Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Gallardo.
Jessica, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I initially started growing a love for photography around 12-13 years old, I would snap photos of random things that I thought looked interesting with one of those old sliding phones, (the ones with like 3 megapixels) around the same time, I had loved going to Photobucket and just searching up photography, or going on Tumblr and following loads of accounts that had beautiful images. I always wished to have the same quality of photos that I would see on these sites, but all I had were phone cameras, and then eventually digital cameras. In high school, I picked up a photojournalism class (that I didn’t learn much from), and became the class Historian my senior year, which was when I first got my hands on a DSLR to myself for a good chunk of time. I think that same year I started to become discouraged about pursuing photography as a career, as graduation was quickly approaching and becoming a photographer did not sound stable. What I saw was a heavily saturated community, and seeing how more and more people were getting access to phones with better camera qualities, the business looked like it was dying, so I stopped photography for some time after high school.
I spent a weird few years after, kind of just letting life go with the flow, I wasn’t really happy with how my life was going. I got a job as a Pharmacy Tech and worked at a pharmacy for three years, then got laid off, and tried getting a new job in the same field, and ended up realizing that I didn’t even want to be doing any of this, there was no joy in it. So, I went through several more jobs and landed on one that gave me a spark of hope, the founder of the company was just a regular working class lady who had an idea to start her own company because she hated her full-time job, she was what people today would now call a “girl-boss.” Although my job at this company was not to be a photographer, the story behind the company and the potential for growth, gave me some hope.
During this period of time, I was still wondering what I wanted to do as a career, but I was giving myself time to do things that I like to do for fun, hobbies, personal projects, etc. I never stopped using a camera, my phone was always with me, and I would snap photos and try learning manual mode by messing with my phones camera settings. I got the idea to finally save up for a DSLR for two reasons, the obvious one was because I always wanted one, and the second reason was that my boss influenced me unknowingly to start my own business. My fiance’ helped me pay for the camera and at 22, I could now take those great quality photos I always dreamed of capturing.
I quickly started practicing manual mode and editing, and soon after wanted to put my skills to the test in a real shoot. Fashion photography always intrigued me as a teen thanks to fashion magazines like Teen Vogue, or Seventeen Magazine, and to this day. I still wanted to take those types of photographs, so I started looking at photographer communities, and meetups, that’s when I came upon the DFW Girl Gang Meetup on Instagram, a meetup for female creatives, photographers, makeup artists, stylists, and models. These meetups really helped me get out of my comfort zone and get more exposure. After posting some of the photos from the meetup on my Instagram, people started DM’ing me and asking how much I charge (I had zero ideas how to price) and then realized that people were willing to pay for my photos, and that’s ultimately how I got to where I am today.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
To be honest, I am still going through all the struggles. The most obvious is that there is lots of competition in photography. The market is highly saturated, so I had to come to terms with the fact that I might not have lots of clients as a beginner. The second most obvious struggle to anyone just starting out is how expensive camera gear is. I was lucky enough to have my fiance’ help me financially with gear, and also, an uncle (who is also a photographer) who was so amazingly kind enough to hand me down some of his own gear. Thanks, Tio!
Another struggle is a comparison, I find myself sometimes comparing my work to other photographers, it’s so easy now with social media, but I’ve gotten a lot better at just looking at others work and not feeling bad about my own. What I like to do sometimes is learn from the photo, how would I recreate this? What did this photographer do to make this image look like that? What lighting did they use? When that trick doesn’t work, I get off social media entirely. I think it’s good to look at other work for inspiration, but I don’t think anyone should uphold their skills to somebody else’s.
For the longest, and even to this day, I sometimes feel this lack of confidence in myself. Growing up, I was always the shy quiet kid, and in adulthood, I feel like that translated itself to anxiety, which is just a personal battle I have to fight. When I go on shoots, I have to shake that feeling off, I have to convince myself to get out there. It’s really daunting when the day of the photo shoot arrives, on those days I have to calm myself down, stop overthinking, and just shoot. Once I start taking photos, I feel that anxiety just kind of melt away, and focus on the person I’m photographing, because I don’t want that to hinder my ability at being the best photographer I can be for my clients.
My advice to young women who are just starting is to just get out of your comfort zone, it’s scary but I feel it’s the only way anyone can achieve their dreams. Being put in new situations open you up to meeting new people, networking, getting more clients and so much more. Just even getting out of your comfort zone in the way you photograph (daytime/nighttime, location, angles, etc.) is also really beneficial because stepping away from comfort requires you to think differently, and spark new ideas, leading you to an image with a different and maybe even better end result. Meeting new people sounds scary but you will benefit so much from it in this industry.
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I am a Dallas photographer, my focus most recently has mainly been portrait and fashion photography, but I have also done other things like event photography, landscape, and flat-lays. I’m always willing to learn different forms of photography as well. Doing photography for me is more so a hobby, than a career, I feel making this a full-time career would lose some of my focus on the work and direct it more to the business side of things. I only want my clients to receive my best work so I only do this part-time but one day I hope to be available to shoot more than just on weekends. For me, the most important thing is to make my clients feel confident about themselves when they receive their photos, that’s my ultimate goal when I shoot and edit. It always makes me happy when a client is happy with my work.
Do you have a lesson or advice you’d like to share with young women just starting out?
I think my best advice is to just keep shooting, keep learning, even when you have no clients, Investing some time on bettering your skills is a great investment as a creative. When you first start out, it might feel like you have no idea what you’re doing, or when the clients are going to come, but just keep going, I’m still figuring it all out myself, and honestly, I don’t know how else I would have learned to work in the photography industry had I not just thrown myself into it.
Contact Info:
- Email: jessicagj123@gmail.com
- Instagram: snapshotsbyjess
Image Credit:
Brittany Noel Bello, Kylie Miller, Imori McNew, Pam Blonde, Yvette Gallardo
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