We had the good fortune of connecting with Carmen Story and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Carmen, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My thought process in the beginning was that I wanted to do something that no-one in my area had seen. I wanted to create photos that stood out and were full of color and life and wanted to somehow add in my love for art.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
One of the biggest things that set me apart from other photographers is my desire to always push the envelope and create artistic images that make you stare for awhile. Learning photography did take awhile but it didn’t seem very difficult because I always looked towards the best of the best. I never learned locally. So if I saw an image done in a magazine, such as Ebony or a Photography magazine, I would look for the actual photographer, look at what equipment he used along with Behind the scenes images to see how he uses that equipment. From there I would then look for equipment that could produce the same result but at a much much cheaper price and start practicing until I finally got an image that looked similar to the image in the magazine.

In learning this way, it wasn’t as hard because I already had a great blueprint to go by. I just had to save my money to buy the equipment needed. Scott Kelbys books helped tremendously as well as far as learning settings and basic off camera lighting.

In the real world, using lighting outdoors with sunlight was my biggest challenge. Learning how to properly balance Ambient light and Flash took me awhile. I stumbled upon a group of guys who went all over the world taking photos of random people using just one flash and a camera. I believe they were called Mikey and Orange or something like that. They helped me the most in learning outdoor lighting.

As far as lessons learned. I had to learn to stick to what I really love. It’s something that was very hard for me in the begining but now I don’t do any shoots unless it’s something “I” want to do. Otherwise the images will not come out great if I don’t want to do them.

What I would want the world to know about me is that I just love doing shoots that require some degree of creativity. And it doesn’t matter how you look, I can make you look great.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Wow.. This is difficult because being married, I literally have no friends hahaha. They would all be my wife and children (6) (We were foster parents as well!!) – BUT, we love to travel and have been doing it for years. So normally if we have kids or family visiting we actually recommend getting out of where we live and heading to South Carolina or Florida. Our second home happens to actually be Greenville SC. We love it for its diversity and there is always something to do, even if it’s letting your kids run around downtown at 12 A.M. Very safe place. Not to downplay ATL but it’s like ATL without the traffic haha.

No particular places I like specifically. Long as there is Seafood, Jazz, and icecream, I’m there!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
A lot of my success comes from my wife Renee and our children. So I’d definitely love have to shout them out!! While I was very much into art in high school, I didn’t get into photography until I started wanting to take photos of my wife and children. As I began to get better and better, I would have to say my overall style came from a variety of photographers in other countries, primarily Russia.

Some of the photographers that I can recall (I had to go back and look for them) were Joel Grimes (American Photographer), Elena Shumilova (Russian photographer), Joey Lawrence (Canadian photographer), Courtney Chen (Jamaican Photographer), Alexander Bootsman (Ukrainian Photographer), Ett Venter (South African Photographer), and the list goes on and on.

My editing style when it comes to Airbrushing (long before filters and plug-ins) came from SlickForce Studios top photographer Nick Saglimbeni (Major photographer for the Kardashians. His amazing technique when it came to airbrushing forced me to ditch my mouse and opt for a Wacom tablet.

Instagram: studiostoryxp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STUDIOSTORYPHOTOGRAPHY/

Other: SInce our kids are primarily grown and gone, We now travel a lot and I have to admit, I stopped updating my website so I can be reached on Facebook as this is my primary place I get business. You can also see some of my work on Instagram as well.

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutAtlanta is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.