We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christelle & Jorge Enquist & Delgado-Ureña. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christelle & Jorge below.
Christelle & Jorge, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How has Covid changed your business model?
Covid changed our business model in a big way!
The Raw Society started out exclusively with on-location photography workshops in 2016. It was mine and Jorge’s way of sharing our love for travel and photography with other like-minded individuals from all over the world.
With just our savings to get the business running it was like a running marathon; progress was slow and it involved a lot of stamina, but by 2019 we were finally running a profitable business and more importantly, living the life that we had always dreamed of.
Then Covid hit.
We had just finished hosting a workshop in Nepal and all our workshop participants had made it back to their respective homes without too many difficulties. Jorge and I, however, had planned on staying some extra days before going to Bali, Indonesia, to scout for a new workshop. Flights started getting cancelled and then we got the news that Nepal was closing its borders. That’s when the severity of the situation really hit us.
We made it out of Nepal on the very last flight before its borders closed. It was March 23rd 2020.
I remember being on that flight with Jorge already discussing our business and what we were going to have to do to survive what we thought were going to be the next 3 months without being able to host workshops (we were so naïve, but then again, I think at this point everyone was).
The first major change was to go online with our workshops. Jorge and I had considered hosting online workshops well before Covid, however, we had previously decided against it due to our lack of time (which now we were going to have loads of) and in part because we were not convinced we could make a dent in the already saturated world of online learning which at the time was primarily in the form of YouTube videos.
By the 28th of March 2020 (I still have the precarious excel with all the workshops and participants from these first months!) we already had a functioning online platform and were hosting our first workshops: Colour Theory for Photography, How to select your best photographs and how to post-process your photographs.
We publicised on Instagram and Facebook and did a first round of free workshops to get things moving after which we switched to a small fee of $15 per 1.5h workshop. We also had some renown photographers join us as guest mentors and hosted a weekly social event that we dubbed ‘conversations over coffee’. We still host these once a month!
We had a good run with our online workshops and I think a lot the success came down to being quick to adopt an online model. When there’s just two of you, you can be very agile! By June though, people were getting tired of zoom. Summer was also just around the corner so naturally, people were itching to get out and ‘do things’.
At this point I would like to make an aside to say that Jorge comes up with many crazy ideas, some of which are truly brilliant. One of these ideas was to start offering The Raw Society memberships. It was a way of starting a community and offering photographers support (I’m not sure you know this, but photography can be a really lonely undertaking!).
So, just as online workshops were becoming passé, we were beginning to create a membership base. $7 per month/member wasn’t going to feed us, let alone make us rich, but that was never the intention with membership. It was about creating community, investing in people with the hope that they would then accompany us on The Raw Society’s journey in the long run, and in the future when we reach our goal of 500 members, have an alternative and stable income source.
Many other things changed over the more than two years of Covid, from launching membership Pro, to starting a YouTube channel with a Free Online course that racked up over 100,000 views in its first three months amongst others.
Covid has been pivotal for The Raw Society and for Jorge and myself as business owners. It dumped us into our worst-case-scenario, forced us to rethink our business model and change.
That said and perhaps somewhat ironically, it also made us dig deep in terms of what The Raw Society is and what we want it to be in the future. We don’t have all the answers, but what we do know is that our community of photographers are the core of our company and that the decisions we make moving forward should work to their benefit. Oh and that you should always have several revenue streams. Lesson learned!
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?
As passionate photographers and educators, it is our wholehearted belief that the photographic image can be a powerful tool for inward and outward change, within reach of anyone and everyone willing to learn the language.
Through our workshops (on and offline), weekend conferences, projects, fundraisers and our membership program we aim, together with our growing community, to be participants of this change, one photograph at a time.
What sets The Raw Society apart is not so much what we do, but how we do it: differently.
When it comes to membership and our community, anyone who is passionate about the type of photography that we work with (street, documentary and travel photography), can become a part of it, regardless of whether they bought their camera the week before or are already professionals in the field.
Same goes for our workshops. By being small and intimate (and being two people on every workshop), we are able to cater to our workshop participants individually and promote a safe and warm learning environment in which all photographers can thrive.
In addition to this, we’re in it for the long run, so, as we get to know the people in our community, we get better at guiding them through their photographic journeys, in all the different forms the they might take on. From simply sharing project ideas or critiquing their work, to creating a photo book or pitching a story to a magazine, to navigating the business of photography or preparing an exhibition.
A lot of what we do and offer at The Raw Society is also based on our own experiences as photographers. Jorge and I contribute to magazines like National Geographic, work on large assignments for public and private entities and exhibit our work in different countries across the world. We know how difficult it all can be and after years of experience, we have a lot of knowledge to share.
With regards to what we are most proud of, I can think of a few but I’m going to stick to just one and our most recent achievement: The publication of our very first annual magazine! (Pre-sale starts Monday 28th of November 2022)
The idea was born during Covid and over time grew and grew to become a 208 page magazine featuring the work 16 storytellers spread globally. The magazine touches on themes as varied as social issues, politics, culture, travel and history, all of which is unified by a strong focus on the photographic medium and the often personal tone the stories take on. With The Raw Society Magazine we aim to promote our members pro and highlight the value of what they do or capable of doing when given the time.
As for the continuity of the magazine we’ve implemented a unique model in which we invite patrons to adopt stories for the following issue. At the beginning of 2023 we’ll be sharing the proposed stories on our website and individuals will then be able to sponsor or ‘adopt’ part or an entire story. The funds then go to the photographer whose story it is so that they can get started on their projects. Our photographers get paid, our readers have a say in what they read, and we generate content for the next edition. It’s a win, win, win! (Oh and there’s a bonus tax deduction for sponsors;)
Pre-sale page here: https://www.therawsociety.org/the-raw-society-magazine/
How’d you meet your business partner?
I had quit my 10-year career in advertising and decided to embark on a 6-month solo travel across Asia to take a break, reset and tick of a couple of things off of my bucket-list.
At the top of my list was to volunteer, and Nepal was where I had found a placement to do so, so that was my first stop.
Meanwhile, Jorge, an already successful freelance photographer at the time and part of my group of friends called me one day to tell me that he had gotten an assignment to cover Nepal one year after the devastating earthquake. He was going to be there at the same time as I. Despite not being good friends or having ever travelled together, we decided that once we had completed our respective duties, we would travel together for a few weeks and explore Nepal.
We fell madly in love…with Nepal and then more slowly, with each other. Together and during this trip we realised two things: we had been so taken with Nepal that we wanted to keep returning, even if that meant making a business out of it, and secondly, that we complemented each other in so many ways: Jorge is quiet and more introverted, I am chatty and extroverted. He is the artist par excellence: creative, brilliant, but not at all organised. I am very organised (I think that can be attributed to the Swedish in me) and love problem-solving, although I consider myself creative too. And we both loved to travel, photograph and dreamed of a life of adventures.
We finally tied the knot last September ;)
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
I’m not sure patience is a strategy, but it should be! Jokes aside, we have always approached things with an eye on the long term, our strategy growing our clientele has been no different.
The short answer would be by having a good social media presence and an even better service so that clients stay and spread the word.
But really, it’s so much more. It’s about creating good content, constantly searching for new ways to reach our audience, being consistent in terms of our branding, be it via Instagram, Youtube, our newsletter or in person, managing expectations and perhaps above all else and because The Raw Society’s raison d’être is it’s people, being accessible.
At the end of the day The Raw Society is a reflection of who Jorge and I are as people. It’s deeply personal.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.therawsociety.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_raw_society/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Rawphotographytours
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@therawsociety3
- Other: Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/hLpIIn The Raw Society Magazine: https://www.therawsociety.org/the-raw-society-magazine/