Today we’d like to introduce you to Sebastian Orta.
Hi Sebastian, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I, Sebastian, went to UF to major in videography and video editing so I was always involved in that field. After graduating, my fiancé, Claudia Gonzalez, and I moved to Orlando. She went to school at UCF, I got a full-time job at Publix Supermarkets.
As I worked at Publix during the day, I edited videos at night as a side job to earn extra cash. After 2 years of doing that, Claudia and I decided to take a chance on ourselves and put all of our time into our own company. With my background in videography and video editing and her passion for photography, we started OG Photography and Video Services.
OG stands for a combination of our last names (Orta and Gonzalez) as well as a wordplay with the current slang “OGs” meaning originals. Thankfully, our business has been successful since we started it and has been kept a very busy week in and week out.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
For the most part, it has been a smooth road. I, Sebastian, had already a somewhat established regular clientele that kept business coming weekly. Thanks to marketing, networking, and other freelance opportunities, we were able to obtain more clients that kept the business afloat.
Our biggest struggle so far has been scheduling our clients around our full-time parent’s schedule. We have two sons, one being almost 4 years old, another turning 5 months very soon.
With very little family in town to help us take care of the kids when we are both booked and current situations around the country, it’s been hard to manage bookings, but we have found ways to make it work and still be able to satisfy our clients.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Sebastian: I do videography and video editing, primarily video editing. When booked for videography services I go out and record moments like weddings, birthday parties, family gatherings, and such, as well as corporate meetings, retreats, and parties. For video editing, I have clients all over the United States ranging from New York to California, to Texas, and many more.
I use web-based libraries like Dropbox and Google Drive to send and receive the footage that clients need me to edit and I send it back to them as many times as necessary until they are satisfied. So far, I have worked with college applications, memorial videos, corporate interviews, family memories, social media influencers, and countless other projects. What I am most proud of, is the reactions I get from my customers. I have had many customers come to me asking me to fix something that a different company did for them that they weren’t happy about but the company refused to fix or asked to charge them more for mistakes they made themselves.
My most recent experience was with a recently married couple, the company they hired to edit their wedding video didn’t listen to any of their requests or use any of their songs that told their love story. So after being disappointed, they came to me and asked me to fix what the previous company had already done. It took some time and a lot of effort, but I was able to give them something they were happy to look at whenever they wanted to look back on their wedding day.
Claudia: All my life I have been on the creative side. I have been in the art field since I could remember. In high school, I was in the visual arts program where my paintings/drawings often won some form of award. I decided to take photography in sophomore year and I was hooked. I decided to make photography a hobby and took photos of others in my spare time and at all of my family events. I was always behind the camera and rarely in front of the lens.
With my creative side, I try to find the best angles, best light, and locations. I feel like we as individuals are always learning, and it is so rewarding to learn something new every day. I have taught myself how to use photoshop and edit photos. I am proud of the initiative we took to take our love for photo and video and turn it into something we can profit from.
Our eldest son has grown up being our model and has on occasion taken our cameras. kneeled on the floor and took photos of his younger brother, dogs, and of us. As someone who has grown up capturing memories, I am very fond of physical photos, as opposed to digital. I like to print a polaroid of our clients and gift them it as a small memory of their special event.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
What we like best about our city is how vast and diverse it is. There’s never a dull moment, every day we meet new people from different countries, cultures, and beliefs. This makes every project we take on a new challenge and a new experience.
However, just like our city is vast with clientele, it is also vast with the competition. But having more businesses to compete against helps us become better and want to distinguish ourselves amongst others.
Contact Info:
- Email: ogphotoandvideo@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/og_photoandvideo/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/OGphotoandvideo/
