We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rudy Zamora a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Rudy, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
I developed my confidence by focusing on myself. This is something I battled with for quite sometime and it was not an easy road for me. I would always wonder if my work is good enough or comparing myself to others in my field. Overtime, this kind of mindset would bother me. I decided that I needed to change this and started focusing on myself. I started making photos that I knew that I would be satisfied with and not thinking if others were going to like the content or not. I’ve been prioritizing if I was going to like these photos because that’s what matters. I’m still building my confidence/self-esteem with myself and my business but I’m in a much better position now than last year so, to me, I would consider that a step in the right direction.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Hello out there to everyone that is reading! My name is Rudy and I’m a photographer/videographer based out of the San Fernando Valley. I started my journey with photography back in 2018 as a hobby and would only photograph nature/landscapes. My hobby grew into a passion and that passion turned into a small business. I focus on portraits and capturing moments such as parties, weddings and also co-run a photography/videography business call 85Mil.Productions with two of my friends (Alex & Jose). We made this business to help capture memories for any that chooses to work with us! Whether you need photos for a small/big/personal event, we hope that you choose us to work with you.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I’ve learned a lot of skills and qualities while being in this industry but if I had to choose only 3 I would say unity, resilience, and perseverance. There’s many reasons why I choose these qualities but the main reason is that these qualities helped me overcome an unfortunate event that happened to me back in February. While a enjoying a fun night out with my girlfriend and friend/business partner Jose, he informed me that upon returning to his car after parting ways for the night his car had been broken into and all of our photography equipment that was left in there had been stolen . My camera, lenses, SD cards, camera flash, camera bag and his editing laptop, hard drive with all his work, personal journal with all his goals and notes, camera bag, along with many other items had been stolen. This was a devasting loss as this was all the equipment that ran our business. We both felt angry, devasted, and in shock that this had happened. I had many thoughts as to how I was going to seek justice and seeing if we can find who did this. Long story short we did find out who did this and detectives were involved but unfortunately they weren’t much help. Even with the information about knowing who did this and with authorities involved we were still not able to retrieve our belongings. This made me even more angry since I had worked so hard to get all my equipment and it was all gone. Even though we had gone thru all of this I was still able to find those 3 qualities within this journey. We shared our story on social media and made a go fund me to hopefully alleviate some of the cost of our equipment. The amount of support we received was extremely overwhelming in the best way possible. Thru such a unfortunate event we realized how many people support us and love our work. It was extremely humbling to experience all of this and it made me appreciate the people I have around me even more. With the support we received and the unity that was built from this event, perseverance and resilience was ignited and I became even more passionate and driven than ever before. At first I felt like giving up and calling it quits on photography but I very quickly realized that it did not feel right or destined for me to quit. I had no intention of quitting and everything that I had gone thru just made me want to pursue photography even more. So in the end, my advice would be as long as you surround yourself with the right people and positivity, you can really get thru anything even the worst that life throws your way. Unity, perseverance, and resilience will help you get through a lot just like it did for me.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Feeling overwhelmed is normal. We’re human so we all got to embrace our feelings even if we don’t like them. For me social media can be very draining and overwhelming most of the time so I tend to stick to my early childhood roots to take a break from all of that. I stick to what I love to do which is biking, walking, and hiking. I think it’s important to stay in tuned with our younger self. When I reminisce on my past, I often find myself remembering how all of the activities I used to do when I was a kid would make me happy. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed but it’s also important to remember to hop back into what makes us happy and to take care of ourselves.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.85milproductions.com/ https://rudyzamora1997.myportfolio.com/
- Instagram: @rudy1990s @85mil.productions
- Other: Booking Form- https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1C1dEdPmXfR0l3qfSkJzsy7DPGgRENOURTKHyNYwnqTw/viewform?edit_requested=true
Image Credits
Rudy Zamora
