Creative + Moneywise

Learning how to manage and invest your money can be difficult for anyone, but especially for freelance photographers and other creative people, who often have irregular income flows. In this month's episode, Mariah Texidor talks about making money during the pandemic, being the first in her family to graduate from college, and learning to budget and invest her money no matter how much she makes each month. Mariah is a portrait photographer and fine art printer in northern New Jersey. She recently joined forces with her fiancée, a videographer, to start a photo and video business called Studio AbdelaTex (the name is a combination of their last names). Just a quick note before jumping in our conversation: this is the last episode of Creative + Moneywise's first season. I've so enjoyed these chats with various photographers and I appreciate all of your listeners out there. I'm not sure when the next season will start up but I hope you'll visit my website, creativeandmoneywise.com, and sign up for my newsletter to stay updated. Thanks so much.

This episode is all about insurance -- and I promise this is interesting! And it's important, too. Almost every guest on this podcast has talked about insurance, but I've mostly edited out those parts. I decided to go through my archive and bring the two best insurance conversations into this episode. First up is Karen Kasmauski from episode #2. She'll talk about life, disability and long-term care insurance. And actually, when I told her I wanted to use her outtakes about insurance for this episode, she asked to re-record, which I'm glad we did because it turned out really well. After Karen is Stacey Vaeth from episode #8. She'll talk about gear insurance, including a very handy tip if you ever have your gear stolen. Insurance is vital for protecting your life, your stuff and your ability to earn money. Insurance may seem like an unnecessary expense, especially for a self-employed photographer or creative person. But that makes it even more important for you: insurance is generally less costly than paying cash or going into debt for a medical bill, a new camera or weeks without working due to an injury. Insurance is there to give you peace of mind.

Today on the show, Jasmin Shah talks about how the pandemic motivated her to make portraits of strangers, a project she calls “Reintroducing America,” and to eventually transform a van into her home on wheels, complete with a bed, shower and desk. Before the pandemic, Jasmin was a global nomad. She now photographs stories and projects around the United States, piecing work together as she drives in her van “Dory” – named after photographer Dorothea Lange.

Just how do you run a successful photography business in both Washington, D.C. and Seattle? On this month's Creative + Moneywise podcast, portrait and commercial photographer Stacey Vaeth talks about how she started her bicoastal business, how she maintains it and especially how she's learned to treat herself like and think of herself as a business executive.

It's challenging enough managing one career but try balancing two. Rosem Morton does just that as a photographer as well as a nurse in Baltimore, Md. In this episode, she talks about how she got into photography, when she hopes to leave nursing to photograph full-time and how she started day trading stocks. Rosem's photographs has appeared in many publications including the New York Times, NPR and National Geographic.

Today on the show, Alyssa Schukar talks about building her freelance career in a thoughtful way so that she's on solid financial footing – something that helped her last year when she was hit by a rubber bullet while photographing protests in Wisconsin after the shooting of Jacob Blake. The injury kept her out of work for months. Alyssa is a photojournalist originally from Nebraska, now living in Washington, D.C. She's also a co-founder of Prism Photo Workshop, which supports young photographers of diverse backgrounds to tell stories of underrepresented people and communities with dignity.

On this month's episode of the Creative + Moneywise podcast, freelance photographer Nolwen Cifuentes talks about her journey into and out of $60,000 in debt. By early 2020, Nolwen had shot photos for TIME, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine and many other editorial outlets — markers of career success that belied her money problems. She hit her financial rock bottom just before the pandemic, when she called her then-boyfriend (now fiancé) and asked to borrow money to pay her bills — again. A flip switched and she knew she needed to take better care of her finances. Nolwen is an editorial and commercial photographer living in Los Angeles. And as of last week, she has paid off half her $60,000 in debt.

On this month's episode of the Creative + Moneywise podcast, humanitarian photographer Babita Patel talks about switching careers, founding a nonprofit, publishing a book and valuing your photography no matter the client. Babita is a humanitarian photographer currently living in New Jersey in the United States. Her book “Breaking Out in Prison” is about the lives of men who were formerly incarcerated. She recently won a grant from Protagonistic to photograph and write a new version of the book, this time focused on women.

Photographer Fati Abubakar talks about navigating online fame and real-life finances after her “Bits of Borno” photo project went viral. Plus, we discuss pushing for equitable freelance pay and dealing with racism in the photo industry. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts. Fati is a photographer and public health worker based in Borno State, Nigeria, which is where she was born and grew up. Her “Bits of Borno” project showcases her hometown at the time of Boko Haram. Her photos have been featured in the New York Times, CNN and Nigerian media such as ThisDay and The Blueprint. Fati also has a weekly photo column in The Daily Trust newspaper

Photographer Karen Kasmauski talks about her winding career path, from volunteering in Appalachia as a new and self-described goal-less college graduate to photographing more than two dozen stories for National Geographic. Karen is the daughter of a Japanese mom and an American Navy veteran who met in Japan just after World War II. It's this relationship that inspired her to help produce a film about Japanese war brides – including her mother. The film aired on BBC and also screened at numerous film festivals. Her book Impact: From the Frontlines of Global Health, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. She teaches photography and business at many colleges and she photographs and travels for international NGOs – at least she did before the pandemic. Our conversation today touches on sexism and racism, though not in a gratuitous way.

Today on the Creative + Moneywise podcast, how Crystaline Randazzo learned to embrace the business side of photography even as she moves every few years due to her husband's job. Crystal is an American storyteller, photographer and filmmaker. She studied commercial photography in graduate school and then managed shoots and photo archiving for an entertainment production company that owned the now-defunct Barnum & Bailey Circus. If someone needed a decades-old picture of a certain clown, she tracked it down. Crystal left that job to launch her freelance career for clients including UNICEF, Save the Children and the European Environmental Bureau. Full disclosure: Crystal is my very good friend! We met several years ago when we both lived in Rwanda. Since then, we've worked on projects together and co-edited the website NGO Storytelling for over five years.