Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jordin De La Rosa. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jordin, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

After graduating college as a game design major for narrative design. I decided to pivot my focus into becoming a photographer. I was 3 years into working at my retail job at Nike and I said to myself that I’ll take this time to network and get better with my craft. In 2023, I ended up losing my camera and as everything felt like it was crumbling around me, the people around me insisted in starting a GoFundMe, get a new camera and make 2024 your year. That’s exactly what I did. While working my full time job, I had a new sense of drive as a photographer. More opportunities began to present itself to the point where I had my work showcased and purchased at a NY vs NY exhibit in October. That gave me motivation to really believe that I can pursue this hobby as a career and in November of 2024, I quit my day job to fully purse freelancing. I was horrified. The negatives were outweighing the positives as “how am I going to pay bills? Will I even get booked for gigs? What if I’m not as good as I thought? Will I have to settle for something more serious? What will my family think? How will I balance my time and make a schedule?” All of these possibilities played in my head because freelancing is an inconsistent form of work and you’re relying on other people to help you financially and that’s when I received an email right after quitting. “Are you available in December to head to Portland for the Nike Cross Nationals?” Of course I am!!! It was my first time flying out for work and I met so many amazing people and learned a lot for my craft. After coming back to NY, gigs were piling up. I worked with Squid Games, Rei Co-op, Nike, Hoka, and more within the past 6 months of going freelance and this has been amazing. My dream is coming to life, I’m traveling to different locations around the world, meeting amazing people, capturing memories and content on a regular basis and I LOVE IT!!! I pushed myself to get better, always gathered information on how to improve, I reached out to other creatives and picked their brain, asked a thousand questions and gave myself a better quality of life to make it easier for me to be the best version of myself and I’m forever thankful.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Jordin De La Rosa. A Dominican that grew up in Washington Heights and back in 2020, I bought a camera during the pandemic because I loved taking pictures on my phone. (They were okay haha but everyone starts somewhere). I purchased the Sony A6400 because YouTube, Instagram and personal friends all recommended that as a good beginner budget camera. I didn’t know how far I wanted to take it, especially since I was focused on being a Narrative Designer for Video Games in college but after graduating, I decided to take photography more serious. I carried it everywhere and since I worked in retail, any consumer that had a camera, I’d go up to them and compliment them and their camera, how long they’ve been shooting, what do they love shooting and exchange contact info whether it was Instagram or phone number. Doing this took me out of my comfort zone because I perceived myself as an introvert and an over thinker. However, that isn’t the case now haha. Although, this method was working to a degree, I wasn’t getting consistent gigs so if I won’t get a gig then, let me make some spec projects and contact my friends.

I would then find someone I can look as a mentor and someone I also worked with during my time at Nike was this guy – https://www.instagram.com/nicbui/. He taught me so much I needed to know to grow as a photographer and a business. He would also let me help him out with shoots as a BTS photographer. I’d ask him “why use this light? What angle should I do? etc.” And what I’m forever thankful for from him is that he wouldn’t give me an answer. I’d get quizzed so I can understand why something happens or why he does something which gave me a better understanding on why certain things work. Before I worked with him, I used Adobe Lightroom and I can see the benefits of Adobe Lightroom if you need to crank something out quick but once he taught me about Adobe Lightroom Classic, my work slightly elevated. Eventually, with the work that I kept putting out, whether it was BTS, my own project or an actual gig, more and more people noticed. I rinsed and repeated the same process to the point where I was lowkey a broken record.

I’d introduce myself as a photographer and would emphasize that I’d love to work with one another in the future. I would then go out of my way to reach out to these people. Sometimes I’ll get a yeah, no, or no response and that’s okay because I wouldn’t let it bring me down or anything. I continued what I did and when gigs did happen, I made sure that I finished it as fast as I could while providing my best quality through Google Drive. I then made the jump to Dropbox because Google Drive makes it hard for me to download all the images. After a year of Dropbox, I made the switch to Adobe’s Frame.IO and has been my favorite way to give my work to my clients. I would do things for free or for a small amount and be okay with it because it would either be great exposure or great learning experience.

Now, if it was a personal project, I gave myself a message to always try something different which then I learned how to use Pinterest. Moodboards are my best friend. It helps bring your vision to life and what happened after that is I learned how to use Canva. It made my moodboards more professional and easy for myself and clients to look at.

My services consist of photography, videography and creative director. I shoot a mixture of everything. My most popular content is sport and editorial photography. I capture events, weddings, proposals, music videos, and more. Before a shoot, I provide a shot list to make it easier for my client just in case they don’t know how to pose. That’s where the Canva/Pinterest app comes into play as it gives them an idea of what we’re creating. I make sure that I’m responding as fast as I can which means that I have my Apple Watch on me just in case I miss a notification on my phone, my arm will buzz and make them feel comfortable throughout the shoot. I am not photogenic but if the photographer makes me feel comfortable then I’ll do a backflip (I can’t do that) but I try to see if my client wants to play music, we take deep breaths, show them the content and hype them up because oof!!! THEM PICTURES LOOK GOOD! It’s important for the client to feel comfortable because if they don’t, the pictures won’t come out well so I make sure they’re good! Then, when I go in post production, my editing is when my Sharingan opens up and I see so many more possibilities. By that, I mean the cropping tool and anything that comes to mind in the heat of the moment. My efficiency and speed of how I give out the work separates me but then again… anyone can do that. What I think that sets me apart is my personality. I make it easy for you to talk to me and make you feel comfortable during the shoot because we’re all humans and we all want to have a good time. Let’s enjoy this shoot and shock social media once they see what we put out!

I am most proud of taking the risk to leave my day to job to become a freelancer. I was scared out of my mind but I’m happy that I took that leap because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. I locked in way more than I expected and that’s because of how scared I was. I needed to make sure there wasn’t room for error and I developed a schedule, reached out, asked questions, watched videos, and improved my craft on the daily while trying to understand how can I make other people’s life easier. This lead up to having someone purchase my work through an art exhibit, have the MTA showcase my work on a bus stop, have articles written about me, and more. I’m excited for what the future holds for me and I’m always down to help other creatives around me because at the end of the day, everyone can eat. Besides my own discipline because I also have so much to learn, I had people teach me all I needed to know and I’d love to pass down this knowledge too. If you ever have any questions, want to shoot, or anything. Feel free to hit me up :)!

To sum it all up.
I use a Sony A7RV and Sony A7IV (Sony Gang)
I send my work depending on the client but Frame.IO would be my go to.
I use Adobe Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop to edit photos.
Davinci Resolve to edit video.
Google Calendar with notes is how I manage my schedule.
Canva is how I pitch projects for a personal spec or for others.
I use a Macbook Pro M4 Pro Series.
Apple Watch on me so I don’t miss a beat/notification.
TinyInvoice and Squarespace for my Portfolio and Invoices.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Honestly, seeing the picture I took in someone’s profile picture or used in an article. It makes me feel like a million bucks haha. All jokes aside, that makes me feel amazing as a creative but this doesn’t top it. It’s when I receive a recommendation. When someone reaches out to my email, IG or number asking to work, it feels amazing. What makes it even better is when they say who told them about me. It’s the best feeling in the world because it means that my work was good enough to the point where they trust what I can do with someone else they know and that means everything.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I switched to Adobe Lightroom Classic much earlier. The use of the curvature tool and color grading because this amplifies your images by so much and then the next big thing is the cropping tool. I’m a sucker for detail and sometimes, there’s an image within an image or it can even save image to be amazing. I also wish that I shot a lot more. I was shooting but not enough and I had multiple people tell me that which made no sense to me at first but they wanted me to continue to try new things, do more gigs, reach out more, do more personal projects, experiment consistently and this gave me a new realization on what they meant. Shooting more, as vague as it sounds, it meant everything.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jordindelarosa.com/content
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isojordin/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordin-de-la-rosa/
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@isojordin?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Image Credits

https://www.instagram.com/zhmphoto/
Profile Picture
https://www.instagram.com/respectivecollective/