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

Alright, Benjamin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

Social Media managing can be hard sometimes, but as long as you stay consistent and keep up with the schedule you set for yourself, you will get to where you want to be.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

How I got into my industry was because of Covid. Back in 2020 Covid-19 hit us and I was just getting out of school. So I decided to pick up a camera and started to shoot random things on the street. It didn’t matter what it was, it was fun and a hobby for me. I wanted to find a way of making money for myself, and how I started that was shooting portraits of my friends for free. People saw my work and were intrigued by the photos I was posting on my Instagram. Later that year I decided to pursue sports photography and got a lot of student athletes contacting me for their photos, highlight mixtapes, etc. One of my biggest achievements was working with Greensboro Day School. They let me take care of their media and provide an outlet for the student athletes to showcase their abilities and talent to play the sport of basketball. It was amazing watching them play every single game. But then that all came to an end when the season was over. I was moving on to another chapter in my career. I picked up a job at Hypeclinic located downtown Greensboro. They are a high fashion based boutique, they sell things like sneakers, high fashion clothes such as bape, supreme, gallery dept. chrome hearts, etc. How I got into that was they saw my work on my Instagram and reached out to me and I went to their store to check it out. They were really positive and had a lot of aspirations they wanted to accomplish. I saw potential in that store and decided to take lead of their social media and improve it. Meanwhile they had an in-store fashion show coming up and that was probably the most exciting part of the year for me. I had to take lead of a media team and direct them for the show. Everything came out great and the models were satisfied with their content that they received from us. From the fashion show I gained a tremendous amount of appreciation and attraction from people from local colleges such as North Carolina A&T, UNCG, NCCU, UNCC, etc. I have never seen so much support it was overwhelming. I decided I wanted to make a website where you can see my rates/prices for my clients and let them have the ability to book. What I provided were outside portraits, studio portraits, headshots, and concept portraits. I’m proud that I’ve made it this far into my side hustle and want to make it a future career and be an entrepreneur. I wanted everyone to know that if you have any idea and a vision that you want to bring to life, I am here for it! And I will make it happen!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I want to have a safe place for people to be themselves and create whatever they want and be whoever they want in life.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I personally think word of mouth is the best source because once you get that one person that appreciates your work and loves it they’ll tell the whole world who did the work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: clbenji
• Youtube: clbenji
• Other: clbenji

Image Credits
yourexports