We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Acosta a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Emily thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
I had been working for a nationwide newborn photography company full-time, while also working on building my clients for my own business. I knew that before I was able to quit my day job & strictly work for myself full-time, I would be super busy & crazy! I was right! After about 4 years of working with the big corporate company, I finally had developed a shooting style that really worked for me & my subjects, and I had enough regular clients to where I felt ALMOST comfortable quitting my day job. My partner, family & Friends really encouraged me to just go for it and the rest will fall into place. After realizing that my heart just wasn’t in my day job anymore because I was fully committed to really being able to start my own business, and I gave my notice at my corporate job and completely immersed myself into everything that comes with owning one’s own business. It certainly was a nerving at first, not having a steady paycheck and really having to rely on myself to hustle in order to make sure I had all my bills paid and that I was still able to live my fun, relatively carefree 20-something life. However, once I let go of the safety net of the steady paycheck, I realized that I had a pretty substantial level of tenacity in me that I didn’t know existed, and I began to realize that my friends & family were spot on. I began to see that I could DO THIS, and I started to increase my amount of clientele just based on word-of-mouth referrals. Once I begin to see the results, I knew I could trust myself, and I knew that this was definitely what I was meant to do with my life. Even though it can be extremely stressful being the sole employee, boss, secretary, photographer, photo editor, scheduler, etc., it is so rewarding to be able to run my business the way I want to and not have to answer to anyone else and know that the way that I have cultivated my own photographic style really does seem to work. But really I think the best part of all of this is being able to build lifelong relationships with my clients. It’s pretty incredible to meet a couple who is just engaged, photographed their wedding, find out they are expecting a baby, and to see their family grow. I know that with many of my wonderful long-term clients, I will likely know them long enough to be photographing their own children’s weddings one day, and that is some thing that not everyone is lucky enough to say.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve never been a left brain/scientific/numbers kind of person. I’ve always been drawn to the arts, thinking outside of the box, and I always loved being able to get creative & ‘weird’ when problem-solving. My parents have always said they never saw me at a 9-5 desk job, but they also were a bit surprised when I went into business for myself! Being much more well-suited for creative outlets, I took as many art classes in high school as possible. I found a photography class my sophomore year, and just fell instantly in love. After continuing with every photography class my school offered, I decided to make that my concentration in college. I never looked back! I took all the photo classes at my college, worked in the photo lab on campus, got hired by several local photographers (commercial, school photos, kids’ sports photography, etc.) , and eventually moved back to STL after meeting my forever person, and the rest is history. Now that I’ve been in business for over a decade, I’ve racked up tons of experience in all the traditional photography categories: families, kids, seniors, headshots, maternity, newborn & commercial, and they all have absolutely wonderful aspects! But my favorite events by far are weddings. One day combines so many different aspects of photography, and each one is SO UNIQUE! Everyone is ready to party, and everyone looks fantastic! Not to mention that wedding day is one of the best days of a person’s life…and I get to be there for the entire thing & see all the incredibly emotional moments people and their families experience together. It’s pretty awesome.
I think one of the things I’m most proud of with my photographic style is that I so often hear from clients how easy I made the shoot & how relaxed & comfortable they felt. This lets me know that I really got genuine moments & reactions from them during our shoot, which is, I think, every photographer’s dream! To get your client’s authentic selves captured on camera is the ultimate goal & payoff.
I also really pride myself on getting to know my clients even if we just meet for one shoot, because it really allows me to tailor the way I shoot to those clients specifically. I don’t have a set list of poses or specific shots that I do for each shoot, because each shoot is completely different. I don’t do a whole lot of ordering around during my shoots, I usually like to place clients in the general area and way that I know will look great for them, and then I let them just take over and position themselves how they feel most comfortable. I’ve found that this way of ‘posing’ people tends to work much better for me instead of me saying exactly where to look and exactly how to sit or stand, because then it’s not the clients that are coming through, it’s me, and we’re not here to photograph me!
Another thing I have heard from many clients is that they appreciate the diversity that they see in my portfolio. I absolutely LOVE meeting people from all types of different backgrounds and in different life and family situations. It’s so interesting for me, especially since I am a woman married to another woman, and I understand that there is no ‘standard’ when it comes to family. There are also huge job perks to being completely open to any situation I am in on any given day— several years ago, my first of many shoots with a beautiful Indian family several years ago allowed me to sit down with the family and have an extremely extremely delicious and authentic home-cooked Indian meal! The family and I had built up such a strong connection in just the 60 or so minutes we spent together during the shoot that they insisted that I stay and hang out and have a freshly cooked meal with them. I jumped at the chance, and took full advantage!
After so many years of really honing in on my photography, I think I’ve found a great stride for myself, and it seems that my clients agree. I’m pretty certain I’ve found a way to engage with my clients during our shoots, and we honestly always have so much fun! It’s the very best thing when I hear a new client actually rave about how much fun they had during our shoot & tell me that they cried when looking at the finished photos, because I know I’ve done exactly what I set out to do!
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Since I have known a good chunk of my clients for several years at this point, I have a pretty good idea of when they like to do photos and when birthdays are and milestones, etc. This allows me to preemptively touch base with them to give them first dibs on scheduling a shoot for the best time for light, weekend availability, whatever works for them specifically. Essentially I like to give them extra VIP treatments just to let them know that I value their business, time, and friendship over the years. I also love to check in with pretty much all of my regulars in August in order to get them scheduled for fall photos during the busiest time of my business year, which is September through December. These months fill up extremely quickly, so I always make sure to touch base with those clients well in advance to make sure that they get their first choice of timeslot, location, etc. On a more fun note, a few years ago I started taking selfies at the end of each shoot with clients I have seen for at least two shoots and with Wedding clients, as I have ultimately built up or up rapport with them at that point. I post these on my socials, and clients seem to love them! Also, more often than not, these are seen by clients’ friends, and we all realize we have another person in common somehow. It’s so much fun to be able to give them a little Momento of the crazy person behind the camera, so that down the road they still remember our connection we have made over the years. And, I love it too, because I honestly feel like a part of a lot of these peoples families after spending so many big moments with them. It’s so fun!
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
So luckily, to get my business going, I really only essentially had to have enough money to buy one camera and a few good lenses, a bag to carry everything, editing software, and basically nothing else. I work from home, so I don’t have an office to maintain, and really the cost for owning and operating my business is pretty low compared to many other places. However, a big part of starting a photography business is making sure that you have enough money saved up not only for your equipments, but also just to make sure you’ve got money to pay your bills for at least a few months in case things are slow during the start up. Luckily, I had been thinking ahead before quitting my day job, and I made sure to save up plenty of extra money and put money in my savings account so that I had some padding in case things got a little dicey, but that actually never happened and I was able to invest in nicer equipment when I felt like I was ready to, and I sat on that savings because I knew there would be a slow season during the winter months. Owning a photography business requires financially planning ahead, which actually really helped me At the very beginning of the pandemic when you weren’t allowed to leave your home at all. I definitely got a little nervous that March, as business was essentially at a standstill. However, after that first month of quarantine, I think people were really ready to just get out of their house, and in April of 20 20 I was back to about 80% of my steady spring photo shoots, which was pretty awesome! I think people felt safe enough to go to a park for an hour and be outside with another person at a safe distance away. I certainly breathe a sigh of relief at that point! But I knew that I had my ‘rainy day’ savings to fall back on because I had planned ahead prior to everything.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mihaphoto.com
- Instagram: @mihaphotostl
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/mihaphotostl