Today we’d like to introduce you to Taciana Thompson.
Taciana, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
It all started with a camera… Suppose that is obvious though. When I was younger, maybe junior high age, my dad got me a little camera, the film of course. I went a little crazy. Snapping pictures of anything and everything, running up quite a bill for processing photos of my stuffed animals and out of focus pictures of my pets. My parents’ pocketbook got a rest a couple of years later when my dad, who worked in the camera department of an electronics store, bought me my first digital camera. It was three megapixels and had a glorious 64-megabyte card inside. I could take twice what I could with film and I didn’t have to pay to develop it. My early years in photography started to gear towards landscapes. We went to Hawaii my senior year and I found myself trying to frame up shots I would have to hang on the wall. For many years I only took pictures of landscapes and flowers I felt people “ruined” my shot. Fast forward to the day that would change my photography trajectory. I went job hunting at the mall, a goofy looking but the friendly kid was standing outside of the Picture People, a retail photo studio, playing with a yoyo. As I walked by he said “hey! you want a job” I said “I don’t know how to takes pictures of people” and he said, “we will teach you!” I started that job two days later and learned so much about portraiture and the business of photography.
I went on to work at one other retail studio before I had grown tired of being stifled creatively and not owning the rights to my images. It was then I set out on my own creating my own business TNT Creates and didn’t look back. I began shooting friends and their families. Then I met another photographer who introduced me to the world of boudoir and weddings and I began to work on more creative projects. I also began shooting Real Estate and then signed on to shoot for a local magazine cover concerts. I was always told to niche down but I just loved being behind a camera and didn’t want to limit myself to a certain type of work. Today I mostly shoot portraiture with the focus on the woman and making them feel like a rock star and comfortable in their skin. Be it boudoir, personal branding, on their wedding day or with their families.
Another big change I made in 2019 was to shift focus slightly off of portraiture and getting back to my first love, landscapes. I launched Life Beyond Zebra at the beginning of 2019, It is a travel blog with an emphasis on my landscape work. Through the blog, I share my travel stories and showcase my landscape work, as well as sell prints. Photography is my art medium of choice, my goal is to create inspiring work that fulfills me and delights others.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The hardest part of running a photography business is, well, the business. Photography has become more accessible to everyone with the technology of digital cameras and finding a way to set me apart in a business sense has always been a little of a fight. It is easy to think that it’s all fun and picture taking, but being a true business person is key to this industry.
Please tell us about your business.
TNT Creates is primarily a photography business, but it also encompasses all of my creative endeavors including graphic design, photo-editing, and composition, crafting and whatever else I want to create. My photography is geared towards women and encompasses boudoir, personal branding, creative shoots, weddings and sometimes even families. I also shoot Real Estate.
Life Beyond Zebra is my blog. It is primarily a travel blog where I can showcase my landscape photography and encourage others to travel but is also a lifestyle blog as it can branch out into other things, whatever I want to share with the world.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
TNT Creates followed its little path but I didn’t push it very hard until later, I changed things like pricing and editing style all the time and jumped around a lot with my “specialty” I wish I would have just tuned out the noise that said there was a right way to do it and just done it my way from the start.
My only regret with Life Beyond Zebra is that I didn’t start sooner. I had the thoughts and the bones of the blog for years and never pursued it, thinking I could never make anything of it. I feel like I am working harder to make it now than I would have even 5 years ago when I started the blog the first time.
Pricing:
- Session fees for portraiture are $100.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.tntcreates.com www.lifebeyondzebra.com
- Phone: 7604408224
- Email: taciana.thompson+tnt@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifebeyondzebra/ — https://www.instagram.com/tntcreates/
- Facebook: https://twitter.com/lifebeyondzebra — https://twitter.com/tntcreates
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