From Shoot-and-Burn to 5x’ing Her Portrait Average with Meredith Mutza

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Summary

In this episode of the Uncapped Photographer Podcast, Meredith Mutza shares how she transformed her photography business after implementing a product-based sales model focused on albums, wall art, and stronger client relationships. Originally relying mostly on weddings and low-priced portrait sessions, Meredith shifted away from a “shoot and burn” model to a full-service approach that included heirloom albums and printed products.

Within two years—while having two children and working in a seasonal market in Wisconsin—she significantly increased her income, raised her average sales per client, and reduced the number of sessions she needed to shoot. Her story emphasizes the importance of serving clients at a higher level, valuing time, and building a sustainable photography business.

Key Takeaways

• Switching to a product-based, full-service model can dramatically increase revenue.
• Higher client averages allow photographers to work fewer sessions while earning more.
• Building stronger client relationships through more communication and service improves the experience and loyalty.
• Not every client will stay when you raise your prices or standards—and that’s okay.
• Time is your most valuable resource, so structure your business to protect it.

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Transcript

Christa (00:02.53)
We have a very special guest today. This is the Uncapped Photographer podcast. I teach photographers how to grow their averages with products and by serving their clients better. I'm Krista and I'm here with one of my long time and one of my favorite students, Meredith from Meredith Mutsa Photography. She's a wedding and portrait photographer based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Welcome Meredith. my gosh, this feels so good. like, Meredith, we've been in each other's circle now. I think we were trying to add it up. Has it been three years?


Meredith (00:33.27)
Yeah, so I officially talked to you for the first time at the end of 2023. Wow. But I didn't start Uncapped until January of 2024.

Christa (00:44.13)
So it's been four or five, yeah, over two years now. Well, I'm so honored you're here. And guys, I invited Meredith to come in and I wanted her to share about her journey. And let's just cut to it. Meredith, like you're in a place, you can't be shooting year round with everything. it gets, you would ping me and tell me the weather where you're at. And I was like, how are you alive? How are you functioning? It's 70 degrees here. How is it in the negatives? And you've built like such a thriving business also as a mom. So tell me about that point.

before you found me kind of where were things at for you.

Meredith(01:15.15)
So in 2023, before I found you, I was mostly doing weddings. I had written off portraits because I was like, I really don't want to leave my house for $200. So I was pretty much just doing weddings and doing portraits for people that I knew. And like that, that's what I was doing. And I decided that I needed to make more money because I had an eight month old at the time, my first daughter.

I just thought in order to make this work, I need to make a little bit more income. So the first thing I started Googling was how to add heirloom albums to wedding packages. So that's what I started with. That's what I really thought I wanted to do was like, I just wanted to add albums into my wedding packages to get a little extra bump. That's when you came into the picture. And it was the fall of 2023.

We had our call and my husband Mark is also very much in my business.

Christa (02:20.716)
We love a good supportive husband. He gets our husband wall of fame list.

Meredith (02:26.546)
So like after I had my call with you, I was like, like I kind of just want to add heirloom albums. I'm not sure if I want to do wall art. I'm not sure if I want to get into all this stuff with uncapped. I was like, this sounds really cool. And if I could make more money doing portraits, that would also be great because then I only have to leave the house for an hour or two versus a whole eight to 10 hour wedding. So we jumped in in January during slow season.

so that we could fully jump in. Because as Kristin knows from working with us for a couple of years now, once we decide to go in on something, we go all in. And it takes our whole bandwidth. And we throw it all there. So in 2024, we did all the things. We found a custom framer who actually lives down the street from us. It's the closest commercial building to our house. walk.

Christa (03:24.108)
I didn't know that. That's amazing.

Meredith (03:26.2)
We walked to our custom framers and we started diving into all the album stuff and we picked Red Tree, which is a place that we absolutely love working with. We've gotten so many albums from them recently and they're just stunning. We started ordering all the products like the matted prints. Again, we got some wall art and really started loving it ourselves before we turned it around to our clients.

I'm the type of person who just loves the quality of things and I want to serve my clients really well. Because that was another piece that was missing for me, portraits versus weddings. I love the connection of weddings because you walk with them for a year or nine months, however long their engagement is. Prior to being a photographer, I was a speech language pathologist. I'm very into communication and making real connections with people.

So I felt that that was missing in my portrait side. going forward with the uncapped method felt great to me because I got to talk to my portrait clients like four times, which was more than I probably talked to them at all. in the previous process with Shoot and Burn, like it was just OK, I emailed them, we showed up at a random place and time, I took their photos, and I probably never heard from them again.

and that didn't feel like right to me. I wasn't getting the connection I needed. So with all of the products and implementing everything in 2024, I went up in sales for the year about $20,000. So in 2023, I was right around like 40 and then 2024 I was at 60. And that was implementing.

Christa (05:12.003)
Wow.

Meredith (05:22.326)
getting portraits back in. I did bump up a little bit in weddings because I bumped up my pricing to include an heirloom album. So like that also helped. Right. So that helped. but it was incredible to see that because yes, we put in a lot of work, but I actually shot less sessions also. Wow. And I was making significantly more money.

Christa (05:49.28)
And you had another baby also going amidst all of that too.

Meredith (05:53.87)
Yes, so I was pregnant in 2024. I got pregnant with my second daughter very soon after starting the uncapped process. So I was trying to completely change my business and make a baby at the same time. A little bit of an overachiever sometimes.

Christa (06:12.11)
You had multiple babies in that time with having shifting your business. then Samir, if you added 20 grand without having to shoot more, and then what did 20, 25 look like for you?

Meredith (06:24.174)
2025 was crazy. So I had Emory, my youngest baby, my youngest daughter, in January of 2025. So I took a little bit of a maternity leave. I didn't start shooting portraits until June that year, but I made so much more money than I ever have in portraits that year as well because of this method. it was, I still look at this number.

And it's ridiculous to me. But in 2025, I made just under 90,000.

Christa (07:02.798)
Meredith, that's incredible. And all of that while not having, well, also for those, sometimes there are some people come at me of like, well, there's only certain good seasons I can shoot. And I'm like, go talk to Meredith. It's like negative, whatever, 40. Like, yeah, Meredith one time pinged me and told me how cold it was. And I was like, Meredith, how is that possible? And you were like, no, legitimately trees can explode.

Meredith (07:23.95)
We had tree exploding warnings on the news

Christa (07:27.854)
You can't be photographing your clients in the park while trailer is letting so even for you having said honestly a limited time to shoot like you you have to make the most of it like yes. Yeah, whereas like me and the people in Florida we're like yeah we could shoot in January. They're fine right?

Meredith (07:45.186)
Yep, every now and again you'll get people that want to brave the Wisconsin winter and it always turns out beautiful because the snow really is a great reflection.

Christa (07:53.356)
I love it. So Meredith, you did all of this with having little kids in a town where I think you said no one else is really offering this. So like, I'd love for you to hear it. know, we got to walk through, you and I had, we're having babies kind of around the same time as each other, which was such a beautiful thing. And I think why we also connected so deeply. What would you say, Meredith, to maybe the mom listening? That's like, I would love this. I love products. I see why. Gotta have these memories on the wall, but like,

I have babies or little kids, is the time worth it?

Meredith (08:29.004)
Yes. Yes, it is. It is. It is. I would say that, of course, it takes a lot to set up. Like, I think that's the most daunting thing is like, you don't know what you don't know. And letting go of the control of like, I know, I don't know this. And that's scary. And I don't know if my clients are going to like that I switched to this service or this way of serving my clients.

and I'm, I'm not going to lie. A lot of my clients didn't come with me, but I'm also okay with that because I can't serve everyone and still serve my family. Yeah. And I want to be able to serve the people that I'm able to at a really high level and make those actual connections. And I would say just because of the uncapped method, once you start it,

You're not going to want to go back. I even feel that with my own portraits. So we have a photographer that we absolutely love. And I love her work. But like there were a couple of things this year that like, there was a lot of mosquitoes at our session. It was at a time where it like flooded. And I was like, I really want her to remove these mosquitoes that like a shoot and burn photographer doesn't do that I do for my clients. Like the ones that I deliver are absolutely perfect.

so that you don't have to worry about any of that stuff. So once you start the uncapped method and stick with it, your clients are more than likely going to continue coming back to you because that's what you're offering. They like that they don't have to worry about anything. They like that everything shows up on their door because they're busy moms maybe too. I know that for myself. I'm a busy mom. I don't want to think about all of these things.

Um, so yes, it's daunting to look at all the things you need to implement in your business, but it is so worth it. Back in 2023, I had $197 average, just under $200. And I did 19 sessions that year. And in 2025,

Christa (10:50.894)
I had 14 sessions and I made just under $15,000. So less sessions, significantly more. higher. Right, my average was just around $1,000.

Meredith (11:00.47)
Thank

Christa (11:04.322)
Wow, which is incredible.

Meredith (11:07.628)
Right. So, like, it's worth it. And then you feel good about what you're putting out into the world as well.

Christa (11:15.074)
Yes, that's incredible. literally 2468 you five X'd your portrait average. That's amazing.

Meredith (11:20.814)
Right. In two years while also having a baby.

Christa (11:24.974)
In Wisconsin, it's not like you're in like, I think, you know, Chicago or like, I don't know, some huge affluent city. So tell me about this too, because you also added more service into your wedding packages with products too, right?

Meredith (11:39.414)
Yes. Can you touch on that? Yeah. All of my wedding packages include an album that's a non-negotiable with me. Because I always explain it that what I want for your wedding photos is like my vision is you are surrounded by your grandchildren on a porch swing or like in a porch rocking chair.

in the summer and you're paging through and they're, they have their little hands on it and they're asking like, is that really you grandma? Like that is the vision of what I want for my clients. Because like how beautiful is that? I remember doing that with my grandparents album, like not even believing that that was what they used to look like. Like it just blows your mind as a child. So it's a non-negotiable for me.

Like once you get into my services for weddings, you get that album. So yeah, back in 2023, my average for weddings was around $2,000. And last year in 2025, it was...

Meredith (12:56.652)
Yeah, right under 6,000.

Christa (12:59.842)
Yeah. That's incredible. lest anyone sit here thinking Meredith and Mark clicked purchase and everything transformed, you did the work. And I think that is, and you stuck with it. And one of the reasons why you are where you are is you did work through things and there were blocks and times it was really hard and weeks that you were like, Krista, I've heard like 10 nos this week. Like, am I doing the right thing?

when you have that bigger picture, especially like for you having kids in that season, like you just see so much merit, at least for me, I started before I had kids, had my kids and it's like, I saw everything that I was like really preaching of like your time is valuable. It's like your time is valuable. Like that is your greatest resource. And how much better that you can go take one shoot instead of literally five that you would have had to before to make that amount. And I'm just.

thrilled for you and Mark. guys have been also like my cheerleaders, Meredith and Mark are literally the best. So Meredith, if someone heard this and is so inspired, where can they connect with you on Instagram? What would that look like?

Meredith (14:06.262)
Yeah, so on Instagram, I'm MeredithMuzaPhotography, my last name, super silly to spell, but M-U-T-Z-A. I always say it's Muza, like moo like a cow. Also from Wisconsin, so it works. Right. And yeah, if you want to DM me if you have any questions on there, if you just need a cheerleader, like in the corner, I love doing that. And speaking Because I know it's possible.

Christa (14:35.084)
You're opening even some private spots up for some photographers who'd want to grow their wedding average, right?

Meredith (14:41.398)
Yes, yes I am. I'm starting something called the Meredith Mentorship that I love the wedding space and I really like watching other photographers able to grow their average and not only just their average to like help serve them more but to serve their clients more. That's where I always start is what can you add in your packages that's going to serve your clients better?

that's going to make their day better, how many touch points do we need for them to feel more comfortable with you and for them to be ready to take this journey with you.

Christa (15:18.092)
I love that. So I'll link y'all her Instagram with the show notes. So if this was encouraging to you at all, if you would just slide into her DMs and just give her a thank you. If you want to learn more about Meredith mentorship, definitely ask her about it. Her and Mark are incredible people. I've had the joy of getting to know them more personally. They've been to my home all the way from Wisconsin and they're just such a joy and a light. And Meredith, thank you again so much for taking the time today to chat with us.

Meredith (15:44.696)
course.