5 minutes with — Marina Scholze

Marina Scholze is a wedding and fashion photographer from Munich, Germany. We had her attention for a few minutes to share a bit more about herself and how she approaches her work.

WUN: So, for those who don’t know you, who is Marina Scholze?

Marina: I’m Marina. I’m based in Munich, Germany and shoot mostly weddings. Sometimes I also photograph fashion and bloggers because they are often the same age as me and I hang out with a few of them.

I started when I was 16 when I got my first camera. I went out into the forest with a tripod and took photos of myself, and when showing them online, other people also wanted their portrait taken in the same style, and it all went from there.

Then, one day, I saw that wedding photographers Carmen & Ingo was looking for someone to work for their team, so I applied for the job and got it. They were planning to have a baby, and that would be difficult since they shoot weddings together.

They started to teach me and bring me along to weddings to learn as much as possible before Malia was born. I would then join them for weddings and Carmen and I would take turns shooting so she could nurse her daughter.

I totally fell in love with shooting weddings and felt that, this is great, I would love to be where they are. These days I help them in the office and work for them every now and then, but I am also self-employed and do my own weddings and fashion shoots. I shoot weddings all over Europe, but have also had a few in other parts of the world. I shot one in the Dominican Republic in the middle of January, with sunrise portraits. It is so insane to be part of a wedding like that, but I hope to be able to shoot more like it in the future.

WUN: So you still shoot with Carmen and Ingo?

Marina: Yes, exactly. They are moving back to Austria now, but I can do some things from home and still be on the team, while I’m slowly going my own way and building my own business.

WUN: That’s a great idea. You have a base to start from and then you can grow from there.

Marina: Yes, I can really recommend this to young people, to look for a mentor or teachers who can help them and then grow their own business from there.

WUN: So do you feel that it has helped you a lot, developing your own business?

Marina: Yes, very much so. Shooting alongside them at weddings, I could see how they do things, learn to be professional and learn from their mistakes. I think it was a very quick and easy way to get into the industry.

WUN: So, before that, did people book you specifically on your own for weddings and other sessions?

Marina: Before this, I had almost only editorials and fashion shoots, not really that many weddings, maybe two or so.

WUN: So is most of your work your own now or…?

Marina: Yes. After Malia turned one, she was big enough that they could handle it themselves for most parts. So I started to shoot more weddings by myself, and now this year, I have 20 weddings on my own. I only wanted to do 15 since I’m still in the team with them and have a lot of office work to do such as planning and organizing their workshops, handle their marketing etc. But I can’t say no, so there it is, haha.

WUN: That’s the hardest part, to have to say no to clients who want to book you.

Marina: Yeah. There are so many cool weddings, and many of those who find me are the same age as me and like the same style, so I can’t say no.

WUN: I can understand that!

Marina: On the side, me and a friend have also started up workshops in personal development. I lost my mother in 2013, and while things have been tough, today I’m a happy person and happy together with my family and I know she is around me. Yet I know, many people are not really happy with their lives. So we created these workshops unrelated to photography to be able to work on the personality side of things. Part so that people can be happy but also because, today, personality is becoming more and more important with so many photographers out there.

WUN: Yeah, It is really a big thing these days, with so many photographers out there.

Marina: Yeah, You have to stand there and wave and scream, “Hey, here I am!” because it is so difficult to stand out. So we want to help with that.

WUN: So, thank you to Marina Scholze for this short interview and good luck with everything!

Check out Marina online here: Website | Instagram