On this day 6 months ago, I opened up Faces You Love Photography. I finally felt like I had worked on my photography enough to have a consistent and marketable style, and more importantly, that people might actually be willing to pay me to take their pictures. I’d registered my business with the state, filled out the necessary paperwork to collect sales tax, reserved a domain name and talked with a photographer friend that I greatly admire. I was ready to roll!
In the last 6 months I’ve:
Held 33 regular (hour long) sessions
16 mini-sessions
Taken over 10,000 pictures (this, of course, also includes pictures of my own kids)
Spent an obscene number of hours editing (I really don’t want to do the math to figure that number out)
Met 13 families for the very first time (hooray for referrals!)
Know what else has happened in the last 6 months? I’ve seen vast improvements in my photography skills, technique and comfort with clients. I’ve seen improvements in my editing workflow. I’ve also learned some very tough business lessons, but those tough lessons will only help me improve my business structure (yep, some changes are coming).
While I didn’t expect the business to take off in quite the way it did (I expected one session a month, maybe), I am so grateful for it! Now the challenge becomes making time to continually challenge and improve my skills, style and business sense. I feel up for it!
In 2012 I intend to space my sessions a bit more (one of those hard lessons I learned) so that I don’t feel as pulled from my family every single weekend in the summer and fall. There will always be people I can photograph, but my children will only be this little once and I want to enjoy it – especially on weekends when Nick can enjoy it with me!
Anyway, just thought I’d throw that little business type update out there. Yesterday I wrapped up editing my final pre-Christmas session, so now I’ll get a couple of weeks “off” before one more 2011 session. I look forward to getting back into blogging more regularly, taking pictures of my own children more regularly and going to bed at normal hours more regularly!
If you ever want to see what I’m up to with sessions, you can always check the Faces You Love Photography blog. You really must see the sessions I posted from this past weekend – cutest 1 year olds!
Get ready for a slew of Christmasy posts here – our cards went out earlier this week, which means I’ll be posting our digital card and Nick’s hilarious Christmas letter soon! In about 20 minutes Lily and I are going to watch the boys’ pre-school Christmas performance, so there will be videos to post, and the boys came home with their annual photo-based gift they “made” for us in school, so I need to show you a picture of that!
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Haha, all of them trapped in the pit with the tree is great 🙂 Someday when I have kids – I’m going to be all over that!
your pics from your photo blog are superb! you do beautiful work! enjoy your Christmas season