course of the last five years, and each one of them brings a different character to the type of work that I do, whether that be in the background walls or the flooring, or the position of the windows to produce different types of light, the size of the space, the height of the ceiling, or in something less tangible - the atmosphere in the space, whether it feels like a domestic space, whether it feels like a creative workshop space, or more of a corporate office space.