Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
From Amateur to Pro: Alicia Sanders' Evolution in Wedding Photography
Picture this: a self-taught photographer utilizing her background in mathematics, computer science, and scrapbooking to master the art of storytelling through the lens. Welcome to the fascinating journey of Alicia Sanders, a Portland-based photographer who's skillfully navigated the diverse terrains of the Portland and New York City wedding photography scenes. With a knack for artistry, composition, and color dynamics, Alicia's captivating journey from capturing backyard weddings to making a name for herself in the industry is nothing short of inspiring.
In this enlightening conversation, we traverse the unique challenges of differing photography landscapes and discuss the importance of networking, mentoring, and personal growth in the photography industry. Alicia opens up about her experiences, including the thrill of running the Hood to Coast for the first time and the wisdom imparted by her mentor, Tom. Learn how she's managed to maintain her passion for the craft and stave off burnout. It's a chat packed with passion, inspiration, and insightful nuggets that you won't want to miss!
Howdy, thanks for tuning into Orion Photo Group's exclusive podcast. For each episode, we're going to dive into the lives of OPG's photographers and videographers across the country. We're going to talk shop, hear their stories and listen to any advice they want to offer us up. So grab a tasty beverage and settle in for some fun conversations featuring our little community. That's you. Let's go. Alright, it's been a minute since I've recorded an episode of Success Stories, but if you're listening, welcome to this week's episode of Success Stories with OPG and OPG photographers and videographers. Today, I am joined by Alicia Sanders. I said that right. If I screwed that up, I'm on something wrong with me. Alicia Sanders, who's based out of Washington, portland area, if I? I mean Oregon, if I have that right. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Correct Portland Oregon.
Speaker 1:Cool. Portland is definitely one of my favorite places in the world, so I'm going to definitely ask some questions about that, but I know it's been an interesting city getting through the pandemic with everything that's been going on, but we're not going to get into that. We're going to get into you first. We're going to get into Portland in a little bit, but definitely one of my favorite places. So, Alicia, welcome to this week's episode of something, Success Stories. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Cool Alright. So typically I like to start with just getting to know a little bit about you. Born in Bretton Oregon, where are you from originally? You know your origin story.
Speaker 2:So I actually grew up. I did grew up in Oregon, but I grew up on the other side of the state in a tiny little farming town called Vale Okay. So I was born there, I lived there my whole life and I moved over here after I graduated from high school.
Speaker 1:Gotcha gotcha and it's a big difference as far as I know. From what I understand, friends live in Bend and other parts of Oregon. It's very different from the coast to getting to different parts of the state.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, very much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so any formal education as far as after high school in photography.
Speaker 2:No, I actually went to college, for I was a double major for mathematics and computer science and I almost finished it, and then I quit when I got pregnant with my second baby and just decided to be a stay-at-home mom. And yeah, no formal training. I'm completely self-taught. And can I talk more? Can I keep going?
Speaker 1:Yeah, please, yeah, I definitely want to know more about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I started actually my like this. My storytelling started in. I worked at a scrapbooking store. Scrapbooking used to be a huge subculture for, you know, moms and grandmas, and I think it kind of still exists, but it's definitely slowed down a lot. But I used to work in a scrapbooking store and a lot of our VIP customers would come in and they'd bring these beautiful pictures that they would take with like at the time they're, you know, canon Rebels and I always thought that these pictures were so beautiful and it always caught my interest. And then, once I had kids, I my husband he's my ex-husband now, but at the time he bought me my first DSLR camera, which I think was a Canon Rebel T1i.
Speaker 2:And that's actually what I shot my first wedding on and from. I mean, I just started learning how to use it on my kids and it just kind of snowballed into a total career.
Speaker 1:And that, see, and this is why I love interviewing photographers and kind of their, their you know spark stories and stuff like that, because they come from so many different places and I can only, you know, working at a scrapbooking store and kind of working on that.
Speaker 1:That is a really great way to learn storytelling in general. Absolutely yeah, because because you're, you're, you're learning something from beginning to end and weddings are the same way, shooting videography, like there was a very good friend of mine in LA and his name is slipping my mind now, but he used to say, like you know, creating great stories for wedding videos can be hard sometimes because it's the same story told over and over again. There's, there's, there's, no, there's no struggle in these stories, right, but you can still make a great, beautiful story out of it because the story is about them, and that's the same thing with scrapbooking. So learning that and then you know implementing that in your shooting skills, that that must have been a great way to start. And then I love most photographers are not mathematicians, they're usually not as strong suit as artists.
Speaker 1:But I have found that my friends who are very good with math and are kind of like built that way can make many of them make very good photographers. Is there anything in as far as in the mathematics that helped you become a photographer or has helped you, you know, continue as a photographer.
Speaker 2:You know I think about that sometimes and I don't think so. I think that part of it helped me grasp the technical when I started learning the more technical aspects of photography and especially like off-camera lighting and dealing with the shutter speed and just kind of configuring, you know, the exposure triangle and just figuring that. I think that's where it helped me just kind of quick those or pick those things up more quickly, but otherwise, no, the scrapbooking, however, helped me with like composition and the color chart. I learned a lot of artistry in, you know, being a scrapbooker and I taught classes and just learning all of like the art dynamics that go into that helped me, I think, a lot with photography.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'm sure too it's not something you do with OPG but with your own clients and building albums, and you know designing albums for your clients, I'm sure helping to tell that story must be huge, absolutely With that. And then you know, putting that together had to be just a really interesting part of running your business in general. And it's funny that you live in Portland. There's somebody who has an album design software that's in your neighborhood. Oh, really.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, fundy is kind of like our industry standard as far as software is concerned and he's based out of Portland oh cool, but it's so. I'm sure that that really helped you in putting that together and those early days of like that time that you mentioned, that was the T1,.
Speaker 2:T1i, t1i. That's it. Yeah, the T1i.
Speaker 1:That was an interesting time for album design as well, because we were going from very traditional matted albums where you picked one picture on a page, maybe two or three pictures on a page, you matted it with a little frame around it and then all of a sudden we were transitioning into these different kinds of albums. Scrapbooking albums actually came into the fold for a very brief time where people were just like I don't want those. You know those old style albums, those gilded, you know gold albums and stuff like that. I want something, just has a bunch of pictures in it. So did you ever wind up doing anything like that with the scrapbooking as well?
Speaker 2:As far as like designing albums.
Speaker 1:Like designing albums for your own clients.
Speaker 2:Actually I did. Yeah, I was. I was not so not my own wedding clients, because back then I was so new to like the wedding industry.
Speaker 2:I mean I mean actually back. I mean I didn't actually start shooting weddings until like 2012. But the time that I got my my camera and I was doing the scrapbooking. So I didn't have my own wedding clients per se, but I actually was contracted by a couple of women who contracted me to make scrapbooking albums for their wedding pictures. One of them was out of Texas, one of them was, I think, out of Louisiana. So I did do that because they I mean they already had like their printed pictures, they had their printed wedding album, but they wanted something more personal and I included like their own journaling in it and it was really cool. That is cool. I hope that answers your question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, it does I go up on a lot of side stories, sorry.
Speaker 1:Side stories are great, and so, like I actually want to get into Portland a little bit too. I find that the Portland photographers definitely looked for a little bit more natural style, available light, a lot of outdoor weddings Like I see that in your portfolio here very much. You know, definitely not. I've got out and shot a few.
Speaker 1:So, being a New York City wedding photographer for many years, new York City weddings are generally a lot more formal. People wear tuxedos and black tie, and then I would go out to shoot some weddings with some friends of mine in Portland and the first thing that I would notice would be like we would start at like nine o'clock in the morning, which is ridiculously early for any New York wedding, and we'd be home by like three or four o'clock and we'd be done and I'd be like Then they come out and shoot weddings with me and we would start to learn a clock at night and we wouldn't get home to four o'clock in the morning and they would just be like that's ridiculous, this is insane. Can you speak to, like you know, portland weddings in general? Like am I right in that, in that style?
Speaker 2:Yes, as far as like natural, outdoorsy, natural lighting, oh yeah, I mean we definitely have a wedding season and I think probably every market has a season, but we definitely. I mean we it rains here nine months out of the year, so we have, you know, it's like June through June, july, august, september. That's like heavy, heavy wedding season and yeah, they're. I mean, people take advantage of it, we get outside. It's so beautiful in Oregon as well, on this side of the state, when we have those warm summer months and it's not raining, and so, yeah, everyone takes advantage of it. We're always outside, even in. I mean, I've even shot outdoor weddings in October and November out here and somehow, by the grace of God, we get lucky and there's no rain and it's a beautiful day and it's glorious, but, yeah, always natural light.
Speaker 2:Well, not always, I mean, but I prefer natural light. I prefer outside. Most of my clients do too and it's beautiful for good reason. I mean, we have beautiful landscapes out here.
Speaker 1:It is, it is. And you know, like I said, I've been out there to shoot several weddings and then last year, for the first time, I came out to run Hood to Coast race. I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
Speaker 1:I have yeah and I'll be coming out again this this summer and I run it with a friend of mine who's from Portland and it was really, really fun. Well, obviously it's. It's an. It's an August, which I was really worried about Heat-wise, cuz I live in St Louis now and it is miserably hot.
Speaker 1:Like you don't go outside in August but you start at the top of Mount Hood and then you run to the Seabrook, I think, or seaside, to the coastline, and I got to experience some of the most Just. I mean, first of all you start some place where the snow on the ground, that's where you start in the morning, and then you run down this huge hill I didn't run down that part, but they start there and then all of a sudden you're running through these forests and we camped out the night before in this little campground, which was a lot of fun. And then you know, one of my last legs was through these like huge trees I'm not sure what kind of trees that were, and of course it was raining and it was Majestic, it was like five o'clock in the morning and running down this huge mountain with the moss and the trees, and you know and and and the. You know the, the terrain changed, you know, three times.
Speaker 1:Over the course of the 300 miles that we ran. It was absolutely incredible. And then we end on the beach and we partied on the beach for, you know, ten hours, which is great, yeah, yeah, that's awesome, yeah.
Speaker 2:So you got to see all the different landscapes and maybe experience like every season within that time.
Speaker 1:That's how it goes in.
Speaker 2:Oregon, like some days, we experience every single season and it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean definitely it started. It was 30 degrees when we started and then the middle of the day it was 75 and then, you know, that evening the next day on the beach, it was in the 60s and it was beautiful and and Overnight it rained on us and it was miserable.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was. It was definitely the three right was it could have been four seasons if it snowed on the mountaintop. But so that leads me to a question. So To shoot in, you know terrain like that and weather like that. Is there ways that you prepare for for these weddings? As far as you know, advice you could give is Keeping you know your gear and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I mean I. So last year was actually really brutal. Last year was a hard year because Through June it was still pouring rain and I think I had I mean, I had at least at least one wedding every weekend, maybe even a couple doubles and every, and it was so sad because it would be beautiful and sunny all week and then Friday it would start pouring and it would pour all weekend and you know so I, I would prepare. I always have like a long rain slicker to cover myself and I always have two cameras on a dual holster kind holder, so my jacket is always long enough to cover my cameras when we're outside. I Was have a hood on.
Speaker 2:I I don't actually put any weather sealing or any covers on my cameras. I've never felt the need to do that because it just doesn't. I don't know if it does rain. We usually end up going inside. Last year we didn't. There were a lot of venues where there just wasn't an option and we were just stuck out in the rain. One wedding I actually shot and I mean it just poured rain. They just rented a part. They didn't even rent, they just went to a park and have their ceremony in a park and it just happened to rain that day and we just stood out in the rain under umbrellas and, you know, made the most of it and I Mean I just do the best that I can. Sometimes I've had camera stop working you know, they get a little too wet.
Speaker 2:But they dry out and they've always been fine, but I just, I don't know. I just do what I need to do and Well, no, I think you know.
Speaker 1:See, I think you made a couple of you know good points there, like the rain jacket is one of them I used to wear like a trench coat on on rainy days in New York and it rains plenty in New York as well Snow and sleet as well. So the reason that I would go for something long and most guys don't wear trench coats or you know, long coats Was, like you said, I wore two straps, like you were saying, for each camera, and I knew that going from one spot to another, I could have those two cameras and I could put my coat around. That I bought at a size big so I could put a coat my my camera's around it and I can move from one place to another and the other part, and it wasn't so much about protecting the camera gear too. There's nothing worse than working while you're soaking wet.
Speaker 1:Yes, and and you know some of our days, you know it's an eight-hour wedding day, typically right, but you need a half hour 45 minutes to get there and another half hour 45 minutes to get come from home. And then you, you know you generally want to be early, so your day is 10 hours and you know so it's, it's. It can be, you know, frustrating. So that trench coat allowed me to stay dry too, not just, not just the top of my body but my pants, and obviously it's nothing you could do about that, about your shoes. But I would bring an extra pair of shoes and an extra pair of socks, and you know, you know, putting on a pair of dry pair of socks at the end, you know, the middle of the day Was was then. You know you can actually remember those times how good that sock feels.
Speaker 2:When you're so comfortable, right, you know.
Speaker 1:And and and I don't think it's so much like when it's in the 40s or 50s, like you can deal with it, but like when it's hot and Like, you know, muggy and your glasses are fogging up and stuff like that. It could just be a miserable experience if you're not prepared. So that that actually is good advice. And also, too, you know, when you mentioned about cameras, like we don't want to get our cameras, so whether they stop working but it does happen it's happened to me as well that's okay, he can bark or she can bark the the important thing is that you take your batteries out and you just let it dry and you don't touch it or turn it back on for you know, a couple of weeks, if you can and generally you're gonna be okay, but those couple weeks can be a little little frustrating.
Speaker 2:So can I ask? So you mentioned heat. So what do you do when, when it's when it's brutally hot outside? How do you prepare for that?
Speaker 1:So I mean, I wore I used to wear glasses all the time for shooting. My eyes are so bad now that I just use the diopters Inside the camera. But what I would do is Two things one, I would use glass like a spray to an antifog and I would use it on the inside of the camera as the the eye finder as well. And then I wore contacts, and it was the only time I wore contacts was just for weddings, because I never could find a pair that I felt comfortable in, but that that helped that solution. But the other thing that's really really important for hot weather is to acclimate your camera equipment Before you get to the wedding. So I would put my camera gear someplace that was warmer. I have a garage now, so I put them out in the garage. I could load up the car the night before, but in in our house in New Jersey, we I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1:It couldn't take the chance of stuff getting stolen, so I would put it you know Some place where it was a little warmer, or put it out there. An hour before I left, I just kept an eye on the car because what will happen is your lenses will fog up as soon as you get outside. And you know, because they're they're freezing cold and there's nothing you could do. You're screwed. Yep, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:So that that's the one that those are. Those are things that I would do as well, and then again, changes of clothes was was super duper important. So it looks like you've been shooting with us For a bunch of years now. It looks like you've shot about 60 weddings with us. Is that sounded all right? I?
Speaker 2:Honestly.
Speaker 1:About 50. We always say thank you, thank you for being great support to us, and any time that you shoot that many weddings is Testimate to to what you do. What is the average that you like to shoot every year as far as how many weddings?
Speaker 2:you know, last year I shot 40 which Nearly killed me and I don't think I would like to shoot. You know it's funny cuz coming. You know, as I was a new photographer, I used to always like 40. In my mind it just made. I don't know why, but I always wanted to shoot 40 weddings. That was my goal and then I did it and I don't ever want to do it again.
Speaker 2:But I think, like 25, 30 is a great number, and I do, you know, I do other things besides wedding throughout the year and so I think, yeah, 25, 30 is a great number.
Speaker 1:I agree with that. I think anything over 30 is you can kind of start to burn out. I think if you do, if you're just shooting for OPG, you could do, you know closer to 40 without you know Terribly burning out because you're not having to deal with the customers, you're not having to, you know, process the images and stuff like that. When anything over 25 on your own Is is kind of insanity and at a certain point your customer service is gonna. Unless you have full-time employees and you're doing other things, your customer service is gonna fail. There's no, just no way you can keep up with it.
Speaker 1:No, and you know and I think that's a big thing about our industry is that they're you know to. To really make big bucks generally you need to shoot 40 or more weddings a year and at a certain point you just need to figure out how you're going to deal with it and all you need is two or three really horrible customers and and it just really makes it hard to pick up the camera every week. Is there anything that you do To help keep you from that burnout? Or just don't? Don't shoot 40 weddings a year. I.
Speaker 2:Mean definitely don't shoot 40 weddings a year, but also I'm. I mean I am otherwise. I mean I'm not a stay-at-home mom, but I am. I mean I work full-time in what I do. But I'm lucky that I'm able to do it selectively and I'm able to choose when I want to work and when I don't want to work, and during the week I'm usually just home at how, at my house, working from home, and or just not even working at all, taking the day off, like today, when I'm done I'm gonna go work in my flower gardens, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1:So just making just scheduling time to not work Be able to do the things that I want to do is helpful that that's awesome advice and and for me to, when I was shooting Full-time, one of the important things for me to do is like on Tuesdays or so Tuesdays I would play golf in the summer and I just wouldn't answer any calls or emails.
Speaker 1:It would I put on an auto responder and I just go For four hours. I mean it wasn't like it was an entire day. I dropped my kids off at school, I go play golf and then I pick them up and that was my day, and and then you know, wednesdays it would be my like thing would be like to go to the supermarket on a Wednesday when nobody's there, so I like to cook as well. So I used to say to myself I never have to go shopping on a Saturday, and in New Jersey, everything is I mean, you're in Portland, so it's the same thing really crowded on the weekends, and that was always so got always reminding myself the advantage of having to work on Saturdays and Sundays, the benefit of with that being that I could Do other things that no one else could do, so that Absolutely yeah, yeah, sure, for sure, Yep, um I Any advice about working with OPG or getting started with us?
Speaker 1:or? You've been shooting for a while now and, by the way, I forgot to tell you that your work is absolutely beautiful and, again, really good use of available light. I see that you do know how to use a speed light and flash when you need to, but really really good use of light and really open images. Your details are really good and just like that. So I want to offer that compliment.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was there anything that helped you kind of help finding that light, and I see you really work well with finding backlight and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So something that I love OPG, and I started contracting with them before they were OPG, when they were just George Street, so something that I am so thankful for.
Speaker 2:I'm thankful for the opportunity to have been brought on and been able to shoot 60 weddings for them, but I think the most valuable thing I gained from them was when I was an associate photographer, which I was for, I think, until I think 2019 is when I started shooting lead for OPG.
Speaker 2:So up until then, I was in a second shooter and the most valuable thing was meeting the leads and befriending them. And there was one lead who I met. His name was Tom and he just I don't know why or how, but he just kind of became a mentor to me and just tucked me under his wing and he started requesting me through the studio, like, if I have a wedding with a second, can Alicia, please be it? And so they just started assigning me to a lot of his weddings and he would just anything that he was doing with his lights I didn't know how to use lights at the time, off camera lighting and he would just tell me why he was doing what he was doing and the purpose of it and he would teach me different things when we were out shooting together.
Speaker 2:And I found other mentors through OPG too, and so and it's not all of them were as friendly and willing to teach me and show me but just being able to watch them, you know, I'm a very visual learner, so just being able to stand back and watch them give direction or see how they're using the available light was so beneficial to me because I walked in as, I mean, I think I had shot like seven or 10 weddings, just kind of like backyard weddings, when I started working for OPG and and so I you know, I was very new but I had a really good eye, but I just wanted to learn, and so being able to watch them was so helpful to me and, like I said, just so valuable, and having Tom, who just really became a mentor to me, was amazing.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I it changed the course of, I think, my career. I don't think that my career would have continued in the direction that it went and where it has gone had I not started working with OPG. In fact, I guarantee it.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And, tom, if you're listening, thank you for being awesome and being a great mentor. And yeah, that's, finding a good mentor as a newer photographer is everything. And I was very, very fortunate to have some amazing teachers in my life from a very early age, so I started shooting weddings when I was 17 years old and I had a mentor that I worked with for many, many, many years and taught me a lot of valuable lessons.
Speaker 1:So that's that's really great to hear, and the fact that you are able to build a network with the OPG community is also really awesome as well, and I can trace a big part of my career just on the few people that I've met over the years, just kind of working that network out each time I met somebody new. So that's really awesome to hear and thank you for sharing that with us. I think that's it. I think we're going to wrap up here. It's awesome to get to know you a little bit more and thank you for being a great photographer with us. It's great to hear that you kind of built your foundation and all that stuff too, which is why we like to do these stories and hear about them and offer any advice, even if it's as stupid and simple as go buy a trench coat for your next wedding and stuff like that. But I think these little helpful things are useful to all of us and again, thank you for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:All right, that'll wrap it up for this week's episode of Success Stories. If you would like to be on the show, I definitely need some new guests, so I've been asking the Facebook group and it's been crickets, so I need some more people to come out and join us. I promise you they're easy conversations with no prep needed, right, alicia?
Speaker 2:Right, great question.
Speaker 1:No, prep involved no prep involved and you're going to get a $25 B&H gift card for being on the show. So please email me, jgroup at Orionphotogroupcom. That's Jgroup G-R-O-U-P. Like Peter at Orionphotogroupcom, and we'll get you on this. We'll get you scheduled on the show. All right, everybody, let's get started right now. All right, that'll do it for this episode featuring OPG's Best of the Best. Would you like to be featured in an upcoming episode or do you have a suggestion for somebody you'd like to hear from in our little community? Please email me, jgroup with two P's at Orionphotogroupcom. That's Jgroup at Orionphotogroupcom. I look forward to hearing from you and hearing your suggestions. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and I look forward to hearing from you and your story. That's it for now. We'll see you on the next episode. Have a great day.
