Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Meyer.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Sandra. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I love to travel, and I love to take photos… photos of interesting landscapes and photos of people… and it took me longer than expected to figure out that I should pursue these passions as a profession.
I started my business after having dinner with a friend (if you read this Kerri, yes, it’s you). We were lamenting how having left our careers to raise children was still the best decision we had ever made, but that we were both ready for a new challenge. Both of us were struggling to determine what that meant for us specifically until she simply said: That’s a no-brainer! You have to start a photography business! It’s what you love doing, you are great at it, you already volunteer all over the place to take photos… that’s your thing! And she was right! It all of a sudden was so clear to me!
The next day, I bought a domain name for my new website (not expensive) and a new camera (expensive) and enrolled in a variety of photography classes to elevate my game. It was holiday card time and my first photo shoots were all family shoots for the upcoming season.
My travel and landscape photography started small. Thankfully, Manhattan Beach provides some of the most beautiful backdrops a photographer can hope for, which is why the majority of my landscape photos are still beach and pier related. But over time, I have been adding to my portfolio – one trip at a time – to include mountain ranges, cities, wine regions, and deserts.
Travel photography is my favorite type of photography! Not only do I get to visit beautiful parts of the planet, but I also learned to become more in tune with nature and the little details that make the big difference. Landscape photos really come to life when you see them in a size that is far bigger than a little screen. The vastness of a mountain range, for example, gets lost on a phone.
Looking at one of my photos printed and framed on someone’s wall is one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences. I am so happy and grateful every time it happens!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Starting a business can be overwhelming: there are websites to be built, LLCs to be formed, content to be created, costs to be incurred, time to be spent.
Time was probably the biggest challenge for me. Raising three children means I am their driver, chef, auditor, whip cracker, counselor, etc, and all of this mostly at times that I want to be out at the beach shooting. The administrative portion of running a business can often be handled during school hours, but the best time to take photos is before school (sunrise) and at dinner time (sunset). And spectacular sunsets don’t automatically occur on days that I cleared my calendar to be down by the beach at the right time.
Through all of this, my family has been so supportive and I can’t thank them enough for their encouragement!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Sandra Meyer Photography – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
There are really two sides to my business:
1) Photo Sessions: I offer family, couples and children photo sessions, which is what my business originally started out with. It was the right time of year for many families to start thinking about their holiday cards, and I thoroughly enjoy these sessions. It’s fun to play around with different locations, different poses and groupings and to then take the photo when everybody is cracking up and has forgotten that I am even there.
When families or couples book a session with me, I do not rush them, and our time is all about them. I don’t have my tripod set up in a fixed location on the beach and rotate clients through in 15-minute increments. We spend the time we need taking the photos people are hoping for, and having fun while we do it. During a typical session, I can easily take over a thousand photos, but my clients will only get to see the best 50 to 75 of them. I love what I do and I want my clients to love what they pay for!
2) Fine Art Prints: My main focus at the moment is to expand the fine art print side of my business: photos from my travels and the beautiful Manhattan Beach, where Sandra Meyer Photography is located. Travel has always been my passion and I am still mourning all the missed photo opportunities from the time before I had a great camera and knew how to even use one.
Now, I hardly leave the house without it. I just recently carried my equipment over the entire Inca Trail in Peru, through rain and hail (it even slept in my sleeping bag overnight to avoid freezing temperatures), and I got rewarded by some unbelievable scenery that I could capture through my lens. A photo can never do justice to the real experience, but sometimes it can get pretty close! My destination bucket list is several pages long and I can’t wait to check the next box.
When I am not traveling, I try to experiment. Long exposure shots are among my favorites, and when you look at my website you will also find a more abstract section of photos (“Serenity”) that I love.
What am I most proud of?
I strive to be the best at what I do. There is always room to learn and improve, and I try to learn something new every day! Either through a class or through experimenting with my camera. When I make a mistake or think a photo could have been taken in a better way, I start over and do it again, but this time I do it better. That’s the only way to stay proud of what you do!
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
My big dream is to own my own gallery. But this is a very long-term goal right now: I am still raising my children, and that’s something I don’t want to neglect or outsource. When my girls leave one day, the gallery plan will shift further into focus.
Until then, I will continue to pursue my beloved travel photography and my family sessions. For now, I am very happy with the way things are!
Pricing:
- Family photo sessions start at $275 for a half hour session and $400 for a full hour session and include all jpg files
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sandrameyerphotography.com
- Phone: (949) 230 6310
- Email: sandrameyerphotography@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandrameyerphotography/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sandrameyerphotography/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/smeyerphotogr
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