010: Jeremy Chou – Achieving That Fine Art Look, Making The Switch To Shooting Film & How To Market for Destination Weddings

September 3rd, 2020.

“The day I stopped comparing myself to other photographers is the day I really grew my own specialty; what makes me unique, what makes me special. “

JEREMY CHOU

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Jeremy Chou – we are really excited to have him on the show.

Check out some of the biggest points from Jeremy’s interview below:

How did you build up to shooting destination weddings?

Well, you’d be surprised how it happened! Okay, so a little more background story. So I was born in a little island called Taiwan, off China. So I came to the United States when I was 12. And so I did go to a elementary school there. So when I stared photography, and I started just being more active, again social media wasn’t a thing when I started.

When I started, maybe two years in I started being more active on social media, on Facebook. And that’s really when it started getting popular, back in 2010 ish. I joined a group of elementary school that I went to in Taiwan, it was a Facebook group. And in there somehow I connected with a couple old classmates. And this is literally about three months into my shooting weddings, I started posting work I should say. A woman, apparently I was friends with in elementary school, I don’t remember. It’s been years, and it’s not like when you can see somebody growing up on social media. I haven’t seen these people in 10 years.
They remembered me but I don’t remember then. And she asked me to shoot her wedding in Taiwan, and I thought it was a scam. And I emailed her, I say, “Hey, I’ve only been doing this for three months at this time. Are you sure you want me to shoot a wedding in Taiwan?” I honestly thought it was a scam. And she said, “Yeah, yeah. I love your stuff, it’s different, it’s American, and I want you to come and shoot my wedding.” And I was like, “Okay, do you want to send me a deposit first to show this is legit?” I thought I was going to be kidnapped or something. So she sent over the money, and then three months in I booked my first international wedding just out of the blue.

A couple months later I was in Taiwan shooting my first wedding. It gets better, so while I’m there I had dinner with another friend that I went to school with who I also don’t remember, but who is also an aspiring photographer, so we had a lot in common so I just talked to them. I just had dinner with them and I was talking and all that, and we connected on Facebook. And I came back to the states, about three or four months later he emails me, or messages me on Facebook. He says, “I have this friend who lives in San Francisco. I’m going to give your service for the wedding.”

So I was like, “Oh great, San Francisco.” And I’m Southern California, so San Francisco is just about a six hour drive or an hour flight. I was like, “Okay I’ll fly to San Francisco.” And the guy says, “No it’s in Hawaii.” So also I had a wedding in Hawaii. Anyway, so I flew to Hawaii, three or four months later I was in Hawaii shooting their wedding.

And whilst shooting their wedding, one of the groomsmen and bridesmaids asked me to shoot their engagement session. So I was like, “Yeah I’ll shoot it.” And this is when I was still shooting digital back then. I’d given [inaudible 00:17:26] right away, the same day. They were super excited, they loved the photos, and the bride was like, “Do you want to shoot our wedding?”

And they were all from the bay area, I was like, “Yeah, I’ll come by the bay area and I’ll shoot your wedding.” And then she was like, “No, I want it in Shanghai, China.” Six months later I’m in China shooting a wedding. Now this is two years in, right? I was like, “I can’t believe my luck.” So from there, I start shooting a lot of different, their friend’s weddings in San Francisco and all that. And it was not until six years ago now, I shot another couple in San Francisco who went to Boston University which is on the east coast. And in all the friends, I got into that group of friends. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, I got with that one group.

And I shot probably six or seven of their friend’s weddings, all over the United States. And I would see the same bridesmaids everywhere I go, it was funny. But anyway, so from that I started going into more international, like Mexico and Italy and all that. So I also did a workshop in Italy, and I connected with local planners and local vendors and then from there I started booking more weddings out there.

What would be your top tips for a photographer looking to get into Destination Weddings?

If somebody wants to get into this, I would say there are a couple of things you have to do. One is really keep your channels open, meaning get more eyeballs on your work. Get published, be in magazines and blogs, do interviews like this. And especially with the different audience and different countries, and definitely do really good work. I mean your clients are trying to justify flying you somewhere, versus hiring somebody local, potentially could save thousands of dollars. So you have to do really, really good work.

And then the third, just when you’re there treat it as a job and don’t treat it as a vacation. You’re there to work. There is nothing more frustrating when your clients seeing you sitting by the pool, sipping margarita on their dime. That’s just frustrating for the client, like, “I’m paying you here. Do your job, and go home.” So I’ve always treated it like a job, or even when doing destination weddings. And I think my clients appreciate the professionalism I bring to the table. I’m not just there to try to squeeze a vacation on their time.

How can photographers look to emulate that Fine Art style?

Yeah, so I think first thing you have to do is to really look at a background. So I think, part of my workshops and classes I teach I do portfolio critique, and the first thing I tell them to look at is the background. So is the background clean? Is the background intentional? Right now, the reason why you see this background is, my background’s not clean.

At a wedding when I do stuff like that, when I set up a scene, I literally clean up everything. Trash, plugs, I unplug lamps, I unplug the phone, if I’m in a hotel I move everything that has the hotel’s name on it. Because I want it to look like the room, not a hotel room. So anything that reminds anybody of a hotel room, I move it.

I’ve moved paintings off the wall, because I didn’t like the painting. Curtains. I go and rearrange the entire furniture layout, just to make sure it’s the way I like it. Yeah, it’s like a tornado hits, we rearrange everything until we get the right angle that we like.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Jeremy for coming on and sharing his wealth of knowledge & expertise!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally