We were lucky to catch up with Trinity Marriott recently and have shared our conversation below.
Trinity, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?
The photography industry is extremely saturated and it’s quite hard to gain any clientele when you first start. I believe that since there are tons of photographers out there it’s a big challenge to gain any profit for your own business. I’ve learned that when you first start your own photography business the one thing that you should immediately start doing is getting in contact with other photographers around you area. Once you start reaching out to people who do what you do you’re able to learn from them as well as getting a foot into the right door. Your business is something you should be putting out into the world and a way to do that is to create friends in your industry and start networking! With my business I noticed I was gaining more clientele which lead to more profit when I started networking within the photography community. You’ve probably heard of collaborations with brands and that’s essentially what you’re doing. I know a lot of photographers out there are willing to meet up with you to talk about business as well as maybe taking a photo or two of each other to get content. There’s also an array of photography groups that will do meetups with other photographers as well as hosting a content day. Don’t be shy to join them! Coming from someone who gets nervous meeting new people or joining groups, once I finally did it I’ve managed to meet such amazing people who have a love for photography like I do and I’ve gained clientele from it! The photography community can be very competitive but remember to not compare your work to others. Everyone’s work will be different and unique so don’t be afraid to network and get yourself out there. Another big challenge with gaining profit within the photography community is pricing. Since there are a lot of photographers out there you can’t help but compare your prices to others. Don’t do that! No matter how big or small your business is there will always be clients out there that will pay for your work.
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’ve always had a love for photography but I never thought of it as a business. Around junior year of high school is when I started taking photography seriously. I began making a website as well as a logo and then I joined some photography groups to start meeting other photographers around my area. Once I realized how much I love photography and how I could potentially make it a true business I reached out to my friends and family to see if I could take photos of them to get content. As soon as I got content that I liked I created a new Instagram page just for my photography and once I started posting my work I was getting messages asking how much I charged for photos. I can’t express how excited I was when I booked my first paid photo shoot, I remember thinking, “I made it!”. It took about a year or two until I finally set my prices and published by website. Once I did that I was getting emails and messages from people that weren’t just my friends trying to book a photo shoot with me. I expanded my services to families, events, engagements, etc. Providing different services really helped my business and helped me gain clientele. Then around 2020 I was fully booked almost every month. I think I’m most proud of the fact that I began my business completely by myself. I knew what I wanted and I didn’t stop until I got to where I am today. I am currently working as a full-time Dental Assistant and I do photography on the side. Even with working a full-time job I still manage to get fully booked with photo shoots once I put my availability out. The photography community is extremely saturated but I believe my work is unique compared to others. Whether that be my editing style or the types of photo shoots I do. My goal for the new year is to start doing more western styled photo shoots. I absolutely love western style and there’s a lot of it here in Northern Colorado so getting more clientele that want those types of photos is something I’m diffidently working towards.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media is quite hard to work with especially in the photography community. There are a ton of us out there and getting noticed or gaining followers can be a huge challenge. When I first brought my business to social media my audience was strictly friends and family. It got overwhelming seeing all of these pages with thousands of followers and hundreds of likes. I really let that get to me and I even told myself I probably won’t make it in this industry if I don’t gain more followers and likes. I was very wrong about that. Instead of focusing on followers and likes I focused on content and the quality of my content. Even if I didn’t quite like how a certain photo came out I still shared it. Sharing my work as often as I could definitely helped my business grow on social media. Especially with Instagram they tend to share more of your photos out into the world if you’re consistent with you content. I also noticed the more I interacted with my followers the more they would see my work on their news feed. Still not looking at the number of followers I had I noticed I was gaining more of an audience. Having an audience is different than just having followers. You could have thousands of followers but you’re not getting likes or comments. An audience will interact with your posts such as, sharing them, commenting, and liking. Once I realized followers aren’t everything that’s when I noticed I was finally gaining the right audience.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a photographer would have to be meeting so many amazing people. Some of the best people in my life are people I met doing photography. Meeting new clients or other photographers isn’t just about gaining content or clients, it’s about making new friends. A lot of my clients turn into friendships and I absolutely love the fact that I gained a new friendship through my business. I’ve collaborated with a couple photographers now and every single one of them are now people I talk to pretty regularly. Whether it be about photography or about our own lives, our friendship started while I was doing something I love. I’ve said this many times but the photography community is heavily saturated but so many of them are wonderful people that want to be more than just your photographer and I am definitely that person! Gaining trust and creating a relationship with my clients is something I am always working towards, I don’t want them to just look at me as their photographer I want them to look at me as a new friendship!
Contact Info:
- Website: trinityephotography.com
- Instagram: trinityephoto