Conversations with Carla Gilmore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carla Gilmore.

Hi Carla, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve always been into photography, starting from the age of 12 years old and has been an off and on interest for me.

However, after taking an intro to photography course during my junior year in college (I attended Georgia State University), it re-ignited my interest in it. It was the first project in that class were a peer of mine helped me by being my model and I captured some nice photos of him. I was so proud of my work and felt I had potential to do more of this. That’s when I decided to create my brand named carrationz, a combination of my nickname carr and creations. It was originally gonna consist of photos and videos but I have stuck to making it a photography brand.

Business was slow for me after taking the course until April 2024, where a friend of mine asked me to take her graduation photos and later in May of the same year where I took photos of another friend to build my portfolio.

I would continue to take photos of my friends for their projects or more graduation photos however due to life circumstances, I didn’t have the time to fully focus on building my brand.

After graduating from college in December of 2024, I remembered my passions for photography and started to invent in carrationz more. I created business cards, updated my linktree, created a tiktok account and more.

This July, I am doing four free photoshoots for people in order to continue building my portfolio as well as gaining some business in some way. I’m very excited and can’t wait to bring these four participants photo dreams to life.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road overall has been steady, however there are a few challenges I face as I invent in carrationz.

My main struggle would be finding clients. I know in this day of age social media is a great way for finding clients. I’ve also joined groups on Facebook and Reddit to promote my brand along with asking for advice however, much traffic has not come in that way.

Another struggle would be the business/marketing aspect of it. I will admit that I’m not the best with promoting my brand through social media as constantly as I should which definitely ties into the previous struggle I mentioned. But besides that, figuring out pricing, packages, and more is quite tricky as I want to make sure clients are getting their money’s worth and are satisfied with the outcome of their services. I want to curate a fun and exciting experience for them.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in portrait photography and have taken a plethora of graduation photographs. My next steps are to branch out more into the creative side of portrait photography as well as getting into fashion photography.

One of the photoshoots I’m most proud of doing would be one I did back in October 2024. She wanted to include color lighting and I purchased some LED lights for this particular shoot (and for shoots in the future). We had some minor challenges with getting the lights set up but we overcame and the outcome of the photos were amazing!

I believe what sets me apart from others would be my customer service. I’ve gotten a few comments from previous clients about my professional and it makes me happy knowing they are satisfied with their time and photos.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
A favorite childhood memory of mine would be writing songs and plays. I was so fascinated with music and movies (I still am honestly) so I would spend my weekends writing away. Unfortunately I don’t have any of the things I wrote growing up but the memories will never fade away.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrationz
• Other: https://linktr.ee/carrationz

Image Credits
Personal photo: @boogmedia1