Meet Levi Tijerina of Sett in RiNo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Levi Tijerina.

Levi, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My origins began in wedding photography. I was living in Eastern Europe—Lithuania—and working in higher education. I was dating my wife long-distance, she was in Colorado, and so after things got more serious with our relationship, I finished my contracts at the university I was working at and moved to Colorado. At that time, I didn’t really have any plans about what I would be doing, so I started doing wedding photography because it was something I could do on my own and it would allow me to travel.

Within my first year of starting, I had booked weddings in Iceland, Tanzania, Luxembourg, and across the US. I ended up building a business that was really strategic and focused on travel and destination work. It was amazing.

That was seven years ago, and as time has gone on, I knew some things needed to change. I loved weddings, but as our family grew, I knew I wanted to have more weekends free and wanted to be able to complete more jobs during the week. Additionally, I knew that the biggest thing I had been lacking was being part of a team.

I ended up joining a filmmaking company, White in Revery, as a consultant and helping with business development. I ended up bringing my wedding photo program into their brand and still work with them. In early 2019, a good friend, Josh Perez, and I launched Sett, a multidisciplinary photography studio. We focus on solving problems for brands focused on creativity and photography. We’ll do creative direction, photography, brand consulting, but the bread-and-butter of what we do is photography and helping create brand narratives through photos.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Some of the biggest struggles were learning my own inefficiencies and inabilities to tackle everything myself. I remember when I had first started in weddings, feeling this extreme level of doubt and imposter syndrome. I had barely booked any weddings in the early part of 2014 and I felt wholly inadequate. How was I supposed to make money? How was I supposed to keep this idea alive? Those days were dark days, but I’m glad we’re on the other side of that.

I think working independently, for me, was a harder challenge than I wanted to admit. I work well in teams and with people and I think I underestimated my initial need to collaborate on projects instead of just muscling through on my own.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sett story. Tell us more about it.
Sett is still pretty new for us, but it’s founded on so many things that both Josh and I have brought into the business. Josh is known for his relationships, his care, his empathy, and his ability to connect people. I’m known for my ideas, my business acumen, and my limitless imagination.

Combined, I think we’re really specialized to do what we do well. We work incredibly well together—we both want to execute and get work done. We’re fast, nimble, and able to adapt well, and I’m really grateful to get to work with someone like that.

We just wrapped a campaign for Uber that I’m really proud of. We did a photo campaign in collaboration with Top Designs, Raen, and Thousand to highlight Uber’s new biking platform, Jump, that is released around the city. It was really awesome to come up with ideas on how to make the brand feel tangible, commuter-focused, and city-centric.

At the end of the day, Sett is all about solving real problems for real people. It’s been really enriching to help humanize brands and to help them create authentic, realistic stories about what they are here to do. We’re here to work with people and to bring their ideas to life.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
Luck is a huge part of success. Yes, I’ve worked hard, but at the end of the day, you’re kind of leaving it up to fate to really succeed. Relationships, opportunities—a lot of these happen to come at the right time and you have to learn to strike while the iron is hot. I think a big thing I’ve learned is when to recognize when you’re about to get a lucky break and to be able to act on it and take advantage of that, instead of seeing that opportunity too late. That means taking risks and also trusting your gut, but at the end of the day, we’re all trying to make the best of whatever is in front of us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://sett.studio
• Email: levi@sett.studio
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/madebysett
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/madebysett

Image Credit:
Personal Photo was taken by Tomasz Wagner

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