Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Reeves.
Thanks for sharing your story with us. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In 2001 my husband Greg gave me a SLR (single Lenz reflex) camera for Christmas, photography has always been my “gift” but growing up in Brazil it was not a realistic profession, not one I could make a living out of.
I started photographing landscapes, took my camera to pretty much every gathering event and took lots of pictures, experimenting with different technique, lighting situations. Macro photography, I was trying it all and having a blast.
A couple years later, Leslie my sister in law’s assistant said she loved our photos and asked if we would consider photographing her wedding. I told her no, I had no experience and thought weddings were too important for an amateur like me to take a change. She insisted and I kept on saying ‘no’. Two months before the wedding my sister in law casually mentioned that she will see us at the wedding and how so excited Leslie is that we will be photographing her wedding. There was no getting out of it, long story short, I ended up buying a brand new Digital SLR for Greg to entice him to photograph the wedding with me. The photos turned out great and shortly after the wedding Leslie’s friends started asking us to photograph their weddings too. That is when we decided to get serious about photography.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
As Artisan Photography started to grow and more and more weddings and portraits were coming our way, we found ourselves working countless hours every day of the week. It took us a long time to realize that if we did not outsource some of the work, we would ‘burn out’. We controlled every aspect of our product, be it digital images, albums, fine art prints, wall galleries, etc…
Being a huge type ‘A’ personality it took a lot of work to outsource some of the jobs we had, Greg and I had to divide responsibilities and decide what part of the business we would oversee. Teaching someone how to work on our images the way we liked it took a lot of effort and at times it just seemed harder to outsource than to just do it ourselves. Eventually through trial and error we learned that not everybody needs to be good at everything and we should leverage people’s skills and let them work on the things they are best at. We have people that are amazing album designers but can’t do touch up and some people that can sort through a wedding very efficiently but can’t design albums. Learning how to leverage people’s natural skills was our aha moment, once we learned that, we were able to offload a lot of the work so we could focus on growing our business.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Artisan Photography – what should we know?
Artisan Photography is a boutique photography studio specializing in newborns, family portraits and weddings. We are located in Carlsbad, California, but often find ourselves working in the Bay Area and Phoenix too. We tend to find the beach life a perfect fit, casual and fun, which we hope is also a good description of our approach to photography. We pride ourselves in providing excellent customer service and high quality products.
Here at Artisan we have several procedures in place to ensure that our end product is consistent meaning even for families that have a hard time in front of the camera, we are able to deliver images where everyone looks their best, relaxed and happy a true family heirloom to display on their walls.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My husband Greg who is personally and professionally my rock, my everything. He quit his job and worked with me at Artisan for several years creating processes and putting procedures in place to make sure Artisan Photography is a successful business and thought he no longer works full time at Artisan he is still dedicating time to brainstorming new ideas with me to improve our service and product offerings and to my friend Iryna Peterson who gives me brutally honest feedback (in a very sweet way) and continues to instill in me the desire to better my work and learn new things as learning is a never ending process and it is what makes us grow professionally and personally.
Contact Info:
- Website: ArtisanPhotography.com
- Phone: 480.381.0826
- Email: info@artisanPhotography.com
Image Credit:
Reeves-family-IrynaPetersen-Photography, Greg&Andrea1, Greg&Andrea, IrynaPetersen.com, Andrea&Lucas, Andrea&mateo, Andrea Reeves, ArtisanPhotography
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