We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Claire aka “Cvaire” Sinelli. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Claire below.

Cvaire, appreciate you joining us today. If you needed to find a key partner or facility – how did you find them, what was the process of striking a deal like and what would you do differently knowing what you know now?

Finding my niche with photography has always been the hard part for me–I love to try all sorts of things and I always felt like a master of none. I never wanted to settle down onto one style of work. Instead, I just sought out people and things that I liked. I have been working with restaurants in some capacity for 8 years. I was a server for a bit and then a barista for 3 years, managed a cafe and a food cart, and catered weddings just to name a few. Restaurants, food, coffee, and the service industry quickly became a focus in my work and my first ever social media and photography job was with a restaurant where I had worked as a barista.

It’s really important to play to your stengths, since usually you’ll spend more time having fun with your work when you enjoy the field it is you’re working with. I always thought I’d do mostly some sort of portraiture but I learned so much with my first food gig that it just hooked me and I couldn’t get enough. Ever since then I’ve been continuing to use my connections in both the food industry and the art industry, and they mesh together really well. Any person you meet at a restaurant, wether its a server or running into the owner at the bar–could be a potential client or partner so I always bring my A-game and have business cards on hand!

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 brand is called CVAIRE, and I’m a photographer who also does social media management. I mainly photograph food and restaurants, but I also taking wedding photos too. I knew I wanted to do some sort of art career since I was extremely young, but even as an introvert I never liked the idea of doing my art in some cooped up room somewhere alone, so I was drawn to the social aspect of photography and the interactive, data focused side of social media. I also knew photography could really take me anywhere, wether its across the globe literally or just to explore different types of fields and styles of art.

I had no experience with photography before going to school at WCC in Ann Arbor where I had an awesome foundation on how to use a camera, but after that It took a long time for me to become confident in the business side of this field. I’m proud of how far I’ve come through hundreds of hours of research and putting myself out there even when my anxiety has made it difficult and even draining at times.

One of my specialties is my drink photos- I began taking photos of drinks mid-splash a few years ago and they’ve become pretty popular locally, and I get the most questions and print purchase inquiries about that body of work.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I’ve had people literally exit my life because they didn’t believe that photography was a “real job.” I’ve walked away from past boyfriends and even a childhood best friend because they either didn’t take me seriously or couldn’t understand or imagine an art job being difficult. To them it didn’t seem fair that their jobs weren’t as fun, and therefore my career felt invalid to them. The truth is, that’s just one more thing you have to weed through. It was really hard to understand at the time and was so frustrating to navigate but there will always be people (lots of them) who do not support whatever it is you do. And only some of them actually tell you their opinion. Plenty of people will silently judge, and others will loudly tell you how the feel. But for every one of them there’s also people who admire you, look up to you, want to do what you do when you grow up. And someone has to do it. Every job is important and if someone close to you in your life can’t respect something you’re passionate about, then I think It’s time to reevaluate that relationship. Obviously think critically, notice ways you can improve as a person, artist, and worker, but at the end of the day if you love something and you work hard at it and others are still rude, the answer may be letting them go.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

When I graduated from college with my degree in photography, I really was under the impression that I would be prepared and fully educated in my field with not much left to learn. But college was really just the beginning of learning for me. So much growth happened after college, I’d say the following three years were exponential. I eventually understood that in order to keep up with trends, social media algorithm changes, keep my pricing fair and competitive, to remain good at the art, and for so many more reasons, continued education is so vital. Most of my “aha!” moments in school came from someone critiquing my work very harshly, even to the point of hurt feelings and prints getting ripped in half from top to bottom. But that’s how you grow, and if you stop that type of criticism eventually, you won’t have to persevere through the hard things or grind to get better. I’m glad I’ve pushed through tough jobs even though associates have been difficult or the social media aspect was lengthy and taxing. I feel like all of it has helped me level up so to speak, and to gain confidence in what I do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cvaire.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cvairephoto/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cvaire/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/cvaire