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

Alright, Carmen thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

When I was in college I needed models for different projects, neighbors and friends of course were thrilled to help! The more photography sessions I did more people were asking to book a session. After about six months I had clients and was charging, although not much at the time, haha!

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 back background and context?

When I was in high school I was torn between studying photography and criminal psychology. When I started college one of the first classes I took was photography, I fell in love with it and never pursued psychology. My grandma growing up, had a wedding reception hall, I was always around weddings and events and thought it was so cool! That, along with my mom buying disposable cameras and goodwill dresses for my sister to be my model really influenced me when I was younger.

I shoot anything from weddings to dog calendars. Fashion, animals and kids have a special place in my heart. I do love it all, so many of my friends have families and I get to photography them year after year and see their kids grow up and their family evolve, that is really heartwarming! And recently, I have started doing more food photography which is so fun, I love the art of food!

I think most clients know my work because of the genuine expressions and candid lifestyle images. I love capturing the emotion in images, the smallest little hand gesture can speak volumes. I love learning about my clients and their lives, I have been blessed with so many amazing and strong clients!

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I started my business in Omaha in 2003 and then in 2008 I moved to San Diego, Ca. I had to restart my business there, along with coming back to Omaha a few times a year to take clients photos. I worked with other photographers in San Diego and also waitressed until my business was established there, which took about a year. I was in San Diego until about 2013 when I decided to move back to Omaha. Before I left San Diego, I wanted to keep the business going in CA so I hired a few photographers to take over. One of them, unfortunately, used images that were not his when he submitted his work to me. As the business owner, I had to deal with the aftermath of the situation. It was a good lesson learned, one I didn’t ever think I would have had to deal with. And now I have had my business for over 22 years, it is truly amazing I have been able to do what I love for so long and be able to spend so much time watching my son grow up!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Photography was my full time career most of my life, it gave me such flexibility and an income to support my son and I. About 3 years ago, the principal at my son school had approached me and asked if I had a job. I had to giggle, I didn’t look very put together when I dropped off my son most days. Hair thrown up, pajamas on, and maybe I wash my face. I told her I did have a photography business but I worked mostly evenings and weekends. She explained that they really needed help with 8th grade at the school, I knew they were desperate because I had no experience with the catholic school system, was covered in tattoos and not catholic. I offered to work part time, thinking they would find someone to work full time. About 3 weeks into working there, I fell in love with the kids! I thought I would hate it, 8th grade was a tough year for me and kids in general. But, 3 years later I am working full time at the school and also doing photography full time. Somehow it works, I just get up about 4am to edit and answer emails and then work at the school, schedule appointments in the evenings and weekends and they are great about giving me time off if I need to schedule something during school hours. It may seem like a lot but I get so much joy and it warms my heart to work there, it is worth the lack of sleep, haha! Not so much of a “had to pivot” but more appreciative that I am able to do both and make an impact with younger students.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.reactionphotographyomaha.com
• Instagram: reactionphotographyomaha2019
• Facebook: Reaction Photography Studios
• Yelp: Reaction Photography