We recently connected with Jessica Martin and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Failure and perseverance. So many people try to skip over failure. It doesn’t feel good to fail so we do everything not to fail or make mistakes, but in reality it’s inevitable. We all fail and it’s what we do with those failures that teaches us how to succeed. So we need perseverance to help feel our way through those difficult moments of failure. When we combine these two things one can start using a growth mindset to ask the important questions. This question doesn’t define success and that may be a key component for business entrepreneurs to consider. What is success to one person may not be success to another.

Jessica, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Jessica Martin and I grew up in a small town in Texas. My father passed away from testicular cancer when I was six years old. His death set the stage for my inescapable need to preserve life. This takes on different forms within my creative works of photographer, filmmaker, and writer. Photography really became a passion for me after high school. I felt very lost after I graduated. No one explained how to get into a good university and no one in my home had a college or university degree. One afternoon I rediscovered my obsession with photography when I found some mushrooms growing alongside some wood and I couldn’t pull myself away from the little rinky dink camera I had. It was the attempt to photograph those mushrooms that led to a lot of frustration with the camera I had. It wasn’t long until I had my first DSLR and began reading the manual and taking photos of everything. Eventually people started asking me to take their photos and that’s how it all began. Then disaster struck. My mother had a heart attack and unexpectedly passed away in January of 2010. I was 25 years old. Her death catapulted me into rethinking my personal life choices. I made several changes in my life and within a few years I started dating my husband and we had our daughter, Dexi. I started back to school and after being accepted at UT we moved to Austin in 2016. I graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a BA in English and a minor in History, the first of my family. We now reside here in Southeast Austin and I offer photography and videography services along with freelance writing as well. I photography families, seniors, weddings, and personal brands. I offer help with styling and clothing and direction at the shoot to get the most authentic and natural images and videos. Every photography session includes a 1-3 minute video stitched together to tell your compelling story. The old VHS tapes of my past have taught me that any video captured today will be treasured for years and years to come and my main goal is to preserve these moments for your family. My family often gathers around the television and we watch all of our home movies together. These bonding experiences bring us joy and laughter alongside the photo albums. I treasure the relationships and people I’ve been able to meet through photography. It is my privilege to get to know you and your families to best capture and tell the stories and stages you want to remember about life.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Creativity is a process. Everyone’s process varies, but for me, knowing that information about myself and how I work best to consistently create the best results has been a game changer. I used to go home directly from a shoot, import the photos, and begin culling and editing them. But that was hard on me and ended up causing burnout in the beginning and I often wasn’t as happy with the results. Over time my process has significantly changed. Once the photo shoot is complete I will import the photos to get them off of the card, but I don’t begin working on them for at least 48 hours. The reason is that I am too close to my work. If I begin working on them too soon, I become too attached to every image. It actually makes the process of narrowing down images extremely difficult. In return, when there are too many images to edit it’s nearly impossible for me to complete the same level of editing across the board due to burnout. Editing is a very time intensive and tedious process, but I don’t want to sacrifice how I like my images to look because there are too many to get through. So I take my time and I take breaks. Once I start working on a session I take a 3-5 days to fully go through and edit a session. If I finish editing in one day, I will sleep and look again in the morning for any mistakes I make or how I can further improve them before delivery. The best advice I can give to anyone is not underestimate the power of a fresh perspective after a full night’s rest.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I had to learn is something I call creative comparison syndrome. It’s when we compare our creativity to those of others and feel unable to be as good or move forward. We all struggle with comparison, right? It’s so easy to feel insecure when you compare yourself to others. That tangible feeling of not being enough dominoes everything we do after. It makes it harder to get out of bed in the morning, harder to keep trying. When you feel those insecurities bubbling up to the top I challenge you to ask yourself this one simple question: How can I be better? How can I take what I’m feeling and push the boundaries to create something even better? It’s not a contest by any means, but it forces you to think of ways you can further add value to your creativity and your clients. If you’re not already asking yourself how you can improve you will love the results once you begin the exploration.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thejessicamartin.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.jessica.martin/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thejesssicamartin
• Linkedin: https://www.instagram.com/the.jessica.martin/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6QhCEYQw9cDw2M5FBbzrCA
• Other: https://vimeo.com/thejessicamartin https://www.jessicamartincontent.com/

Image Credits
All images are created by Jessica Martin of The Jessica Martin Photography & Films