We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brandi Rivera a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brandi , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?
I would have to say the biggest challenge to profitability in my industry is probably maintaining consistency in terms of clientele. Anybody who’s been doing this for a while can definitely vouch that having enough clients every month to make your bread and butter and to keep a roof over your head and food on the table (for those of us who are doing this full-time) is becoming increasingly more and more challenging. Solely relying on photography as your only source of income can make it very difficult to survive financially without either another source of income or multiple streams of revenue (ex: an online course, a Patreon, a monetized YouTube channel, etc), unless maybe you’re specializing in weddings or real estate/drone photography. But even then, it can still be hard. I’ve personally had my ups and downs these past four years with photography ever since I decided to make it a business as any other freelancer can relate to. Some months you’re fully booked and others your bending over backwards trying to market yourself on social media the best way you know how just to get a couple of bookings.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Brandi also known as mom, wife, daughter, sister, and your friendly neighborhood photographer. I am a proud mother of two bright eyed children named Anastasia and Kaiden. I was born in Columbus, Ohio and raised in the beautiful sunshine state of Florida. My parents moved to Florida while I was really young. So I’m very much a Floridian. My journey with photography began about 9 years ago back when I was a senior in high school and I took photography as an elective. My dad bought me my first camera ever, it was a red Nikon Coolpix point and shoot camera and I photographed mainly just nature and landscapes starting out. Initially, photography began as just a hobby of mine and I didn’t really ever plan on photographing people or making a business out of it. I was just expanding my horizons, just getting my feet wet so to speak trying to see if I even liked photography in the first place. I needed one more elective in high school and photography definitely peaked my interest. After graduating high school, I attended a trade school called Southern Technical College. Ironically enough, I ended up getting derailed from photography a little bit and studied something completely different. I was in a dual program for HVAC and electrical. But after about six months, I left school and suddenly realized that photography was my true passion.
Fast forward to 2017 and things got much more serious. That was the year that I finally got my hands on my first DSLR camera and graduated from point and shoot. My first DSLR was a Canon Rebel T2i and is the same camera I use even down to this day. Another photographer was upgrading his camera and sold me his old Canon for about $200 with the kit lens and camera bag included. Definitely a deal! So not waisting any time, I immediately started studying all the basic camera settings and functions and quickly learned how to shoot in raw and manual focus to really hone in my craft. I started photographing all my friends and family and took my camera nearly everywhere. My love and passion for photography really took off! Between 2017 and 2018 I started building my portfolio, meeting other photographers/professionals in the community, attending photography meet ups, networking events, and workshops. Fast forward to today and I now specialize in portrait photography so that includes anything from families, couples, maternity, fashion, headshots, grads, and events. And I also photograph products and even food occasionally. The problems I solve for my clients is I help them to feel confident and classy whether they need a professional headshot or a branding shoot for work or business purposes. I also help capture families, couples, children, and individuals as naturally and candidly as possible as their true authentic selves capturing special moments in time for people to reminisce for a lifetime. As cliche as it may sound as a photographer we literally are able to freeze moments in time with our camera, which I think is a pretty cool ability. What sets me apart from others is one: my ability to bring out those real genuine smiles, laughs, giggles and raw emotion from my clients, two: being able to build genuine relationships with them, truly capturing them at their best making them feel and look confidant and proud over there accomplishments or special occasions they’re memorializing. And lastly, number three: my creative eye and uniqueness brought to a photoshoot really helps me to achieve photos that are more dynamic, outside of the box, and less traditional from the overused photography fads and trends. I am most proud of my family because without them I wouldn’t even really have a reason to keep going and pursing photography as a career. But because of their wholehearted support in my endeavors and creative journey I’ve been able to stay motivated and determined to continue. Not to mention the continued support of my friends and all the countless clients over the years that have supported my photography business. And I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. The main things I want potential clients to know is that the goal of every shoot is not just to take a photo but to really create a great and memorable experience overall. It is my aim and promise to make sure you always walk away from every shoot feeling excited and satisfied with your overall shooting experience and your final photos. And every review, nice comment, like, share, and recommendation is very much appreciated.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In all honesty I feel like throughout my entire life I’ve had to constantly pivot in a new direction. Because as we go on in life we’re constantly evolving. Because the journey of life and self discovery is never linear it’s full of twists and turns and detours. And I believe following that detour back to photography was a blessing. Because I pivoted back to my passion and I found what I was meant to do, and what lights me up inside. And along this journey I’ve had to pivot some more. I’ve faced many financial struggles and hardships all while trying to pursue photography. I started a family and bore two beautiful children in the world. And with a family has come a lot of added responsibilities that consume a lot of my time and energy. So needless to say I’ve had to pace myself more, cut back on investing in more and newer gear, and sometimes even step back a little from photography itself during my maternity leaves so I can bond and nurture my babies with the love and undivided attention they rightly deserve. The lesson that these life experiences have taught me is to appreciate the little things and it’s okay to stop or pause when you need to. The world can wait. Your pace doesn’t determine your success. It can be frustrating sometimes because we have this idea of what success looks like or where we would like to be. But we’re not there yet. I struggle with this constantly. However, sometimes we forget to count our current blessings and look how far we’ve come. One example of that is even being able to share my story here today with you all and all the people who will ever read this interview. I never thought in a million years I’d even have a story worth sharing with the world. But the take away message from this story is never give up on your dreams and never stop because you never know where life can take you.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
As previously mentioned my family and I know hard times. We’ve been struggling financially for a while now and photography has always been my contribution to my family to help us bring in some extra income to help support my family, to help us buy diapers, to help put gas in our car, to help put food on the table. I just want to be completely transparent, my family and I have tasted homelessness. We know what it means to be without, and to have very little. But despite all of that, we’re still here swinging. Is it easy? No. But it’s not impossible. So call me crazy, but I will never put my camera on the shelf to collect dust. I will continue to help my family the best way I know how. I will continue to support my husband and kids doing what I love and if you’re reading this right now and your in the thick of it and life is really hard right now, just remember I’ve survived a pandemic, Covid, loss of loved one, an eviction, homelessness, loss of job, but I’m still here. So keep going, because along the way you never know who you might inspire.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://4theloveofphotography365.mypixieset.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4_the_love_of_photography/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/4theloveofphoto/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/brandi-rivera-910603199
- Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCR3Zf5oSpm-I78e5wkbn67w
Image Credits
Reje Rush Jeff Dezhomme