We were lucky to catch up with Marissa Webb Tonkovic recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marissa, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s go back in time a bit – can you share a story of a time when you learned an important lesson during your education?

I was in grad school my focus was studio art photography- I remember my first critique with my committee like it was yesterday. You see I grew up in a theatre I was used to criticism. But something about this critique struck me and stuck with me. I had been photographing my sister as part of my thesis work- she is developmentally disabled and actually finally got her formal diagnosis last year. But regardless one of my Professor said- you can’t capture “love” in a photograph. I was put off- I absolutely could do that I thought. I left that critic crying. I was so disappointed that what I thought was love wasn’t showing through in my photographs. I changed that by the end- but it’s always good to have a conversation that really makes you try harder

Marissa, 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 got into photography when I was 13- I photographer my first wedding at age 18 and have been in the industry for over 18 years on and off. I’m a wedding photographer, commercial headshot photographer and family photographer. I never niched down because I always found I loved bouncing between everything.

I literally am there to capture all of life’s moments and it’s my favorite thing to do.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I have actually been asked this question before and I think my reputation came from my willingness to work with anyone and anything. I once was at a party in Philadelphia on NYE in 2008 and I was speaking to one of the guests there and they said something to be that stuck (which was because at the time I was considering going to Grad School to be a College Professor in Photography) they said to me “ There isn’t anything that you can’t teach or do-you just have to put your mind to it and get it done.” Since there I always have that in the back of my head. When I started my business over when I moved that’s all I kept saying over and over again. I learned plenty of new tricks and did that ever so challenging thing of networking.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Social Media has always been a challenge for me- I go in the ebbs and flows of my life and often times try to avoid showing too much of my personal life on there. Which is why I tried to simply focus on my work and occasionally hop on to share something from my life. I just like to keep my family stuff a little more private… but with social media it’s consistency. It’s constantly posting and engaging with profiles and figuring out the next algorithm. So my advice would be just to go at it with what you have to give- don’t post if you don’t feel like it and post when you do. Which is opposite of what most will tell you to do- but there are ebbs and flows to life and ebbs and flows to business too.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.marissakwebb.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/marissakwebbphoto
• Facebook: @mkwtphoto

Image Credits
Marissa K Webb Photography Headshot with daughter: McKenzie Grall Imaging