FAQ: How did you do that!

Hey mark and Candice,

I'm D, and I'm 25 years old aspiring wedding photographer from Miami. I've been blog-stalking for a while (and am somehow unashamed to admit it. strange.) I really love your work and its a consistent source of inspiration to me.

Your pink ink studio interview says you've only been a professional photographer for a year now-- I'm hoping you'd be willing to take some time and reply (or write a post) about how you got started and established yourself. I'm at the point where I know I want to jump in, But I'm not quite sure how to do it. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Thanks Guys,

D

FAQ How did you get to where you are today?

Mark and I get this email consistently now, so we thought we would answer the question on our blog.

Our story: I use to work at ADP payroll and Mark use to be a server at a yacht club and He owned his own Music lesson Biz, teaching little kids guitar lessons. We had just gotten married and money was super tight. Mark had always been into "artsy" things like guitar (he majored in it) and photography. So with our $2000, that we got from our Money dance at our wedding, we bought a "nice" camera...the 20D, a couple of lenses and some CF cards (since then we have upgraded our gear). But it is good to know that we took our time building our gear. Side note:...-A good "lens/ mindset" to filter you purchases though is to ask this question: "will this add value to MY business." Just because some other pro is using the 50mm 1.2 and the Mark III does not mean that by purchasing it your pictures will look like theirs. :)-

Gabriel was thinking about starting off a biz also and we had met newer photogrpahers like AHS, so we kept throwing ideas off each other to see what the other person was doing. For fun we started off shooting our friends and anything else for free. We were considering doing it for a living but that seemed to high of a goal at the time.

About 1 month into owning a "nice" camera I went "crazy" aka got ambitious.... I saw Mark with a camera in his hand every day and he was actually really good at it, for a "beginner". So I made up my mind right then and there that this is what we would do with the rest of our life. I was sick of my job and Mark was overwhelmed with music lesson, serving, and school. Photography seemed like a tunnel of light and freedom. So of course I was going to MAKE THIS HAPPEN! And besides it was super fun.

The First Steps:

1. we found others that were beginners photographers and built a community (O.S.P. / Fast track Photographer)

2. we found a place to rent gear... there is no need to Buy a bunch of gear on a credit card! (Sammy's or Pro-Photo)

3. we decided who we wanted to be and what style of photography we wanted to produce. Seriously!! We can not stress how important it is to be YOURSELF!!! every other photographer i know that has "made it" will agree with us!!( our style: Artsy, photo-journalistic, Funky)

4. We networked our little butts off ( my favorite thing to do, i love meeting new people!)

5. We gained some confidence (shoot over 200 pictures every day etc..)

6. Figured out a way to Market (options: referrals,NETWORKING!, Ad's, expos, magazines etc... )

7. Built a website (Mark built ours...and soon it will be done through Show it sites. It is going to be freaking awesome).

8. Told everyone and their mom we were getting into photography.

After we did these things are business flourished. Everyone is different, so your steps might look much different then ours but like I said last night to Josh (a newer photographer that took us out to dinner) be yourself. Figure out who you want to be, and DO IT! So many people want to make that plunge into a career and they tip toe around it because its to scary or its to hard. Screw all that DO IT. When ever Jessica and I work out we think OK we don't want to run 3 mile today, but heck lets walk the neighborhood. AKA: Do something instead of nothing. Just to nail this point to the ground...If there are two different lost people in a forest. The one who makes decisions to find their way back home will live much longer then the person who sits and waits to be found. Even if the lost guy is making wrong choices he will live longer! So don't be so scared to make a "wrong" choice. If you do you WILL recover and learn.

Thank you so much for your questions. We feel so blessed and honored to help a few people out. We love love love what we do and we cant wait to see where we are next year. We love all of our family, photographers and friends that read our blog! You are all rockin' people.

Speaking of Gabriel...Here are some shots we grabbed of them this past week.