Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben & Julie Cechman.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We are high school sweethearts that grew up together in Orlando. We’ve been running our photography and video business together since 2017.
Ben originally went to UCF to get a degree in engineering but quickly learned that he was not as passionate about it as he thought. One thing he was passionate about, however, was photography. All of his skills are self-taught. Ben is the right-brained (creative) person in our business whereas Julie is the left-brained (analytical) person. Julie went to UCF to get her degree in finance and accounting. She also got her MBA from UCF.
We first got into real estate photography because of a friend that happened to be starting his career in real estate around the same time. He knew we loved taking photos as a hobby and he asked us to photograph one of his team’s properties. We continued to get booked more and more because of this and our business continues to grow because of him.
When we first started our business, it was just a side business for us. Ben was working full-time for a marketing team in Downtown Orlando. Julie was an accountant at the same company for a while but decided to do some job-hopping until our son was born in 2019. We took all the side jobs we could handle over the years in order to build our portfolio and name recognition. It wasn’t until May of 2021 that Ben made the jump to focus solely on our own photo and video business. Julie is a Senior Accountant for a small hospitality firm in Maitland. She is also heavily involved in our own accounting, scheduling, social media, and more. She comes along as my second shooter whenever her schedule allows.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We’d like to say it’s been a smooth road for us so far, but that would definitely not be the case. We started this business in the midst of having full-time jobs. We would be at the office all day, then come home and continue working late into the night to keep up with our side business. Then our son was born and things got even more complicated (although we wouldn’t trade it for the world). Time management has been one of the biggest challenges for us. We have a lot of high priority jobs pop up that have to be completed before others so our pipeline and task list continues to change by the day. Sometimes it feels like we never fully catch up, no matter how hard we try. This is something we are working on improving together.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We do all things photo & video — real estate, commercial, events, product, headshots, family, weddings, you name it. We don’t specialize in one area.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
What matters to us most is getting to spend time with our little family. We have a two year old son and just recently adopted a dog.
Contact Info:
- Email: cechmansphotovideo@gmail.com
- Website: www.cechmans.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cechmansphotovideo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cechmansphotovideo
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/cechmans
Image Credits
Cechman’s Photography & Videography
