Hello, We Are The Tanks!
This week, we are super excited to introduce you to our friends Travis and Nina Tank! Together, they are Tank Goodness Photography. We have had the pleasure of working with them on several weddings and we think they are amazing. Read part one of their interview below to learn about this dynamic duo!
What is your background? How did the two of you become a team?
Nina: Travis and I went to the same high school, but we didn't meet until we graduated. Right after high school, my parents wanted me to go to Austin Community College to get my basics. Travis was a musician at the time. I told Travis that he should go to school, so we decided to enroll in the ACC photography program together.
When did your passion for weddings begin? What made you want to shoot weddings?
Travis: We never decided to do weddings, we just fell into it. Nina wanted to be a stay at home mom, and I wanted to be a big commercial shooter. I couldn't really find any work doing that, but I came across an ad for a wedding company called The Wedding Shop. I started off working for them as a second shooter and worked my way up into first shooting. Then, the owner of the company hired me to run the Austin branch with him.
Nina: It was a lot of work for Travis and the pay wasn't great. After a while, Travis decided to leave The Wedding Shop, which turned out to be a good decision because they ended up going bankrupt and shutting down suddenly.
Travis: I knew that I liked doing weddings when I was working for them because it was something I was good at. Nina loves people and portraits, so weddings fit into what she wanted to do. After I left The Wedding Shop, we decided to start a business together.
When did you decide to start your business?
Nina: At this point, we were barely making our bills. Travis hadn’t been making very good money with the other company and I was six months pregnant with our second child. We knew that we could make good money, so we decided to bite the bullet and go out on our own. My parents gave us money to do our first bridal show in Mississippi.
Travis: We ended up booking eight weddings from it, so we shot eight weddings in Mississippi and took that money and invested it in the bridal shows in Austin. Then, we started booking weddings here and that’s how Tank Goodness Photography started.
What is your philosophy/mission? What makes your business unique?
Nina: I think a lot of people strive to have those perfect images and portraits of their wedding day, but that isn’t what’s most important to us. Our main focus is our relationship with the couple. We want to leave the couple loving us as much as they love their photos. If you have a good relationship, the couple will love their images no matter what they look like.
Travis: We don’t want to do anything that takes away from that. I’m not the photographer that’s going to stand a couple in the middle of a field for twenty minutes, setting up lights and telling them how to stand just for one shot. For one, it feels really fake to a couple. Also, it’s not what they want to do on their wedding day. Maybe some do, but our clients are people who want to have fun with us. They don’t want to spend hours taking pictures. They want to go have fun with their friends and enjoy the wedding they just planned. Our approach is very authentic. We want people to know who we are as a couple and ultimately to have a great experience with us.
Why should brides hire you? What do you tell brides who are considering hiring you?
Travis: I never sell myself that way. I do all of our client meetings and I never tell people “This is why you should hire me.” I say, “Here’s what we do, here’s who we are, and here’s what we offer.” If that’s something that a client is looking for, then we are going to be a good fit. And if it’s not something they’re looking for, then we’re not going to be a good fit. I want people to walk into our studio, sit down, and within the first five minutes we’re not even talking about wedding stuff. I want to be talking about their interests, their lives. I want people to feel like we’re friends.
Where is your studio?
Travis: We decided to put our studio in a storage type place that looks kind of like a warehouse. We wanted to do something creative and affordable. We took one of those units and revamped the whole thing. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but when you walk in, it looks amazing. It’s a unique space that really fits who we are.
Nina: I definitely think that having a studio is important for business and booking. It gives us a good space to meet, rather than just meeting at a Starbucks or something. People can see what we do and where we do it.
Are you loving this pair as much as we are? Check them out on social media, show them some love, and check back next week for part two of their interview!