Alex Reymundo, is a nationally renowned comedian hailing from Louisville KY that I’ve been a fan of since The Original Latin Kings of Comedy. He has toured with comedy legends such as George Lopez, Cheech Marin and Ron White. Over the last few months he had been building up the release of a tequila brand that he’s put his own name and dollar behind… Number Juan Tequila. The first imports of the tequila began to flow into the U.S. earlier this past summer with it finally hitting the shelves of KY in August. Curious as I was to sample it, I seen he was in town promoting it at a Liquor World, so I hopped in the car and drove up to the store. I tried each them, the Blanco, Reposado and Extra Anejo, finally deciding on the creme de la creme of the line… Extra Anejo. As we got to chit chatting a little bit I asked him about his marketing and advertising and then proceeded to offer him to do a couple test shots of his product. If he liked what I photographed then cool we could talk, if not, no biggie, what did I have to lose? Nothing. Well I sent off the test images and the next morning I received a phone call from him. He was really impressed with the quality and turnaround time I demonstrated to him so he hired me to do the product photography for his entire line of the tequila.
Alex had a deadline he had to meet so later that day he dropped off his bottles and props at my studio, gave me a vision of what he wanted the images to showcase and that night I went to work. I photographed everything as requested, and even a few extra shots (pun possibly intended) then had everything ready to go two days later. He came by and as we sat down to go over the final images we engaged into an enlightening conversation of each other’s talents. It was interesting to hear about how he got into the whole comedy business and what it takes to make it in that industry… He explained that there are three essential elements to making it. Being talented, prepared and lucky. 1) Talented. You need to have the talent, the skill to make people laugh, you will not make it if you don’t have that to start out. 2) Being prepared, always being ready for whatever is thrown at you, if you’re not then you’re going to miss out on opportunity. And 3) Lucky, you just need that big break to get your career going. As he explained it to me I thought about how this also applies to photography, so in return a mere conversation turned into a valuble lesson. Again, talent, you have to have the eye for photography to be successful, anyone can push a button but there is skill set one must acquire to gain a solid reputation. There is no way around that I believe. Prepared, being versatile in one’s profession, because you never know what kind of request you’re going to get from a client. If you deliver one job that meets the needs of a client then that’s going to open doors to repeat business and referrals. Then who know what they will ask of you of for the next job, so again…Prepared! And finally, Lucky, sometimes you just need that one big break with the right client that will propel your business to the next level. Over the past year I’ve experienced all three of these elements and I can attest that this is very true, and not just to photography but I would assume any type of art. Thank You again for that conversation Alex, and also introducing me to a tequila that is meant to be sipped not shot. I had no clue about this and I look forward to enjoying the Extra Anejo the way it should be.
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