Meet Redondo Beach Photographer: Jeremy Nicolaides

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeremy Nicolaides.

Jeremy, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
For the better part of two decades, I was working in the film industry. First in Visual Effects then in 3D (Stereoscopic). Early on I worked for a VFX house that specialized in 3D and IMAX films. I didn’t know it at the time but 3D was about to become huge with Avatar and digital film projectors. This put me in a position to focus 100% on 3D, which I loved and had fun doing.

Flash forward several years where I became the Creative Director for a large global post production company that was looking to build a 3D post production branch. Over the course of 3 years, we built up a team of over 3,000 in LA, London, Mumbai, and Vancouver. We worked on huge tentpole movies such as Star Wars, Men In Black, and Transformers. There were times I was supervising 10 movies at one time. Then like most LA based VFX & 3D companies, the LA office was shut down.

The interesting thing during those “successful” years was I never felt fulfilled. The more successful I got, the higher I climbed the ladder, the less creative I was able to be.

So when things slowed down I was able to regroup and think about how I truly would like to spend my time, and that was taking pictures in beautiful places and spending time with my family.

Photography had always been a passion of mine. It was my creative outlet that kept me sane in the crazy world of making 3D movies. So it was time to make it official. It was time to build a business around my passion.

In researching how to monetize my passion for photography I came to the conclusion that I needed to own a print shop. So we bought one in the South Bay close to our home. It turns out you do not need to own a print shop to be a successful fine art photographer. What it has done though is provide us with an amazing education in business. Experiences that they cannot teach you in school. Even though this was something that we did not need for the photography business I do think it was what we needed to better sculpt our future.

So today I actively have 3 businesses. My photography business where I sell high-quality installation pieces for homes and offices, plus there is an education side where I teach others how to start and/or grow their current business. I still do 3D movies from time to time, but know I work on the side with the production company and the filmmakers where you get to be creative and truly add value to a film. Then there is the print shop where I print my art and serve other businesses in our community.

An Albert Einstein quote sticks with me as I build and grow a new business, “Try not to become a man of success, but rather to become a man of value.” This is why I decided to add education as a big part of my photography business. Not only do I want to sell my photographs to support my passion but I also want to help lift others around me.

Has it been a smooth road?
The past few years have been a huge struggle. When we bought the print shop I thought it would be six weeks of clean up, 6 months of building sales, then I would be able to focus the majority of my time on photography while the print shop becomes mostly passive. WRONG! Two years later and I am just now getting the photography business going. I think when I look back the print shop will be one of my best failures. Failure in a good way, in a way where nothing happened the way I thought, feeling like it was going to ruin us, but coming out the other side with an amazing education that will alter our lives in a very positive way. It’s not that the print shop is a bad business, it is just not the right fit for us.

Has there been people or an institution that has played a pivotal role in your career?
The first person who gets the major of the credit would be my dad. As long as I can remember he always said that I was capable of doing anything I put my mind to. So from a very early age, I was free to try anything I wanted (as long as it wasn’t hurting me or anyone else). So many of us are bred with limiting beliefs and I was fortunate enough to not have as many of those mental road blocks.

After that it’s the haters, the doubters, those are the thoughts and memories that haunt me the most. I believe in my core that I can do anything I am truly passionate about, but for whatever reason, I have these recurring thoughts of specific conversations where people are telling me that I can’t or won’t do something. It drives me crazy.

There is one from an ex-employer that I think about all the time. I was explaining how I had several 3D movie ideas and that we should explorer making them together. We pretty much had all the resources we needed to do this. He shifted the conversation around and said that if I wanted to be a 3D filmmaker I would already be doing it, and since I wasn’t doing it, I wasn’t going to do it.

That made me so mad, but you know, he was right. The only way to become something is to take action!

What kind of work do you look forward to most?
I’m super excited for the education/coaching and mastermind side of my company. One of my favorite parts of the film industry is working with everyone. Your “production family”. The thing about photography is you are by yourself most of the time. With the education/coaching side, I will be working with those that are starting up or growing from early stages. A time in their career that can be very scary. I hope to make it fun and help them get to profitability quickly. The mastermind side is just as exciting. I’ll be working with established photographers to grow all of our businesses quickly. Both creatively and financially. Mastermind groups are amazing, and a must for anyone who works alone. Both of these areas are something I did not know about when I first started. If I had it probably would of saved me at least 2 years of pain and uncertainty.

What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were just starting out?
The big lesson learned is that one must build a business around what they are passionate about. That sounds like a no-brainer but most creatives don’t understand that. Most creatives just want to be creative. True you can hire people to take care of the business part but you need money for that and most creatives don’t start with money. So you must start a business and wear all the hats yourself.

If I were to start over I would start by identifying my specific buyers first. That’s before I did anything. You must know who you are selling to. Here’s a pearl, your opinion does not matter. The only opinion that matters is the one that will buy your product. Don’t design your brand for what you like, design it for your buyer. Then deliver more value then what you are asking for in return. That makes the purchase a no-brainer.

But the #1 lesson relates back to my story from my previous employer. Take action! So many people try to make their business perfect before they launch. So they never launch, and another great idea fizzles away to the daily grind. Know where you are going and do something every day to get there…

Contact Info:

• Website: www.JeremyNicolaides.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: jeremy_nicolaides
• Facebook: Jeremy Nicolaides Photography