We recently connected with Elvis Alvarez and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Elvis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I’ve begun learning photography when I was in my freshman year of college at the University of Houston. Back then, I didn’t have any money to afford a camera, so I used my old Samsung Galaxy phone to learn the basic guidelines like adjusting the shutter speed and iso, adjusting the focus to get a sharper image, composition, etc. Whenever I had free time from my studying or classes, I would usually wander around the UH campus to take some pictures and learn some techniques from some YouTube videos between my session. Sometimes I would take a small trip to downtown Houston to explore the city and capture some scenic views of the skyline. Plus, whenever I was feeling stressed out from all the homework assignments or studying for an exam, photography can be a way to escape from the day-to-day grind of school. Around four years later, I was able to make enough money to buy myself my first DSLR camera, which was the Canon T5. And the first thing I did was switch the setting from Auto to Manual because I wanted to progress my photography skills from the start. At the beginning, it was just a small hobby to relieve my stress from my crazy schedule. I didn’t get too serious until I saw numerous photos that few of my friends were posting online. It didn’t occur to me that this was the starting point of something new.
Looking back on my journey as a photographer, the only thing I could have done to speed up my learning process would be to have more time-oriented on photography, mainly because I was too occupied with school at the time, and now with my priority in my career as a Business Analysis, I didn’t have much time as I wanted to explore, but overall, the growth process itself helped me to be where I am at. Balancing my life with photography was a complete challenge due to my current job and the personal challenges I’m going through, but I always find a way to make time to explore, connect with other photographers, and create memories.
The skills that I think were the most essential are understanding my surroundings and how to be patient to get the “perfect” story – and what I mean by that, is the picture must capture a significant moment. We all live in the same world, but how we observe the world around us is different. I want to curate that story with photography by comprehending the elements (structure, lighting, weather, emotions, etc). in the moment and focusing on the story at the moment. But not all the time these elements can influence your photos. How you edit your photos can also play a big factor in your storytelling; you want to make your works to be an outlier. As a photographer, you can enhance a mood or a general feeling in processing that you will never really be able to fully capture in camera. So, another essential skill that I think it’s important is finding your editing style through Lightroom, Photoshop, or any other editing app and learning how to be consistent with your style to express the stories you capture.
At the end of the day, I’m grateful for where I am as a photographer because it’s more than just clout or exposure – from my perspective, it is mainly about the journey where your curiosity leads you to an opportunity. Instead of waiting for it to come to you, all you must do is pursue it. As James Clear once said, “It is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” This journey has been a road with a lot of amazing opportunities and lessons. I’ve gained tons of knowledge working in this field and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
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 curiosity got me into photography while I was attending the University of Houston. In the beginning, I only did this just to have fun and explore Houston, only focusing on capturing moments in the city and streets, but now I want to evolve more as a photographer and expand my skillsets beyond urban. I want to explore different opportunities with my content with a certain mood and subjectivities.
I am very humble about myself when it comes to my style or preference because I desire my photography to be qualitative in a way where the audience can understand my world through narratives. Every session I go to with other photographers, every event I attended, or every exploration I would participate in, every moment I capture will be different, but memories will be created. It’s important to realize that photography teaches us to look harder and be open-minded about what we perceive. It is a universal language that speaks to the mind and heart. So as a photographer, I want to showcase my memories through the lens. Overall, we came to see the world differently by giving in to our sense of curiosity.
To the present, basically what I do now is focus on various types of photography. Although my content on Instagram is only oriented toward urbex and streets, I also shoot portraits, cars, nature, etc. I offer arrays of services like graduations, engagements, family, professional, and car photography. Additionally, I do sell my prints to customers and clients. But at the end of the day, everything is a learning process for me – I treat photography as a passion.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
My most effective way of growing your clientele is being as engaging, but also being truthful to them. The best approach to building your strong reputation in the industry is to be as dominant as a business person, but also be genuine at the same time. It really helps me to establish that connection with your audience because it helps your audience understands your passion and also sets that foundation of trust. This type of honesty can go a long way toward making sure your clients know what to expect when they see your content and even book your services.
Secondly, you would need to be consistent with your style in photography. In other words, you need to be the outlier because consistency reflects on your credibility. And it’s not easy; it took me almost 4 years to recognize what areas I’m consistent in, even though I want to focus on more than one area. Consistency in your work keeps people involved in your content because it shows how much you care about the little details. You have to take consistency into consideration because it can definitely enhance your growth as a photographer and could make your work more recognizable to your clientele.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
This one is something I recognize from other photographers’ experiences, but it is one thing I want to unlearn because I know any creatives had been through this before. And that’s sticking to one area and not expanding your interest in other areas. For instance, there are a lot of guys that shoot cars because they develop their strong interest in cars, but they only focus on shooting cars – nothing more. The issue I see from that is they’re stuck in that comfort zone because they don’t want to change their style, or they desire to stick with one theme. And when we find ourselves in our comfort zone, then we begin to settle for repetitive performance and mediocre results. That happened to me when I was only shooting streets for a few years ever since I started out. Later, I realize that I want to do more. As a photographer, it is my responsibility to examine my business/hobby and our lives to assess where we are currently living in our “comfort zones,” which ones are okay, and which ones are not serving our current goals.
So, the lesson I had to unlearn is sticking to the one lane, and the lesson I had to learn from that is moving from comfort to growth – being confident and curious about expanding your work as well as intentionally gaining new skills through your curiosity.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/e.alva95/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvis-alvarez-401b51b3/
Image Credits
@domscarter