Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Giuliani.
Hi Lauren, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I basically fell in love with photography in my high school’s darkroom. Photography was so much fun because it could happen a lot faster than drawing or painting yet I could still create something beautiful with my hands. I especially loved all the hands-on possibilities for experimentation such as cutting negatives apart and taping them back together. As a kid, I was always drawing people, so as a photographer I naturally gravitated toward portraiture.
I decided to major in photography when I went to Western Michigan University, pretty much because I wanted to keep working in the darkroom. I went into college without a real plan of what type of photography I would do for a “job” and naively guessed that I’d learn a lot and maybe I’d just work for National Geographic one day. When I had graduated, I realized all I learned was how to make really nice pictures, but nothing about how to market myself or find paying work.
For 6 years after college, I was too afraid to charge for photography. I kept it my passion while I worked in other ways to support myself. I actually ended up teaching English abroad everywhere from South Korea to Spain, taking photos the whole way and just using them for passion projects and personal blog posts. Now looking back, I wish I would have believed in my abilities then because I probably could have had some amazing clients all over the world!
When the pandemic hit, I was teaching English in China. I had already upgraded my camera in the fall of 2019 and had started to think about transitioning out of teaching. When covid erupted, it just seemed like a natural time to start over.
I came back to metro Detroit and started taking photos of as many people as possible to see what I liked. I offered one free month of photography in a few Facebook groups and did about a billion shoots and this helped me realize what kind of portrait photographer I wanted to be. After working with a few life coaches, aspiring entrepreneurs, and small business owners, I realized that I wanted to be a personal branding photographer.
I have always been inspired by people who are able to “pull themselves up by the bootstraps” and make a business happen. I decided to surround myself with these inspiring people and help them tell their stories through photography. I now help people represent their personal brands or small businesses online with photos for their websites, social media, and sometimes even a book cover.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It’s really hard to stay consistent business-wise. One month I will have almost too many clients and then the next month I might just have one. I also second guess myself a lot with editing style, how much to charge, there’s never really one right answer and that can be unsettling.
As you know, we’re big fans of Lauren Giuliani Photography. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I specialize in personal branding photography for entrepreneurs and small business owners. I help these people build a visual brand, with that “like, know, trust” factor, via high-quality, and often creative photos.
My main focus is on making the client feel comfortable in front of the camera. Almost every client I have worked with has told me that they were nervous before we started or that they are not photogenic. I have realized that getting your photo taken can be scary and it’s my mission to make my clients feel confident in front of the camera. I do this mostly by giving lots of praise and posing direction, but also, I am a pretty silly person, and making my clients laugh usually helps.
I view photoshoots as an artistic collaboration and I value input and ideas from the client’s side. I also show my clients the back of my camera pretty often to see how they are feeling about the photos so that we can change things up if they are not loving them so far.
I like to be the type of photographer that can feel like a friend to my clients. Sometimes my client and I will just go on an adventure in their favorite neighborhood and we will find cool spots from cafes to cool-looking walls and take lifestyle photos there. Other times I might come to my client’s office and do something a little more typical like headshots.
Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
Running around with my cousins. We were always doing something crazy like interacting with people in public and seeing what they would do if we used weird voices or said silly things. We once told every person that passed by us (at an outdoor restaurant on the sidewalk of a busy street), ” I like your style”! And we got the funniest reactions. I remember one middle-aged lady being so excited and taking a bow.
Contact Info:
- Email: Lauren.giuliani.photo@gmail.com
- Website: www.Laurengiuliani.com
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/_Laurengiuliani
