Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mariah Wild. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mariah, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I constantly wonder to myself “why do I have to learn every lesson the hard way?” but let me tell you something: it sticks. I think the most important part of being successful for me personally is learning through the failures. I am my toughest critic so when I first started out I had this delusion that everything was just going to work out every time I attempted something Naive? Of course, but optimistic. Maturing is realizing that failure is part of the process and taking those experiences to make your future endeavors even better. I used to go into photoshoots with my gear thinking that “everything will be smooth sailing.” That is not how life works and being prepared for every scenario makes the difference between you getting hired again or you hearing radio silence after a shoot. It’s easy to get discouraged when the path to success feels like it’s all speed bumps but the truth is I have then become very skilled at navigating difficult situations. Had I not constantly been surprised or knocked down by obstacles I think it would’ve made it crushing enough at the first sign of struggle to want to quit. The resiliency after a failure is what makes one successful.

Mariah, 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?

I started photography when I was in high school in the dark room with black and white film. At the time I didn’t even have a digital camera or know much about the world of photo but I knew I liked it and I was pretty good at it. I came from a small town where artist was not really a career that many people pursued and so I thought that I should try my hand at a more traditional career. After extreme burnout and being miserable anyway I decided to say “screw it” and went to school for photography. Originally in school I wanted to be a photojournalist, shooting sports for teams like the Steelers and Pitt campus. Food photography was actually one of my least favorite things to shoot but I just wanted to work. After graduation I received an internship with Disney’s Yellow Shoes which is their in house advertising agency. One of the main subjects that I was constantly assigned to was…you guessed it: food. Failure was not an option so I had no choice but to absorb all the information I could and get better at it, the more I delved into the world of food the more I learned to appreciate the intricacies of it.
As a reformed picky eater, one of my favorite challenges with shooting food is making a photo look so appetizing that anyone would want to eat it. I work very hard to create images for clients that make the dish look appealing to a wide audience. Once I perfected my craft a little more, and started to feel confident that’s when I started to have fun with it. When I create art I like it to be playful and colorful so I try to translate that into all of my photography as much as I can.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the harder lessons to accept is that your only competition in a creative field is with yourself. Yes technically there are other businesses and people making similar work to you but if you are focusing on them then your work isn’t going to grow. If I am too busy staring at other people’s gardens then I am going to forget to water my own. It’s so easy to get swept up in the latest trends, gear, editing processes, what everyone else is doing and for years I did that. In that time though I wasn’t developing at all, I was producing work that was good but I was so fixated on what everyone else was doing that I didn’t take the time to establish my own creative voice. It was a bitter pill to swallow when you sit back and realize that you were obsessing about the wrong things and had the tools all along to be better but wasn’t utilizing them. Luckily I have gotten past that stage and now I just make sure to do my best for ME and no one else.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The tagline I like to use for my food photography is “play with your food” but for all of my photography I think the biggest goal is to just PLAY. Adulthood needs a lot more of it. I’ve found the way I connect best with people is when we get to have fun and do something playful or silly. Make nonsense is what I always say. That is the type of businesses and clients I hope to attract. Those who are tired of the serious, the flexing, the perfection and more of the ones just curious about “what would happen if we tried this?”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.foreverwildimages.com
• Instagram: @mariah__wild