We were lucky to catch up with Vanessa Berger recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Vanessa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

I have always had a dream of being a model and working with brands around the world. During most of my early 20’s I had been hired to model for bikini and clothes brands on their campaigns.

Until one day, it hit me : why not create my own brand? with this in mind and not much capital to start and run a company , me and my husband Csar had to learn how to do every step of the business.

Particularly Csar, had to learn photography, because with every new collection we had to photoshoot our bikinis and we didn’t have the money to hire a photographer every time we needed content. And that was the first step for us to become also content creators.

On every new collection we had to shoot, Csar felt more and more passionate about photography. And from that point forward it was very organic for us to start creating content for other brands as well.

I had always dreamed of modeling and travelling the world, Csar found a new passion . We became pretty much batman and robin!

I started reaching out to brands and offering collabs at first, content for product and exposure. At the beginning we just wanted to be seen and to network with brands.

Very quickly the collabs evolved to trips around the world in which we sell tailored packages to create content for brands and their marketing needs. We offer pictures, videos and any marketing need the brands might have. Usually I do the modeling and Csar stays behind the lens.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

As brand owners there were times that we struggled to keep a steady inflow of content in our social channels, marketing campaigns and website. Consistency is crucial to stay relevant in all social platforms, and we imagined that the same hurdles we had with content other brands probably had it too.

With this in mind, we designed packages that would solve this problem for the brands that hire us. We have packages focused in content creation, in which we offer: professional photos ready to use on our clients social media and short videos edited and ready to be used as Reels. We also have our influencer package, where we offer unboxing content, stories and posts on our IG feed.

We offer these packages to create content in Socal, where we are based and also in trips around the world. Always selecting brands that fits our trips and lifestyle for the content to be as organic as possible.

Every time a brand hire us to create content the first thing we do is try to understand it style, the type of photography/video they post and which demographics they have as customers. This helps us to plan our photoshoots, inspirations and accessories we might need to create something unique and inspiring.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Before we started to work as content creators we thought it would be a very smooth ride, just grab our camera and use our creativity, but that was a hard lesson to learn.

First of all, we have to be constantly prospecting clients. At the beginning we did a lot of product for content to start our network, there where days that we would reach out to hundreds of brands over instagram and email and maybe 2 would return to us with a “lets do it”. Now days we already have a pool of brands that we work on a monthly bases, but we keep reaching out daily to new brands.

Another hard hit we took is that nothing is as easy as it looks. Behind every pictures there are days of looking on mood boards, finding inspirations and ideas, planing each location, thinking about the time of the day , if the location is going to be crowded. It’s an endless checklist, and sometimes when you think you have checked it all, it rains or there isn’t any sun out.

One time we had a photoshoot to deliver to a swimwear brand from England that wanted a very “Socal beach vibes” kind of content and for weeks we only had cloudy and very moody days, which made us almost lose our deadline.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

As a non-creative, and we have been there, sometimes it’s hard to understand that life is not always like what we see on social media. Working as creators is a bi-way road in which leisure and work mixes up, and like everything in life has its pros and cons.

We travel a lot, and thats a major part on how we grow our social audience and become appealing to brands. Even though we get to go to amazing places, its in first place a business trip. There is no vacation anymore since we started working as content creators. All the trips we have are primarily to work. We wake up very early everyday to avoid the crowds, everything is planed accordingly to what we have to shoot.

Sometimes everything goes smooth and we get done in a few hours, but there are times that we spend the whole day at some beautiful place and we barely have time to explore it.
Its very hard to turn off the switch and relax. We are always so fascinated by our inspirations that, sometimes, taking the time to chill properly and just enjoy the moment became a hard task.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bymarebikinis.com
• Instagram: @nessaberger @csclima @saltysundayinc

Image Credits
photos by Cesar Lima or myself – Vanessa Berger