We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eva a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eva, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I learned how to take photos and use a camera by taking photos and using a camera. I know it sounds silly but you won’t learn until you try a hundred times and fail most of them. Surrounding yourself with professionals or even people who inspire you to create is where gold is found. Start assisting on shoots, ask for help, serve at your local church, take photos of your friends, and just go out and do whatever it is you’re trying to learn/become better at/make a living doing.

Personally, I dont think I would have done anything different to speed anything up. Everything has been happening at the right time and I feel like if it would have happened faster I would have been burnt out and not enjoy the gift it is to create in the way that I get to!

Skill that are most essential to me are flexibility, consistency, and humility. Some people say “quit doing things for free” and for me, yes, there’s a professional line where if you keep doing things for free you won’t make a living but there’s also the one off things that you align with another human on and stars aline and its a no brainer to do the gig. With all of those skills comes networking which is what you have to have to make a living a business owner.

The obstacles that stood in the way for myself would be the 10 other things I wanted to do as a bussiness owner. There was a moment that I had to stop a few endeavors to focus solely on photography. It changed the game for me because it wasn’t put on the back burner when it needed to be front and center to be able to have a career flourish out of it!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a professional photographer specializing in concerts/live events. Creating a safe place for any person to come in a be themselves is a value I hold dearly whether at a show or in a studio.

How I started taking photos is a wild story. A friend of mine asked me to go on tour with her and take photos and I had never used a DSLR camera before. She said “you have a good eye with using your phone so I think you’ll be great at this..” or something along those lines. I borrowed her parents NIKON camera with a few lens’ and got on YouTube and typed in “how to use a DSLR camera” and the rest is history. That was in 2017 and from then on I went and bought a little t6i CANON camera and used that for about 6 years while going after this passion I developed after going on tour! from 2017 until now Ive learned under some of what I consider the greatest photographers around. A lot of my learning has been from taking photos at my church and learning in the low light how the camera functions best. I will always be an advocate of – what ever the “thing” is you want to learn, you HAVE to go do it. It’s not going to magically turn into a business I you have no drive to learn or keep getting better.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

98% of the time (this is my stat and not a real number someones done a test on) the entrepreneur/creative/business/fill in the blank, its NOT luck. This has been fresh on my mind because someone recently said after I got a pretty cool gig, she said “you’re so lucky you got to go shoot that show..” and I know she was excited for me and wasn’t being malicious or anything along those lines but what I heard was “wow, you just got given this opportunity you did no work for”. I do believe that things in life can happen where you’re not reaching out to people and something comes across your email and you think to yourself “how did this happen, how did they get my contact, this is wild..” I do know that those things happen and thats not what I am talking about.

I send probably 20-60 emails a month to artists mangers I want to work with. I will MAYBE get one response out of 200 emails I send. Most of the people that follow me and see the “instagram highlights” dont see the hours and hours of work that I do to get the one gig. Regardless, that one gig can now turn into 10 gigs, or a full world tour, or an album release party for their friend, or whatever else that one person remembers you for. All this to say, this career for some could take two years and other could take ten to make a living doing it, please dont call it luck. Showing up, being consistent, and being a good human can do a lot for people. This isn’t luck, it’s hard work, consistenscy, determination, and a passionate to bring a beautiful thing into the world.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

A resource I wish more people had was a creative community. The people around you matter. If the people you’re surrounded with are not motivated to become better at their job or even becoming a better human, get people around you that are. Your mindset will change and you will have a full life. Take care of your mental health, take care of your body, and get off social media every so often if you can. The last thing I would say is, let social media inspire you. Don’t try to create the exact same thing someone else has made, take that, run with it, try it, and make something of your own with it!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.codacompany.store
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its.eva.d/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codacompanytn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eva-drennan/
• Other: photography/branding page: https://www.instagram.com/coda.company/