Today we’d like to introduce you to Jora Enge and Francisco Robledo.
Jora and Francisco, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We’ve been friends for 10 years and we’ve always related to one another on a creative level. We started with a fierce passion for fine art, drawing and painting, and as we grew up, we discovered a passion for photography. This started as experiments with black and white analog film photography.
We would share information we learned through college courses and self-discovery. We bounced ideas off one another, shared supplies and gave each other suggestions to elevate our work. We were constantly shooting, together or independently, and around September 2014, we decided to merge our efforts and talents to create Nine Tails Photo Group. We created Nine-Tails Photo Group with a desire to not only continue our love of photography but to meet new people in our community and make a name for ourselves.
In the past year, we have made the decision to point our focus towards small brands and their online marketing. This includes social media management, content creation, campaigns, and connecting them with our growing network of influencers in the area. Networking has become a huge part of our business plans to reach out more into the community. We surround ourselves with stylists, other photographers, make-up artists, bloggers, and singers to both work with and have a vibrant “creative community”. We love meeting new people and collaborating with individuals from all walks of life.
Has it been a smooth road?
Finding a relatable soul with the same interests as you make anything you do easier. The fact that we’ve been friends for so long and continue to support each other has helped us overcome many obstacles. One of the main struggles we’ve encountered is the balance between costly equipment and individuals wanting to use our talents and work for little to no pay.
Being an artist and a photographer is difficult. Quality cameras are expensive. Photo manipulation software is expensive. Photo retouching takes a toll on your eyes and mind after some hours. We’ve had to learn to charge for our services, despite our honest desire to produce quality work for anyone wanting photography.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Our business focuses on photography of many types. We have two main facets of our company. An artistic side with an editorial flare, and a commercial side with interests in marketing. With each of our clients, we aim to build a relationship.
During photo shoots, it’s very important to us that the client feels comfortable and is confident that we will make them look they’re best and true to their personality! We really enjoy working with small businesses and startups. We’ve found that oftentimes, small businesses have the biggest ideas and limitless potential. There is no limit to what we want to offer them. We can be very resourceful and work to make all budgets work. We offer a creative solution to many different visual marketing needs.
Our goal in 2018 is to collaborate and bring on other artists such as Graphic Designers, web builders, makeup artists, hairstylists, and any other specialists. Our true desire is to continue growing and form an amazing creative team! We are proud of all of our working relationships, both individuals and businesses. We love helping them find their creative footing via photography and visual marketing.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Dallas is a great place to currently start a business in terms of online and service. The city isn’t oversaturated with talent to the point of LA or New York, but still offers the potential of growth. Dallas is still a large city so you have plenty of opportunities to start, once you have a growing client base you can spread to the even bigger cities and continue to grow on a national sense.
For boutiques, however, it will be a rough road. Dallas shoppers tend to be very loyal to brands they already know so trying to encourage them to try out a new brand can be quite difficult. Having a strong online presence and tapping into the small communities of local shop lovers, wanting to try something new, is your best bet in Dallas.
Pricing:
- We currently offer a price of $50 per hour for bloggers/influencers with no limit to how many outfits we can shoot in each hour. This also includes content for small businesses
- For high-end editorial shots, we charge 100-150 per hour (depending on the details). This includes all retouching for this type of photography.
- Instagram managing: $250/ month for a small business $100/ month for an individual (contact us for details on what this all includes).
Contact Info:
- Website: http://ninetailsphotogroup.squarespace.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: (Instagram for editorial) https://www.instagram.com/ninetails_studios/ (new Instagram for commercial uses) https://www.instagram.com/ninetails_photogroup/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ninetailsphotogroup/
- Other: https://g.co/kgs/GHLm3c
Image Credit:
Latrice Ross @theworldshomegirl, Alvaro Ramalho @avrobro, Tiffani Lehman @Styledtiffrently, Monica Rubi @Mvrubi, Maribel Morales @_maribelmorales_, STONES Music @stones_music
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
