Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#352: Jennifer Zmuda (Photographer) (pt. 2 of 2)
Today we released part two of our interview with Jennifer Zmuda. She’s an Emmy Award-winning photographer, director, and the owner of Jennifer Zmuda Photography.
With a lifelong background in dance and movement, Jennifer specializes in capturing the artistry of dancers and movement-based performers through both photography and film. Her works have been featured in Good Housekeeping, The Washington Post, Dance Magazine, and numerous other national and local publications.
Tune in to hear how her relationship-building approach to business helped her company prosper. https://jenniferzmuda.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast, Making Art Work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion, and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent, or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts, Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Nick Petrella:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners, I'm Andy Heise. And I'm Nick Petrella. Jennifer Zmuda is on the podcast today. She's an Emmy Award-winning photographer, director, and the owner of Jennifer Zamuta photography. With a lifelong background in dance and movement, Jennifer specializes in capturing the artistry of dancers and movement-based performers through both photography and film. Her unique ability to merge her deep understanding of movement with visual storytelling has led to her work being featured in Good Housekeeping, The Washington Post, Dance Magazine, and numerous other national and local publications. In 2017, she won her first Emmy for the short format dance film Vaulted. Jennifer's website is in the show notes so you can learn more about her and her business. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Jennifer.
Jennifer Zmuda:Absolutely. I'm so happy to be here.
Nick Petrella:So on your on your website, you offer a variety of services from headshots to dance and commercial photography. Does your creative approach change for each service, or is there a common thread throughout?
Jennifer Zmuda:I think the structural common thread is the process itself. So learning what their needs are, learning who they are, uh, you know, assessing what needs to be done to accomplish that. That process is very much so the same no matter what. The visual process, the aesthetic process of it is definitely uh, it takes different routes because in the creative world, we're trying to be avant-garde. We're trying to find artistically beautiful ways to showcase something and to express something. Um, and in the business world, it's a little bit less that. And it's a little bit more we need to look clean, we need to look professional, we need to showcase our products in hero-esque formatting where it's not necessarily creative and obscured and different and moody. It's usually more exact. So that that portion of things does take a different route. But the process itself of thinking through the project and how to execute it follows a very similar pathway.
Andy Heise:How has your uh and we talked a little bit about sort sort of the culture of art school, so to speak, uh dance school, whatever. Um, how has your MFA training shaped the way that you approach your creative work and and perhaps your business as well? Are there aspects of the academic experience that you still draw from? And you have experience building academic programs at schools too. So maybe some of that's incorporated in there as well.
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah, I think uh the thing that I still feel served me from my MFA being in a a different career path now is uh the support that it gave me to practice being a leader. Uh with my MFA, I was a choreography free, uh sorry, a choreographic emphasis with that. So uh my job was to take a group of dancers and to create a work of art that was a full-length work and use the dancers in the program to teach them different sections. And, you know, I was in charge of this process from beginning to end, under the support of the organization helping with that. So um setting schedule, it was very, it was it was very organizational leadership focused in what I still use from that. Sorry, that was said very weird, but um it gave me the support to be able to practice communication, scheduling, execution of what I had in mind, and all of that was still there. And I still use that, of course, every day on every project that I do. Um the the antithesis of it, I think, is that in under the MFA, and again, that like you're being taught by the experts. So the experts have their opinions on exactly how it should be done. And maybe I've always been a bit stubborn, but even in that setting, when I would have a professor say, Hey, you can't do that, that's not right because it needs to be this way. I had the like, well, it's not your way, but it's my way. So I'm gonna do it this way. Uh, you know, rebellion sense of that that might be right for you, but it's not right for me. Um, and maybe that comes from some parenting things that happened in my lifetime too, of like, I don't agree with you, dad. Um, I'm gonna do it my way.
Andy Heise:I'm gonna take your camera anyways. I'm gonna use this for however I want. Every kid anytime, yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah, right. Exactly. So uh just feeling that confidence in practice and like you are the expert, but I'm gonna still do it the way that I see it because your way doesn't work for me, so I'm gonna make it work how I need to make it work for me. Um, which sounds very, you know, not it sounds rebellious. It doesn't sound like a conformist necessarily. And yeah, it's got its pros and cons.
Andy Heise:Yeah. And it's also trust trusting your your sort of instinct and your own voice, artistic voice a little bit.
Jennifer Zmuda:And lots of times now as a you know, more mature adult, I go down that hyper focused path of we're gonna do it my way, and I get to the end and I go, eh, it didn't really turn out the way I wanted. And then you look at it, you're like, oh, that way would have worked if I had been open to it. So there's definitely, you know, we we grow, we learn.
Nick Petrella:Yes. I I bet, and we touched upon it before, but I bet that having and studied studying choreography and how you move probably helps you as a photographer. And what made me think of that is there's a fashion photographer, I I think her name's Pauline St. Dennis. She she goes all over the world and does fashion shoes and things like that. She was actually here on campus, and uh my wife and I sponsor an event a uh a scholarship, it's called Dress the Dean. And so the fashion students dress, you know, they they they design a dress and she wears it. And Diane had the opportunity to work with Pauline, and she was saying, yeah, it's just like you see in the photo shoot. She was telling me to move this way, do this, do that, and she was taking it. So I'd imagine it's probably more heightened with your background in the in that MFA.
Jennifer Zmuda:Uh thank you. That's really fair to bring that up. And I I think I had that in the back of my mind, but didn't have it right in the front. The storytelling of choreography and and being able to convey emotions and messages and you know, holistic stories through movement itself is definitely something that I utilize uh maybe more than someone who doesn't have that experience coming to it. So even down to expressions and body language, a lot of times working with people that don't come from the dance world and kind of explaining, you know, when you hold your face this way, it tells me this. And you might not be thinking that, but this is what's being conveyed. So let's adjust and let's change from, you know, maybe a meager stance to something that's a bit more proud and confident and how to do that. So that definitely, you're right, it does come into play. And it's something that I just didn't even think about, but it's ingrained in that.
Andy Heise:Yeah. Well, even the the vocabulary you're using. It's like if I was taking pictures of a day, I'd be like, do that thing where you do the the whole, you know, stick your arms out and do this thing. And then you look at look over there, and like you know, it's like so just having that domain expertise.
Jennifer Zmuda:Um I get weird looks though, too, because I'll go creative with that, like prompt. You're you know, lost in the jungle and there's something that comes up that's squishy, like how does that feel? And that you know, for someone who's not from the dance world, they're like, This is this is uncomfortable. Like, what are you talking about?
Nick Petrella:So in that's a fair point. You know, having done videos and stuff or product shoes, we when I would stand like I normally would if I was playing an instrument, I'm a musician. It looks fine in on person, but then when you watch that video, it looks like you're hunched over and swapped. And so you have to stand differently.
Jennifer Zmuda:Absolutely. Which is anyway, I th I found that awkward to uh to people don't think about yeah, they don't think I mean even right now I'm kind of slouching, but people don't think about how they hold themselves, I think, on a regular basis as much as a dancer is very aware of where they are in space and how they look. So yeah.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, listeners can't see this, but Andy and I stood uh sat up straight. We all sat up a little straighter. So well, this is a good segue because I um I had mentioned I've been on various commercial photo shoots in the past, and so I'm aware there can be a big difference between artistic wants and the budget, right? Yeah. So how do you deliver value to customers with Hollywood ex uh expectations on a small budget?
Jennifer Zmuda:I we're always gonna do our best to create the best possible thing with the budget we have. I think the artistic leadership often has dreams, and rightly so, that's what they're there for. So they're often disappointed when they have a conversation about setting realistic dreams to what they have money for. So a lot of it does come into like what you're looking for will cost this much money to achieve the quality that you want. But we can get something similar by doing X, Y, Z. It's gonna cost this much money, and you're gonna get not exactly what you pictured, but you're gonna get the best that you can afford in this moment. Um, which they don't like that conversation because no one does. But it it's just kind of holding their hand through it. Uh, and understanding what it does take to create. I mean, I think a lot of times, and I even want it, when I see stuff on social media where someone's produced something, I'm like, tell me what your budget was. Because I know that so-and-so is watching that video thinking, yeah, we can do that. And that was like a $50,000 budget, and they have five. So I feel like we need to have that conversation more frequently of when we post a video, we then in the notes say this was a budget of $250,000 with 47 staff members that worked on it.
Nick Petrella:You know, yeah, like like credits in the back. We, you know what?
Jennifer Zmuda:We need it, yeah.
Nick Petrella:As you're talking, I had an epiphany. Maybe that's how the 1970s blurry photo came back into vogue.
Jennifer Zmuda:Maybe, yeah.
Nick Petrella:Because it was we'll make it look artsy. I can do that.
Jennifer Zmuda:Yep. That, yeah.
Andy Heise:Well, and some you know, you're talking about those, you know, whatever budgets and and the the thing, I'm I'm an audio guy, and so when like people started walking around with earbuds and MP3 players, like it was kind of unfortunate because you know, as the uh creator of content, you're like focused on the highest fidelity, the smallest details, and then people just put in these cheap earbuds and listen to it as an MP3. So what they're actually getting is just a it's actually a derivative representation of what the thing that you actually created. And I mean with and with phones and being the primary source of media consumption now, I'm sure that that's something you think about too.
Jennifer Zmuda:Uh yeah, I actually even have a very, very recent um stab to the heart with one of those. Uh I have a client that asked for the raw, which that was part of the agreement in the beginning of like you're gonna get the raw stuff and then you can work on it yourself. And I delivered a separate audio file to go with this interview. And the on the camera has on-camera audio, so that was automatically recorded to be able to sync to this professional shotgun microphone audio that was recorded in addition to it. And they didn't sync the audio and they published the piece of work with the on-camera audio, and I messaged and was like, huh, that's not that's not it. And uh they're like, oh, no one will know anyway. And I'm like, Oh my god.
Andy Heise:I don't know. I I didn't know.
Jennifer Zmuda:I think everyone who listens to it that does any sort of thing in my field will know. Um the average person, maybe not. I don't know.
Nick Petrella:You didn't have a watermark with Jennifer's Amuda photography with VR tree on the bottom of it.
Jennifer Zmuda:Thankfully, no. Yeah. No, that's that's yeah. When you're passing those things over, you are definitely being like, you are getting these raw assets, and then that's we're done there. So yeah, but it hurts. It does. And same thing with like can uh monitors, you know, we're all calibrated a little bit differently. Um I did some headshots for an organization and uh they came back and they're like, they're really dark. I'm like, well, you had your screen on like 50% brightness. So yeah, they look really dark because you didn't have your screen. I don't know. A lot of that does happen. It's interesting. Yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah. And then to and to your point, you what you you say you want, you know, this high quality $50,000 type of image, but actually you're just gonna use it for like, you know, an Instagram post or something. It's like, well, you don't need the $50,000 shooting. That's what I was gonna ask.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, that's and that leads into has yeah, has has social media changed how you capture instruments, uh capture images?
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah. Um, with the images themselves, it has opened up a different um service offering basically of yes, we can create those high quality in the studio, studio lighting, you know, hair and makeup, wardrobe, et cetera, type photography for your print materials and for your large-scale strategic marketing campaigns. But then also people need behind the scenes and every day, like, hey, we're working on this part of the show today. Um, so I have two different pricing models for that to accommodate those kinds of needs. Um, and similarly with video, you know, I think sometimes, right, to your point that you you want to spend 50,000 or you want the $50,000 budget quality, but you're gonna share it as an Instagram post that's gonna live in people's minds for a minute, 30 seconds. I don't know how long it lasts anymore. Um, so trying to, you know, reality set on the the longevity of the piece that they're working on and what that truly means. And with social media, I love that because so many other people have their hands in this world now, that it has opened up because back in the day it was like it's commercials, it's high quality TV, it's movies.
Nick Petrella:Right.
Jennifer Zmuda:If you had a a home camera, like you keep that to yourself, you don't share that with anyone because it's so weird. But now it's like that's that's authentic because it is. It doesn't have a big budget behind it, and oftentimes that's uh what works sometimes even better. Um, I don't know if you guys are aware of the nutter butter account on TikTok. No, no, I am not. Um I encourage you to just look it up just for for some joy and for some um well brain resetting moments in your head because it they went off the wall. They just were like, eh, screw it. We're gonna we're gonna just do this. This is awesome. Is this really weird stuff?
Nick Petrella:You mean or is this something like that?
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah, the nut right? Like who's talked about nutter butters in the last one?
Nick Petrella:I do enjoy nutter butter.
Jennifer Zmuda:It's a good one. Um, but yeah, check their ins uh their TikTok account because uh it's been it's been an interesting experiment, I think, into how far we can stretch in social content creation. Interesting. Uh and get and get a positive result. So a little Easter egg there for you guys.
Andy Heise:Yeah, for sure. I know what I'm doing for the next two hours. Uh so you can can you tell us about your Emmy award-winning short film, Vaulted?
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah. So that was uh Through Ballet Met when Edward Liang was the artistic director. And um, we were getting into more film for dance for the camera films, um, with the intent of putting them up for awards and different uh festivals and things. And this one was really cool for me as a young dancer, but then also just as a career building thing. I mean, I I won an Emmy from it, which is a very weird um feeling. It's actually not here in my office, it's upstairs. Um, and I often don't know where to put it. And everyone's like, you should put your Emmy there. And I'm like On the mantle. On the mantle. I don't know. Yeah, so it's it's a weird thing to have in the house. But um so Edward proposed this idea. He had this piece of work that uh he didn't want the the full story to be told. He wanted people to interpret, you know, what they could from it and relate it to themselves. But ultimately, through what we were doing, it was a man and a woman that were previously in a racial relationship, and you don't really know if he's the ghost or if she's the ghost in this, and you just know that they've been separated somehow, and that through this very small moment in time, they got to be rejoined, either in memory or in feeling or in spirit or in reality. Like it's all very like, we don't know. Um, so it was a really beautiful concept for me. I I've always liked, I mean, again, with relationships and feeling such a strong sense of that's that's one of the most important things for us in our world is to build relationships with people that have meaning and have substance and emotional connection. To have this piece was like, I feel it. I feel it with you just telling me what it's about. I can I can feel the emotions that this is triggering for me personally, just hearing it. Um, the cool, the really cool thing about it is, of course, women the Emmy, but also it was Edward dancing it, who is a world famous choreographer and dancer. And then he brought in YY Tan from San Francisco Ballet, who is a principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet. I lived in California for a good amount of time as a dancer, so I went to see San Francisco Ballet do the nutcracker, and she was the sugar plum. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, at 12, I'm in love with her. I'm in love with her. And then to be in my 30s and to be telling her how to do an arabesque in this video was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Oh my gosh, this I'm to I'm directing you. Like you are my idol, and I'm directing you on how to move your body in this film was just a really like I I never even dreamed of a moment like this to happen. So that part personally was really amazing. Um, and it was very challenging video, like career-wise and technique-wise, because there were some things that he wanted that I was like, I don't know how to do that with special effects or with any of the post-production tools that are available in our world, even though I know many people can, but I'm being asked to do it.
Nick Petrella:Right.
Jennifer Zmuda:So there's definitely some parts of it where I watch it. I'm like, meh, that wasn't very that could have been better. Someone else could have done a better job with that transition.
Andy Heise:Of course, right, yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:But but ultimately still, like, yeah, we we won an Emmy with it. So um it's pretty amazing. Yeah.
Nick Petrella:It is amazing. And can people find that online?
Jennifer Zmuda:Or is it they can. Um I'm trying to remember if it's linked on my website or not. Uh I can share a link with you if you want to. That'd be great. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Heise:So how do you how do you uh let me say this again? I always stutter at the beginning of a question. How do you define success for yourself as a creative entrepreneur? Has that and has it changed over time?
Jennifer Zmuda:Uh yeah. So that imposter syndrome is right there, right? That did I even do it? I don't know. Um it has changed. In the beginning, it was did I finish it? Did anybody come to see it? Um now it has a sense of like, did I feel happy with it? And did I grow from it in a certain expense? I mean, obviously, again, as an entrepreneur, did I make money from it?
Andy Heise:Of course, yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:But check there's some success there or not. But that was that's not the first thing. I mean, survival is is obviously an undercurrent to all of this and being able to feed our families. Um but walking away and feeling inspired and in flow is check. That that you you did it. If I felt like I could make the world fade away while I worked on this thing and felt inspired and expressed and connected with people, then it was a success. If you walk away angry and frustrated and like no one heard your ideas or some just constant obstacles, I don't ever want to do that project again. Like that's not a success in my eyes. Um, and those happen.
Andy Heise:Sure.
Jennifer Zmuda:For various reasons, but you know, those projects do come up. And I think that it helps to have that experience to then when you're on your next project and you start to see some of those things, to then have a game plan of like, ooh, we you know what, we went down this path before in a different way. Let's try this way instead, to be able to get to a place where the environment itself is built to allow everyone who's participating in it to be able to hone in and flow together.
Andy Heise:Yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:Which is rare. It's a rare thing.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.
Nick Petrella:Yeah. Jen, when you're hiring, what type of soft skills do you look for regardless of the position you're filling?
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah. Uh the two that came up quick and fast in my brain is confidence, which again, it's like imposter syndrome's there, but can you push through it and just be like, yep, we're gonna do it? I'm I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but we're gonna do it. You know, that forward thinking of being positive and and confident with solving skills. It doesn't have to be my way. It doesn't have to be exactly how I imagine it to be, but to be able to take the reins and say, okay, I'm gonna figure it out because that's what I've had to do. So I want, I want, I want a clone basically of that skill set of like just go figure it out. I can't be the one to hold your hand through it. I will, you know, explain the project and what we need. And then I would love for you to take that and figure it out on your own and come back to me with a solution or a product or whatever you've done, and then we'll go from there. So I I think a lot of times, um, especially in the arts world, we're constantly critiqued and corrected and fixed and adjusted that we have this like, well, I just tell me how you want it right off the bat so I can do it perfectly for you. You've already, it's that's that's we've gone off the wrong course, you know. It's at this point, we all have our own hats to wear, and I need you to wear this hat and I need you to take it and run with it and come back to me with what you've got. Um and it's a hard, it's a hard thing to then do that. Come back and be like, ooh, we went in the wrong direction. Right. To then still have that same confidence the second time around of like, here's a new hat, take it, run with it. Don't ask me any questions. Don't ask me to hold your hand through it, you know? I don't know.
Andy Heise:Yeah. The resilience piece of that, the initial confidence, but also the resilience too. Yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:When an R a person who's in the leadership role comes back and is like, no, that's not what I said. That's not what I wanted. I spoke clearly, you didn't produce that like accusation factor of it.
Nick Petrella:Yeah.
Jennifer Zmuda:I think is uh it's a big part of our world. And so I feel like the situations where I've noticed that it goes a lot better in that is hey, oh gosh, yeah, you're right. I'm I said something really weird that probably took the the the acceptance of and the responsibility taking of the leadership to be able to say, oh yeah, you know what? I'm I'm at fault here with some of this. Let's work together on finding a thing that fixes it. Um hopefully is something that helps with that resilience. Because it is hard to be under the eye of like, no, you failed, no, you failed, no, you failed without any sense of team and and community with that, of oh, we failed, let's let's try harder, you know. So I think that that part's really important as a leader to be able to build, build relationships with your people that are working for you to work together towards something.
Andy Heise:Yep. Well, Jen, we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions. And the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an arts entrepreneur?
Jennifer Zmuda:Do it. Against your better judgment, maybe sometimes, and all of the fears that you might have. We all start somewhere and it's always not where we want to end up, it's where we start. So jump in and seek mentorship. I think that we're sometimes scared to ask for help. Maybe it's just me. But I feel like most of us sometimes want to just do it on our own. And I think having people who have done it before you to be able to bounce ideas off and give you any sort of beginning guidance is a really helpful thing. So um, even though you might feel like, oh, they don't have time for me, or oh, I'm gonna be a burden, or whatever it might be, I think people who have succeeded in the world want to give back and want to foster up the new next generation of entrepreneurs. And so we're eager to help within our time limits to be able to give that mentorship to those that are just starting out.
Nick Petrella:So Yeah, great advice. What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?
Jennifer Zmuda:Yeah. Uh I think it goes back to that rule breaking. I think we view arts in all of the different mediums that we have it through this very specific specific product funnel that it's gonna end up looking like this. Um and I'm gonna reference TikTok again because it's a place that I've spent a lot of time watching and not just watching for like my own, you know, sake of entertainment, but also watching how people express themselves who haven't grown up in the arts world, that they still find beautiful different ways to express and to create something that people react to and feel in their souls. And so I think that idea of like take your what you have in your art form art form and let the bounds of what it actually is go a little bit to find and meet people where they are to connect with them in those ways.
Andy Heise:Lastly, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial advice that you've been given?
Jennifer Zmuda:Uh nobody knows what they're doing. Everything's made up. If you feel it, and if it feels good to you, then do it. Yeah.
Nick Petrella:Well, thanks for coming on, Jennifer. I know our listeners are gonna learn a lot from your relationship building approach to business. Thanks so much.
Jennifer Zmuda:It's been great being here, thank you.
Nick Petrella:Thanks, Jen.
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