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

J., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

So, when it comes to camera work initially it was a lot of trial and error; totally winging it. I started with what I wanted the end result to look like and then worked backward. It wasn’t until maybe my junior year of college that I started learning all of the “technical” aspects of photography and videography. But it wasn’t just the classroom, though. I had internships and industry mentors, and I also attended a church that produced its own televised content. All of this allowed for tons of hands-on, practical learning experiences. Knowing what I know now…I actually don’t have the desire to have sped up the process. All of the trial and error – and there was a lot of “error” – was necessary. Doing that first made me more appreciative when I learned all of the technical terms and applications for shooting. And, it just made more sense instead of just being in theory. So, honestly, I think my learning process was pretty ideal.

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 background and context?

My name is J. McNair and I am a photographer and videographer in Spring, Texas serving the greater Houston area. I also manage 7th Made Studios which serves as a “studio home” for photographers and creatives. My interest in cameras in general came from my family’s pseudo-obsession with pictures. It was always the coolest thing to sit and watch people relive and retell stories as they went through pictures. To see the emotion that was evoked just from an image was always so dope to me. I want to be able to capture and recreate that. Fast forward and ultimately I came to realize that storytelling wasn’t limited only to sentimental home videos and family pictures. Marketing, branding, and advertising…all of these things are also storytelling and monetize the lens. And, that’s how I got to where I am now.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Details! I’m big on details. It’s in the details. It’s the little things that matter most. It’s the little things that make the big things work. We’ve heard all of these cliché quotes. But they’re all true in my industry. Details make the story. When it comes to production, there’s often so much going on that it’s easy to miss the little things. When it comes to the camera, I have a reputation for catching the little things. In fact, my tagline is: Capture Everything!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I really focus on my clients as individuals and pride myself in establishing a rapport. Every client has a different story to tell. Effective storytelling is a whole art form. Telling the story through a lens, though? That’s a whole different beast! It’s too difficult to get your audience to imagine with you; you have to actually create the image for them to see. That’s the problem that I solve for my clients. So it’s kind of like a translator for your imagination. Imagination translation, if you will! Once you reach a level where you can creatively articulate their thoughts and practically predict the client’s needs, you have literally positioned yourself as the solution. People stay with what and who works for them.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.7thmade.com / www.7thmadestudios.com
• Instagram: @7mproductions / @7thmadestudios
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/7MProductions
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/7th-made-studios/

Image Credits
J. McNair (all images except of the corporate headshot are J. McNair. The head shot is credit to Michael Starghill)