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

Jared, appreciate you joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I think this is a question a lot of creatives think about – is it worth it to continue in my work? I know that the thought crosses my mind on a semi-regular basis and in different seasons. I was actually thinking about this this past week, even going so far as to look at jobs on LinkedIn. On the one hand, being a creative means that you have a lot of freedom to pursue your passions and interests with a flexible schedule. On the other hand, it can also mean going for weeks (or months) without work, odd hours, and uncertainty with finances. I have had many times when I didn’t know where I was going to get rent for the next month or if I would have enough money for groceries. It can be a scary thing to be a creative when your livelihood depends on your art. And in those times I have seriously considered getting out of the industry altogether.

I moved back to my current city last year after having been away for the previous 5 years. “Starting over” felt daunting. Over the past 10+ years of being in business, I’ve seen both feast and famine, and during the famine seasons I always seem to reconsider the option to find something else. However, I told myself that I would give it a year in this new market before making any drastic decisions, scary as it may be. I think that as a general rule, creatives tend to “feel” very deeply. And when you are struggling with making a living from your work, it can feel like it’s a value statement on your art. But one of the things that I have been reminding myself lately is that success in a business isn’t the same thing as value – and vice versa. While you absolutely need to be excellent in your craft, I am learning that those who really succeed are also really great at business. In today’s image-saturated world, good work by itself doesn’t always ensure success. When I moved back last year I decided to invest the majority of my time working on the business aspect of running a business. I’m starting to see a little bit of momentum.

Jared, 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?

My name is Jared Tseng, and I’m a photographer specializing in family photography. When I was growing up, my mom was really diligent about photographing our family. She collected those images and had shelves full of photo albums that spanned decades worth of our family’s history. I grew up looking at these images and had an appreciation for how important they were. Looking at these albums during those early years was what fostered my interest in photography. I loved the idea of family documentation and wanted to learn photography so that I too could take photos of my family one day.

As a family photographer, I understand that the images I create will go on to help tell someone else’s family story. Their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren will one day look at these photos, and it’s important to me that their story be told well. One of the biggest problems that we face today with our photos is not having them printed. In a digital society with everything living on our devices, we run the risk of losing them through hard drive crashes or data corruption. Our memories and family history are too important to lose, and so I provide physical products that can be displayed and enjoyed in the home. This not only ensures that your images are safe, but also that they will be enjoyed by your family as well as future generations.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think something that is often overlooked is that it takes years and years to hone and perfect our craft. I’ve often been asked why I charge so much, especially when everyone has a camera on their phone. There are multiple factors to consider, but perhaps the biggest one is that developing the technical skills as well as the artistic eye takes a lot of time. When you’re on assignment, you have split seconds to determine what lenses, apertures, shutter speeds, and ISO to use, as well as angles and lighting before a moment passes away and you no longer have that image to capture. It takes years to get to a place where these things become second nature. But another thing to consider is that everyone’s style is completely unique. The way a photographer sees the world and chooses to translate that through the photographic medium is distinct to that individual. And so they can (and should) be able to command a certain price; even if others have the technical knowledge, no one else has their eye to see the world and the images that they shoot. It lies uniquely with that person.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

I think much of the appreciation for photography as a family record has been lost. I mentioned earlier about how our society has traded the physical for digital, but we’ve also traded quality for quantity. We have thousands and tens of thousands of images on our phones, but the vast majority of them never get to be enjoyed. When was the last time you looked at those Christmas photos from 5 years ago or your grandma’s birthday from 2013? I am a photographer, and even I hardly look back at images that go beyond the first page in my photos app! Those are thousands and thousands of images go to live (and ultimately die) on our devices. Again, I think back to the photo albums of my youth. I looked at those all the time, and I was able to both appreciate and remember the memories that we had all collected together. These have now become family heirlooms and some of my most precious possessions. It is my goal to help foster that appreciation for family photos once again by not only providing great images, but also high-quality printed products. I want families to have something tangible to enjoy every day and to have more than a hard drive to pass on to their future generations.

Contact Info:

• Website: jaredtseng.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/jaredtsengphoto
• Facebook: facebook.com/jaredtsengphotography
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jaredtseng