We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erika Stewart a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Erika thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?
Honestly, I am glad I started my business back in 2012– it wasn’t the issue of starting sooner or later, but rather going full-time instantly. I was always afraid of not being able to support myself, so for countless years, I would divide my time with another job while also running my business. I would find whenever I was slow with my filler job, I would get extremely anxious that time was being wasted- time that I could pour into myself and my business and make my dreams come true.
It wasn’t until recently that I dove in to It Clicks Photo full time and honestly, it was a decision I wish I would of made sooner. The fear of never making enough went deeper than just a thought, it was something learned as a kid, and stuck with me through every interaction I made with the older generation, asking what I also did because there was no way photography was supporting me. Through that limiting belief of “you cannot support yourself on art” I pushed off making my business and my calling my everything, pouring my heart and soul into it.
I think it is so important in today’s world to hear the stories of the businesses who may have gone through that transition because it will inspire younger generations that if your heart and soul is into something, then you need to give your all to it. It will bloom, you can change your world and do something with your career that feels really really good and makes you proud at the end of the day- even on the hard days.
So looking back, I wouldn’t change when my business started; I would of changed my dedication to it, and totally busted that myth of not being able to support myself sooner.
Erika, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
For those of you who don’t know me, I am Erika Stewart, the owner and lead photographer at It Clicks Photo. I earned my degree in photography and business in 2013, and started taking weddings in 2012 before graduation. Growing up, I was always the kid with a camera, asking countless times for disposable cameras from CVS, and for digital cameras all throughout middle school and high school. I was (and still am) obsessed with documenting a time and place that holds special significance.
For the past 10 years, I have been primarily a wedding photographer helping couples document their wedding day to the fullest. I love love, and honor my couples by bringing out the true colors of their day. I do this by diving deep on how their relationship began, their favorite moments they hold of their fiance, and asking what I can catch them doing from day-to-day, and also what they would be doing on a dream vacation. With those details, I can create photo experiences that ring true to them and allows them to open up and feel into the moment.
We recently opened up a new division in It Clicks Photo with branding photography, where we can take that same care and translate it to the woman business owner. With today’s age, we’re totally all about finding out what business core values and mindsets are before purchasing a product or hiring them for a service, so we know the imagery we take for their business is a bit more in depth than just what their job looks like from the outside. We achieve this similarly to the questionnaires we have sent to hundreds of couples to ensure no detail has gone missed.
I am most proud with how transparent and authentic we are with our clients- whether that is on the phone, VIA text, or literally in our Instagram stories. When we speak with you, it is truly from the heart to develop a bond unlike any other. We aren’t here to have fluffy conversations, but meaningful ones to put you at ease that when you work with us, we will honestly take care of you and relate to the things you are going through. Because we treat our clients as though they are our best friends, we have been growing at an amazing rate, and we are able to quit our day jobs to go full in and give even more of ourselves to our people.
We follow and talk with our heart, yet stay organized and on top of things to make our process extremely smooth. Using incredible services online (thank goodness for the internet!), we make the process of hiring, signing contracts, coordinating shoots and timelines, and communication ridiculously easy, and you don’t feel like you’re left in the dark. Every client gets my personal cell number with the openness to text me at any time with questions because- like mentioned above- we truly care and give a crap about our clients and couples.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Let’s talk about right before the pandemic (gross, I know- but I swear it is worth it). It was January 1st, 2020. Where were in our life; we just moved to Rhode Island from Michigan 2 months prior to shut down knowing no one- not a single soul- in a new state hundreds of miles from home. My husband was offered a new job with a dream company and it required relocation. I am not really one to pass up a good adventure (especially if it means one helluva story) so we signed a lease for an apartment, sold our home in MI, packed our things, and jumped on it. I still had 12-13 weddings booked in Michigan, so I let my couples know prior to leaving and announcing to the social media world we were relocating, but their dates are still secured, contracts are still fine, and I’d be back to fulfill their dates seamlessly.
The first 2 months of being in Rhode Island, I made a few connections, attended a wedding expo and set meetings up to meet with other wedding professionals to start making a base for new work.
In comes the shut-down, and what turned to a little scare of possible postponing a few spring weddings, and rescheduling those meetings I made turned to countless meeting cancellations, more than half of the weddings postponing, one cancelled due to illness, and ZERO work until the end of August. When this came crashing in, I was terrified. We didn’t have anyone to rely on, the apartment we were renting was expensive, and all the income from my husband’s new job was used for rent. We were literally just scraping by with no end in sight and I was not bringing in any work.
THIS is where the pivot began. I searched online for ways to make income as a photographer, and the site snappr.com came up. Snappr is not only an online platform where people can book a photographer for a family shoot/ couple shoot/ wedding/ etc, but also it is a place where businesses, like Bring-A-Trailer, DoorDash, Heal.me, Future Research, etc could hire photographers for their businesses that signed up. (That was a mouthful, let me explain better). So, for example, when a restaurant signs up + pays to use DoorDash, DoorDash sends a photographer (that’s me) to their new restaurant to take photos of their most popular dishes at no charge to the restaurant. DoorDash would pay Snappr to send out available, local photographers for these shoots, and the photos created from the shoot are then used for the restaurants profile on DoorDash.
At this point in my life, I did a few product photography shoots, mainly for my husband’s portfolio and for the bridal salon I would do photos for. So I signed up to be on Snappr, uploaded my previous work, and marked myself as available to take photo shoots. I will never forget- It was April 12th, I was bored in the apartment, and I just started making a bunch of small meals to photograph for Snappr. I made smoothies, pancakes, rice, stir-fry, biscuits, on and on and just photographed- all day. The next day I edited everything and uploaded to my profile in hopes to get some work. That night, I was sitting in the guest room watching Project Runway as my husband was playing COD in the living room, and my phone was buzzing off the hook!! Notification after notification came in- I was booked for 15 new DoorDash shoots in my area for the next few weeks!! It felt amazing to FINALLY have work flying in, I honestly felt like crying! This work kicked open a new division for It Clicks Photo. It strengthened my understanding of foodtography and branding. I started getting businesses in Rhode Island to hire me for THEIR restaurants because of the work they saw me posting on socials of the DoorDash shoots. This was an unconventional pivot, but it was all I could do in a world of shut-down. DoorDash saved our business, and opened us up to receive more work and not suffer from the pandemic. THANK GOD.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
I am a part of a book club, and we read inspirational books written by women entreprenuers who were tested to the limits, and pulled through, and every time I read one, I feel so driven to keep on keeping on. I feel like these books are so extremely important to prove you can start from absolutely NOTHING and make it. Here’s a short list:
– Be by Jessica Zweig
– Believe It by Jamie Kern Lima
– A Tribe Called Bliss by Lori Harder
– Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini
– The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein
– Spirit Junkie by Gabby Bernstein
– Rich as F*ck by Amanda Frances
Contact Info:
- Website: www.itclicksphoto.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/itclicksphoto
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/itclicksphoto
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/photographer-erika/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/itclicksphoto
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/it-clicks-photo-detroit-2
- Other: Other Instagram: www.instagram.com/brandmindfully
Image Credits
All credits: It Clicks Photo