Today we’d like to introduce you to Carmen Story.
Hi Carmen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I first got started as an artist in high school. I had absolutely no desire to get into photography at that time. I would draw primarily Anime and believe it or not, street fighter characters. The artists behind the street fighter game series were and still are absolutely amazing to me. What I learned from watching them was that the characters were more than just ink and paper. Even the sketches that never got used told stories within stories. The artists would fill the page with tons of art that you would have to look at for a long time to digest it all. This eventually would be how my photography would become.
I didn’t really get into photography until I got married to my beautiful wife Renee (over 14 years ago!). I had just started learning photography and would take photos of her and our children all the time. Even back then, I was somewhat of a perfectionist. I would look at what I was doing and compare it to what I saw in magazines. I could not figure out for the life of me why my images were dull and lifeless (to me) and the magazine images were amazing. I ended up finding out that these photographers had much better equipment and used lights to shape their subjects.
I started learning about how to light by doing lots and lots of researching online. YouTube had not yet become the go-to place for content like it is today so I had to search through hundreds of websites until I finally found photographers willing to share their knowledge and show how they used their equipment.
I slowly started purchasing everything I needed to light. While learning this, I also started to learn more about my camera and how lenses play a huge part in photography. I also purchased a used version of Adobe Photoshop from Amazon which I still use today.
With all of this learning, my photography skills got much better. So much so that family and friends started asking for photoshoots and I also gained a few clients too. The issue I began to have was that my work, while brighter and sharper, still didn’t stand out like I wanted it to. I just kept feeling as if something was missing. I actually was becoming bored with photography.
I found out that the major component missing from my work was me. I love art and creativity and the images I did were just the same old images that people were used to getting at the mall or in studios.
I began to look up creative photographers and to my surprise didn’t find anything that really sparked my interest until I began looking at other countries outside of the U.S. The color palette that African photographers are able to achieve and create blew me away. The color and skin looked so perfect and vibrant. I had not seen anything like it. So I knew I wanted to adopt and learn how to achieve better color.
Next, I wanted to find creative photographers that stepped outside the box. The group of photographers that completely changed my view of photography forever were all from Russia. Most of the Russian photographers I saw at that time used photoshop and off-camera flash heavily in their work. They took a basic image and transformed it into not just art – but a masterpiece. It took me about five years of learning Russian photoshop techniques and also having my wife help me on every shoot with lighting to fluently be able to achieve the look that I am known for today.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The biggest obstacle I faced with going this route in the beginning was getting people to see the value in my work. I had the hardest time getting people to hire me for my style of photography. People just didn’t seem to want it. They would rather have regular portraits.
Like most, I did sooo many photoshoots that didn’t fit what I wanted to do to have that income. I was getting paid what I was asking but by going this route, I was essentially going down a rabbit hole. The more you step outside of what you are great at, the more people will think that is primarily what you do and who you are.
I realized this was all my fault. I was only showing those types of shoots so that’s what I was getting hired for.
Once I got to a place where I realized I didn’t need to do those shoots and that overall they were hurting me I did a major reset.
In doing the “RESET”, I felt much better. It gave me time to focus on new techniques and to get back acclimated to what I was originally doing. After a while, the shoots started coming but this time, they were shoots I wanted to do.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Well, I consider myself a Creative Photographer. I primarily like dealing with any vision someone may have that requires a bit of imagination and photoshop to make it come to life. This is what I am primarily known for in my area and what I specialize in. While I can do just about any photography someone may need – working on images that require some form of photoshop or retouching is what I’m great at.
I’m most proud of how far I’ve come as a photographer and the impact I’ve had on other photographers who I didn’t even know followed me. I’ve gotten e-mails and messages from groups I’m a part of from people who I even look up to telling me how much of an inspiration I’ve been in their photographic careers. That really means a lot.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
To start, I used to think my website was all I needed. For years I’d refer people to it and then realized how much of a headache it was to update it when all of my business came from Facebook or other social platforms. I have found many have shifted from sites and just focus primarily on updating their social media. So I’ve finally gone that route after having my site for years. I thought I’d feel bad about it – but in all honesty, I’ve only had a handful of people ask about my site in many years. I plan on eventually revamping and creating a new one but for now, I’ll just stick with social media.
One thing about me is I love technology. Especially what our phones are capable of. So many vacations, I used to have to lug around cameras and lenses fearing they may be stolen. But now phones have gotten so great that an iPhone can literally mimic exactly what my big camera does almost flawlessly with software.
With this great power comes a huge problem in the photography world for those who don’t have unique niches, a nice brand, or a study flow of repeat clients.
The phone is doing things so much easier that major companies software can’t even do – for pennies at that. Everything from retouching, object removal, wonderful Bokeh to emulate expensive lenses and the list goes on and on.
With the way that technology is advancing – It could be the end for a lot of smaller or new photographers.
We also now have A.I.-driven art which has been around but now it’s at a place where it literally can draw or paint anything, in any style you can think of in under 5 seconds and look absolutely amazing. – on top of that, it can do it in high resolution that can be printed on any medium you’d like.
It’s very hard to say what the world will look like in the next 5-10 years with such advancements in art and photography on cell phones, but I feel a big shift needs to be made with cameras and software to allow them to keep up.
It will be interesting to see what develops on both ends of the spectrum.
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