009: Fer Juaristi – How To Challenge The Norm, Find Your Uniqueness & Be Thankful For The Little Things In Life

“Don’t be afraid. The question marks in life are part of your challenge. That fear has to become your fuel to succeed.”

FER JUARISTI

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

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

What’s the most important part of being a wedding photographer for you?

If you are willing to suffer the consequences of fighting to find your own voice, it can give you a lot of freedom. I love that. I love breaking all those cliches that we have in any industry and asking the what if, what if I do this or what if I don’t follow any wedding photographers and I try to apply cinematography into wedding photography, or what if I listen to a soundtrack while I’m shooting a wedding so I’m being inspired by the music instead of the emotions that the couples are feeling.

I think the sandbox is huge if you allow yourself to do it. At the same time, you can make pretty decent amount of money so you can create and provide a good enough life for yourself and your family too.

Do you have any tips for people that maybe are looking to improve that website to represent them more?

Be super honest. If you suck at writing, hire someone else. All the words that are there, I photographed a wedding like 10 years ago and the groom is a writer and he helped me out with that. We had a couple of beers and I said, “You have your wedding images. Now, please help me figure out who I am as a person from A to Z.” I can’t write. I’m not a poet, I’m just a photographer. I think you need help. You can do exchange like I take your pictures, your family pictures, and you help me with all the copy in my website. Yeah. Even the sign as well. You can see when the photographers make their own logo, when they’re not graphic designers you can see it. It’s always amazing to be humble enough to say, “I suck at all this. I need help,” and then you bring your talent.

Do you have perhaps any tips that you can share with our listeners in regards to marketing, the people that are just starting out or people that just want to give their business a bit of a refresh?

At the beginning when I knew that I wanted to become a niche photographer, I worked a lot for free. I was shooting weddings in a very traditional, conventional way. And then, I gave day after sessions for free and I said, “Hey guys, I want to experiment. I want to play a little bit. If you’re willing to put your dress on again, let’s create something beautiful together.” Little by little, my free work became my style. I think you have to allow yourself to get lost. Don’t try to define yourself like, “I’m the flash photographer,” or, “I’m the fashion photographer.” Shoot every kind of photography. I was afraid of photographing human beings at the beginning, and now I’m a fricking wedding photographer. You have to try to do everything from Boudoir to weddings to families because once you find your style, you can translate your vision into any kind of photography.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Fer for coming on and sharing his thoughts and ideas on building your photography business and how to push yourself as an individual to grow your business.

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