Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline Mora.
Hi Jacqueline, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I really got started with photography around the end of 2018 and I remember I randomly decided to buy myself a kit lense package for $500 around black Friday. It’s funny that I still remember when I bought it lol. My intuition told me that I just needed to buy a camera. I feel like taking pictures and having that one-on-one time with someone is what makes me the happiest and seeing the other person’s reaction to the photos.
My earliest memory of photography was when I got my first camera in 2007 as a gift but I rarely used it. Between 2008-2012 in the summertime, I was usually taking pictures on my phone whenever I was with my older cousins and my sister. They would take me to places like Venice Beach and Huntington Beach. The U.S. Open of surfing was a great place for me to experiment taking pictures and figuring out my style and composition. I wish I had a photo album of all the pictures I took! I was that person that people would ask me to take photos and when I would ask the same, I would get crappy-looking photos of myself…lmao!
So fast forward to 2018, I had always liked to take photos but I forgot about that part of myself because I was so focused on trying to finish my general Ed classes at Long Beach City College. I never finished though since math is too difficult for me to pass lol. I took three photography classes and after that, I just decided to stop with the photography classes since I wasn’t learning what I wanted to learn. I could never learn as fast as my other classmates. However, I was always trying to schedule myself photoshoots with friends during my time at school, so that’s how I really got to know my gear and as well as practicing editing. I started out doing lots of natural light but recently, this year I’m finally starting to get into studio lighting and using studio lighting outdoors as well. Also, I was always into fashion, so naturally most of the photos that I’ve taken with models has been about fashion photography. For now, I always style the outfits for each photoshoots, but I’m hoping I can have a stylist to work or collab with soon. I would really love to work more artists like singers, rappers, indie artists since I love art. I love to collect vinyls to help inspire and motivate me.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
My journey with photography hasn’t always been easy because I’ve been very on and off about it and personally, I lacked a lot of confidence to jump into this industry and I was nervous to meet people. Back in 2018, I was just super depressed and I would never get out of bed, and if I did, it was only to go to work just to come back home and sleep for another 12 hours and repeat the same thing for a few weeks.
It was a super hard time for me.
The only thing that could get me out of bed is if I did something I liked, and the thing I liked the most was to take portraits or meet photographers and models to learn from or collab with. I loved the post, pre, and post-production of creating my images, so I just wanted to be around people that liked doing the same things I did. Meeting people and doing my own photoshoots is what eventually gave me a spark again in my life. Some of my struggles now that I finally was doing photography was emailing photographers to ask to be on set with and emailing/dm’ing models to shoot with me. Most photographers would never answer my emails. I really wanted to shadow with an established photographer whose work I admired but unfortunately, I haven’t gotten that chance yet. The photographer I wanted to assist finally answered my email after almost one year and the shoot was to be in Malibu. I drove all the way from Long beach to Malibu for the shoot to be a photo assistant, but a few minutes after I arrived, the photographer texted me that the photo shoot was canceled all because a model got booked a job, so I had wasted like 2 hours of my morning trying to get there on time, but I decided to enjoy and check out the beach before going back home lol.
Scheduling my own photoshoots was somewhat of an obstacle because the same would happen to me where the model could not show up for some reason, but that’s life and things just happen. I decided shooting with friends and joining Facebook video/photo groups would be a good way for me to have models available.
As of right now, another obstacle would be having faith in myself to really jumpstart my photography career. I would really love to have more friends and people support me and my journey. All I want is just good friends and good professional relationships when I dive deeper in this industry.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in portraits. I’m not sure I’m known for anything yet since I haven’t been fully committed to photography. However, I’m most proud of myself that whenever I have a vision, I put all my effort into it. I create moodboards using a website called Mila Note. I’m super proud that I’m a super detail-oriented person and that even though sometimes I feel lost, that I still know exactly what I want from this life and what I want to see in my portfolio.
Any big plans?
I have one big change that is to eventually move somewhere far from LA. LA is a great place for work but I have a dream home in mind.
My short-term plans are to contact a bunch of artists (singers, rappers, indie artists, etc…) and create images for their social media or for music platforms for others to see. I would love to be a part of a campaign for a clothing company and see it on a billboard in LA.
Pricing:
- $150 for portraits
- $100 for digitals
- $200 Boudoir
- $200 for headshots
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jackiemora.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/photosbyyjackie?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg=
