Business Profile —
Do what you love, and a career will follow. Just ask Becca Nuss. She took a passion for photography that began as a hobby when she was in high school and molded it into a livelihood.
Nuss, who grew up in Los Olivos, is a portrait and wedding photographer who uses the Santa Ynez Valley as a backdrop for much of her work.
“How could I not?” she asks rhetorically. “It’s so beautiful.” Almost entirely self-taught, Nuss first tried her hand at photography when she picked up her mother’s old Canon and, as she says, “started playing with it.”
Now a professional, she has been photographing people and places for three years, continuing to hone her skills and expand her artistic sensibilities.
“I did a lot of reading, practice and hands-on learning,” she explained. She also had the good fortune to work with Santa Ynez Valley photographer Mike Mesikep, who taught her a great deal about light, composition and the technical aspects of photography.
Never without her camera, Nuss is drawn to photography as an art, she said, because each image is a snapshot of people in real time. “How they appear in the photograph is how they appeared in real life at the time it was taken. It’s a keepsake,” she said, “that captures one true moment.
When you’re able to pull out a moment, it’s a treasure.” While she specializes in portraits and weddings, Nuss also appreciates a great landscape shot. “When I see a place I want to shoot, I just stop.
I’m always looking at the world through the lens of a camera.” She recalled doing a senior portrait at Fess Parker’s winery and driving back to the Valley in the afternoon. “The light was beautiful. It was perfect,” she said, “and I stopped to take some pictures. They’re some of my best landscapes.”
Even with her portraits, Nuss prefers natural, outdoor light. Her passion, however, is fashion photography. “I love high fashion in exotic locations,” she said. “It was my first love. I used to look at fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle, and Lucky and study the images—the poses, the lighting, the angles, the faces. I love the women with fashion make-up. The colors and shapes are amazing. One photograph can tell a complete story.”
Many of her portraits demonstrate her success in striking a balance between fashion photography and making a living in the Valley. “The hardest part is having the confidence to direct people and tell them what to do,” she said. “You have to direct people without being bossy.”
Asking questions beforehand, and developing a rapport go a long way to creating the perfect photograph, she noted. “I’ll talk with the client to understand exactly what that person wants,” Nuss continued. “We’ll decide where to go to get the best photograph — it can be the beach, vineyards or rolling hills. Nature is really conducive to the exchange.” She uses Photoshop software to manipulate the digital images and erase small imperfections and blemishes.
She adjusts the brightness and contrast, and focuses on colorizing the image so that it looks just right. “Photoshop is an invaluable tool,” she explained. “It’s the difference between a good photo and a really beautiful one.”
She uses a gentle hand, though, because her goal is to enhance an image while maintaining its visual integrity. Nuss comes by her talent naturally, having grown up in a family of artists. Her sister is a painter who specializes in acrylic on canvas and does pencil drawings, and her brother is a chef. “He does food art,” she said. Not to be outdone, her father is a musician who plays classic rock on the bass and electric guitar.
What Nuss strives to provide for her clients is high-quality, affordable photography. “You shouldn’t have to pay thousands of dollars for amazingly beautiful photos,” she said. “They shouldn’t have to come with a hefty price tag.” She maintains a blog — www.beccanussphotography.com — which she updates frequently, to give potential clients the opportunity to see the breadth and quality of her work.
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