In today’s episode I am speaking with the wonderful Lauren Caris. I was so excited for this conversation because I’ve been following her for a while now and I am completely in love with her images. Lauren is a great food photographer and educator, dedicating a lot of her time teaching others about the behind the scenes of the food photography world. So as you would expect, there is a long list of interesting tips that Lauren taught me during our conversation. I can’t wait to share them with you.
We talk about:
Her road from a job in tax to becoming a food photographer.
Balancing educating others and doing the client work
Building the long-term relationship with the clients
The importance of a good website (SEO & portfolio) in finding the clients
Having a business coach, which helped Lauren to shape the vision and put ideas into clear plan and messaging for her audience. We get more into details her how the coaching helps and works.
Pricing. There’s no magic formula, but a lot of good tips from Lauren how to think about and set your pricing.
We talk about the licensing fee, tips on how to calculate it, and the way to educate the clients about it. Lauren recommends to use Getty images price calculator & read the article in Fstoppers about the licensing
Importance of email marketing not only for education work but also for the photography clients, which helps you to keep on the radar and build the long-term relationships.
We discuss the upcoming importance of videography as additional service for food photography clients.
The book Lauren recommends to read (which I already started reading and it’s great!): Light Science and Magic by Fil Hunter, Paul Fuqua, and Steven Biver.
Influencers Lauren recommends to follow for inspiration:
@thebiteshot
@twolovestudio
@thelittleplantation
@we.eat.together_
You can find Lauren’s portfolio here.
What is also super exciting is that Lauren very soon will launch her teaching platform Food Photography Academy where she will build a community and constantly release new educational videos related to food photography & it’s business. Find more information here.
Follow me for more food photography tips and tricks!