We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daphne Verzosa. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daphne below.

Alright, Daphne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

As a blogger and content creators since 2011, taking photographs of products sent to me for PR was natural to me. But back then, I didn’t realize that freelance commercial photography was a thing. Of course I knew commercial photography existed, but back then I thought it was only a job reserved for agencies. Until four years ago, a friend of my husband Chad suggested we do commercial photography on the side. She told us their agency works with freelance photographers at their agency all the time and she thought we’d do well. And so we did. To get started we pulled together some ideas on how we want to present ourselves. Chad and I are obsessed with the color yellow so that became our brand’s primary color. To us, yellow represented optimism and creativity, two things that drove our business to where it is now. Then we named ourselves Lathala Creative Studios as a nod to our heritage. Lathala is a Filipino word that means to publish or advertise. Our ultimate goal is to become a global creative agency, so Lathala was the perfect name.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Before Lathala Creative Studios, Chad and I came from separate creative fields. Chad has been a photographer since his teens, while I was coming from marketing. With both our skills, we are able to provide our clients commercial photography and stop-motion videos that are not only visually appealing but also high converting. What sets us apart is that we provide unique, out-of-the-box ideas while staying true to our client’s brand identity. One commercial project that represents this is Stash Tea’s Astrolotea campaign we shot for them last year. The client approached us for our dynamic photos and wanted to add more abstract concepts. It was a huge challenge for us, for sure, but the photos came out fantastic. To date, we still wonder how we were able to pull it off, and remains as one of our most memorable shoots. You can view some of the photos here: https://lathalacreativestudios.com/stash-tea/

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Absolutely! When we were starting out, there weren’t a lot of resources on how to get started in the commercial photography industry. Sure, a few professionals have given some advice but no one really provided a detailed step-by-step process unless you pay hundreds of dollars to get “access” to that info or be part of the big boys club. Topics like contracts, licensing, and getting in contact with well-known brands come to mind. Now the industry is so different, in a good way. I guess a lot of creatives felt the same way that many of us do not feel the need to hide any useful information that the entire industry can benefit from.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

In January 2020 we made a leap to move into a bigger studio space. We’ve gotten a lot of regular clients by then and had enough for a new space. We did that thinking that we will continue in that upward trajectory for the year. Everything was going well until the pandemic happened in March. We lost half of our clients on that same month, and the lockdowns didn’t help at all. We were almost out of work from April to June and was barely surviving. By that time we’ve used up all our savings to keep the studio operational, and had it continued another month we would have closed up shop. Thankfully, by the end of June a few clients here and there started to come back. Eventually, we got them all back and became really busy with projects as the Fall season rolled in. Sometimes I still think what would have happened if we gave up at the height of the pandemic. I’m so glad we didn’t, or I won’t be here answering your questions, haha!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lathalacreativestudios.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lathalacreativestudios/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lathalacreativestudios
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lathala-creative-studios
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG5_KjhmLrhy3Y4ijKJEC5w

Image Credits
Ⓒ Lathala Creative Studios