My name is Richard Peraza and I’m a photography major at Riverside City College. I started off as a studio art major and then made my way over to game art. Outside of school, I got a camera for a trip that I was going on and as soon as I started shooting, I immediately fell in love with photography. I’ve been pursuing it ever since.
With the help of Erik and Kaylee from Network Kinection, I landed a job at Turnkey Marketing, a marketing company that works with car dealerships to help them with advertising and social media. I help with their advertising, as well as making and posting content for their social media pages and interacting with their customers. There are plans for me to start working with the graphics team and even possibly go to the dealers themselves to take photos for them.
This is great experience for me because social media is extremely important in media nowadays, so it’s showing me how to run a business with a large online basis and outreach. My classes are more focused on technical aspects, but the Business for Photographers class is reinforcing a lot of the same things that I’m learning on the job. Through school and this job, I’m learning so much and I couldn’t be more grateful for this opportunity.
If you’re trying to find related work within your field, make sure that you’re actively pursuing it by either making your own work in that field and making yourself known to those who are looking to hire. Use the resources around you and put yourself out there. You never know when an opportunity will come up so always be ready and don’t be deterred if you don’t get it right away. Keep trying and working hard; something will come your way!
