Three weeks ago, photographer Miller Mobley was sitting in a room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New York City with Quentin Tarantino and Jamie Foxx. A few weeks before that, he was with the man who invented the Frappuccino. A month ago, he was with Amanda Seyfried and her hairstylist, and two years ago, he was a University of Alabama student.

“It’s just fun meeting people,” Mobley said. “I have had opportunities to meet people who have done things, like Heidi Klum and the guy who invented the Frappuccino. [Taking portraits] is getting into their world for a moment, and walking away with that little memory, which usually comes in the form of a photograph.”

The 26 year-old Tuscaloosa native moved to New York City in 2011 to pursue a career in photography and has since shot portraits of many celebrities for editorial and advertising clients like ESPN The Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, TLC Network and others.

Recently, Mobley’s work was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine. It was the first time in history an article for time.com was converted to a story for the magazine.

“I pretty much fell out of my chair when the they told me the story would be in the OVERSET FOLLOWS:magazine,” Mobley said.

Mobley said his original assignment about genome sequencing in kids was intended only for time.com.

“I was pretty proud of how it turned out,” he said.

But Mobley never imagined it being anything more. Three weeks after the story was published, Mobley said he got a call from the photo editor of TIME saying they’d like to put the story in the magazine and wanted Mobley to shoot it.

“Next thing I know, we are at a studio downtown,” Mobley said. “They brought in seven model babies, 30 different kinds of diapers and a baby handler. It was a seven-hour shoot and it was pretty crazy.”

The story was pushed back multiple times because breaking news, but on December 24, Mobley’s photo was on the cover of TIME.

“It was huge for me,” Mobley said. “One lesson I learned is that you never know where something is going to take you. You have to ask yourself, is this something I want to do? I could have taken other opportunities, but I didn’t, and this one led to the cover of TIME.”

Jonathan Woods, photo editor of time.com, hired Mobley for the story from a roster of 20 photographers.

“It wasn’t a sexy story so to speak,” Woods said. “We were beginning to look for a photographer who could visualize the science part of the story but be creative and use light beautifully and effectively. It became increasingly apparent that Miller was the best choice for the job.”

Woods said he had not had the privilege of working with a lot of photographers yet because he had only been the photo editor at time.com for six months, but he said Mobley set the bar high for future potential employees.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone who is so easy-going,” Woods said. “He works well with Jana, his wife, and he is cool under pressure. That will serve him well in the future. There is a lot to be said about someone like that in this field of work with tight deadlines. He has a good vision and he is very meticulous when it comes to his lighting.”

For Mobley and his wife Jana, New York City has been their dream city for a long time. They made it a reality two years ago when Mobley left his studies at The University of Alabama in favor of career in the Big Apple.

Mobley signed with Redux Pictures, and for a year he just shot stories filtered for New York.

“It was great and I am very thankful but I knew I wanted more,” he said. “I felt like I needed to be in New York to do that.”

Mobley described himself as a terrible student, but it was during his time at the University when he really discovered he wanted to be a photographer.

“Freshman year, I realized I wanted to be a photographer and it was all I did,” he said. “I didn’t go to class, and I think I was even failing my photography class. But I got enough work that I decided to leave school. I felt like education would always be there, but that I needed to seize this opportunity and go full-force with my photography.”

Although Miller learned many of his skills with a camera from teaching himself and experimenting, he said his time as a UA student opened his eyes to what he wanted to do with his life.

“At the University, I found what it was that I wanted to with photography, and that was portraits,” he said. “A teacher showed me a book about them, and at that moment I knew what I wanted my place in photography to be.”

Despite the potential risks of leaving school and moving to New York, Mobley and his wife never doubted that it was the right choice.

Mobley’s wife, Jana, who helps with the day-to-day operations and shoots, said that she has been 100 percent on board from the beginning.

“The last two years here have been the best two years of our lives,” Jana Mobley said. “We never know what is going to happen and we like it that way. Our future isn’t laid out, but we’ve learned to enjoy it.”