119: Jemella Ukaegbu – Why You Should Utilize Print & How to Master Your Craft

April 30th, 2024

“We have a responsibility to make sure our clients exist in print.”

JEMELLA UKAEGBU

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Jemella Ukaegbu.

Jemella is an established photographer and has been working in the industry for over 13 years. She runs her own full-time photography business Mellz Photography, specialising in Maternity, Newborn, baby milestone sessions and weddings. Jemella’s passion for photography comes from capturing her clients special milestones a printing them to last for generations in a digital consumed world.

She is also the founder of the UK Black female photographers Community (UKBFTOG) . A community started due to the lack if diversity in the photography industry. Over the last 7 years the community has helped members connect with others Black Female
photographers through meet ups, having opportunities of becoming published photographers, work experience in the photography industry such as capturing the BAFTA red carpet, as well as recently becoming an award winning community with with “Readers Choice Exhibition of the year”.

Check out some of the biggest points from Jemella’s interview below:

  • Jemella’s journey in the Photography Industry
  • How to master your workflow
  • Balancing Business & Motherhood

  • The importance of mastering your craft
  • The fear of the unknown
  • Finding your niche

  • What she would do differently if she could start her career all over again
  • The importance of printing
  • What a huge impact community can have

  • The one thing that made a difference to Jemella’s business!

How are you finding the balance of motherhood and business?

So now like I will do things like if I’m in the studio one day, I won’t be in the studio the following day. Cause that also you don’t think about the preparation that comes before having to go out to work. And that’s supposed to benefit of working for yourself. Whereas obviously, there’s someone who has to go to do a nine to five and they have to get up and go to the office every single day, you know? So I’m lucky to be in a position that I am with one of my own business where

I can say, okay, I’m going to go in on Tuesday, but I’m not going to go in on Wednesday. And yeah, that’s helped me quite a bit. Because like me going to work, we have to leave at like seven o’clock in the morning, which means the preparation from the day before, the bags packing, clothes being put out, you know, having the, you know, bathing them from the night before, so that’s in the morning, it’s just like a quick wipe down, change, let’s go kind of thing. Having my daughter’s sandwiches already done, oh.

Sometimes waking up first thing in the morning, let me do the sandwich, so she can have something while we’re in the car in that morning traffic, you know? All of those kind of little things. I feel like I could probably, I’ve only just found my way come January, even though I’ve gone into a big deep dive of anxiety of like, oh, I’ve got this to do and this to do and this to do. I’ve kind of like come the new year, I like broke my life down in quarters, if I want to say that. I made a whole spreadsheet on Google Sheets and literally divide like, hey, what are the stuff that I need to do? I’m tired of giving myself goals. I need to break down how I’m gonna get to that end goal. So yes, I’m a bit behind by a couple of weeks, but I know I can now go back because I’ve got too much to like break everything down.

How to manage your tasks day-to-day?

So I literally just like broke it down like January, February, March, April, May, June. And then I thought, okay, what are my goals? What goals do I want to reach? And it wouldn’t even, it’s not even necessarily each month. It’s what goals do I want to hit or what’s the most important ones? Because you’ve got stuff throughout the whole year that you can do, right? So I prioritized like all the stuff at the beginning. And then I say, okay, I want to update my new website.

Instead of now spending six hours trying to do everything to update my website, I’m going to be like one week I’m going to give myself organized images. That’s that done. The following week I’m going to do something else regarding the website, whether it is uploading, then I want me to do the metadata for the images so I can come up in the SEO on my Google. So it’s not me trying to do all of it in one day, as well as trying to manage the kids, manage home life, cooking, cleaning, all of that.

You know, trying to be social – I’m trying to get out of more of my friends, you know. So yeah, that’s what I’ve kind of like done. So it doesn’t, I don’t feel like it’s so like squashed in and like, oh my God, I’m at the end of the month and I need to get all of this done by the end of this month. So even like, yes, there are goals that I’ve missed and I’m saying to myself, you know what, I’m not gonna be hard on myself. I was like, you’re supposed to finish that then and you haven’t finished it. Okay, cool. Review it. Change the date.

What is your advice for photographers that are also new mums?

Oh, one, obviously get a Studio Ninja because it’s funny. I got Studio Ninja just before lockdown. I never went into lockdown. But I didn’t necessarily utilize everything. So like the workflow, I didn’t use the automator and said nothing, I didn’t utilize nothing. I was still like, okay, I got an inquiry from a website. I’m typing the person’s contact details in. Then sending them an email, like I had templates. There was no attache, there was no workflow whatsoever. Um, and it wasn’t until I had my second and then I also got a virtual PA at the time. And I was like, yeah, I need to really utilize this system because I can’t keep up with emails. Cause sometimes by the time I finish in the studio, go and get my daughter, by the time I get home, it’s like bath, dinner.

I’m like flat out, I am so tired. I don’t want to look at anything, I don’t want to look at nothing, you know? Especially if like sessions run over, that you don’t necessarily have that extra time that you thought you had at the end to like get stuff done and whatever not. So I’ll definitely like getting a CRM is God sent. Like Student Ninja has helped me so much. My virtual PA like properly sorting it out for me. Like she does all my work for every single session. I literally come in to have, I’ll probably say I fully utilize it with my second.

In a sense of I got the contact form and embedded it in my new website. So now every time someone contacts me, the information just gets sent to them. So now I’m releasing something off of me that I no longer have to do. And I feel like that’s what’s really important is gathering your workflow. What is my workflow? You know, even when it comes to your shoes, your client experience, everything on the whole, like really sit down and break down what it is. It is daunting.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Jemella’s for joining us on the show!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally

About Jemella Ukaegbu

Jemella is an established photographer and has been working in the industry for over 13 years. She runs her own full-time photography business Mellz Photography, specialising in Maternity, Newborn, baby milestone sessions and weddings. Jemella’s passion for photography comes from capturing her clients special milestones a printing them to last for generations in a digital consumed world.