Interview with Lucia Marecak from Healthy Goodies by Lucia!
- Aisha Ambreen
- Jan 16, 2022
- 7 min read
What an amazing year 2021 has been and I am really proud of myself making through this year while accomplishing not only all the goals but even more. But I cannot give full credit to myself alone without mentioning my mentor, who has been not only a great teacher but also a friend guiding me through this year. Her name is Lucia Marecak. Most of you already know her on Instagram. I decided to finish off this series with her inspiring story of a successful business.
" Lucia Marecak - a food and product photographer, founder of Healthy Goodies by Lucia and food photography teacher at the Members’ Club, which is an online learning community for food photographers. I work with different international companies and create food photo images for them, cooperate with a creative agency, take care of their social media, and I help my students to learn food photography and start their business in this sector.
I come from Slovakia, but in 2015 I moved to Italy because of my previous full time job. I have lived and worked in Bratislava, Milan, then in Turin, where I am currently based.
During my full time job in 2018, I started a food blog, which then in 2020 was transformed into sharing my knowledge of food photography with others. I started working with brands, and I also opened the Members' Club, which is a learning community for food photographers from all over the world. There, I share all I have learned about food photography and business.
" I don't recommend leaving a full time job to only start building a food photography business (unless you have savings for maintaining you and your family for the next 12-18 months). "
How did you end up doing food photography?
I started doing food photography as a way to relax from the stressful full time job in human resources. It was in 2018, when I opened my blog to share recipes. My goal at that time was to continue my career in human resources. And while I achieved my career goal in late 2019, and became the head of talent acquisition for the sales and marketing department in the European headquarters, I also realised that I am not interested in this corporate life anymore. In the meantime, during 2019, I took a few courses to learn food photography and I fell in love with it. It was something I felt really connected to. Food photography was the way to keep my life and work balanced, stay with my boyfriend in the same town without moving away for other career opportunities and continue doing something I truly love.
We saw a huge progress in your photography business last year. How to transition from a regular job to having an online business or photography business?
The transition is not easy and it requires lots of courage. While I was excited to keep building my food photography business, I was also feeling scared to leave my full time pay-check. Indeed, I was having 2 full time jobs (photography and corporate) for about 6 months, and I left my job after I had my online business running and saw the potential growth in the future. When I look back, I wouldn't change anything.
I don't recommend leaving a full time job to only start building a food photography business (unless you have savings for maintaining you and your family for the next 12-18 months). Building a business takes time and it can also be done together with the full time corporate job. Just make sure the corporate job contract doesn't interfere with photography activities. Then, it's important to start pitching the brands and building the portfolio. Those first months are also important to understand whether the food photography business is really the right decision for you.
What were your main challenges or hurdles you faced during the transition?
The hardest challenge was to make that decision of leaving the full time job. You leave the pay-check certainty and job security against something uncertain. I remember feeling anxious and very stressed, but once I said to myself, it's time to leave, I felt excited, happy and relieved.
Then, the challenge was to organise myself, to be able to keep up with everything, so I could secure the new income coming in. There is a lot to do, creating content for the Members' Club, client work, marketing - social media or newsletters. When you work for yourself, there is a lot to do and It's easy to get lost in small admin tasks, and forget the big picture. So organising myself, the processes, the work, understanding what are the priorities and what to say NO to, was a big challenge for me.
Since now you have experience both in mentoring and photography, what do you enjoy more, teaching or shooting for the brands?
I love mentoring more. It's really rewarding for me to see my students grow and build the career and business of their dreams. To see them growing, makes me happy and inspires me to move forward.
"Food Photography industry is new and is growing a lot, and there are more and more clients who realise how important photography is for them."
Could you also tell our readers what kind of opportunities they have?
There are plenty of opportunities on the market. Food Photography industry is new and is growing a lot, and there are more and more clients who realise how important photography is for them. It really depends on what you love doing. You can work with brands and do photography of their products, you can work with bloggers and shoot their recipes, you can work with magazines as a food photographer, or work with creative agencies on different projects, shooting cookbooks, work as an assistant to other photographers, photograph for restaurants in your town. Once you gain certain experience you can share your knowledge with people who are starting out in your niche... Be ready to learn lots of new things, and keep your mind open for different opportunities around you.
Also, what does career growth look like in this business?
In my previous corporate career, I interviewed thousands of people. Every person defined their career differently, had a different goal and the way they wanted to arrive there. The career growth in food photography is also very different for everyone else. A success for someone, doesn't mean the same for someone else. We are all different, have different reasons that motivate us to grow our career in food photography. It's important that everyone defines what they want to achieve in their business, and how they want to go there. What experience do they need to gain on the journey, if they want to achieve their goal. What do they need to go through, if they want to gain certain skills.
" Nowadays, online presence is extremely important for growing our business, however this doesn't mean we need to be on Instagram 4 hours every day. We need to create an online portfolio, have a website about who we are and what we do "
How much online presence is important for career growth in the food photography business?
Nowadays, online presence is extremely important for growing our business, however this doesn't mean we need to be on Instagram 4 hours every day. We need to create an online portfolio, have a website about who we are and what we do, share our work on Instagram, create a profile on Linkedin, and everywhere else, where it makes sense for the type of our business. You don't need to be everywhere, but you need to be strategically present at the relevant websites for your business.
In the end, Lucia shared her roadmap to a successful photography business,
- Expect seeing larger results in a period of 12-18 months. After I decided that I want to build my business and I started doing things for that, it took me 15 months to see the major results.
- building a business is really hard and honestly, I have never worked so much before. This gets easier with time, but the first years in the business are really not easy. I don't want to discourage anyone, but I want everyone to be ready to work really hard. Don't expect working 4 hours a day... and except to achieve amazing things immediately after a few months. It's simply because, you are doing something new, you need to learn first how to do things, you need to create processes. You are not fast in doing things when you do them the first time. And often, we don't earn enough money to pay others to assist us with things. But, over time, you learn how to do things, you are faster in executing them, you become more organised, effective, and you start earning more, so you can get someone helping you out with some things.
- become part of some community with people facing the same situation as yourself. It's really helpful and inspiring to talk to others who face the same challenges, and who can support you in yours.
- Keep your mind open when talking to others, so you can build a list of potential people you can ask to work for you in the future. You don't need to employ them or have someone to work for you 40 hours per week. Sometimes paying 1 person for 4 hours each month can be enough to help you with things you procrastinate but are important for your business.
The End!
I hope you did enjoy this interview. If you are interested in knowing what do BTS of Lucia's business look like and what more advice she has for the beginner photographer, you can join my mailing list where I send monthly Newsletters to share more knowledge with the creative community.
If you are looking to improve your skills and want to strengthen your basics faster, then my workbook is the right place to start which will get you closer to your goals in no time.
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