We recently connected with Joey Cheng and have shared our conversation below.

Joey, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you share a customer success story with us?

By the end of my first year in my photography business, I had a family session where my client told me the most unforgettable feedback that I’ll never forget. He told me, “You brought us back together, you saved my family”.

It happened around June or May in 2021 (I can’t believe it’s more than 2 years ago now!), Fernie reached out and hired me to be his family photographer for a session with his family. The purpose of the photoshoot was a tribute to his late father who was also a Chinese. Knowing I’m from Hong Kong, so as Fernie’s dad, he told me a bit of the backgrounds and hope that I can take on this assignment and do this photoshoot for him and his family. It was my first year in business, I was ambitious and eager to take on any jobs so I said YES without thinking that much!

Going in with my best intuition, I was and have been striving to provide a happy, satisfying, and empowering session to all my clients (I didn’t know those words and objectives then, but I do know now lol), and I did just that to Fernie and his family without thinking beyond. I believe we had a great day together because at the end of the night when we finished our shoot, they were hugging me and sending me off with happy smiles!

I can’t remember exactly when and how long after the shoot when I checked in with Fernie, his personal text/feedback to me was, “Thank you so much for saving my family”. And I remembered at that moment, I didn’t know how to react to this intense of words but I felt like I kinda found my purpose in my photography business and even in my life!

Sometimes, we as photographers only think that we’re going to do our best to provide a beautiful and artful captured memories to our clients, but what we are not aware of is the energy we put out to our clients! We love what we do, we love who we serve, we give out love; thus, they’re receiving nothing but positive energy! And this is how we should help and approach our jobs as in preserving the memories for those who are in needs!

Joey, 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?

Hello again! My name is Joey Cheng, and I’m a Creatives serving in the Film Industry and Wedding Photography world based in Los Angeles, CA, originally from Hong Kong! Being born and raised in Hong Kong, and now living in LA for almost another decade (I promise I’m not that old), I’ve successfully fusion my ambitious personality from Hong Kong and the chilled-and-layback lifestyle from LA into ONE human body!

Thus, providing a very all-around service to all who needs creative help from advertisement for marketing campaigns to narrative short films or documentary, these are my main focus now with my production team! But on the sides, I’m still providing a very caring services to all my lovebirds who want to preserve their wedding memories as a wedding photographer/videographer! I am here for it all!

My friends or even clients ask me very often, “how do you stay so active and not tired at all”? Well, to be honest, I am tired but once you get me working and running, the tiredness is GONE! So please keep me busy! Haha.

My social existence is Joeytheteenadult. What is TheTeenadult? Yep, I made that word up. Well, not technically me. But it’s my Uncle who was comforting me while I was sufferring from anxiety when I turned 18 as I thought my family would disown me from then! So my uncle told me, “You can be The Teenadult, our teenager at home but an adult when you are out in the world”. That really changed me and aspired me to be an ambitious adult while keeping my wild dreams as a teenager! That is my mentality in life, “Thrive and beyond in things I do like a child but in an adult body”. Hmmm, that’s the mindset in most things I do and my team does. Also, we put in our hearts in our work as a creative because we love what we do! That how I serve my clients and friends and in most things I do! So this is me, that’s Joeytheteenadult!

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.

There are a few things that non-creatives are hard to understand or believes, especially from a business perspective:

1. The cost of the work:
Whether it’s photography or even to commercials, we’ve always been approached by clients with tight flows. While technology is so advanced nowadays, and most YOUTUBE videos are teaching you “HOW” to invest in smaller equipments but filming or photographing with consumer-level equipments for a great quality. Most people who are not in the industry will not understand why the cost of what we do are very high. Producing and filming in LA is very expensive first of all haha, 1. Because of Permit fees. 2. The people involved are a lot (especially for commercials or any filming work). I can lower the cost to certain points, but it won’t be a $5000 job for any commercials because even if I can work for free, my crew can’t be of free labor. And the cost of post-production is actually much more expensive than you’d ever realize! To be able to edit and export to an industry (high-quality YouTube level) or Hollywood level or TV broadcast level of work is really not as easy and cheap as you’d think it is! Sure, a $1500-3000 camera nowadays can provide that quality of work, but you are asking for a really skilled person and team to achieve this for you! YouTubers who can do that are either outsourcing some part of specialty to contractors or they spent more than 10,000 hours on studying and stacking the experience so they can do that! But a general enthusiast, can they provide the “general” industrial standards? That’s highly impossible. I completely understand why most companies are invested in influencers rather than filming its own commercials given above explanations, but they are two different kind of realms and purpose for promotions!

2. As a creatives, we always have the story to tell!
This is a yes, and also a no hahaha. I am producer when I’m filming, or at least in this department. So I take care of the business sides of things and communications side of things, but am I required to be creative? Yes! But even if directors or cinematographers, or editors, are they required to be creative? For sure! But, OK, it’s not like we can come up with great ideas or stories most of the time out of the blue air!! Hahahah. Great stories are usually after lots of drafts, lots of criticism, and lots of experience and time. It’s not as easy as you think, of course we might think faster because we are use to it. But we are just like you hahaha. Can an auto-engineer fix house circuits or computer problems? Can an IT technician also fix your light bulbs or fix the roof of your house? Hahahah They sure can, but need a bit more time in figuring out the whole logistics! The same as filmmakers, we can come up with stories for your brands, but we’d love your feedback and thoughts!

3. Your iPhone can do just the same
While I also believe in skills but not equipment, so yes, my iPhone can do just the same! That’s the partial truth, my iPhone can do the same but it’s because we know what we can do. But I also know my iPhone’s limitations so there are a lot of things I can’t do with it as well! A highschool film kid can provide the same quality of work. Yes, a medical student knows the same theory as the experienced doctor does. That’s the same logic. But…. You know what I’m going to say next hahahaha. So I’ll stop here.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Rental, equipment rental. Save your cash flow. Rent not buy, if your city has equipment as accessible as LA and Hong Kong are. Then after you know your skills level and the right equipment for you, then buy and be married to your camera or equipments. Renting is equivalently cheaper in LA and they are very accessible, so it help you saves your money. And it’s easily included as your cost, so you can implement the cost in to your service fee. You get what I’m saying here.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.theTeenadultprod.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/joeytheteenadult

Image Credits
BTS Photos Are: 1. The Trial (2022) – USC MFA Thesis 2. Diana (2022) 3. Power & Rain (2022) USC MFA Thesis All are BTS Photos by me.