We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erik Blume a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Erik thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I have been a hobby photographer since late high school and a professional for about 9 years now. Most of the basics of photography I learned just by using my tools and creating early on. I think it’s easy to be a photographer but hard to be great and stand out. The market is so flooded now with photographers so finding a way to be different can be super daunting. Most of my learning path was centered around that: standing out. What were people doing around me and what weren’t they doing? Find out that gap and run with it!

Erik, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have been an automotive photographer for most of my career and worked in that industry professionally for 8 years. I recently lost that career and was forced to jump into full time about a year before I was ready. My wife and I just had bought a house and I was working on building a small studio, working weekends and nights on portrait work and other freelance projects. I had always been a natural / available light photographer but the studio was located in our basement so I started checking out lights. I started to dabble in LED color in the studio and it really stuck. I focused all my energy on moody, colorful images and things kind of took off!

I now offer boudoir style photography for individuals and couple of all types! I’ve been full time for about a month now and typically about a month in advance.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Through my previous job I had quite a bit of social media experience growing their account from around 2K followers to around 75K when I passed it on. I learned a ton through those years and was able to test things on large scale to see immediate results.

Your captions really do matter. Tell a personal story about the image, ask a question, engage your audience and they will respond.

Hashtags also really matter. There’s a million programs to help you find engaging ones and create a good set that works for you.

Be personal while being professional. Your followers usually want to see who’s behind all that, so let them in! If you have pets, hobbies, life parter, whatever… share it! Don’t overshare, but find a balance.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Share their work!! If you have a friend who makes music, listen to it. Pay a photographer to take pictures of you and your friends or loved ones. Commission custom artwork for your walls. Yes it’s money but it’s so worth it!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.erikblumephoto.com
• Instagram: ebphoto651
• Other: https://vimeo.com/erikblume