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

Alright, David thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later?

I was born a creative. As a kid I would jam out on my grandmother’s piano and shoot roll after roll of film with my dad’s point and shoot. This developed into banging out power chords in punk rock bands and shooting on old Pentax SLRs. But as I got older I let fear of failure stop me from committing to a life of art. I began teaching high school literature, a subject I am passionate about, always encouraging my students that exhibited an interest in the arts to follow their dreams and master their crafts.

My wife, a wedding planner with over a decade of experience, would encourage me to enter the wedding industry and go into business for myself as a photographer. I finally decided to ignore that anxiety and fear that had stopped me when I was younger and committed to art.

I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out had I made different choices as a young artist, musician, and photographer. But I take with me into anything I do all the experiences I’ve ever had. My time as an educator is no different. I gained a lot of discipline and people-skills that have helped me immensely as a wedding photographer. I still wish I’d taken my own advice and done this sooner.

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?

My wife, Stephanie – owner of Events By U, encouraged me to begin doing photography professionally. She’s always been my biggest fan and supporter. She introduced me to a few photographers that she works with on a regular basis and I asked if I could shoot with them and learn the ropes. I am eternally grateful to these photogs for their help and guidance. I eventually started shooting on my own and grew to have a team of shooters that work with me. Always conscious of how important that education from my colleagues was early on, I try to find talented photographers who have an interest in making photography their profession and help them get their feet wet and learn how to do this themselves.

Partly due to when I first started making photos, I am a film forward photographer. I offer film packages to everyone and am not ashamed to say that I encourage all my clients to consider adding film to their shoot, be it a wedding, engagement, elopement, or portrait session. However, even for those clients that pass on the film, I still shoot a roll or two on the house because of my passion for analog film photography. Sure, many photographers offer film add ons, but unlike most, I’m not doing this with point and shoot cameras set to automatic exposure. I’m using professional film cameras from the golden age of film photography. It gives wedding photos a timelessness, which when mixed with my loose editorial style, gives a rather bold style reminiscent of the pictures I grew up seeing in magazines like Vanity Fair and Life.

Having spent twenty years as a punk rock guitarist, that rock and roll sensibility has never left me. I bring some of that attitude to all of my work. I grew up loving the rock and roll photography of Jim Marshall and Robert John. Mixing that raw energy with classic wedding editorial work is what gives my photographs their look. When you throw all this into the melting pot, what you’ve got is a style of photography that is as bold as it is fluid. I’m a lover of photography first, so learning what my clients want out of their wedding photos first and figuring out how we can make our styles work together is part of the challenge of using wedding photography as a form of art in my mind. Because at the core of every photo shoot, be it a wedding or otherwise, is capturing the narrative of what I see before me artistically.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Being passionate about my craft has been paramount to building my reputation. Every client and vendor I work with knows that I’m a lover of photography first and a photographer second. And I think that this is so important in any industry, but particularly a service industry like wedding photography. It truly cannot be understated. I’m always on the hunt for a good out-of-print photo or art book because of this.

I think people can always tell when someone is passionate about what they do. It comes through in the way they speak about their jobs and how they execute that job. In wedding photography, I can imagine that those without this passion for photography as art can find it going stale. The problem is that even though it’s wedding number x for a wedding photog, it’s a special, once-in a lifetime even for most.

So, I bring that excitement with me, that passion to make art on your wedding day. This isn’t some other person’s wedding. This is yours! I should be as passionate about making those pictures as you are to exchange vows because you have to live with these photos forever. I hate the pictures from my own wedding. I never look at them. And that’s so sad because it was one of the happiest days of my life. But I felt then and still feel today like it was paint by the numbers for our photographer.

The day I am no longer passionate about photography is the day I stop taking inquiries.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Artists chase perfection in their medium because it is unattainable. So with an art, like photography, there is a duality to this chase. On the one side is the response your photos evoke in yourself as artist, and on the other side is the response your photos evoke in others as your audience. And this apparent dichotomy actually works in tandem. Because I find no greater reward as a photographer than when I deliver a gallery and see that overwhelming and emotional response from my client. And sometimes my favorite photo isn’t the client’s favorite. That’s ok. Because there are pictures I make to satisfy my own artistic drive and complete the visual narrative we are composing. But every photo I deliver is one that I’m proud of. So to hear that someone loves it, that they can’t wait to make an album or make a print for their living room…there’s nothing quite like that.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://davidulloastudio.mypixieset.com
• Instagram: @david_ulloa_studio