How Do You Say Success in Spanglish?
The path to success isn’t paved for people of color. Join me as I sit down with individuals who share their stories as we learn how to say Success in Spanglish.
How Do You Say Success in Spanglish?
A Latina Photojournalist's Journey Turning Passion into a Profession - Brenda de Los Santos
Benda, always considered herself a creative soul, even as a child, drawing, painting, or whatever else she could find to get her hands dirty. As for photography, although she always loved it as an art form, it wasn't 2003 she signed up for a photojournalism class on a whim while studying at Boston University. And immediately knew she was hooked and fell in love with telling people's stories with photos. After working on staff at daily newspapers for several years, Brenda decided to take her photography in a different direction. Now, she focuses her work on capturing the special moments in people's lives .
Summary:
Have you ever wondered how a simple passion can morph into a successful business? We sat down with Brenda de Los Santos, a fascinating photographer and entrepreneur, who took us on an enthralling journey of how she did exactly that. With beginnings rooted in high school art exploration, encouraged by a supportive teacher, Brenda shares how she became the first in her family to attend college and pursued art even more deeply, setting the foundation for her prosperous career.
Brenda's saga is more than just about art; it is a testament to resilience and determination. We go beyond the canvas and lens as we tackle subjects like ancestry, identity, and the influence of genetic testing. We also share personal stories about battling challenges as minorities in college and finding a sense of community. Dive into the world of photojournalism with us through a Latina lens as we navigate the unique pressures faced by Brenda during her time at Boston University. Financial constraints? Brenda conquered them with resourcefulness and creativity in her pursuit of a successful career in photojournalism.
As we journeyed further into Brenda's narrative, we explored the evolution of her career from freelancing to owning a thriving business. We discover the importance of building a community and the art of tiding over slow seasons in the photography industry. We delve into how technology, specifically AI, is impacting the photography industry and strategies for competing with amateur photographers. We conclude our chat with Brenda discussing her travel experiences, her website, and her passion for capturing the essence of her subjects. So, as you join us on Brenda's journey, prepare to be inspired by her passion, creativity, and determination.
See more at www.successinspanglish.com
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Intro Song: Regaeton Pop - Denbow Ambiance
This is Raul Lopez, and you're listening to. How Do you Say Success in Spanglish? The path to success isn't easy For minorities and people of color. Many attempt to journey with little to no guidance. Join me as I sit down with individuals who share their stories of perseverance so that together we can learn how to say success in spanglish. What's good me Hemte? Welcome back. This is your boy, raul. Today, my guest is a very good friend of mine from college, brenda de Los Santos. How you doing, brenda?
Brenda De Los Santos:I'm good. I'm good, how are you?
Raul Lopez:Good, I'm doing all right. I'm glad you took the time, especially now that we live so close to each other.
Raul Lopez:I'm glad we had to be able to catch up and get you on here and talk about your journey as well. Just to introduce you, brenda is the owner of Brenda de Los Santos photography in New London, connecticut. Brenda always considered herself a creative soul, even as a child drawing, painting or whatever else she could find to get her hands dirty. As for photography, although she always loved it as an art form, it wasn't until 2003 she signed up for a photography photojournalism class on a whim while studying at Boston University. She immediately knew she was hooked and fell in love with telling people stories with photos.
Raul Lopez:After working on staff at Daily Newspapers for several years, brenda decided to take her photography in a different direction. Now she focuses her work on capturing the special moment in people's lives. That's kind of cool, being able to go, and I'm always like photography and I know the difficulties of being a good photographer. So I'm glad you're able to turn your hobby, your career, your love for art, into a career. That's always very difficult to do and we'll go into a little bit of that a little bit further. I guess. To start off, just introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about you.
Brenda De Los Santos:Aside from what you've shared, gosh, I'm a volunteer. I feel like I always share that. I volunteer in a bunch of different ways in my community. I am on the board for a local natural foods co-op. I volunteered with some photographic nonprofits in the past, Gosh, I guess since 2016. I was a big sister through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. My little sister is grown up. She's 19 now. Other than that, I love to travel. I've been very fortunate to be able to explore some countries in the past two years post-pandemic, but that's pretty much it. I'm busy a lot and having a small business takes up a lot of time.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, definitely yeah, you're originally from New London, connecticut. I am Born and raised.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, born and raised here. It's a little small town and I couldn't wait to get out and I thought I was going to go live in a city and never come back. I realized how amazing it is to be 10 minutes from the ocean. New London is a pretty cool little community. I'm here and I love it.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, I live about 10 minutes away from New London. I think at this point it's different living in a coastal town. It's a lot of pretty things to look at, a lot of pretty things to do. There's so much to get involved with. It's an awesome place to live. I just wish it was warmer, more time of the year instead of cold. Growing up. What got you into arts and stuff? How did you get into art?
Brenda De Los Santos:I always have loved art. I've always loved to draw. I have somewhere around here I have a box with drawing pencils and drawing paper and all that stuff and I never get to use it. I always loved art. When I was in elementary school I was in a program that actually took me out of school on the days that my class had art and I always missed out on it. When I got to middle school I put my foot down and said, no, I want to be in the art classes. And when I was in high school I had a teacher who just really really pushed me and allowed me to explore all different types of mediums. She allowed me to do pretty much any project I wanted, regardless of what the class was doing, and that really, I think, kind of sealed the deal for me, that I knew that I would be doing something creative.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, and so when you were in high school and you were looking for schools, was art kind of what you were looking for at college level, or were you trying?
Brenda De Los Santos:to say something else. I didn't think that my career would be in an artistic field. I really didn't have an idea. I sort of thought maybe written magazine journalism could be fun, but I didn't think that it would be something that would be a career for me at all. I didn't know what I wanted to study when I went to college. I'm the first person in my family that went to college, so I didn't have a whole lot of I guess I just didn't have that guidance. And so when I got to school I thought maybe, like I said, maybe the written journalism, maybe that part of it. I even considered maybe film and TV production. I even considered religion, which is weird because it's not, I don't know, it's not something that I. It doesn't make sense to me now, but it did as an 18-year-old. Yeah, yeah.
Raul Lopez:No, it's. I think people don't realize sometimes. I think there's two things, you know. People don't realize 18 year olds don't really know everything yet, and so we try to put everything in front of them and say, hey, you got to go figure out your life and figure out what you want to go to college for or work, and this is what you're going to do for us to your life. And I think we get to like the age of 30 and we still don't even know sometimes what we want to do.
Raul Lopez:So you know, it's difficult, and especially with art too, I think, for a lot of people art isn't something that is pushed as a career for most people because every time they tell you art is a nice hobby, find a job that pays you enough that you can do your hobby, you know, but don't expect that you're going to make a lot of money. So it's difficult for a lot of people to encourage that.
Raul Lopez:So when you were, you know, one of the things you did mention to me in the pre-interview thing is that, well, grown up you kind of had to struggle with feelings of belonging. Can you elaborate on?
Brenda De Los Santos:that, yeah, yeah, absolutely so I am.
Brenda De Los Santos:So when I was growing up, if you'd asked me what was my background, I would tell you well, I'm Puerto Rican and Filipino, and so I am what my nieces and nephews would now call a no sabo kid. I have not flew it in Spanish, and it's something that I wish was different, but I definitely had. So there's a decent size Puerto Rican and Latino community here in New London, and so at school there were many students who were in ESL programs, students who were fluent in Spanish, and there definitely was, I feel like there were some walls between it, because I didn't have, you know, I didn't have that commonality with them, even with my family. My family would, my cousins would say oh, brenda, you're white, because I, you know, like I said, I don't speak Spanish, and so that always was kind of a thing, I feel like as a young person growing up, that stood out to me and even, as I feel like even, you know, even going through college, there was still some of that too, but primarily when I was growing up and then also, I certainly didn't ever feel like anyone would concern me Filipino.
Brenda De Los Santos:Spoiler alert I am not Filipino. I did the ancestor DNA test and I'm not.
Raul Lopez:Oh really.
Brenda De Los Santos:So there's, that too.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, okay, you gotta tell me a little bit about that.
Brenda De Los Santos:How did that?
Raul Lopez:come up. I mean, since I know you, I was always Puerto Rican and Filipino, so you know how. First, what made you what? What made you think Filipino? And how was? How did you feel when you found out you weren't Filipino?
Brenda De Los Santos:So one of my grandfathers is Filipino. He is not my biological grandfather. I didn't know that until I took the test. My family knew that. My parents knew that, but they had always told us growing up, you know you girls I have two sisters. Two new girls are Puerto Rican and Filipino, and you know we grew up going to my grandpa's house and having Vansit and Lumpia and all of those delicious things and have all of our family members that are Filipino. It just turns out that that grandfather is not my dad's biological father, and so as a kid, you take what your parents say for faith value. And so my sisters and I all did.
Brenda De Los Santos:You know, I I want to say in my early 30s all decided we would go and do the ancestry DNA test because we wanted to see the, the makeup of our you know, our Puerto Rican ancestors. And so I remember it might have been like New Year's Day or, you know, january 2nd or 3rd of whatever year it was, and I was lying in bed in the morning and I picked up my phone and I'm scrolling my email and I I get that little, that little ping that says your ancestry results are in, and I went and clicked on it and I looked through it and it was all very exciting to see all the different places. And then a couple of minutes later I said wait a minute, there's something missing there. And so I very quickly, I like six in the morning I'm texting my sisters and I'm like you guys, like there's, there's no Filipino on here, like what is going on? And so we talked to my mom and we talked to my aunts and they're like yeah, no, you're not Filipino.
Brenda De Los Santos:Like and I'm like, okay, but so there's that.
Raul Lopez:And, and I mean I think lots of times growing up, the culture is almost as important as the bloodline. You know, like you could, you could be. You know I have friends who are white and they've spent years in like Latin America and pretty much Latino, speak more Spanish than me sometimes and you know they're more involved with the culture than you know some Latino friends that I have. And so how did that make you feel when you, when you found out, or did you still kind of consider yourself? You know, I kind of grew up Filipino. I feel Filipino even.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I still have a lot of. None of that cultural stuff is ever going to leave me Like I still, regardless. I grew up with Filipino grandparents. On that side of the family I have cousins and aunts and everyone who are all Filipino. It's like that's who I was growing up, it's who I am now, I think in some you know, in some way, like you said, like the blood doesn't matter, it's that's, you know, that's how I was raised. And then, in terms of like, I feel like identifying with my Puerto Rican side, or just my Puerto Rican ancestry, because that's what it is. It almost was a little bit freeing to know and to be able to say like, hey, I am like just as Puerto Rican as you and regardless of whether or not I speak Spanish fluently enough for you, that is still who I am.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, I think it takes a lot for some of us, and especially as we mature. I mean, when I was growing up, I mentioned before in one of my other episodes that I had a Colombian lady that kind of yelled at me because my Spanish wasn't good. You know, my English wasn't good, my Spanish wasn't good, and she was like you should be ashamed of yourself that you were born in Peru and you don't speak Spanish. And so for the majority of high school I didn't speak Spanish to anybody. So anybody that would talk to me like I had friends who were Colombian, who were Dominican or Puerto Rican that only spoke Spanish to me and I would just speak, I would respond back in English I would never speak.
Brenda De Los Santos:Spanish.
Raul Lopez:I was so like ashamed and whatever. And sometimes you just kind of you get to a point where you're like fuck, you Don't give a shit, you know, and you get more comfortable. And then you talk to other people and I think a lot of the time, especially at an earlier age, for a lot of people I think it's getting over that hump of fitting in and realizing you don't have to meet a certain checkboxes to feel this way. You're not.
Raul Lopez:Puerto Rican because you speak Spanish and you scream weapon every time something happens. It's like there's more to it than that, so I'm glad that worked out for you, and so were you 100% Puerto Rican then, or were you 100% Puerto Rican then?
Brenda De Los Santos:As far as I know, yes, so the results have like 16 different places that I have ancestry from. The big, the two biggest are Spanish and indigenous Taino, and I don't. My father doesn't know who his biological father is. So far I've not found anyone through ancestry that would fit that. You know that role. So I assume, based on the mix, based on what I know from my mom's results, I believe so, but I don't know. I guess there's always a chance it could be something else.
Raul Lopez:I mean, I mean it's cool that you got to get some clarity on that at least. And that's the marvel of, I think, this technology and genetic testing we have now, where we can kind of it makes you feel like you can put a claim on to what you are, even though you don't necessarily need to. You know my wife, my wife I love. She took the funny things that we discovered in the last couple weeks between you and I that your ancestry DNA result linked you to my wife's ancestry, so that you guys are related by somehow.
Raul Lopez:You know both Puerto Rican and and. But she did it too because she wanted to find out what she was, because she doesn't know too much about her dad side of the family and she was always assuming that she had more like African ancestry because of her cousins were more dark skinned and black and things like that, and so she realized she didn't have almost any African ancestry but a lot of.
Raul Lopez:Portuguese, because she was like 20% Portuguese and the funny part was all my friends from Rhode Island or Portuguese and they're like oh, you're Portuguese. So they started sending her all these Portuguese trinkets to put her on the house and stuff like that.
Brenda De Los Santos:That's if you're.
Raul Lopez:Portuguese people. They have a whole bunch of little things that we have on how they sent her. Like a little bowl that's shipped in fish, a little black.
Brenda De Los Santos:I have that. Yeah, yeah, I got the bowl with the fish and then I got the. I got a rooster.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, and so they they. They mailed all that to her to kind of welcome her welcome her as a Portuguese person.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah it was fun, it's amazing.
Raul Lopez:So I know we kind of went on a tangent and you know, I think it's. I think it's important to talk about it too, because I think for a lot of us sometimes, you know, not not almost 100%, you know, like even right, I hate to, I hate to rub it in sometimes. My wife caught me on a technicality the other day where I would always tell my daughter she's half Peruvian, half Puerto Rican, you know. And and my wife said Well, technically you're like one eighth Italian. So you know, I'm like, oh, you caught me there.
Raul Lopez:So yeah, you know, my daughter's probably going to be growing up in the future to you know and fitting in, and she's predominantly white area now too. So it's you know fitting into something that she's going to have to work over through as well. So you know. I totally get it, and so when you went to college did that? Were you able to kind of find someplace that made you feel like you fit in more?
Brenda De Los Santos:Um, yes and no. My experience going to college was I felt very, very out of place, at least my freshman year. Most of the people that I was good friends with came from very different socio economic backgrounds than I did, and so I think that was like a pretty obvious difference between us, even though a lot of my friends were people of culture, people who were not white, so we could find things that we related to in that regard. And really the big thing for me, I think, when I was in college was getting involved with Latino Senegal. So the Latino student organization that's how I met you and it, finding that community, really was a big thing for me. It didn't solve everything, but it it was major.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, no it, like I said it, I changed the big time in college to where I was kind of against the idea of being Latino. I always wanted to be more black than anything and you know, accepting who I was and appreciating my culture more and I think Latinos and the Nido's and then meeting the brothers of my fraternity, like all that just kind of drove me to do that.
Raul Lopez:So you, know, and it's important and that we one of the Renee who I interviewed recently to he you know he he mentions the importance of some of these organizations at campus to help you feel like you fit in, especially because we're always a small percentage of college and you feel like a small dot, but you didn't mention to that.
Raul Lopez:You know a lot of people was different, were more fluent than I think. Yeah, I was kind of grew up in there and I think you mentioned something along the lines of dealing with some of that and when you started studying photojournalism, yeah, I.
Brenda De Los Santos:So the photojournalism program at BU was pretty small. There were maybe like 10 or 12 of us that were, you know, on that track within the communication school, and so there was one other Latina in the program and it was not uncommon for our professors to mix up our names, so I would get called Daisy and she would get called Brenda, and I distinctly remember there was a point in it might have been junior year where one of our photojournalism professors made this big speech telling us how, you know, we all could afford to go to BU and our parents could are paying to send us here, and so we had to, you know as well, just have them buy us or open up a credit card and buy all the camera equipment. And that was just so financially unfeasible for me. My parents didn't have the money for it, I didn't have a credit for it. It just, it just made no sense to someone coming from my background, and that definitely it was something that stood out a lot.
Brenda De Los Santos:And then, like I said, a lot of my friends were people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. I remember my senior year. Literally every one of my friends that I had from my freshman year, they all went on a spring break trip to Dominican Republic and I didn't even ask my parents about it being a possibility because I knew it wasn't and I stayed in Boston and I worked during that week and they were, all you know, having the time of their lives with like a pina cotta in their hands.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, it was fine. It was interesting to meet some of the people who grew up completely different from me and you meet them and they're like oh yeah, we have like a million dollar home and you know all this stuff and you're like holy crap, I was like geez, the completely different lifestyle I know, dealing with some of those situations as far as, like the different socioeconomic aspects of stuff, such as the story you're telling me with the camera and stuff like that, how are you able to handle dealing with a situation for your major?
Brenda De Los Santos:I mean I just I did what I could. We had I. Actually the thing that really worked for me was I got a job at the BU yearbook and because I worked there I was able to have a digital SLR that was assigned to me for the entire school year, and so that was one of the ways that I worked around it, because there's I mean, there was no way that I ever would have been able to purchase that on my own. And then I feel like there, maybe there was a time towards the end of the year when I had to turn that camera in, and at that point I would just go and take the camera out from the photo lab and the photo journalism program.
Raul Lopez:Did they give you options to rent out equipment or borrow equipment as needed, or it was kind of a fun.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, you could borrow it for like a period of a couple of days. It wasn't like something that you could keep all the time. Fortunately, the one from the yearbook it was. I had it for the duration of the year until I had to hand it in, so that was something that worked. But that was something that I specifically sought out because I knew that would enable me to actually do my assignments.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, I know, in college things are expensive, everything is expensive, you know.
Raul Lopez:Even books are expensive, you know electronic equipment for photography is stupid, expensive, you know, even even now it's ridiculous and it's always evolving and you're always trying to get the best, the best product, so it's it's always hard keeping up with it, and so you have to come up with your own ways of dealing with. I used to rent all my books from the library from any library I could find instead of paying for books. So I'd borrow it and go through them and then return them, and you know, sometimes I'll deal with it was cheaper to deal with like a $30 late fee than it was to buy a whole new book First of all. Yeah, so you got to make it work and so you said you stumbled into photojournalism. When did you decide to take a class and how did that change your outlook?
Brenda De Los Santos:So you know, like I said, I always was into anything kind of creative, artistic. When I was growing up, my dad always took pictures, so I always was pretty. I had an interest in photography to begin with and what was it? My 19th birthday. I'd asked for a film camera, just, you know, to take pictures of my friends, my family, stuff like that.
Brenda De Los Santos:And so I had a film camera and I think it was the second semester of sophomore year, I was trying to sign up for a magazine writing class and it was full by the time that it was my turn to sign up for classes and I saw that this intro to photojournalism class was available and I had this camera that was just sitting, like you know, like up in my closet in my dorm room somewhere, and decided to take it and it was, you know, like I said, it was just like instant. I knew that I wanted to do it. I loved being able to, you know, to look around and be able to breathe a moment, but from my viewpoint and so I pretty quickly decided that that was going to be my major, and it's been that way ever since.
Raul Lopez:Nice. So you graduated, you went into photojournalism, working on newspapers.
Brenda De Los Santos:I did so. Initially I started by freelancing at my local papers here in Connecticut and I did that for a while and at the end of 2007, I interviewed for and got a job for the new written Herald and the Middletown press and I was able to do like sister papers and about 20, 25 minutes apart, and so I worked at both of them and they were both very small newspapers, which was great, because in Middletown it was only me and one other photographer, which meant that I got to go to all the assignments. It wasn't just like getting the shitty assignments that no one else wanted to do. I really got to do everything because there was no other choice, and so that really got my feet wet. I photographed murder scenes and like happy occasions, like high school graduations and profiles of people in the community. I got to photograph Obama when he was on the campaign trail.
Brenda De Los Santos:One of my favorite stories is I got to ride in a 1945 B-17 bomber plane from World War II and I got to actually fly in that plane and then, like two years later it crashed and burned in a field somewhere. So I have like some very crazy stories from that time, also some very good ones, and eventually I it was, I don't know summer of 2009 or 2010, somewhere around there and all of like half of the newsroom staff at the Hartford current had all been laid off and that's the, you know, the biggest paper in a state or at the time it was and all these veteran journalists had nowhere to go. And I kind of just felt like, well, I, you know, I got the experience for a few years. It was amazing, but I felt like that was the right time and so I I just jumped ship and I worked you know other regular jobs for a while and always doing photography, and eventually I got to a point where I was working pretty much full time hours at a job at an orthodontic office doing technology, computer stuff for them, and also pretty much working full time hours on my own, and got to be way too much and I finally felt like I had enough regular clientele for my photography business and I got to leave that you know that regular job.
Brenda De Los Santos:It's been almost 10 years. It's been really amazing.
Raul Lopez:So you obviously you own your own company, now your own business for photography, and so did you have to work your way up, through doing freelancing and stuff on the weekends to build it till you got to the point where you felt comfortable to leave.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, yeah, and it was a lot of years of, you know, after work hours, evenings, working on the weekends, taking weddings. I, one of the first I don't know, maybe in the first four or five years someone asked if I would shoot a wedding that happened to be on my birthday and like that's like a hard, hard no for me. Now, right, like I would, that's not going to happen. But at that point, you know, it was really like any job was worth taking and I shot that wedding on August 1st of that year and it was like 97 degrees out and the wedding was in full sun and everyone was like ripping buckets of sweat, but I and after that I said no more, like 100% not going to do that anymore. But yeah, pretty much it was like I really took anything that I could get. And now it's really nice because I have the freedom to say no to things, but definitely I didn't have that freedom for a long time.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, and it's scary, I think, for a lot of people to take the risk to say I'm going to go into my own business full time.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah.
Raul Lopez:You know what were some of the challenges you faced once you decided to do that change.
Brenda De Los Santos:Well, with photography specifically, or at least the photography industry in Connecticut, I mean, we have very cold winters, so pretty much after the holidays, after Christmas, all the way until the end of March, is a very slow time of year and the income is not steady, which can be really challenging. Right now we're in the busy time of the year and you know like sales are coming in and things are great, but I don't know that if you talk to me three months from now that I would say the same thing. So as a business owner, you have to be mindful of that and you have to kind of plan for that downtime and it can be a lot, but it you know it's, it works out if you plan right.
Raul Lopez:The budgeting has got to be really important, I guess, for dealing with your money for the rest of the year. So what are some of the resources that you've had to go to to help you, you know, succeed. Thank you.
Brenda De Los Santos:So I really have worked on building community. So I am very much, naturally, an introvert and, as someone that works by myself all the time, that's can be not a great combination. So I have made myself step out of my comfort zone and have gone to different you know different business groups, different networking groups to try and get to the connections. That's actually one of the best things I did, I think, back in 2016. I started going to a group called Rising Tide and have made some of my best business connections from that group.
Brenda De Los Santos:So really I think it's about finding community, especially as someone in a in a field where typically you're a single person business so you have people that you can fall back on.
Brenda De Los Santos:If I were to have, you know, if I had an emergency and I couldn't make it to shoot a wedding, I have a community of people that I can rely on to, you know, to find coverage for me and to make sure that my clients, most important days are covered.
Brenda De Los Santos:So that's like number one. But also that community brings experience and it's really important to have other people who have been in your shoes and have been where you are to get advice from, and I didn't always have that. I feel like starting out it was really hard because there was a lot more I want to say a lot more of a sense of competition among photographers in the area or at least that's what I perceived and I didn't really have anyone that I could go to when I had a problem with a client or a difficult situation that I needed to kind of work through. It was really hard and very isolating and especially there were not many people of color that I could lean to. So really I have found that you have to build that community and I've been working on that.
Raul Lopez:Nice. So are you. Are you becoming one of those like mentors now towards the younger generation of photographers in Connecticut? I?
Brenda De Los Santos:try to. I really try to. I have a young man who is a high school senior at one of our local high schools and I am going to bring him for a senior project currently and I typically always try and look out for my fellow Latino photographers any photographers of color because I don't want them to have it how I had it when I started out.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, yeah, that's good and it's hard. Yeah, I think a lot of us are in the same boat, where it's like it feels we're running through this by ourselves and we're either we're either be the change we need need to be or, you know, we just let everybody else suffer. So I'm glad to. I'm glad that you're doing that. I mean, you've always been a good person, like that, so and that. So when you were starting your business, you know, was there ever a point where you're kind of like, ah, shit, that I do the right choice, like, am I, am I going to the? You know there's always going to be struggle, but did you ever second guess it for a little bit? And how do you overcome that?
Brenda De Los Santos:Oh, absolutely, I feel like I still. I still feel that way once in a while, especially, like I said, come back to talk to me in February. But, yeah, you know, I think, especially with with photography. It doesn't, it doesn't seem like it, but it's a pretty physical job. I don't think that, like 20 years from now, I want to be running around, you know, schlepping tons of equipment at weddings. So I do think about, you know, what would be an exit plan or an alternate plan.
Brenda De Los Santos:I don't have any any intention of using those plans anytime soon and I think that's why you know, I think that's why I'm not, you know, I'm not really. There are times where, like this is a very hard path and I don't know why I like, why don't I just work a regular nine to five job where I could go home and I would be home and not feel guilty that I'm not working on, you know, like the five sessions that need to be done and it's, it's a lot, especially this time of year. Right now we're in my busy season. Busy season is really September through the beginning of December here in Connecticut, and I don't remember, I don't know when my last day off was. It's tonight, yeah, right, so do you find it difficult to?
Raul Lopez:balance that work life balance at all.
Brenda De Los Santos:I try, I try really hard to be as balanced as possible. There are sometimes when it's just not possible. So, like I said, right now this time of year, the reality is that I have, you know, four weddings sitting in my editing queue, along with, you know, maybe like 15 or so sessions that need to get delivered, and I also have to maintain my website and maintain my social media presence and, you know, do all of that back end of stuff. So I this time of year it's kind of just I grind and I work, and then I know that in the winter time, in the spring time, I would have a lot more time to spend with family and friends and I really, really make use of that time when I have it.
Raul Lopez:Nice, and so the big part of all of this to that I've noticing is you're doing a lot of this stuff on your own. You do the editing, the socials, things like that Are. Most people who are in photography go that route, or is the goal to grow big enough that you can do one aspect of that without doing the rest.
Brenda De Los Santos:I think it depends. Everyone has different business models. I have I have a very good photographer friend who outsources most of her editing and she has a team of photographers who shoot weddings for her business. I don't desire to have that. I like that. I have a pulse on every single clients galleries and wedding wedding images and I like working on my own Most of the time.
Brenda De Los Santos:So one of the things I am always looking for ways to work smarter, put it that way. So I've been doing this for a couple of years. I've implemented some of the different AI technologies that are around for photography, so I actually use AI to call my images. So when I come home from a wedding with 4000 photos, I run it through this program and it will narrow it down to 1000 for me, and then I review those to make sure that the technology is doing what it needs to do properly.
Brenda De Los Santos:But it saves me hours and I just try to do. I try to work as smart as possible, I try and stay up on technology. I think for photography you really have to do that, and if you're not, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Raul Lopez:Yeah it's, I'm in the same boat with you with a lot of stuff.
Raul Lopez:You know I'm doing this as a side right now, and it's if AI hasn't helped me pick the cut down my video sometimes edited and stuff like that. So let me look at that clip. Alright, change it a little bit, move a little bit here and boom, as opposed to. You know what I thought was going to be like hours of video editing and cutting out stuff to make a YouTube clip, you know so it's taking a manager technology and AI is crazy. Now it does so much.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, it does.
Raul Lopez:It's just. It's just amazing and scary at the same time. Yeah, yeah it's coming to go and take all over from us. So you know, for someone who's looking to turn a Harvey or their art into a business, you know, you know what is something you would tell them if they were looking, interested in doing that.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, I have a lot of people that I have worked with over the years who want to do that and have done it. The first thing that I encourage is number one before like, don't just grab a camera and then say, oh, I'm going to go shoot someone's wedding. Don't do that because you're setting yourself up for failure. I encourage people to learn to use their equipment in and out, practice a lot, photograph lots of friends and family and then, once you've done that, figure out what you need to do to make it legal. So you know, figure out what you need in order to pay your taxes, what you need in order to be profitable.
Brenda De Los Santos:That's, I think, for people who are in it for the artistry, it can be a really foreign concept. So one of the things that I do I have photographers that I mentor to help them start or grow their businesses, and that's one of the first things I always say is let's run your cost of doing business. Like, let's figure that part out, because you can, you know you might be able to say, oh well, I'm going to charge people, you know, this little amount of money because that's what I feel, that I'm worth at that beginning point in your journey, but if you're not making a profit, it's still just a hobby, so a lot of it is. You have to learn the business side of it and I think for people that aren't it because they love photography and they love creating beautiful images that's not the first thing they think of.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, it's a give and take, I think, for a lot of people. A lot of people jump in thinking, oh, I get to do art I love, and then eventually it's also a job and you got to do the job as well. So no, that's, that's good advice and I've seen a lot of people who buy. I think it's more prevalent now and I don't know if you feel this way, but do you feel like sometimes everybody with the camera now wants to act like they're a photographer?
Raul Lopez:and it delutes the the product for your business.
Brenda De Los Santos:I mean to some degree, sure, I'm, I'm definitely in, I don't, I don't buy into a scarcity mindset. I think that there are clients for everyone. I think that photography, realistically, like, is a luxury service. It's, you know, it's not something that people absolutely need. So I know that when I have clients that book me, that it's you know, it took my hard work and years of what I've been doing to get there and I'm very appreciative of it. But there are tons of folks out there who buy a camera and are like I'm your photographer now, like, call me up and that's okay, it's all right. Probably the people that are going to have them be their photographer.
Raul Lopez:They're probably not my clients, yeah, I think so when I, when I did graphic design in high in college, you know there was a guy who was talking to me about you know pricing and he was like charge the amount you think you're worth.
Raul Lopez:Don't charge what you think you need for the jobs you know you don't. If they're willing to pay for you, they'll pay for you. If not, then it's not worth. It's not worth your time and that's not who you're looking for. And I think that's the hard balance, especially like when you're starting off, where it's like you're trying to just get whatever you can to get that skill. Eventually, you got to get past the point I said well, I can't do it at this price, the rest of my life, I have to eventually.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah.
Raul Lopez:I've been doing this for 15 years now. My price point goes up a bit. And do you, do you have to deal with people who, what's it called? They pay you with what's it? What's it? What's the word you know, like, oh, I'm a big person and if you do this exposure exposure. There we go. Yeah, you know, yeah, you have to deal with that. And how do you deal with that?
Brenda De Los Santos:I did. I used to have to deal with that Years ago. I haven't really gotten too much of that at this point, which I'm very thankful for. Most of the time I would just very politely decline Because, you know, if it's not making me money, it's not making me money. I like my time is valuable. I'm a newer photographer. It's harder to stand firm when you're presented with that situation At this point.
Brenda De Los Santos:There was, there was a couple of years ago. There was, you know, someone that was basically this exact scenario who owned a social media marketing company and wanted product photos for a certain you know, for one of his clients, and wanted to pay me I don't have $200 for this big shoot with tons of final images delivered for like multiple hours of my time. And I very nicely told them I said, well, my normal rate for this is that. So if you want to, you know, if you want to pay my regular rate, like, I'm happy to work with you. And he was like, and he came back and said, no, we really are client, can only pay this much. And I said, okay, well, that's great. It doesn't sound like we're a good fit and it took a while to get there to be confident enough in myself to turn someone down, but it's pretty wonderful to feel that way and to know that I can say no to things.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, it's a, I think nine out of 10 times. When someone's trying to offer you exposure, it's never really going to be worth it, especially nowadays. I think everybody and their mother. I got 1000 followers and that's yeah it's not, and then that's going to turn out.
Raul Lopez:Yeah, and it's a little hard, I think, early on in your career, where you just kind of like, oh yeah, I could really use exposure right now, and it's like, yeah, just be careful, you know, don't get taken advantage of. And so you know you go back and go through this whole journey and everything you've done. You know if you could go back in time and, you know, talk to a younger version of Brenda and give her some advice. What's something you tell yourself?
Brenda De Los Santos:And I probably would tell myself to say no more often because they were like I said that working that 97 degree wedding on my birthday was not worth that. Yeah, I definitely would remind myself that. You know you're always going to feel imposter syndrome and I think that that probably applies to everyone in every industry there is, but especially so when you're making art that you always feel like your work is not good, and it's very easy to compare yourself to others and don't do it. You don't have to compare yourself to others because you are you and like you're just. You're enough just how you are.
Raul Lopez:Awesome. And then I guess you know, finally you know, this is how do you say success in Spanish, and everybody has their own definition of success. So how does Brenda say success in Spanish?
Brenda De Los Santos:My success is being able to do what I love, which I'm doing, having enough time with friends and family, which I need to work on, but I'm trying to get there and being able to give back while I'm doing all of that.
Raul Lopez:Nice.
Brenda De Los Santos:Wonderful.
Raul Lopez:Well, brenda, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time out today, which like I said you're probably you're one free night and I took advantage of it. But thank you so much for being here and thank you for your insight. You know, I definitely hope that have you on some more with some more feedback and, you know, get you on a couple more resources available to help out as well. And I definitely want to get involved with your rising tide thing as well, since I'm so close as well.
Brenda De Los Santos:So is there anything you want?
Raul Lopez:to push out from from your end, your website.
Brenda De Los Santos:Yeah, I mean, if there are anyone that's local ish or anyone that wants to hire a photographer to travel to you, I do that. I've traveled to Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic and all over the United States, so I'm happy to travel and do that. My website is just Brenda De Los Santoscom, so check it out.
Raul Lopez:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it, and for everyone else listening in. Once again, I appreciate all the support and I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue to learn how to say success in Spanish.
