Mica: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 59th episode of The Savory Shot, a podcast about the art and soul of working in food photography. I'm your host with the most, Mica McCook. I'm a food photographer based out of Austin, Texas.
Y'all, welcome back. It's been a hot minute. It's been a long hot minute since our last episode the reason for my absence, you can find out in episode 58. So if you have not listened to that, pause this, go back, listen to it. And then come back here to finish out this show.
But before I do anything, say anything, I have to thank y'all, the listeners, thank you for coming back for the returning listeners, and for the new listeners, thanks for giving the show a shot. But I want to get right into it, y'all. I want to talk about today's episode.
I am so excited to [00:01:00] share this episode with you because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I've been thinking about what it means to be in business, what it means to be a working freelancer. Am I considered working if I'm making money or am I considered working if I'm actually doing the behind the scenes to get the work?
I've been struggling about my rates and how high is too high. I had a conversation with a producer. I shared my rate sheet with him and he flat out said that my rates were too low. And I'm like, what?
Earlier this year, I read this fantastic book called The Photo CEO and I enjoyed it so much.
I knew I just had to invite the author to appear on the show. And luckily for y'all, she said [00:02:00] yes. So, without further ado, meet our next guest, Tamera Darden.
Tamara Darden is the founder of Darden Creative and the author of The Photo CEO. She's a pro at creating bright, cheerful, and colorful beauty and product photography. In this episode, we talked about how to detach the art from the business, why done is better than perfect, and how to rewrite the stories you've been told about yourself.
So let's get into the show, grab your coffee, grab your drink, whatever it is, relax, or grab a pen and paper and let's start the show.
[00:03:00]
Mica: I want to start off by saying I'm so excited that you're here.
I found you on LinkedIn and your posts have just been keeping me going. Keeping me alive. They're so inspirational. So like down to earth, like real advice. Things that I really need to see and hear. So I just wanna thank you for being on the show. So Welcome to the Savory Shot.
Tamera: Thank you so much for those kind words. It's very humbling. You're just in a bubble a lot of the times when you're posting into thin air. You never know who actually is going to receive the message or read it. Thank you very much for the invitation to this podcast.
And thank [00:04:00] you for the Instagram post, because that is actually how I found you. You purchased the book, I self published on Amazon, which we'll get to later. It shows you how many books you sell, but it doesn't say who, so you just don't know who's purchasing your book. It was really cool to see someone that was not in my immediate circle of friends buy a book and share their very honest review of reading The Photo CEO.
So thank you. That means a lot. That means my job is accomplished. So thank you.
Mica: I've told pretty much all of my photographer friends. We're all just hustling, trying to make a living at this. And it's really tough to be a freelancer. It's tough to find actual tangible information that we can really use. That's what I love about your book [00:05:00] that it's direct to the point. It's just real knowledge. Let's get straight to the point. I know you've got things to do, so this is what information you need to know. And I love books like that.
Tamera: I wrote the book with the understanding that it will serve as a guide throughout a photographer's career. The way the book is broken down it is something that you can look at certain parts if you wanted to improve your workflow, or maybe you want to review the pricing chapter again, like it's something that you can continuously refer back to as you are growing your business.
That's how I wanted the book to be absorbed.
There's probably some sections of the book that you look at more often than not. And that's going to be different for each person. When I think about the decisions that I've made throughout my career, one of the questions that I ask myself is what are the least amount of [00:06:00] steps in order to get to the end point? It doesn't need to look pretty. What are the least number of steps in order to get to the end result that I am looking for?
Mica: I love that. I know that when there's like a thousand steps involved into doing one little thing, I can already hear in the back of my mind, that's not sustainable, I won't be able to realistically do that on a long term basis. So how can we dwiddle this down? That's what I found so refreshing about The Photo CEO is that the message that "Perfection should not be the end result. Done should be."
Your book from start to finish is useful, tangible things that we can use and apply every day. That's what I love about your LinkedIn posts, the advice you give, your newsletters. As soon as I get a newsletter, it's the first thing that I read.
How do you use LinkedIn to connect with your audience and what impact has it had on [00:07:00] your career and your business?
Tamera: Thank you for the question and the kind words to be honest, LinkedIn has not been my top social media platform of choice. I just recently started utilizing LinkedIn again for the same reason you are more likely to be in contact with decision makers faster. When I first started my business, my main platform of choice was Instagram. Instagram was how I was able to really showcase my work create and develop my voice to promote my services, really get your feet wet. And it was the only platform that I was on.
I talk about this in the book about how one does not need to spread themselves thin being on five to six different platforms at one time. It's just not realistic. And it's just not sustainable, especially if you are a solo entrepreneur, which most of [00:08:00] us are in this business. So you have to find which platform works for you and just go deep in the paint. A lot of the times people don't do that.
If you don't have KPIs, key performance indicators, or metrics. That you can track yourself to say this platform works for me, or it doesn't work for me. Instagram for a long period of time worked for me because I worked it. You can't really see the success of a social media platform until 12 to 18 months.
That is the marker. With LinkedIn, I just recently decided to commit to LinkedIn because of the trajectory of my career today. Also I believe there is a revenue or income barrier on instagram. Especially the way that the algorithm is set up right now.
I [00:09:00] do believe that there is a plateau when it comes to how much money people are willing to spend on services because photographers are service providers. This is my first month in two years that I am back on the platform, so I don't have a lot of data to really say if it's working for me today or if it's not. But what I do know is based off of the positive engagement and the eyes that are seeing my content. It's worth continuing to be on there. I think the followup question would be how do you get over the perceived perfectionism on LinkedIn?
And so I said to myself, if I'm going to go back on LinkedIn, I'm going to want to show up as myself and win at this platform by being [00:10:00] myself, showing my work being consistent and setting up a frequency that is sustainable and using the platform to my advantage with the understanding that I probably will not see booked work, for another two months, right?
Tamera: So three to six months.
Mica: Something you hit on that really stands out to me is how you decided how you were going to show up on LinkedIn. There's this idea that you have to be like this very stuffy.
Only post about your successes that you can't be vulnerable on LinkedIn, that it's very business attire and stiff upper lip and that's just not true.
It's a breath of fresh air when someone says, Hey, it's been a rough couple of weeks. I'm not booking work. Is there anyone out there who's also struggling?
Tamera: People value transparency. And there's nothing wrong with small talk. There are so many people that [00:11:00] are like, Oh, I don't want small talk. So then what the fuck are we talking about then? You want to know about my traumas?
That's for my therapist.
This is work.
That's the thing that people have a hard time separating the two.
And maybe this is a gift and a curse for me, but the ability to compartmentalize, there are certain things for certain scenarios, you have to learn how to network effectively. Because your network is your net worth.
People hear that phrase and they think it feels icky. No, this is real shit. The only. I wouldn't say the only creative thing, cause that's not true, but the act of photography. So the actual picking up a camera, fixing the composition, adjusting settings, pressing the photo, retouching, you know what that represents?
The [00:12:00] percentage of that, what that represents running a business like 10 to 15%. The other 85 is actually running the shit. If you do not have a clear understanding or do not want to embrace that reality, then you may want to have another reassessment as to how you want to see photography in your life.
You may say to yourself, this is too much for me. So I'm just going to use this as a creative outlet where I am not exchanging money for a service. But if you are in this to run a business, to make it sustainable, to help you pay your bills, to help you travel the world, to help you share your story, you need to run this like a business.
You need to network, you need to figure out what you like to do and choose the marketing strategies and platforms that's going to allow you to do it. And [00:13:00] also understand that there is going to be trial and error. There is no perfect template for this. But the more you do it, the more data you have, and then you're able to make adjustments.
But this is a long game. This is not for play when people are like, "Maybe this is just me." I've been in the business for so long, but sometimes people will be like, when you think of photography describe photography in one word. And people like, we'll say all of these very it's a breath of fresh air.
It is like shooting for the stars. And I'm like, girl, this is my job. I create beautiful shit. Yes. Absolutely. And also, it is a way of how I sustain my life.
Mica: In your book I touched on how photographers are so sensitive, we have a hard time detaching the art from the business. My husband said something similar. Cause that is something I struggled with so much in the beginning.
I was like, how can I put a price on my [00:14:00] art. This is my heart, my soul. Aaron was like, that's all fine and dandy, but you are a business and the government is certainly going to treat you like a business, so you need to conduct yourself as well.
It's just something that you have to accept and be, be okay with. You're in a creative career, but it's still a career.
Tamera: People would gravitate towards it more if they realize that the beauty is in combining art and commerce together. It's one thing to conceptualize a photo, but if you can also add commerce behind it, you're golden, you're solid. Being able to talk about your art conceptually, but then when it comes time to advocating for your pricing and negotiating for yourself, and you're able to do both.
You're unstoppable. No one can [00:15:00] tell you shit.
I was writing about this morning, actually for a future LinkedIn posts about why I wrote The Photo CEO, and one of the reasons is that when we hear the term CEO, we have these negative connotations.
Tamera: We are the ones that assign meanings to words. The Photo CEO is obviously it's an acronym for the framework, but also the word CEO, when I think of it also means self accountability and responsibility. When you are exchanging tender with service, you are responsible for bringing your client's vision to life.
You are in service to the client. No one gives a fuck about what camera you're shooting or my camera was 5, 000 dollars. That's why the price is the price. No one gives a shit about that. They want to [00:16:00] know, do you have a niche? They want to look at your work and say, I trust this person.
They are consistent. I'm willing to pay them 10, 000 dollars. Can you convince someone to pay you 10, 000 dollars? I'm gonna be honest with you, 8 out of 10 people can't.
Mica: Negotiating skills are so difficult.
Tamera: I find it's difficult because, there isn't a level of detachment.
Because we get offended when someone says, we want this. This is our budget. I totally understand the difference between someone saying, I really love your work, and this is our budget.
What can you work with? And someone trying to nickel and dime you, right? Those are two different things. It's our responsibility to have that discernment to say, no this client ain't it. We are not the right fit. You should have your parameters before you even go into a negotiation to say, based off [00:17:00] of these parameters, this is a yes or a no, right?
But negotiation is simply a conversation. When you have your non negotiables before any client approaches you, it gives you a clearer understanding of what you're willing to work with and what you're not willing to work with. If someone approaches you with a budget, and the scope of work doesn't align, lower the scope of work. Provide two different proposals based off of your budget, this is what you can get, but based off what you really want, this is the price. Give the client the opportunity to make a choice. You may be surprised.
Mica: They'll see that there are things that they didn't realize they needed, and they're like Oh, oh well, I didn't even take that into consideration.
Tamera: And it gives you more autonomy, it gives you more control. It's not just you in the passenger seat. It is you in the driver's seat because you are the one that has to compete at the end [00:18:00] of the day. Even if the project falls through I just learned something from this, I just learned that I can negotiate.
Mica: Photographers are afraid of negotiation because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing. One wrong thing can be the end all. They run the fine line of wanting to appease them versus being transparent about what they could realistically deliver.
Tamera: I wouldn't say it's scary though, maybe because rejection is a part of this business. If I'm saying that I want to make, for example, even though this economy is trash right now, but if I said that I wanted to make a hundred thousand dollars for the year and based off previous projects that I've done I would need to book 10 clients. That means I only need to convince 10 clients. The issue with that is that because people don't look at their pricing and their numbers, they have no clear [00:19:00] understanding as to how many clients they need to have.
So every person that approaches them, you feel like they need to say yes to you. They don't. So again, it's reframing it. I don't think there's anything wrong if the client is for me.
I can't say anything wrong, if the client is for me. There are a lot of parameters that we just don't see that happens behind the scenes on the client's end part of the decision making process. It usually comes down to three things, timing and availability, whether it's your availability or their availability, the budget, of course, right? And what's the third one? I should know this. Timing. Budget. The main two are timing and budget, we cannot take those things personally. Sometimes it just doesn't happen. Every client is not going to be a good fit.
Mica: No, doesn't mean no forever. It just means not right now.
Tamera: Yeah. And it's absolutely okay. Because what it does is just, it [00:20:00] opens up the space for you to reach out to more people.
I think what I want to get across to people is that you have way more control in the direction of your business than you think.
A lot of us, are just client didn't reach out to me! This brand didn't reach out to me, this project, they ghosted me. Which ghosting sucks, it's very unprofessional.
We just have way more control than we think we do.
We can control how we respond to things. We can control our pricing. We can control how we show up. Those are things that are in our control, which quite frankly is 80 percent of the job. I can't control the economy. This economy is ghetto as shit. I feel like it's worse than 2008, and I remember 2008 very vividly. I can't control that, but I can control how I show up. This business owner was the founder of Perlbox, Miley Teal. She says this quite frequently you are not a [00:21:00] tree.
You can move.
If something is not working, pivot. You can move. If you're lacking knowledge or you feel like you're not lacking in knowledge of something, seek it.
Mica: Love that message. One of my friends, they thought that I was insane because I get up at five and my friend was like, I would love to get up early, but I could never get up early.
I'm not an early bird. It's like, you could if.
Tamera: If you, wanted to. We have to be careful about the stories we tell ourselves. A lot of times they're not stories that we have told ourselves. There are stories that have been told to us by family members or society, or maybe that one experience with a cashier or with your former boss and then you adopted that story as your own.
Being an entrepreneur, encourages you to rewrite a lot of the stories that you have told yourself. That is the only way you win. And I'm not saying win as in a game with [00:22:00] someone else.
Newsflash, the someone else is you, right?
I've been at this for 10 years. Been running Dardem Creative now for eight, nine years. It has been the biggest personal development challenge that I've ever experienced in my life. It is a relearning and unlearning of so many things that I picked up from different places growing up or experiences that I went through that weren't great. Every black woman has probably had a boss from hell, right?
I have realized that is just what this is. If you're saying that you want to achieve something. Let's say if it's 60, 000 dollars a year, I believe that for you.
Tamera: Question is, do you believe it for yourself?
Are you willing to change your activities? And your mindset in order to hit that mark? Those are the questions you have to ask [00:23:00] yourself because even when I was coaching, I can't compete with your mindset. I can only give you the tools and the resources.
The rest is up to you.
Mica: What's the saying that at some point the shoe has to hit the pavement?
Tamera: That's a good one. I like it.
Mica: You mentioned that you've been a freelancer for nine years. You started your photography career in 2016. Who was Tamera then?
Tamera: An unhealed version of myself today. I just started the business. We didn't have a name yet. But what I do remember from that time, I was just hungry. I was two years out of leaving a traditional nine to five that I was at for six years. I thought that being broke would always be my lot in life. I really couldn't figure it out but I was determined to figure it out. I was determined to [00:24:00] find a purpose. I was determined to earn a real living being creative because I knew that I didn't want to go back to a traditional nine to five.
I was a stylist for two years.
I was like, this is just not going to work, but I wanted to be creative.
I love creating. I love the planning of a production, but let's change the result.
Instead of wardrobe for someone, why not product styling?
Instagram had just popped up on the scene. I started noticing that people were posting their products. Back in the day, there was product photography, but just not at the scale we see today.
I felt like that was a gap in the market, based off the skills that I acquired from all of my random part time jobs. I think I can take all of these skills and turn it into product photography and styling. I had an iPhone at the time [00:25:00] and I was like, all right, this is what we're going to do.
I knew from jump, like, no, I'm not doing any of this shit for free. I came from a traditional nine to five. So, those negotiating skills, the networking, the processes, all of that, that was already there. It just needed an outlet and product photography became that outlet.
It took a lot of stumbling and trial and error, but eventually, fast forward eight, nine years later. Here we are.
Mica: When I went back to school, for photography, I noticed that there are two different sides to being one thing, and we are taught only one. What I found refreshing about that interview you did is that you said your why develops as you do and hearing you say my why was going in to make a living.
So my question is, how has your why evolved over time and what are your whys these days?
Tamera: I just wanna speak to one more point about the why. Your why doesn't have to be that deep, y'all. [00:26:00] I'm here to free you from the grips of feeling like it needs to be this esoteric explanation for why you do the things that you do. It could just be I want to be able to pay my bills doing this shit. It could just be I want to be able to afford living a freedom focused lifestyle and afford health care. It doesn't need to be that deep.
This is a long game. It doesn't need to be that deep. It really doesn't. Answer your question about why, part of it is to be able to live the lifestyle that I've created or continue to maintain the lifestyle that I've created, which is, freedom, sustainability, be able to travel at whim. You know, I am getting up there in age, so to be able to afford quality health care and have access to that health care. It really is [00:27:00] just to be free. Again, it's nothing deep.
I used to roll my eyes when my grandmother would be like, you know, you have to lead by example, because I feel like that puts so much pressure, especially on black women to hold the standard of perfection that just doesn't exist.
And it never did, but I guess it is to lead by example.
To show what a free Black woman looks like.
I would say that is what my why is now. I was a coach for a brief period of time. But it stressed me out. It just was not a really good fit for me and it wasn't sustainable for me. And I remember journaling saying, Tamera, you do not need to coach, but what you need to do is just live your life.
Mica: Alright, TI, Rihanna.
Tamera: Shout out to RiRi, Bad Girl RiRi, but Tamera, you just need to live your life. That is how you can show others a way. [00:28:00] That is what you do.
Mica: I'm learning, as I get older, and deeper into genealogy is that, our ancestors really didn't have a whole lot of choices of what kind of doors were open to them. It just makes me even more proud, to be Black, to be Mexican, because those who came before me, they really tore down, knock down, kicked down whatever doors people were trying to shut in their face. What I hope that listeners take away from your episode, is when they read The Photo CEO, it's like what you said earlier, you are in the driver's seat.
You don't have to be reactive. You can be proactive but I'll turn it to you. What do you hope the listeners gain from, not only reading your book, not only reading your newsletters, and following you. What do you hope they take away from this altogether?
Tamera: That a black woman can do it too.
When I [00:29:00] first started, I didn't know of any other black women who were navigating the photography industry, especially in a niche as specific as product photography. I was building the plane as I went along. I knew I would get there, I just didn't know how, and I didn't know how long, but once I got to a place where I can wake up and not have somewhere to be, meaning someone else didn't own my time, I knew I made it. Regardless of how much money I made, but my goal at one time was to be able to wake up in my bed, in my own apartment and not have to go to a part time job that was only paying me 10 an hour, which is no shade to that. I'm saying it more so as I didn't have ownership [00:30:00] of my time. So I knew that I'd made it once I had ownership of my time.
More importantly I wrote the book to say, Hey, this photography shit ain't all, you know, easy peasy. There is a lot of business principles you have to implement to get to the place that you desire and let this book lead you to a decision. So whether you want to continue on this path, or you don't, you now have a very clear understanding of what it takes.
This next chapter, which I have no idea what the chapter is, but there are some chapters that are closing. I am moving out of my apartment. Any decisions that I make going forward my why is to protect the ownership of my time.
Period. End of story.
Even if I decide to pick up a contractor [00:31:00] job, that's my choice, right? It's my choice. So yeah, it comes down to time ownership and a black woman can do it. And guiding an aspiring photographer or photographer who's been in the game for years to help them make a decision.
Mica: Tamera, thank you so much for being on the show. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to you.
Tamera: Thank you for having me.
This was great.
Mica: Where can the listeners find you and follow you?
Tamera: So I, I'm all over the place right now, but you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm going to spell out my name Tamera. T A M E R A Darden, D A R D E N. Also you can find me on Instagram. I'm currently on a hiatus from Instagram, but it's the same. Tamera dot Darden I'm also on Threads, Tamera dot Darden. If you want to check out some of my work, you can go to Darden Creative. com. I do have a weekly right now. I [00:32:00] think it may go down to bi-weekly, but I have a weekly photography business newsletter The Photo CEO, substack. com.
Mica: Thank you so much again for being on the show,
Tamera: Thank you, Mica. I actually looking forward to this. I may need to run this episode back myself and take notes of some of the stuff that I said, cause it definitely was a bad download. [00:33:00]