Why I started Snowforest

There were various reasons why I started Snowforest. Today I wanted to share a few with you so that you know how I came to this point and where I’m up to.

I grew up in a middle-class family in Taiwan and was fortunate to have an opportunity to study music when I was young. My passion has always been classical music, especially piano and violin. But due to the pressure from my family, I had to choose a different academic route to meet their expectations. Nonetheless, not only did I never give up music even though I knew I would never be a professional musician, but I also kept exploring other things that can help me express my feelings, if not through music.

Then I found photography!

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park © Ting-Li Lin

Photography has been part of my life since 2003. In the past decade, the amount of effort I put into photography was probably the same as that I put into my PhD. Although that didn’t give me a degree in photography, it did help me hold two exhibitions that I was so proud of. One was Decomposing at the Steenbock Gallery in 2012, which featured my architectural photography, and the other was Formation at the Gallery 800 UBD in 2014, which featured my nature and landscape photography. Then in early 2015, I was somehow hit by the wave of entrepreneurship and that do-what-you-love thing. “Why not start a business in photography?” I asked myself.

So I talked to some friends about my ideas. After several brainstorming over the past few months, my partner, Max Chen, and I both agreed to focus on architectural, interior, and real estate photography. As homeowners, we both felt that real estate was an underserved area in the sense that most list agents didn’t seem to want to show their properties at their best. And we wanted to change that. We were also aware that it may fell into the territory as the story of two shoe salesmen — most of you may already know the beginning of the story, and the above link gives you the rest of the story. Nevertheless, we know what challenges we are facing and we are confident that, with our expertise and unique background, the market will be better served. We want to help people achieve their goals, not just eventually, but sooner.

On the local business side, I think some owners either underestimate the power of good online presence or don’t know how to build a good online presence. No matter whether you are an established business or a new kid on the block, people would search you online, and your online presence becomes part of your brand. It may consist of photos of your business or products, virtual tours of your business, customer reviews, etc. Although you have no control of customer reviews, you can definitely use good photos and virtual tours to better present your business, especially in the online search results. And that’s exactly why I started Snowforest. I want to help you promote your business.

Photography can be artful, can be powerful. I want to do what I love to help you do what you love. That’s why I started Snowforest.