Summary
Elle Mitchel and Arabela Espinoza, the duo behind Weekend Creative, have made a name for themselves as being fun to work with, producing great content for their client brands, and generally being excellent people. That’s not sheer luck, they run a business and have learned a lot over the last several years about how to run it successfully. We invited Weekend Creative to the podcast to give our audience tips on how they can set themselves up for success when working with an external agency or studio.
Key Takeaways
- When approaching a commercial studio or agency for work on your creative project, having a sense of budget and deliverables is a great start.
- You should investigate the agency that you want to work with. Understand their body of work and style. Having an idea of what you like from the agency you choose makes it easier to get on the same page earlier.
- Approach the relationship as a partnership. True creative partners where the brand provides input on what is important to the brand and the agency executes that in accordance with their style.
- There are many practical needs to approaching the external agency or studio, but don't neglect the emotional needs. You should be excellent to work with.
- Be prepared to be told No. Agencies are businesses in their own right, with values, capacity, ability to execute on certain things, etc.
- Time and money can unlock a lot of great creative, but you have to respect that it requires that investment.
- It makes for a challenging relationship if you contract with an agency or studio and treat them like an extension of your full time team.
- Be a champion for your contractor, internally and externally.
- It's all about communication.
Full episode transcript
Daniel Jester:
From Creative Force, I'm Daniel Jester, and this is the E-commerce Content Creation Podcast. Elle Mitchel and Arabela Espinoza, the duo behind Weekend Creative, have made a name for themselves as being fun to work with, producing great content for their client brands and generally being excellent people. That's not sheer luck. They run a business and have learned a lot over the last several years about how to run it successfully. We invited Weekend Creative to the podcast to give our audience tips on how they can set themselves up for success when working with an external agency or studio. One tip, be sure your agency produces the type of work you're looking for to get the most out of your investment.
Elle Mitchel:
We're going to produce different work than someone else, and I want to make sure that we align with what you want. Otherwise, we're just going to be battling each other, and it's not a good situation for anyone. And it's an investment. We want you to feel like you're making a good investment in us.
Daniel Jester:
It's worth checking out some of Weekend Creative's work on Instagram, @WeekendCreative. And also I encourage you to take a listen to their podcast, per our last email, available on most of your favorite podcast platforms. Now let's jump in with Elle and Arabela. This is the E-commerce Content Creation Podcast. I am your host, Daniel Jester. And joining me for this episode, very excited to welcome to the podcast the team behind Weekend Creative, Elle and Arabela. Welcome to the podcast, you two.
Elle Mitchel:
Thank you so much.
Arabela Espinoza:
Thank you. Hello.
Elle Mitchel:
Excited to be here.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes.
Daniel Jester:
I am really excited to talk to you, not the least reason of which is that you have your own podcast, which means you have very nice microphones and headphones and have made this process very easy.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yay.
Elle Mitchel:
We try. Now, it feels like a lot of pressure that people know we have a podcast.
Arabela Espinoza:
I know.
Daniel Jester:
I'm going to tell you, Elle, that your podcast is more popular than mine.
Elle Mitchel:
Oh, no.
Daniel Jester:
So I think it's going to go the other way around.
Arabela Espinoza:
Oh, shucks.
Daniel Jester:
I think I'm going to pick-
Elle Mitchel:
No, no.
Daniel Jester:
... up some listeners from your... The triggering moment for me, where I was like, I should ask them if they would come on my podcast, was when you announced that you were going to be doing something with Adobe for Adobe MAX. And I was like, oh, they're extremely legit, not to mention creating great... Did I have that right? Was it for Adobe MAX, or was it just for Adobe?
Elle Mitchel:
We do stuff with Adobe Live, not with Adobe MAX yet.
Daniel Jester:
Oh, Adobe Live.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes.
Arabela Espinoza:
But if we're going manifest, we might as well.
Elle Mitchel:
But we can put it out there.
Daniel Jester:
Absolutely.
Elle Mitchel:
Say this is next year at this time, and that will potentially have been true. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see.
Arabela Espinoza:
Correction to Adobe Live. And I have no clue if anybody from Adobe listens to this podcast, but if you do, reach out to Weekend Creative, hello@wekendcreative.com.
Elle Mitchel:
We love Adobe. They're so wonderful to work with. Adobe Live has led to other projects, which has been awesome. So we would love to work with them in any capacity.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
So there's a couple of reasons that we wanted to invite you on the podcast. A lot of our listeners work at brands and retailers who have some combination of in-house creative teams, in-house studios and working with outside commercial studios and agencies to produce the content that they need across all of their content needs. And I thought it would be interesting to talk with you guys, Elle and Arabela, about how to approach that relationship from your side of things. I guess tell me a little bit. And if you can share clients of yours, that would be amazing, but I won't ask you to share anything that you can't share or aren't willing to share. I guess let's start there. When you are approached by a brand or a retailer... Or I guess I should ask first, are you being approached, or are you doing the approaching? Are you pitching cold, or is it some combination of the two?
Elle Mitchel:
Usually a combination.
Arabela Espinoza:
Combination.
Elle Mitchel:
As we've grown, it's gotten to where we have more approaching, but we still do cold pitching because there are so many brands that we think would be so awesome to work with. And we can't just keep posting on Instagram and hope that they'll find us. The best way is to go to them directly and pitch to them. We just worked with OLLY vitamins, and it was through sending a LinkedIn message and connecting with them there. So yeah, I think both are great. Obviously, people coming to us is awesome. It's a warm lead. It's easier, but you still have to do the work, I think, of putting yourself out there. And I don't know if that ever really stops if you want to control the brands that you're working with,
Arabela Espinoza:
I think you want to be proactive too. That's something that even getting clients has always evolved for us from the beginning. And when we saw a lot of success in cold pitching, we're like, we need to just continue this or at least have that need to be proactive in gaining clients. So yeah, I think that's something that we've stuck with and has worked.
Daniel Jester:
So let's look at a client that comes to you, and I'm trying to figure out how I want to start this part of the conversation. But I think where we can go is give me a best case scenario. And it doesn't even have to be a real client because you may not have had one that checks all these boxes. But if you have a client who's coming to you and it's a client that you want to work with, it's a brand that is recognizable and your creative will really work for what they need, what is the best case scenario for that brand to approach you? What do they have in place already? What are they talking to you about?
Elle Mitchel:
I think, like you mentioned, budget is really important for us. We have learned throughout the years that usually if someone says, "I don't have a budget," it means they have $500 maybe or something. People who have money to spend know how much they have to spend. So usually, we start a conversation with that around some of the things like budget, timeline, is this even possible for us, is this even something that we are interested in before we even jump to any of the other things. But I think knowing their budget, knowing their timeline, having a general idea at least of what the deliverables will be. But it's always better if there are some sort of parameters or details for us because we have found it sometimes as difficult with clients who say they are open to anything. They want us to kind of drive that. But then what they really mean is I know what I want, but I can't communicate it. And then it turns into they're not getting what they want. We're frustrated because we're trying to produce something for them that we hope will make them happy, of course.
Arabela Espinoza:
It's like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. It just becomes a messy situation. So having some sort of idea of what they want. And I think for us too, it's important to feel like they have looked at our work and our site and they see what they want there. We have an intake form, and sometimes when people fill that out, we have a question, what images on our site do you like? What drew you to us? And sometimes people are like, "I haven't looked," or they say, "All of them," or whatever. And it's like, okay, well, that's cool, but we have different kinds of work on our site. So I want to know what resonates with you. And are you just trying to hire any photographer, or are you trying to hire us because we're going to produce different work than someone else? And I want to make sure that we align with what you want. Otherwise, we're just going to be battling each other, and it's not a good situation for anyone. And it's an investment. We want you to feel like you're making a good investment in us.
Daniel Jester:
Arabela, anything to add on that one?
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah, I was just going to say I think she got it all perfectly. But I think something we also look for too is just that we see each other as creative partners, that we're going to work together and that they want to have fun too because that's a big part of our brand. It's in our name, weekend. We want to have fun as we create these projects and create this work. And I think that's something that we look for in terms of vibe and how we interact with the client.
Elle Mitchel:
That's important, though. Are we going to be partners, and are you going to listen to us as creatives and as experts in this field and take our advice? But we are also going to listen to you because you're the expert on the brand, and you're the expert on knowing what you need to communicate. So is that going to be a partnership where we're working together, or are we going to be working against each other? I think that's really important for us.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah, definitely.
Daniel Jester:
It's shifted quite a bit in recent years, but it's been my experience as well that there's a certain type of customer that really, for some reason, I think, feels like it's an adversarial relationship by nature.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Jester:
It's hard to work under those circumstances, but also, you got to get paid. So I don't know.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah. There's the practical needs, and then there's the emotional needs. The practical ones are like, okay, budget, you've got your ideas down or what you're expecting, the timeline. And then there's the, okay, is your personality meshing with ours, and what's the vibe?
Daniel Jester:
So after budget, if I was going to take a guess as to what is the next most difficult thing to nail down or that your potential customers tend to be a little bit wishy-washy about, it's got to probably be deliverables, right?
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. I think sometimes people come to us too late in the game where... Honestly, I don't mind when people have a very specific idea of what they want because that's almost easier in some ways, as long as they can communicate it. If they can't communicate it, it's harder. But if they have a really nice brief and they can really communicate and then they also allow some room for us to figure out how to creatively actually execute it, that's ideal for us. But sometimes they come to us so late that everything is rushed, and it's final hour. And that puts a lot of pressure on us, which is not ideal. So I think if we're able to be a part of the process a little earlier too, we're able to give that creative expertise and help figure out how it's going to be executed, and we enjoy that part of it.
So I think one thing is coming to us a little bit earlier. Even if you're not fully ready to shoot, you're still waiting on product or whatever it is, I think allowing for a little bit more time for the creative side of things is always ideal because then we have time to go back and forth with the client and make sure the creative is nailed down before we actually shoot. And then usage and copyright, I feel like there should be... If you're a photography student, I feel like there should be a whole you should take a law course or something.
Daniel Jester:
Interesting.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah, honestly.
Elle Mitchel:
It's just so complicated. And it's so hard because we use software and stuff, but not everybody uses the same thing. It's super standardized, so everyone charges what they want. And that makes it really hard for us to justify things sometimes, which is, honestly, why we have another question on our intake form that is, have you worked with commercial photographers in the past?
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah. Then we have an idea of whether, okay, are these going to be clients that are going to push back on that?
Elle Mitchel:
Are you part of copyright or no? Do you know about it?
Daniel Jester:
[inaudible 00:11:31].
Arabela Espinoza:
Where is this cost coming from? Why do I need to pay for this usage?
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah, because then we can explain that to them in a way that makes sense.
Arabela Espinoza:
You can mentally prepare.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. And there are people who have worked with commercial photographers or say that they have, and they don't still don't know. So sometimes you still have to explain it. But we try to approach it from, okay, if you have never heard of this, yeah, of course you're going to be confused, and you're not going to understand. So let's have a conversation about it and explain to you why this is the process and why this is standard. But it's so hard.
Arabela Espinoza:
It's the pricing that's hard, for sure.
Elle Mitchel:
Pricing is hard, and it's-
Arabela Espinoza:
Trial and error.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
Yeah. I think most listeners of this podcast are probably, I would think, pretty familiar with copyright and usage. For anybody who may not be aware, it's not just a matter of price. I think sometimes people feel like it's a matter of pride or maybe gatekeeping in some way. You can use this on social, but you can't make a billboard out of it. And it's not only that. It is partially that. Partially, we're doing something for a specific use, and for you to use that in advertising in a way that we didn't agree to is not really okay. But there are also fundamental differences in the way that you approach creating content and, more importantly, retouching those images, the post production changes if you're planning on blowing that thing up huge or using it as point of sale prints or if you're just posting it as a short run Instagram campaign.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
This question I was thinking about, and you brought it up when you're talking about vetting your own clients and that kind of thing. And this actually came up. Yesterday, I was at the Henry Stewart Creative Operations Conference here in Los Angeles, and it's a really interesting mix of people with in-house studios, people with in-house studios, in-house agencies, and the people who have creative directors and project managers that hire people like Weekend Creative to produce their content. And one of the big sitting through all these different sessions that kept coming up is the idea of saying no. And an in-house agency doesn't really have an opportunity to always say no. They can shape and have more leverage to negotiate what they're going to be doing because they all work at the end of the day. They all work for Victoria's Secret or whatever. But it wasn't Victoria's Secret that was there talking about this. I just picked that up in there. But the point being an in-house agency doesn't always have the opportunity to say no. So I'm curious to hear from you guys, have you said no to any customers? Have you just gotten that weird spidey sense that this either isn't going to go well or that you don't feel like you can produce what they're asking for?
Elle Mitchel:
Oh yeah. We say no all the time. Probably-
Arabela Espinoza:
Absolutely.
Daniel Jester:
Hell yeah. Good for you.
Elle Mitchel:
I don't know a percentage off the top of my head, but I feel like the majority of work that comes to us we turn down because we... So in the beginning of our business, we were taking anything and everything. That's what you do in the beginning.
Arabela Espinoza:
Pretty normal.
Elle Mitchel:
So we were working for nothing, and we were taking everything. We got to the point where we're like, "This is not sustainable." And so one of our friends, actually, Diane Villison, who's a really incredibly talented photographer, had told us that she was starting to set a minimum for herself. And she was like, "I'm not taking any projects under $1,000." And at the time, we were still very new, and we were like, "$1,000? What?"
Arabela Espinoza:
That's a lot.
Elle Mitchel:
That is crazy. And so we were like, "Well, we're going to do that too." And so we started doing that, and we started noticing that, one, the quality of our clients was getting better. But, two, we were actually making more money but working less. And so then that became our whole goal.
Arabela Espinoza:
And being more intentional too. [inaudible 00:15:13].
Elle Mitchel:
We can make better work, and we can work for clients that we actually love. And we can get paid what we need to get paid and work less. That's the goal. So we had a professor in college. Do you want to share what Sandy's like requirements were for saying yes? Do you remember?
Arabela Espinoza:
If I remember. Let's see. Yeah. So basically, she had three requirements. It was basically the pay.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. If you make a lot of money.
Arabela Espinoza:
You make a lot of money. And what were the-
Elle Mitchel:
So it was three things that you can have in a job. You make a lot of money. You love the client.
Arabela Espinoza:
You like the client.
Elle Mitchel:
Or you love the project. There are three things. And you can pick two of things, but two of them have to be present.
Daniel Jester:
Interesting.
Arabela Espinoza:
Otherwise, you don't take it.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. If there's only one, you don't take it. So if it's just a lot of money or you just love the project, say you love the project but it doesn't make that much and you don't like the client, not worth it.
Daniel Jester:
That's a no. Yeah. It's a really interesting take on the idea of the speed, quality, cost triangle. You can pick two of those things.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. And the same with clients, and we've stuck to that. And I think that's helped us a lot.
Arabela Espinoza:
[inaudible 00:16:15] gear towards clients.
Daniel Jester:
No, that's why I brought it up. Our clients are very familiar with this concept, and it's just being applied. Our clients and our listeners as well to this podcast, very familiar with this concept. At one point I had added a fourth element to that because there's a difference between a retailer and a brand because the brand also has to protect their brand identity, and it becomes a fourth element. You could lump that in with quality, but when I think quality, I actually mean are these images and videos and designs actually any good? They can be good and not be on brand for Nike.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah, that is very true. Yeah.
Arabela Espinoza:
I think the thing that our teacher taught us is that we have to think about ourselves as well instead of just always gearing towards the client. We have to make sure that this client is also worthy of working with us in a way. In order to be sustainable, that's how you look at it.
Elle Mitchel:
Having a minimum has been huge for us too because if you're not making money, even though you're doing something that you love, if you're not making money, you don't have a business. You have a hobby, not a business.
Daniel Jester:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Elle Mitchel:
And so even though we love photography, even though it's our dream to do this, at the end of the day, we are also running a business. And we need to make sure that we can continue to run our business for the long term, not just the short term. And so for us, knowing what our minimum is, knowing what our financial goals are and how many projects we can take on and then knowing how much we need to be making per project has helped us too because we can be like, if we take a project that's under our minimum, we're essentially losing money. And that's okay in some situations. Sometimes it's worth it. But you have to weigh that and make sure that it's... You can't do that for every project, or you're going to no longer have a business.
So yeah, to bring it back to your question of how brands can partner with creatives or creative agencies is also viewing us as a business because I think that sometimes it can come across like brands feel like we are just doing this for fun. And it's, oh, you're just a photographer. It's your hobby. And I don't know that they mean it to come across that way, but it can instead of respecting us as business owners and understanding that you're not our only client, first of all, because there are companies who treat us like that. And we have unlimited time. We have no personal lives, and we have no other clients.
Daniel Jester:
No other customers.
Arabela Espinoza:
Nope.
Elle Mitchel:
We're just sitting around waiting for them to come to us and-
Arabela Espinoza:
Just waiting for your email.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. We are on our laptops looking, waiting for that email to come in. And so knowing that, of course, because we charge what we do, we can set aside time for that. That's part of the benefit of working with us. And we are pretty careful to create some margin so that we can dedicate time to our clients and we're not tripping over ourselves, but treating us like a business and understanding that if you ask for additional things outside of the contract, that is going to cost more. Or understanding that if we're negotiating contract, you can negotiate on the budget. But that means that you're going to be getting less. You can't just expect to negotiate us down and you don't give anything either. There has to be a give and take because we're a business just like you, and you don't sell your products for free. Or you don't negotiate with people who come to buy your products. So negotiating is okay, but doing that in a respectful way, understanding that we have to also earn a living just like you do.
Daniel Jester:
Right. I want to put a really fine point on that for our listeners because it's a really great point. I haven't really actually heard anybody talk about it, but you cannot contract with a commercial studio or individual contributor, photographer, whoever you're hiring to produce any of this. And I keep saying photographer because we all in this podcast right now are photographers, but obviously, this extends to a lot of other creative roles, designers and things like that.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes.
Daniel Jester:
You can't hire a company and then treat them an extension of your full-time team because they're not.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes, exactly.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
They're not that at all, and their time is significantly more expensive. And I shouldn't have said it that way. It's going to sound very elitist to say it that way, but the truth is your time as a contractor is more expensive than the FTE's time if they have creatives that work in-house. I'm not going to say that that time is more valuable, but you have a lot more to do in a smaller amount of time and have no options for adding more time to that usually.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Elle Mitchel:
And not to say we're any better anyone who works in-house, but also, when you think about it, those people are getting benefits from the company. There's a lot of things that they're getting that we're not getting that we have to also account for.
Daniel Jester:
That all feeds into the cost.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
Right.
Arabela Espinoza:
Well, also, they're not running a business. There's all this other-
Elle Mitchel:
We have a lot of overhead.
Arabela Espinoza:
... things that are happening at the same time aside from the creative [inaudible 00:21:08].
Daniel Jester:
And it's not an uncommon thing for representatives of the in-house agency to also talk a lot about scope creep because it puts the same stresses on the in-house agency that it does on any other contractor, whomever else you're using because there's still... And it's kind of astonishing to me because we are in an industry that is getting quite mature. And I know that sounds weird because people have been shooting commercially for a long, long time. But I really think of the 2008 recession as being a dividing line. There was an old way of working pre-recession. Post-recession, e-comm exploded, and it changed the game. And it's a whole new way of working, and so this is the world that we inhabit now. And this industry is getting more and more mature now, but there still is this idea that just the studio is just a bunch of people sitting around.
Again, to take it out of the studio, I don't want to hyper fixate on the studio, but that the creative teams at large are just a bunch of people sitting around waiting for something to do, like there isn't a process, like there isn't resource planning. When somebody comes to Weekend Creative to book a shoot, you don't have to also think about, are we retouching this? Are we hiring a retoucher? What's our timing on this? When can we bring this stuff into the studio? Do we need to hire extra hands, assistants, stylists, that sort of thing? It's pretty astonishing to me that scope creep is still talked about at these conferences that I was at yesterday to this day because it's like, this is a very complicated process, guys. Creating visual assets, whatever they are, is a very complex process that requires a lot of finesse and a lot of planning, and there's a lot of stakeholders involved.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah. Yeah. And I do try because sometimes you're talking to one, maybe two or three people within the company when you're working with a brand. And sometimes the things that are frustrating you about that client are not coming from those people. It's coming from other people above them or whatever.
Daniel Jester:
Right. That hidden cook.
Arabela Espinoza:
[inaudible 00:23:08] or whatever.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes. And you don't always-
Daniel Jester:
The hidden cook in the kitchen.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes. And you don't know that, really. You never really know because they're not coming to us saying, "Well, my boss is saying this, this and this." They're just saying, "We as a company need this, this and this." And so we try to always show them grace in that. And, well, it's a fine balance of wanting to make sure our clients are so happy that they are like, "These are the best images we've ever gotten. We love working with you."
Arabela Espinoza:
"And we love this experience."
Elle Mitchel:
"And we had a great experience working with you." That's how you retain clients. So we want that, but we also have to protect our time and stick to our contract and make sure... I think you have to kind of know going into it what are the hills that I'm willing to die on and what are the things that I can be flexible on because then you're already prepared when those conversations come up. We just rely on our contract and blame that all the time. Well, sorry, our contract says this. We blame that a lot, but also know where we're able to be flexible so that we can give the client those things because we know that they have pressures from other people, situations within their own company that they're also dealing with. So you want to have that give and take, and it's hard to know the balance.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah, It is.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
The bottom line there is that if the brand approaches you, if your customer approaches you, and this is universally true in creative work can all work at large, that if you are understanding, flexible and communicative, you're going to have a good relationship. And that's going to unlock some flexibility for you guys, by which I mean you're going to be more willing to make that customer happy because you're chill.
Elle Mitchel:
They're not demanding things. Yeah.
Arabela Espinoza:
And so I thought I knew what I wanted to spend just the last couple of minutes talking about before we wrap this episode, but I think we can sneak out one more key takeaway for our listening audience, which is I'm going to suppose this and you guys can confirm or deny. I think it's really valuable from your perspective to really have a champion on the client side.
Elle Mitchel:
Oh yeah. I think having understanding on their behalf or, like you just said, coming to us and being like, "Hey, this campaign that we've been working on, actually, it's changing. And I understand that if we change our direction now, there's going to be additional costs. Can we talk about that? Is this possible," asking us that as... Respecting us as peers essentially versus, oh, we're above you, we hired you and you need to do what we want kind of attitude.
Arabela Espinoza:
It just comes down to communication and how the way that you communicate. I think that's how we can understand each other and be flexible in certain ways.
Daniel Jester:
Elle and Arabela, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was truly a pleasure to meet you, and it's been really amazing to watch. And I'm standing here like I have some ownership or some reason to be proud. It's been really interesting to me to watch somebody grow in that way that feels really organic. It feels really authentic. I really respect the work that you do. Again, I wholeheartedly believe that it is very good.
Elle Mitchel:
Thank you.
Arabela Espinoza:
Thank you.
Daniel Jester:
And I think our audience could learn a lot from this conversation about how to help that relationship from the vendor side be successful for everybody. You two have a couple of things that you could plug. You want to plug your podcast and your Instagram? Do you want to talk about where people can find you?
Arabela Espinoza:
Yeah.
Elle Mitchel:
Well, it's funny because our podcast is taking a little break. Right now, actually, is when it starts.
Arabela Espinoza:
I know. I know.
Daniel Jester:
Hey, but there's back episodes. Anybody can go listen to those episodes.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes.
Elle Mitchel:
There's over two years of episodes that you can listen to.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes, yes. And it's not dead. It's just we're taking a break.
Elle Mitchel:
It's taking a nap. It's taking a nap.
Arabela Espinoza:
A slumber.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Arabela Espinoza:
But yeah, so our podcast, it's a freelancing comedy podcast called Per Our Last Email. So you can check that out on wherever you listen to your podcast. Our website is perlastouremail.com, Instagram #perourlastemail.
Elle Mitchel:
And then our Weekend Creative side of things, weekend-creative.com. You can pretty much find everything on there.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes.
Elle Mitchel:
We have an online community for photographers. We have a blog. We have courses, downloads.
Arabela Espinoza:
Resources.
Elle Mitchel:
We have a contract template [inaudible 00:27:13]. Thinking about when you're hearing us-
Arabela Espinoza:
[inaudible 00:27:16].
Elle Mitchel:
... talk about copyright, it has a copyright clause in there. So yeah.
Daniel Jester:
We didn't really touch on it too much on the episode. Sorry to jump in, but-
Elle Mitchel:
That's okay.
Daniel Jester:
... just to put it out there because there are freelance photographers who listen to this podcast. The other side of the Weekend Creative business model is supporting others like the team behind Weekend Creative.
Elle Mitchel:
Yeah.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes.
Daniel Jester:
So having resources, classes, Q&As on all of the kinds of things that you've learned over the last several years of running your business. And I think that that's really cool-
Arabela Espinoza:
Thank you.
Elle Mitchel:
Thank you.
Daniel Jester:
... that you guys do that.
Elle Mitchel:
We're self-taught. And basically, we just created the resources that we wished we had that we were looking for when we started. So hope that is helpful. Yeah.
Daniel Jester:
I'm going to put you on the spot right before we wrap. Two things, can I be on your podcast when it comes back, number one? And number two, will you follow me back on Instagram?
Elle Mitchel:
Oh my gosh, yes.
Arabela Espinoza:
Absolutely.
Elle Mitchel:
Yes. Yeah, so for sure, you could be on the podcast.
Arabela Espinoza:
Oh, 100%.
Elle Mitchel:
We're always looking for a great guest, so absolutely. Yes. I am sorry we're not-
Arabela Espinoza:
You've got the voice too.
Elle Mitchel:
... following you on Instagram, honestly.
Arabela Espinoza:
Are we?
Daniel Jester:
It's not surprising to me because I am the least consistent and least interesting person on Instagram, but it would honor me to be followed back.
Elle Mitchel:
That's so funny. Yeah. Honestly, I never know who we're following or not, which is bad. But sometimes there's people that we actually talk to all the time, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, we're not following. It's so embarrassing. So yes, of course.
Daniel Jester:
I think for me, I'm trying to figure out a way, and I think I've kind of unlocked something. Because I am starting to post more work that I consider artistic and speaks to me at an emotional level. And I'm trying to figure out a way to share part of that on Instagram but leave a little bit of a surprise in case it ends up becoming... I have no way or reason to believe that it would ever become a show, but if it did, I'd like there to be some surprising element to it. So I am starting to share a little bit more stuff on my own Instagram, @dannypjester.
Elle Mitchel:
Cool.
Arabela Espinoza:
Okay, perfect.
Daniel Jester:
But anyway, thank you, guys, so much for coming on. It was such a great conversation. I think our listeners had several things that they can walk away and think about. And yeah, looking forward to seeing what you both do next.
Arabela Espinoza:
Oh, thank you.
Elle Mitchel:
Thank you so much for having us. It was so great. And looking forward to chatting with you more down the line.
Arabela Espinoza:
Yes. Yes. Thank you for listening.
Daniel Jester:
That's it for this episode. Many thanks to our guests, Weekend Creative, and thanks to you for listening. The show is produced by Creative Force, edited by Calvin Lanz. Special thanks to Sean O’Meara. I'm your host, Daniel Jester. Until next time, my friends. Thank you.