Today we’d like to introduce you to Emily Loving.
Hi Emily, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I earned my Master of Fine Arts with the intention of pursuing art-based photography. I spent several years as a member of the Dallas art collective, Muscle Nation, doing pop-up art shows and installations. I also worked with a local art gallery, and as an adjunct professor teaching photography and art. In order to improve my financial stability, I started branching out into other forms of photography–including commercial photography. I was lucky enough to work with Kevin Marple, a Dallas-based food photographer, and he was instrumental in helping me hone my craft.
I got into Real Estate photography completely by accident. I had several friends who were working as real estate agents and I discovered that they were wanting high quality images for their property listings. At the time, many agents were still taking their own photographs. However, because of the popularity of syndication websites like Zillow, Realtor.com and so forth, the quality of photographs was becoming increasingly more important because people were starting to spend more time shopping for homes online than in person. I started off shooting for a few friends that were agents, and this quickly led to me picking up other agents as clients and the business continued to grow from there.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been smooth in the sense that my business has grown steadily since the beginning, but there have certainly been challenges. In the beginning, I found it challenging to adapt many of the skills I had learned in the controlled studio environment to the continually changing conditions and locations associated with photographing architecture. Additionally, keeping up with market trends and changing technology has been extremely demanding. Although working as an adjunct teaching photography certainly helped me stay current on many vital aspects of the field, I have discovered that keeping myself educated about my craft requires tremendous vigilance and commitment.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Although Loving Real Estate Photo’s commitment to producing the highest quality images possible continues to be our guiding principle, our growth into a one-stop shop providing for all of our clients’ visual media needs has become an increasingly more important. It’s not enough just to take pictures anymore. To remain cutting edge, we have had to grow into other areas as well—including video, drone imaging, 3-d capture and social media marketing. However, I feel that it is our commitment to tailoring our packages to meet or clients’ needs that has led to customer loyalty. This business is still largely word-of-mouth and what our clients say about us is far more important than what we say about ourselves. In recent years, we have grown into other areas–working in commercial real estate, with designers, restaurants and various small businesses and it is our reputation for quality and professionalism that has opened many of these doors.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Adaptability. Hands-down. In the beginning, just producing a higher quality, more refined image than the status quo was enough to make me stand-out. However, the industry has continued to grow, attract new talent and has become increasingly more competitive. The ability to recognize current trends, anticipate future ones and reevaluate and restructure my business model to conform to the ever-changing market has been essential to my success.
Contact Info:
- Email: emily@emilylovingphoto.com
- Website: lovingrealestatephotos.com
- Instagram: lovingrealestatephotos
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emilylovingphotography
Image Credits
©emilylovingphoto
