Two women with dark hair and light skin in a room with a marble fireplace, white walls, and wooden floors. One woman is standing wearing a sleeveless white top and beige pants; the other woman is sitting in a black chair, wearing a beige blouse and blue jeans, with her chin resting on her hand. The room is decorated with plants, vases, a mirror, and stacked books.

Meet Your Teachers

A bottle of Honey Pot sensitive intimate wash surrounded by colorful flowers, including marigolds, lavender, and other blooms, against a plain background.

A woman with wavy dark hair wearing sunglasses, a blue sports top, and white and blue inflatable pool float, holding a pink cup with a grapefruit slice on the rim against a yellow background.

We’re Elle and Arabela, the women behind Weekend Creative.

Some people dream of running a business.

We…accidentally started one.

Back when we first picked up our cameras, we had no business plan, no contracts, and no clue what licensing even meant. Honestly, we were just chasing creative projects on the weekends and hoping someone might pay us in ice cream (spoiler: cash turned out to be even sweeter).

As we grew, we searched for resources to help us — but the ones we needed most were either crazy expensive, too vague, or didn’t exist at all. So we decided to make the thing we wished we had.

That’s how Saturday School was born: a place for photographers who are just getting started, balancing jobs, hustling on weekends, and teaching themselves the ropes. It’s the “school” that covers everything photography class left out.

OUR GOAL:

To make a career in photography feel possible.

We believe in accessibility — in making commercial photography something anyone can pursue, not just the people with connections, money, or a fancy résumé.

There are a million tutorials out there on how to take a pretty photo, but where do you actually learn the real skills you need to run a thriving photography business? That’s the gap we fill. Our journey in commercial photography has not been traditional. We’re self-taught, we never worked as assistants, and we sometimes do things differently than others.

We don’t just teach theory — we share the exact tools and lessons that got us from shooting in Elle’s garage to working with the brands we once only dreamed about. We’re open books, and we’re not afraid to tell you what we’ve messed up along the way so you don’t have to.

Courses

Templates

Blog

Behind the scenes of a photo or video shoot setup in a studio with various professional lighting and camera equipment, including a woman adjusting a monitor, a backdrop with water and orange juice, and bags on the floor.

More of Our Story

A woman arranging food items including oranges and a bottle on a yellow table, with video equipment and a laptop nearby, in an indoor studio with white brick walls and a purple panel.

We met in a studio lighting class at San Jose State back in 2015. It was one of those “pick a partner for the whole semester” moments, and somehow we ended up with the best deal of all: each other.

After college, we worked together at a magazine, and we found ourselves craving creative freedom. Deadlines and editorial guidelines were great for experience, but we wanted a space to explore our own ideas and run the show on our terms. That drive to create on our own — to be our own bosses — is what pushed us to start experimenting with personal shoots on the weekends.

Then one weekend, we emailed It’s-It Ice Cream asking if they’d trade us product for photos. Instead of free ice cream, they offered to pay us. $500. Which we immediately blew on props and rentals.

That’s when it hit us: maybe this wasn’t just a weekend hobby. Maybe this could be something bigger. That led to us filing for our LLC on a whim while sitting on Elle’s bedroom floor.

We named our company Weekend Creative, because back then, weekends (and the occasional Monday night) were our only time to chase our own ideas. Weekends felt bright, playful, and full of possibility — the perfect vibe for what we wanted to build.

Fast forward through craft fairs, meetings in coffee shops, and shooting in a garage… and we suddenly found ourselves with a studio, big-name clients, and a full-time business. What started as a side hustle became our dream job.

get to know

ELLE
MOTT

PRODUCER + ART DIRECTOR / Mystery Reader / Pugs and chickens / Mac & Cheese / Loves an antique
Hazelnut Coffee / The Office on repeat / ranch Connoisseur / Party hoster

get to know

ARABELA ESPINOZA

Photographer + retoucher / Cat Mom / Iced vanilla lattes / Color Obsessed / music lover /
Activist / city explorer / Born on Friday the 13th / TV Show Binger

READY?

A photography setup with pink backdrop paper hanging from a support rod using clips, a desk lamp, a bottle labeled 'IFLO', some tape, a printed sheet with color swatches, and a pair of scissors on a table.

A photographer is shooting a still life arrangement of food and kitchen items on a red tiled table. The setup includes a head of Napa cabbage, a green teapot, a small blue pot, and cans of food, with a yellow backdrop fixated to a wall in the background. The scene is being shot in a room with a white brick wall and a ceiling crack, with a computer monitor visible to the left.

Start with these blog posts

A woman taking a close-up photograph of an arrangement of vegetables and flowers on a table in a studio setting.

01/ Commercial Photography Pricing Resources

02/ Client Red Flags

03/ Why You Should Take Time to Shoot for Fun