Stefanie Herzer, who I mentioned in a previous post, invited me to come visit her in her studio, and offered to lend me some photos for a presentation to my photography class this week. I stopped by at 4pm, and was there until almost 8pm.
First of all, Stefanie is a really nice person. She's very easy to get along with, friendly, helpful. She spent a lot of time talking to me about her business, how she got started (she used to be a programmer, but decided to do something that she loved rather than stick with the field she started out in), who her influences are, and how she's developing her skills as a photographer as she works. She also just lent me a number of mounted prints, and gave me two unmounted prints of my favourite landscapes from her collection.
She mostly does wedding photography, and we talked a bit about the wedding photography business. There's a lot of interpersonal interaction with customers in weddings, and Stefanie seems to do an excellent job of it. While I was at her studio, one customer dropped by, and two others called, and she was calm and professional and everything you would want a wedding photographer to be.
We talked a bit about how photography is perceived as a man's profession, even though a lot of wedding photographers are female. Because we'd both worked in software, we compared stories about competitive coworkers. And because the assignment came out of a desire for the class to see that there are more photographers out there than the most famous men, we talked about how as a photographer, she doesn't have many female role models. It's just a matter of numbers; there are more male photographers in print.
Mostly, we talked about the business of a small business. How she has overhead and expenses to manage, how most photographers barely make a profit, but do it because the work allows them to do what they love, and that's worth it. Stefanie definitely loves what she's doing, and it comes through in everything she says and does. So if you're getting married in the Bay Area (or the West Coast; she travels), look her up.
