We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Vinnie Finn. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Vinnie below.

Hi Vinnie, thanks for joining us today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

I grew up in a household where risk wasn’t framed as a negative, it was part of the process. My dad was a serial entrepreneur and had his fair share of success and failure. I think having that as an example has really helped me throughout my life and career. I’ve never felt the need to be overly qualified to take on a new opportunity or pursue something as long as I’m committed to that goal/task.

That being said, I have made some decisions that could be categorized as very risky. In 2014 I left my family and hometown of Orange County, and a very comfortable job as an Art Director at a now defunct ad agency called DGWB to pursue freelance design in Los Angeles. It was a little shaky at first but that risk ended up landing me a gig that turned into a full-time position at a digital agency as their design director.

That particular agency was small and scrappy. One day I would be leading a massive website redesign for a national brand, and the next day I would be photographing products to generate content for that website launch. Having that high level of touch pushed me closer to my dream of being a food photographer. I was able to use the stability of that advertising job to explore my own interests with little to no risk and then when I felt comfortable with my skill level and understanding of client needs I decided to pursue photography full time.

I made that leap in 2017 and officially started my own business. At that point my portfolio was pretty limited and basically only featured shoots that I had worked on with the clients at the Agency. My first year in business was like going back to school, it was a deep dive into the food photography industry. I went to food industry trade shows and introduced myself to anyone that would listen, sent tons of cold emails, tried to get advice from established photographers and photography reps, and I reached out to countless food and prop stylists to try and set up test shoots.

For the most part I heard crickets, but slowly I started to hear back from people. I was able to convince a few food stylists to shoot with me. Those shoots mainly took place in my tiny living room that I had to completely empty into the adjacent rooms in order to have enough room to setup a light and a small tabletop. After organizing a couple of those shoots my portfolio started to look a little more balanced and cohesive. That led to some work with friends and colleges from the design world who I basically annoyed until they gave in. Luckily some of those initial smaller jobs were with brands that would be considered household names. From there things started to come together.

Around this time I started to get more inquiries from larger agencies and was pitching for new business in competition with commercial food & beverage photographers that I had been following for years. I won one of those accounts and signed my first commercial lease on a photo studio. I personally built out my studio one wire rack at a time, I basically lived there for the first 3 months, staying late into the night dialing in every element, from the kitchen that was purpose built for large commercial shoots, a hair and makeup space, down to the custom furniture I had made for the client area.

Since then I have shot for quite a few brands and I am so grateful to be able to do what I love. There’s always going to be challenges, some are cyclical and some are unforeseen (e.g. COVID). Up until this point there’s always been a way to adjust and adapt and find a way forward.

Vinnie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a commercial food and beverage photographer and director. I say “commercial”, because I primarily work with advertising agencies on campaigns that are meant to sell a product or experience. While I’d like to be considered an artist, a lot of what I do might be considered design thinking paired with a deep knowledge of production. When I approach an image or review a creative deck I’m thinking through the visual hierarchy of the compositions, how a specific prop, background color or wardrobe item could help or muddy the overall message of what we’re trying to make. Some people think of photography as an expression of themselves, a reflection of society or some other lofty idyllic flowery thing, but generally I am hired to bring someone else’s vision to life. That being said my experience certainly influences my approach to image making but I’m more of a technician than I am an artist.

The two things that most influence my approach to photography are my deep connections with food and food culture and my background as an art director in advertising. I grew up in my family’s Italian restaurant, where my passion for food began and continued to develop as I worked in restaurant kitchens throughout college. After a few years as an art director at advertising agencies in Southern California, I decided to combine my long-time love of food with my experience as and art direction to focus on commercial food photography.

I have a studio in Downtown LA with a large commercial prep kitchen which was built specifically with food & beverage clients in mind. Over the years I’ve worked with many advertising agencies and brands including Applebee’s, Pizza Hut, McDoland’s, Netflix, Sonic, Tillamook, Campbell’s, KitchenAid, Guy Fieri and Gordon Ramsay amongst many others.
It’s easy to photograph beautiful things or people in beautiful expensive settings, you can see that pretty easily by logging on to instrgram. As a commercial photographer, I pride myself in being able to take a subject or product that is challenging to shoot, buidling the world around it and framing it in a way that really draws you in as a viewer. Not only do I strive to create moments and compositions that let the food shine, I’m equally focused on achieve the marketing goals for my clients which I think sets me apart.

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

Aphotoeditor is a great resource if you’re looking for relevant industry news or to see what other working photographers are up to. Sometimes it can be hard to see past the noise, or your own instagram feed. Having a resource like Aphotoeditor, especially recently, you can kind of take the temperature of the industry as a whole to see what other working commercial photographers are experiencing.

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

I have been working to some degree since I was 13 years old. By the time I was in elementary school my dad had started an import/export business where he manufactured scooters in Asia. When he was testing the market to see if the idea was viable, my brother and I would load up our pickup truck with boxes of sample push scooters and set up a booth at the local swap meet at 5am and spend the day trying to sell to anyone and everyone. When the business became more established, as a 14 year old boy, I would work in the warehouse in Southern California with a bunch of grown men over my summer breaks. Most of my friends would be going to the beach or their parents would plan their summers for them but I was in a hot warehouse stacking, loading and shrink wrapping pallets of 50lb electric scooters.

At the time I didn’t really care to understand the lessons I was learning, I have always enjoyed work and being able to clock in and out and earn a paycheck as a young kid felt good for some reason. In retrospect those summers gave me the opportunity to understand his business from the ground up but more importantly it taught me a work ethic and to appreciate everyone around me. When you’re working a manual job like that with heavy equipment around, long hours, for a little more than minimum wage you pretty quickly appreciate the value of a dollar. It gave me a perspective that most people with my upbringing never have the opportunity to see and I’m really grateful for it.

In high school I worked at a camera shop and photo lab my junior and senior years at the local mall. While I liked being around the latest camera gear and processing and color correcting film certainly contributed to my knowledge base for my current career, I hated working in retail. It could be so painfully slow and some customers really made me question humanity as a whole. Those two years in high school pretty much ruled out ever working in or starting a business that required me to run or operate a brick and mortar store that serviced the public.

Contact Info:

• Website: vinniefinn.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/vinniefinn
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinniefinn/