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

Ava, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

I love asking my friends and family to support my business! They were the very reason I received clients in the first place. I think there are boundaries that should not crossed however. For example, not obtaining their permission for posting on social media. I have plenty of my friends who have been in shoots who have explicitly told me that they do not want to be featured on my Instagram, and I respect that.

Ava, 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?

What sets me apart from others is my timeliness, and the amount of pictures I deliver per shoot! I make it a point to give everyone their pictures back within a week of the shoot, as well as give them around 80 pictures per shoot. I am most proud of my shoot that I did with Spanish model, John Vélez de Segovia! He is based in London, as well as one of my very best friends since 7th grade! He pushed my limits and I got to use professional studio lighting for the first time! The pictures were extraordinary and I cannot wait until we get to shoot together again. I got to where I am today professionally by upgrading my camera equipment, and continuously posting on my Instagram. Without these two components, I wouldn’t nearly have gotten as far as I am right now. It has not been an easy path. With having virtually no time being a full time student, really finding that work/student balance was crucial. I have learned to take what I have learned from other photographers, and really use them as mentors! It has been amazing getting to study under some big names. I would love everyone to know that it’s totally doable to make one of your hobbies become a source of profit!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I had to unlearn was letting my clients choose their raw pictures that they enjoyed. I did this for my first three shoots and soon realized that a lot of good pictures were getting tossed out because they felt they weren’t good! If only I had been able to edit the pictures, they would have been much happier with the results.

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

I wish I knew sooner about the feature that Adobe Lightroom offers! I did not know you could send galleries directly through them. When I first started, I sent everyone pictures through Google Drive. This made my images lower quality and it was not as professional as what I do now.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://avadericcophotography.myportfolio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avadericcophotography/