We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sam Adler a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Sam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar you earn in a new endeavor is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.

When you first start as a food photographer you have to constantly reach out to clients pitching your services. You dont have many people knocking on your door asking for help and if you do, its mostly for free product or the dreaded *exposure*. It is REALLY hard to not accept these kinds of “work” and a lot of photographers undermine themselves and their works worth.

When I first started, I sent out pitch emails to dozens and dozens of food brands that I wanted to work with. It can be disheartening to send out so many emails and never hear back. One of the first brands I finally got through to and was able to work with was a sunflower seed butter company.

What helped me land the deal was sharing with the brand how much our family genuinely loved the product. I shared a story about how I always buy two at the store- 1 for the whole family, and 1 for our daughter who liked to eat it with her fingers so we just bought her her own.

I ended up creating 2 recipes and a set of photos for the client. Landing that job helped a lot with my confidence as a new food photographer. Now I teach food styling and photography through my online courses on StyleMeCreatively.com and always tell me students that it is SO much harder to get your first client then your tenth. You just have to keep going!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I went to Le Cordon Bleu’s Baking and Pastry Arts Program in Miami in 2012 thinking that I wanted to learn how to create custom cakes. After working at a custom cake shop as part of my externship from school, I ran a custom cake shop from my house for 5 years. After a move and a couple kids I realized that I didnt want to work nights and weekends anymore- nobody ever needed a cake for noon on a Wednesday!

I decided to stop selling cakes and start a baking blog to share my recipes online instead. FrostingandFettuccine.com was started in May of 2017. This is where I share easy yet impressive desserts for the home baker. The goal of the blog is for home bakers to make desserts that look impressive but wont take all day in the kitchen. They are mostly easy recipes, so you wont find macarons, croissants, or anything to fussy on there.

After starting my blog, I realized that in order to stand out I needed to have really beautiful pictures. Over the next 3 years I took every online food photography course that I could find. I took mastermind programs, went to conferences, invested in workshops, made some really amazing friends, and practiced every single day.

The practice and investment paid off (as it always does!) and in 2018 I won a Saveur Blog Award by Saveur Magazine for Best Food Instagram. I was and still am so incredibly proud of this accomplishment. Getting recognized but a magazine like Saveur was something that built my confidence and proved I was in the right place.

Soon after some people started asking me for food photography tips and if I would start teaching. I never had the end goal of teaching but after multiple requests I thought ” I could do this”.

Another 3 years later and I now have multiple online food photography courses for people at every stage of their food photography career all through my site StyleMeCreatively.com.

My beginner program is called Food Photography Foundations. This program is for the beginner food photographer who needs to learn what camera to buy and how to use it properly. It is a self paced course that is designed to get you feeling confident behind your camera. It is always open for enrollment and is an instant download.

My intermediate program is a mastermind group called The Style Mastermind. This is a 90 day group coaching intensive program that is designed to help food photographers find their unique style and learn to make money with their photos. This program is through application only as I coach you through daily chats and weekly group coaching calls.

My students have gone from 0 clients to full time jobs, were able to quit the full time jobs they hated so they could shoot food full time, and have gone from not believing in themselves to having a strong mindset.

I could not be more proud!!

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

For me its a couple things- Investing in myself so that I could understand what makes a beautiful photo so that I am able to express myself in this art form. Also showing up constantly on social media as who I am. What you see is what you get, and not caring about what other people think.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Like I mentioned earlier, you can pitch 20 clients and hear back from none. It can be really disheartening and make you feel like you want to quit especially if you see everyone else working with people. Recently I have read the book Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill and he says that there is no such thing as failure, only temporary defeat. So when I am having a hard day and think I am failing, I remember that my success in inevitable, this is just a moment of temporary defeat.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://frostingandfettuccine.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frostingandfettuccine/
• Other: Food Photography Learning and Resources: https://www.stylemecreatively.com/

Image Credits
These photos are shots I took :)