Years of hard work and putting themselves out there is what helped ISKRA Photography become the dream team that we know and love today. These two have found inspiration from different aspects of their life, learned all they could know about their camera and running a business, and took the plunge to get involved in the wedding photography industry. Learn what steps this husband and wife photography duo took in order to scale their business and keep their passion for photography alive and well.

all photos by ISKRA Photography

Introduce yourself! – how long have you been shooting and how old is your business?

Hello! We are Jane and Tony Iskra and together we are a husband and wife team called ISKRA Photography. This year is our six year anniversary of shooting weddings hand by hand. Jane started almost 10 years ago from shooting portraits and Tony came a bit afterward from the IT sphere. I know we started so long ago, but I’m amazed by the talent of some guys who just started a year or two ago and reached so much! That’s just amazing!!!

Describe your workspace/studio.

Our workspace was recently renovated and now it’s the darkest place in our house with only one small window – just because we’ve always been struggling with too much light in the room, especially in the summer when it’s sunny outside. This fact always a problem to make the color correction and see the color right.

We divide our work between us. Tony edits and I (Jane) do all of the finishing touches. This helps us to have some extra free time for the other stuff like answering emails/social stuff/skype sessions, and so on.

Where do you find inspiration?

Like, literally, everywhere. Movies/travels/people – of course, this all inspires a lot. We’re also inspired by nature, of course, as we’re much more about nature and outdoors than about big cities.

We’re also very influenced by music, so we listen to some of our favorite songs before every shoot to recharge.

Is there any specific figure/person who has influenced your work?

When we just started our wedding photography career, we were definitely under the influence of the photography eye of Sean Flanigan and the colors and post-processing of Tyler Branch.

Time has passed and now we’re absolute fans of The Kitcheners‘ photography – they’re absolute magic!

What achievement, moment, or success are you most proud of?

Hah, that definitely started when our photo was chosen by the judges and the team of Junebug Weddings for Best of the Best Destination 2017, then we had a winning photo in the Best of the Best Engagement 2017 after which we were honored to judge the Destination Collection of 2018 by Junebug! That was a blast and we believe these contests are definitely the best and the most popular in the whole wedding photography sphere from all over the world!

What’s a goal that you’re working towards?

We’re trying to photograph as many international and destination weddings as we can. Last year showed us how difficult physically and mentally it can be. However, it brought us so many positive feelings and inspiration. We met so many new and amazing people and felt like we should try even harder. After being in business for so long, this gave us new, fresh breath and a lot of unique experience.

What are you doing to market your business to couples?

We work a lot with SEO and try to be very active on Instagram. Besides that, we try to deliver the best service to our couples as we can. Combination of all of these things works great so far!

Do you stay friends with your couples after the wedding?

Heck yes! We’ve never done it on purpose to get referrals from them, but we try to be kind and feel the vibe of every couple. Some of our former couples are our best friends! This is awesome, right?

How do you get your clients comfortable in front of the camera?

Very easy! We’re much more observers than creators here. So we just slightly direct the couple to do some simple and comfortable things to show us some love and feelings to each other. That’s it!

We never ask to pose or do something that is odd/strange or uncomfortable for them.

What is your data management workflow?

We always have two main copies of all the photos we’ve shot on different hard drives and one more server for backup of all the archives we’ve ever shot at the studio. So in any moment of time, we have from two to three copies of our archive. Besides that (I know it’s probably already too much, haha), we have unlimited cloud storage with everything synched there.

How do you keep your business organized? Do you use a client management system?

We haven’t used any. We just make a lot of spreadsheets, plus we don’t shoot more than 30 wedding per year which makes remembering everything very easy.

How much of your time is taken up by social media?

We try to limit this time no more than 1.5 hours per day. If you don’t limit time on social, it can easily eat all of your spare time.

How has social media affected your business?

A lot! We get 30% of all inquiries from social media. That’s why we try to pay enough attention to it.

List all of the gear that you bring to your weddings:

• 2 Canon 5D Mark IVs
• Canon 35mm 1.4L
• Canon 24mm 1.4L
• Sigma 50mm Art
• Canon 85mm 1.8
• Canon 135mm 2.0L
• Canon Speedlight 600EX-RT
• Newswear Large Fanny Pack
• DJI Mavic Pro

Do you have any advice for those who are just beginning to pursue a photography career?

1.) Follow your own heart – don’t try to mimic everyone and don’t follow all the wedding photography trends. Instead, try to create something unique and, of course, believe in yourself.

2.) Take your camera with you all the time. This will help you a lot and give you practice!

3.) Analyze all that you do and all that you shoot – this will help you grow!

4.) And lastly – take part in contests and awards! When you try to find photos that fit well for a contest and you don’t manage to find any, this helps you find your weak spot where you should work harder at. 

Describe your editing process.

We’re pretty simple here. We just use our own custom made Lightroom presets. We have a lot of them to fit all of the lighting conditions. We’ve got a lot of questions about how to get them, so, if you’re interested, follow our Instagram page – we’re gonna release them soon!

After exporting from Lightroom, there are normally very few retouch things in Photoshop left and that’s it!

What’s playing in the background while you edit?

We’re huge fans of music! For example, we just discovered some amazing ethnic style DJs on Soundcloud like this – https://soundcloud.com/lapachamusic – I bet you haven’t heard about them.

Normally, something like this and coffee helps us a lot to concentrate.

Is there anything you want readers to know about that you’re working on or where they can learn more from you?

We get a lot of questions about our Lightroom presets and we’re going to release them soon. Follow along here! 

Besides that, we run a wedding inspiration account on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/wedphotoinspiration/. Follow along for some inspiring stuff! Also, tag it to get featured there. 🙂

Where can people follow you and your work?

Photography

• https://www.iskraphoto.com
• https://www.instagram.com/jane_iskra/
• https://www.facebook.com/iskra.photography/

Our Wedding inspiration account on Instagram:

• https://www.instagram.com/wedphotoinspiration/

A big thanks to ISKRA Photography for taking the time to answer our questions and give a deeper look into their business!

Is there a wedding photographer or videographer you’re dying to know more about? Tell us below and we might just have them in an upcoming interview!