024: Lauren Chambers – How to Shoot with Emotion & Why You Should Invest in Your Mental Health As A Photographer

March 30, 2021

“Invest in yourself. Invest in growing yourself, in growing your mind and that self-love belief, having confidence in yourself. The rest will genuinely flow. “

LAUREN CHAMBERS

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Lauren Chambers of Lit Photography.

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

For photographers out there that are looking to really harness that natural, authentic feel in wedding images, what advice would you give to them?

I think the biggest thing for me is experience. It’s the experience we offer our clients. And that spills into so many different areas like not thinking about other photographers, not thinking about Instagram, not shooting for anybody else other than your client and giving them that experience. And that experience starts right back from the moment they inquire. Your building that trust, you’re building that relationship. It’s why partly I love Studio Ninja and I rave about it because I have my app on my phone. I do check my emails probably more than a lot of people would say that I should, but I believe that if someone inquires with me, I want to be responding within an hour if I can. Obviously it’s not always possible, but as soon as I see that email, straight onto the app. I’m sending my response, I’m personalizing the first couple of paragraphs to them, and I’m responding. And instantly they know I care enough about their wedding.

To get natural images, it starts that far back in advance. It starts with timely email responses. It starts with being present on social media and letting them build that relationship with you. But then when it comes to lifting your camera, I always say… Well, I shoot with a Sony so my camera’s never really up to my eye because I feel like I’m in a video game with a Sony camera. When it’s in my eye I can’t do it. That does definitely help, but I’m always talking to my client. I’m never getting them to stand too long, everything’s movement. There’s very little stiffness or awkward moments. As you can probably tell, I like to chat. And even in terms of getting that relationship built, even when I’m putting stuff on social media I’m chatting about myself. Nine times out of 10, by the time a client gets to me we have something in common, whether it’s Grey’s Anatomy or love for Harry and Meghan Markle, all of those things. Even if I ask them to pose per se or I position them, they know I’m not going to do it to make them look like an idiot. It all just boils down to trust and experience and making it fun.

I know on a wedding day especially, I just feel wedding days there isn’t enough time. There’s not enough time for a couple, and obviously I’m recently married myself so I got even more of an insight into that recently. I don’t want to be wasting one moment of that couple’s time, so I just keep it going, flowing quick. I’m practicing with my camera at home so I know my camera inside out and I just shoot, shoot, shoot. I overshoot as well, to be honest.

I’d rather be looking at it than looking for it. It’s like I overshoot and I over deliver because I don’t choose which of those moments is most important, I let my couple choose which is most important. I know there’d be some photographers look at one of my galleries and go, “How many photos did she deliver? Seriously?” And none of them are perfect. I openly say I’m not the best photographer. I’m not super technical. I won’t go for that one epic shot. But that took me a long time to get to this point, very much to get to that point of trusting that that’s what my clients want. Definitely.

Do you believe in an Ideal Client?

I very much believe in the concept of ideal client, but not in the way that I was ever taught it. I think in marketing and in typical marketing there’s a very much an ethos that you target by what clothes they wear, how much they earn, and Instagram ads and Facebook ads would very much lend itself to that. I don’t, and I rethought my ideal client by what they value. My ideal client will value family, they value love, they value cheesy moments. They value very much caring, they want to help others. Don’t get me wrong, they’re very much like me, and not everybody does that, but the fact that they are very much like me makes it much easier for me. I basically just target people that like the same stuff I do. Again, it really helps build that trust and it helps build our relationships. A lot of mornings I walk into a house in the morning and the videographer will be like, “How long have known such and such? Have you been friends with them for years,” and “No, I’ve just met them.” But I know they like… I had one client say, “You were very much the Cristina to my Meredith.” I drop in random little Grey’s Anatomy quotes or I’ll drop in little things on my captions, and if I know someone’s got those little things, I know we’re onto a winner.

But it’s very much people that value little moments, they don’t crave perfection. I remember at the start of my career a lot of people would have recommended going after certain venues and the aesthetics and that sort of thing. I don’t. I couldn’t care less where somebody’s getting married. And I don’t go after high end weddings. I never go based on budget, I never go based on anything like that. Purely because I’d rather focus on who are they as people and are they going to be nice?

If you could add one final piece of advice, something that’s made a difference in your personal life or your business life, what would that piece of advice be?

Invest in yourself. Invest in growing yourself, in growing your mind, and very much that self-love belief, having confidence in yourself. The rest will genuinely flow. I know that sounds hippy dippy, I really do. If somebody had probably said that to me I’d be like, “No, but give me the formula that allows you to have that many bookings. Tell me what your secret it.” I’d have been saying the exact same thing. But honestly, when I invested in not a business coach, the coach I have now does do business, but a lot of it is down to personal mindset stuff. And I know I’ve had a history of mental illness, so for me mental health is very much important, but we are all suffering mental health issues at the moment and we’re all battling it. Invest in your mental and your mind. If your mind is strong and you’re strong, your business and everything else, you’re only as strong as you are personally. Investing in yourself personally, and whether that’s through what you’re eating, through what you’re reading, and making sure you take that time for self-care, because genuinely, it has been a game changer for me, honestly. My business in the last year has managed to actually double by some miracle and that’s a lot to that. And value your time and invest in things that make your time much more efficient.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Lauren 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