Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Meza
Hi Megan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started photography in high school taking photos of my then boyfriends band. I realized the photos were good, but more importantly how much fun I was having doing it. I continued to take photos as a hobby, but never really expanding more beyond that. In 2018 I was laid off from my corporate job and realized I needed to do something to pass the time and of course, make money. I picked up my camera again and realized how much I missed it, and how much I had grown. I started to do work for free, just trying to build a portfolio again. After about a month, I started to book some gigs doing family holiday cards. Eventually these clients continued to come back year after year and I had a consistent business going with it. This then expanded into family photos, birthday parties, engagements and even weddings. I recently took a bit of a hiatus to get my MBA from New York University. But I just moved back to LA and will be jumping back into the client side of the business. In the meantime, while getting my MBA, I decided to sell my travel prints on Etsy.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My struggles were related to my corporate job. Photography actually was birthed from those challenges and became an outlet from those frustrations.
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 portrait photography, specifically natural light. What this means is I do not (and frankly refuse) to do studio work. I love being able to capture raw moments and relationships in their natural settings. I specifically specialize in engagements and family photos- but I will also do weddings, events, birthdays, etc. Anything that allows me to capture the magical moments and emotions between humans.
One shoot I am most proud of was an engagement session at Mt. Tamalpais in SF. We drove up to the location and unfortunately it was pouring rain and that was not in the forecast. We noticed the other side of the mountain looked less stormy. We raced against the clock (both the weather and sunset), managed to make it to the sunnier side, and I ended up with the most god/goddess looking photos. It was a moment where there was a quite a bit of panic. I had flown in for this engagement, it was a freak weather moment, and the fiance had just had her hair and make up done. Yet some how, they turned out to be the most incredible photos I have taken and frankly the ones I am most proud of to date.
You can see that shot here- https://www.instagram.com/p/B1cyIHdgbZP/?img_index=1
My skill lies in getting people to feel comfortable in front of the camera. I never use poses- everything is a prompt, activity, dare, etc. in an effort to get people behaving naturally and capturing the raw moments in between
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Learn from the community! I am super active in facebook groups, reddit pages, etc. I haven’t found a mentor in the space, but I love learning from internet friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://meganmeza.wixsite.com/photography
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganmezaphoto
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meganmezaphotography
- Other: https://meganmezaphoto.etsy.com/
