We were lucky to catch up with Paul Gargagliano recently and have shared our conversation below.

Paul, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Well, you see I’m blessed/saddled with the surname Gargagliano. A gorgeous beast, full of gees, and an awful business name, unspellable, unpronounceable. So… I cast about, and it happened that when I met the love of my life we both lived on Hazel Avenue, so the business name Hazel Photo holds the history of my love story hidden in plain sight.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started my professional photography career with an interest in street photography and photojournalism. When I initially made wedding photographs, what I was most interested in was the chaos. I wanted to tell authentic strange stories though frames bursting with bodies and juxtapositions, and if they were a bit ugly, then I knew they were real. Over the past decade, I have honed my vision. As it turns out, as a wedding photographer, I am firstly serving my clients, and they want to be captured from flattering angles. I am still thrilled by a complex scene full of emotion and gesture and strong use of negative space, but I am also laser focused on finding flattering angles that show my clients at their absolute, glowing best. What sets me apart is that I stick with a moment, or a scene, until everything aligns, and I succeed in making a particularly appealing, dynamic image full of meaningful gesture, rather than giving up after a few shutter clicks, and moving on to the next image.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

This is an interesting question in that, the formation of the question seems to indicate a stationary solution to a stationary problem. What I’ve learned as I’ve grown my business is that both the problems and the solutions as regards client growth are in flux.

At one point organic reach on Facebook was useful (that dried up) and then organic reach on Yelp was the main driver (that dried up,) then a paid subscription to a niched-down blog called “A Practical Wedding” was gold (that dried up,) my own blogging proved to be a strong engine of growth for a while (that weakened over time,) then it was exposure to planners on Instagram… There is still strength there for now… but I’m certain a new strategy will emerge, that will leave that one in the dust.

The best approach is to revisit the problem regularly, through brainstorming with colleagues or coaches in the ever present search for cost-effective paths to growth.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

One of the persistent stories in my career from the very beginning has been a journey from a lack of willingness to tell my story with passion and confidence into a willingness to tell my story and embrace my gifts. I would have moved towards financial success much more quickly had I been able to find my way into the mindset that what my clients were purchasing in the end was not only a gallery of photographs, but also a story that gave them a sense of pleasure and meaning to tell themselves and their people about why they had commissioned a body of artworks from me.

A consistent intentional iteration on the story of a solopreneur or an artist’s: personal story, work and process is the most important guiding principle and economic driver.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hazelphoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hazelphotoweddings
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hazelphotoweddings
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-gargagliano-30781871/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/hazel-photo-san-francisco-4

Image Credits
All images credited to Paul Gargagliano / Hazelphoto