hitting the wall

It's hard to admit this, because I don't want to come off as being ungrateful. I feel exceedingly lucky and blessed to be doing what I do for a living. But being a photographer is a bit like being a ballerina, or a writer, or anything else that most people tend to do as a fun hobby. It's assumed that nothing could be better than turning that "fun hobby" into a living. The hard part is trying to keep your "fun hobby" from turning into a job. Then there's the expectation that you should be motivated by a ceaseless fountain of inspiration. Sure, we can write all day about the ebb and flow of creativity; and about how it's a normal part of the process. But the truth is that we know (especially if our livelihood depends on it) that our work needs to be constantly evolving, changing, and growing. This is a lot of pressure when you look at your work and feel nothing but apathy. And frankly, that's how I've been feeling lately. Like I've seen it before. Done it before. I don't think it's horrible. But I'd rather curl up on the couch and eat a bowl of mashed potatoes. You know? So that made me try to think back to a time when I felt most energized. It was a few years ago when I'd finally made the leap from film to digital. What's ironic is that my work was, well...let's just say not anything I would post on my site today. Some of it was straight-up crap. But I was SO excited by it. I'd stay up late watching photoshop tutorials, and reading everything I could get my hands on. The process was new; and apparently new = fascinating. Which makes me think that inspiration has very little to do with the quality of one's work. Instead maybe it's fueled by the simple process of discovering something we didn't know. In other words, maybe inspiration comes as the natural result of LEARNING. 

What about you? Have you ever hit the wall creatively? What did you learn about it?

Insights from photographer representative Ally Godfrey

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with successful photographer’s representative Ally Godfrey who owns and runs her own rep agency named appropriately Ally Godfrey Reps. We spoke of all sorts of ways photographers can make money shooting their passion. I love conversations like that and I found what she shared with me very enlightening. Since Ally works as the liaison between photographers and the clients that hire them, she offered insights on how to present yourself and your work in a way that is attractive to the clients looking for photographers. Photographers like, ahem, YOU!

Many (um, most) of the photographers I know do not have any ‘formal training’ under their belts (myself included) and let me start by saying that Ally doesn’t think that matters one bit. Am I hearing a collective sigh of relief? “What matters is the photography and delivering to the client consistent, high quality imagery that they can use” Ally emphasized. “You have to know lighting and develop a style”. We all know this is easier said than done but Ally offers a few simple rules of thumb for photographers who are looking to parlay their passion to a commercial or editorial professional status. She begins by sharing, “I think that every photographer, no matter what they want to shoot, if their goal is to make money from their photography, needs to create a “brand” for themselves. Decide what it is that you want to shoot and move your portfolio, website and testing in that direction.”

So, where to start? Well, if you think you’re ready to make money with your photography then chances are you’ve been shooting A LOT. So...now you’ve got the work to start building your portfolio. Ally reminds us that “Less is always more. Put together all of your BEST photos and then cut by 25%! Get someone in the business that you trust to go over your portfolio with a critical eye. You can also hire someone to do this professionally. Note: Ally offers this service to photographers so keep her URL handy when the time comes. In the end Ally says, “Make sure that the presentation is professional.” If you are looking to shoot commercially, “the industry has moved away from photos in sleeves to images that the clients can actually touch in a bound portfolio...less of a barrier between them and your work.” Good to know.

Next is creating an effective, eye-catching website that sells your work; your brand. This is where you showcase the portfolio you’ve worked so hard on. Ally suggests the most important element in a website is that the photos are featured “big and beautiful”. The site needs to be easy to navigate (which includes making sure the images load quickly, the intro is short and sweet and your bio is quick and entertaining to read). Ally adds, “If you are a creative person, some of your creative flair needs to come through in the design as well. Also (and this is important), the site needs to be easily updated.” Ally and the photographers that she represents all use and tout LiveBooks as their website developer of choice. She also mentions not to have too many portfolios to browse and if you have a blog associated with the site to keep the content relevant to your site and the work you are doing and trying to get more of. She adds that if you are also shooting weddings and portraits you might have trouble attracting commercial work so be sure to decide on what types of jobs you are looking to get and separate them if you are doing a little of both.

For those of you just starting out, slowly building a portrait business (or those who have booming businesses already), you still can follow these same guidelines. They translate just as well as you build your portfolio and website for clients that want to hire portrait or event photographers.

Above all else Ally emphasizes that photographers need to shoot what they love. That’s good enough for me.

LiveBooks is offering the Shutter Sisters' community 10% off their services. Woot! Pop over and see what they've got to offer (pretty great stuff I must admit). For inquiries contact J. Sandifer at LiveBooks and tell them Shutter Sisters sent you!

A special thanks to Ally Godfrey for sharing her wisdom, Stacey Allaire for making the interview possible and the fine folks of LiveBooks.

sunday school: backup plan

I recently had a bit of a mishap in which I almost lost all my files from a wedding I had just shot.  I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that (after I recovered from nearly fainting) I finally began thinking seriously about developing a backup plan for my files.  Yeah, you'd think I'd have one of those after the tens of thousands of photos I've taken over the years.

I realize that this is not a sexy or inspirational topic, but it's one we must talk about, Sisters, to save you from potential future heartache.  Please: LEARN from my mistakes.  You just NEVER know when you'll need that backup plan.

Here are a few options when it comes to backing up your data:

• Once a week, burn a DVD or CDs of all the new files for that week.  Make sure you label the disc after you've burned it.  If you take more than 5 GBs of photos every week (not hard to do with the mega-megapixel cameras these days), this may be a bit time-consuming.  Plus, discs can get scratched and damaged over time.  Kind of defeats the whole backup purpose.

• Use a remote online backup service such as Mozy or Carbonite.  Both of those companies offer unlimited online backup for $4-$5/month.  Not a bad deal if you have lightning fast upload speeds, which I don't with my DSL service.

• Buy a fairly large external hard drive (pictured in the photo above is the 500GB My Passport Essential).  [And by large, I don't mean the actual physical size; I'm talking about the hard drive capacity.  That 500GB hard drive pictured above really is the size of a passport and could fit in my back pocket with ease.] Do a full backup initially, and then do a weekly backup of changes and new files.  There are a variety of software options to automatatically schedule backups so that you don't have to depend on your own memory.  Many external hard drives come with such a software, but do your research first to make sure it's one that will work for you.

• Buy TWO fairly large external hard drives, and create TWO identical backups.  Hard drives crash--it's a fact of life--and external hard drives get dropped in bath tubs  (oops, did I just admit to that?), so having two backups is not as far fetched an idea as you may think.  This especially applies if you are using an external hard drive to free up space on your main internal hard drive.

• Do a combination of any of the above if you REALLY want to be on the safe side.

Also, for those of you using Lightroom, when you get that message every once in awhile asking if you want to backup your catalog?  Don't ignore it.  And make sure that you're backing up that catalog to a drive other than your internal hard drive, just in case it crashes. 

I know that performing a backup of your files seems so boring compared to actually shooting photos and playing around with them in Lightroom or Photoshop, but with all the beautiful photos I'm seeing you all shoot, it would be a shame for any one of those to get lost.

And while we're on the subject of taking care of photo type business, we've got 2 lucky (and super-talented) winners to announce today.  Congrats to Sunmamma (be still my heart) and Anah Na Uhr (beauty through tears) for winning both a Diana camera and a copy of Katherine Center's book Everyone is Beautiful.  Our OWP Flickr group for "beautiful" is...welll...BEEEEEEAUTIFUL!  Keep up the gorgeous clicks, Sisters!

Oh, and please feel free to share with us your own backup plans and/or a link to an image you definitely DON'T want to lose.

Weakness

Organization is not my strong suit. I hate the feeling of being unorganized, but that doesn't change the fact that I am. This trait seeps into most areas of my life until I decide I can't take it anymore. Usually by the time I get fed up the work requires such a chunk of time that I feel overwhelmed. Cleaning my closet, organizing the mail and paperwork that is laying on the floor of my office, and straightening the basement storage are things I routinely put off until I feel totally buried. And I think I've hit that point with ALL THESE digital photos. They are pouring out of every corner of my computer and there are stacks of cds in my closet. It's time for me to take control of my files and come up with a system of keeping them organized. I need help. I do keep them on an external hardrive! And I always back up my clients' photos on discs. But beyond that, I'm clueless.

I know there must be some sisters out there that can offer me some advice. And maybe I'm not alone in my ways and you can help someone else too. So what's your system?

Getting Started

I get e-mails occasionally from women who are interested in starting their own children/family photography business. The most common question they ask is “What should I do first?” And while I am certainly no expert I think I can offer a few tips to get started.

1. Become comfortable with your camera. Read the manual and play with the settings until you feel like you understand its capabilities. Believe me, I don’t use half the settings or buttons on my camera but I know they are there if I need them. If nothing else it makes me feel like I know what I’m doing.

2. Practice like crazy. Take pictures every day of anything you find interesting. And if you have kids or animals use them as subjects as much as possible. Flowers and buildings are great subjects too, but they won’t prepare you for photographing a two year old. In fact, nothing will prepare you for photographing a two year old short of actually doing it. Which brings me to the next step.

3. Start building a portfolio of images. After becoming comfortable with your camera and practicing on your family you will be ready to start building a portfolio of images that will showcase your work. When I was ready I contacted some friends and let them know that I was planning on starting a photography business. Then I asked them if I could offer a free photo session of their children and a cd of the best images from our shoot. Now here’s some advice that I learned the hard way. Really pick and choose people who will value the gift that you are giving them. Even though you may feel that they are doing you a favor by allowing you to photograph their children, you are giving away your time and talent. I had a couple of unfortunate experiences with people who had gotten my name from a friend of a friend and they were only interested in getting something for free. They had been perfectly happy with Sears portraits for years and didn’t realize that wasn’t my style. If you do find yourself giving a free session to someone you don’t know, let them know ahead of time what your photography style is - that way there won’t be any surprises. Some photographers will disagree with me about the “free” part of portfolio building. They’ll say that you should still charge for the session and cd but just give a discounted rate. That is perfectly fine too, but I went the “free” route because it made me feel less nervous about screwing up. I wanted to be able to experiment and mess up as much as I needed to without worrying that people were wasting their money. The downside to that was dealing with the people who did not value my work because they hadn’t paid for it. One more important step in the portfolio building process is to get a model release signed by each party that states that you have the right to use their images in advertising or on your website. Otherwise you’ll have images that you can’t use in your portfolio. There is no set number of portfolio building sessions but I think I did six or seven free sessions before I felt ready to start fully charging and building my business.

That is how I began the process of starting my business. I hope these little bits of advice help those of you that are thinking about starting a photography business! I know that I’ve just barely touched on a small part of the “how”, but I’d be happy to answer any further questions. Feel free to leave them in the comments!