How to Become a Successful Food Photographer with Candice Ward | The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

Candace, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah. Excited to talk to you about your story. There's a couple different iterations in a short amount of time. Sometimes we'll talk to people and it will be like, you know, I did this for like five years, and then it kind of shift and evolved. And I did this for five years, but really over the past two years, you've not switched directions, but evolved. You've kind of built on your past successes and had to change your business, starting with COVID which is true for a lot of people. It shook up a lot of our lives, business and personal. Tell me about what happened with your first business. And then when was the day that you realized this probably isn't going to be my business, at least for the next few months, and then turned into essentially a year of things looking very different for the industry that you were in. So tell that story.

I actually started as a baker in the wedding industry about six years ago, and I was building that alongside working a corporate job in sales when I had my son two years ago. That's when I decided I'm going to quit my corporate job, pursue my business in the wedding industry and grow that even further. And then Covid hit last year, and the wedding industry, that actually simultaneously I had been left my corporate job for about six months. So simultaneously I had left that. And then I said, okay, I need to now monetize further for the wedding industry. And then Covid hit. So that's when I said, okay, weddings are on hold. I need to find another revenue stream pretty quickly. At that time, I decided to learn food photography. And essentially I said my photos need to be better. I had also been blogging just as a byproduct, not really necessarily to monetize, to track my recipes. And so I really buckled down and said, I'm going to learn food photography and then I'm going to make this my career. So that's what my focus was during COVID last year, was the photography side.

So you were doing cakes before. What is that like to. It feels like it would be potentially kind of a stressful thing. Like anything in the wedding industry feels like it'd be really stressful. We have a really good friend does wedding video, and it's kind of like you have one shot to do it, which is like different than blogging where you can kind of iterate. You can change copy, you can go and adjust photography, you know, the photos, you can develop the recipe and tweak it but like, you have one shot with a wedding cake and people you, you're kind of are you having to execute on somebody's vision? They're like, here's what I want it to look like. So, so is everything kind of custom when it comes to the cakes that you're making?

Yes, it's very time consuming. I actually had my business model less around wedding cakes and I was doing more dessert tables. So my niche was kind of small bite sized desserts to take that stress and pressure off of doing these elaborate three tiered custom cakes. So I really, my ideal client was somebody that just wanted a small cutting cake. So it was a little bit more manageable and I was hoping to scale that. But again, at the time I was working a corporate job, so I only had so much bandwidth and that's when I was like, you know, this isn't for me. I don't know if I can. The wedding industry is a whole different ball game. It's a lot of stress.

Yep. And so. But it sounds like there was a point you did want to go all in with that. You'd left your corporate job in sales and you said, hey, I'm going to try and scale this. And that was for a year, two years. So you're kind of in the process of building up that business. And then Covid hit and you're like, wait, there's not going to be people sitting around a table eating cake for at first we were like weeks and then we're like months. And it turned out to be much, much longer. What was that like for you to have so much energy into a thing and to be excited about potentially building it and then for all of that to go away. Was that discouraging?

Yeah, it was very discouraging. I had just invested money in a marketing campaign and sent flyers to all of the wedding planners for a referral program. And it was probably two weeks later that Covid really hit. And at that point I was like, I need to do something quickly because I don't want to go back to my corporate job. I want to take care of my son and I want to make my business thrive. So it was really discouraging. But I knew I had to do something quick.

Yeah. And so at that point, you're starting to look at other options. If you know that you don't want to go back to kind of a more traditional corporate job, you know that weddings aren't going to come back in the near future, then it's looking at what you do have, which is like expertise and insight around a very specific thing, which is cakes. Right. And then you also have some of these skills that you'd maybe been developing a little bit. But it sounds like kind of on the side photography, building your blog. How did you go about saying this? Knowing what I have now available to me, knowing what I don't have because of the way industry shift, how did you pick which direction to go coming out of that?

So ironically, I had actually purchased a photography course like a year prior and I had never done had the time to actually do it. So I said, you know what, now.

Suddenly you had time?

I had time. And I said my photos need to be better for marketing on my social media channels as well as my blog. And so my only thought really at the time, I didn't really understand how to monetize as a food photographer. I just knew that I needed to improve on that skill. And I also did have a interest in photography. I had taken some courses in college just for fun. So it had been a hobby of mine. And at that point I was like, you know what, I'm going to buckle down. I'm going to take this course. I'm going to see how it impacts me. And then after I took the course is when I was like, okay, this is really what the direction I'm going to go.

Yeah. What was the course and what were the biggest takeaways from that that you remember that were kind of unlocks for you?

Um, it was the photography school course. And the biggest takeaways was, I mean, it was really just a foundational photography course. I mean, for anyone who's intro starting out, it was really approachable. I could complete it really quickly, so I didn't have to spend months on it. It was, you know, a couple, two to three weeks. But the aspect that I really liked and the whole reason I even purchased it from the beginning, was that there was a component on the business side of building a food photography business, which I think is a really underserved part of the industry. Um, and so I said, if I'm going to do this, I want to at least make money off of it. I don't want to just be a hobby food photographer. Um, so that was the biggest takeaway, just knowing the different revenue streams and how you can monetize.

Yeah. And so coming into it, you knew, all right, I'm going to learn photography. I'm going to be able to apply this with what I'm doing with my blog. And we talk a lot on the podcast around. Hey, here's how you can scale a blog in order to get sponsor content, to get more traffic so you can run ads like that as a revenue stream. But one of the things we're trying to do a better job of is talking about, hey, it's not. That's not the only path. Like, you can do creative work and build a business and build a brand in your area of interest. And it doesn't have to be building a blog. That's a great way to do it. We've done that. Other people have done that. But you can also. There's a lot of different paths, and one of them is you can use your creative skills, photography as an example, to book clients and to start connecting with people who need that for their business. Restaurants, maybe other creators or publishers, maybe it's food brands to, in this case, like, capture really incredible photographs. So at what point did you say, hey, I think the next version for me is actually going to be trying to connect with brands or creators or maybe it's somebody else. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that to try and pitch them my services. When did that come along in the process for you?

It was three months after I took the course. It was very fast. I just said, I have to make money. So I was very motivated. And again, I learned the course and I was practicing for my own blog. I was taking pictures weekly for the recipes that I was developing for my blog. It was going on my social channel, so simultaneously building that as well. And then I started networking and reaching out to brands through Instagram and ended up getting my first sponsored post three months later. And I'm happy to say a year and some months later, there's still a client of mine. So something's been working.

Yeah. When you say sponsor post, is that on your blog or on Instagram? You connected with them and they paid you to photograph and to. To promote a product of yours?

Yep. So I did an Instagram post. I developed a recipe using their product, did an Instagram post, and then I also did a blog post.

Got it. And I think for a lot of people in the early stages, they're like, how does that happen? And I know that you're in. We're recording this end of May. It'll come a little, a little bit later and you can talk about the course you're doing, combining your corporate sales background, pitching and talking to food photographers about how they can all put that together. So you have some experience and expertise in pitching to brands. So how did you do that in the early Stages to get a deal like this because a lot of people are interested in doing similar things but don't know where to start.

I love that question because I don't want to say I was clueless in the beginning, but I would say the biggest challenge, I think, is finding that first client, or at least that's the conception. Um, the other misconception is a lot of people think they have to have a certain amount of blog traffic or Instagram followers. I did not have a large following at all. I had under 3,000 people. I did not have a lot of traffic going to my blog. My pictures were okay. They weren't. You know, over time, your skillset gets better. Um, and really what I did and what my approach was is I just asked myself and took a step back and said, well, what audience am I trying to attract to my blog and what types of products align with that and align with my brand values? So I really first targeted companies that were in complete alignment with my brand, my voice, my audience, because it makes the most sense to reach out to those brands when there's already that alignment and it feels natural.

Yeah. And so you go through this process and Lindsay was just. We were having a conversation about wife Lindsey. She runs Pincher Vium for context this last night, talking about sponsored content like you do at 10 o' clock at night when you both work on a blog together. And she's like, the best type of sponsored content is when it doesn't feel like work because it's brands that I really like and use and they're really highly aligned. And I feel like we're lucky enough to have a lot of those relationships on Pinch of Yum. Aldi being an example. Like, hey, we would shop at Aldi, you know, even if we weren't working with them. Delalo is another company that we work with. But if you're in the early stages, how do you go through that refining process? And do you feel like, do you start with brands that are smaller in a similar way so you're not reaching out to like Target or something like that? How do you actually get heard when you're in the early stages?

Yeah, that's a really good question too. So I also do business coaching and I just reference that because in a lot of my coaching calls, this is a question that constantly comes up, how do I. Who do I know to reach out to when I'm just starting out? And I find that a lot of people are going for the after the big companies. And it's not to say that it can't happen. But typically the sales cycle is going to be longer or it's going to be more difficult to actually get the contact of the correct person or they might be working with an agency. So it's just a little bit more complicated. So I always tell people to start with local companies if you live in a foodie type place. I live in Seattle, so I'm fortunate to have a lot of local food companies. And local is a great strategy. First, I was just reaching out to local restaurants. I didn't end up doing anything in that direction. But again, this was my strategy when I first started. I was reaching out to local restaurants and said, hey, the pandemic hit. You guys are closing your restaurants, but you need photos for, you know, GrubHub and all of these food services to do takeout orders. And I was just offering my services at the time. I said, I will offer it to you at a discounted rate to build my portfolio. You know, in exchange for the food, I would keep the food. And then in terms of sponsored posts and brands, I was picking and choosing smaller brands, but more niche. So for example, my baking blog. And again, this really goes back to knowing what your your own brand is, I think having a clear understanding of that. So my particular brand is focused on desserts, but focused on using quality ingredients. So I said, okay, what companies are smaller that I can approach that have really quality, high quality products? So that's kind of what the strategy I took initially. And then I would just start kind of again, networking, engaging with them on social media, trying to get a contact that way.

But what does that actually look like when you say networking? Because I think for some people it's like, do you just like, do you pitch right away? Do you open up with like, hey, love your brand. Do you maybe use the brand and say, like, hey, I used it. How do you go about doing that? Well, when you say networking, what does that actually look like?

It's all of those things. Yeah. So that you could really do it in many different ways. You can either go buy the product, use it, take photos of it for your blog, show them examples of the actual product you're producing or images you're producing because you're showing them value or you're giving them a vision of what it would be like if they hired you. Right. That's one strategy. I actually didn't do that in the very beginning. What I did is I actually took a poll on Instagram of my audience and I asked them and I said, do you care about learning about the ingredients that I'm using. And I got 100%. You know, people were like, yes, I want to know more about your baking ingredients. So I just took a genuine poll of my audience to gauge if they would be even interested in learning about these products. And then I would engage with the brand on whether it's their stories, just again, very natural and organically, like if it needs to feel natural, on their stories, on their posts, engaging with them. And then I would send them a message basically saying, I love your brand, I use it. This is what I do. I pulled my audience recently and they want to know more about this product. And so you're showing and backing it up with analytics, which is much easier to gain a contact when you're first starting out and you have no experience shooting food products yet you don't want to say that. So I was trying to back it up with analytics of like the value I could add to the brand in order to get, to get a contact.

And especially when it's, when it's a local brand or maybe a more niche brand, a lot of times that that's probably one person that's either on their team or maybe even the owner of that brand that's, that's doing the social. And so you, you have more of a direct line of communication once it gets to, you know, the ultimate example of Target. I remember touring Target, Twin Cities based company and we went into their like social media war room and it was like, like, like it was like 70 panels and it was like, oh my gosh, like this is like so extreme. And, and you imagine trying to connect with somebody in a meaningful way with a brand like that, it just would be really difficult. Not that you can't, um, it's happened before, you know, for us, Target reached out. When Lindsey posted this was years ago. It was like 10, 10 healthy. It wasn't ingredients, but like 10 healthy things you can get from Target. And it was her doing kind of this breakdown of it. And it was like, oh, Target team reached out. We've been sharing this internally so you can get in, but it's like it's different than when it's a smaller local brand and especially when you're in the early stages to kind of build on that. So when you were connecting with these brands, pitching was the idea that you were pitching your services as a food photographer or was it sponsored content?

In the beginning it was sponsored content. I didn't specifically say sponsored content, but brands. And I still feel this to this day, just a year later, they automatically think that's the problem approach that you're going for. And since I've gained more experience, I know now understand how to pitch like the specific services that I want to offer for them instead of just keeping it generic and saying, I'm a food photographer and this is what I do. Because sometimes they don't have a need for sponsored content, but they have a need for freelance photography. Maybe they just need images for their website or to use on their social media, but you know, it comes from a different budget than their sponsored content budget.

So yeah, it's like product related as opposed to marketing or advertising.