Back to Work Mondays | Balancing Life and My Photography Business

Having a photography business, much of your time is spent not on taking pictures but marketing, developing your business, advertising through blogs and social media, bookkeeping, learning new techniques, editing, placing client orders and networking.  It can be easy to lose sight of what is going on around you and right in front of you with so much to do on the business end.  Being a stay at home mom and having a home based business are two different things.  If you are devoting 110 percent to something, chances are you are lacking in other areas of your life.  I found myself in my first year of business editing hours on end after the kids went to bed.  Working on pricing, oh the pricing, marketing; at the end of the day there was not enough time or energy to do anything for myself that wasn't business related.  Everything was about building my brand, finding my style and getting my work out.  I began to feel my home life suffer and I knew if it kept up my marriage would suffer.

Having a photography business or any business means finding a balance that works well for you and your family.  While it is ok and certainly good for business to pour a lot of energy into getting off the ground, you have to prioritize your time and manage all of your responsibilities.  For me, I am a stay at home mom first.  I have three kids and a husband who get my first attention.  When I started my business I made my business plan for 1, 3, 5 and 10 years with the idea in mind that right now my children are young but in a few years they will be in school full-time and my time and availability will shift as our life changes.  I used much of my first year trying different kinds of photography to see what I liked to do and what I didn't care for as much.  While a good photographer can tackle most lighting and client situations, if your heart isn't into a certain type, the end product will show and that is something to try and avoid taking on.  There is also the factor of education, some types of photography require more skill and knowledge than others so I used that first year to soak up as much information as I could, reading and researching equipment, posing, editing and lighting.  I also took photoshop classes that year.  While I had learned how to shoot with film and had more than ten years experience, I was new to photoshop and needed to acquire the editing skills needed to achieve the looks I was going for in my images with digital photography.

I have set my business goals for 2013.  I have set a personal goal to edit sessions in 90 min or less.  This can be a bit ambitious depending on the number of end files and type but I am honing in on taking my images as close to sooc (straight off of camera) as I can get them.  There are some things a perfect exposure still can't fix but I am making it a personal goal of mine to not kill hours and hours editing away.  I am pushing boundaries with my lenses and getting more out of them than I have been.  This will be accomplished by experimenting with them and doing weekly challenges with other photographers beyond just portraits.  This year I will have more fun with my photography and take more exciting photos and family images.  This year I would like to share my gift with others, the first way to do this is by helping to raise money for Save-a-Limb and participating in the Olivia project.  One way I would like to share my work and talent with others is to feature a local business or tourist attraction every Tuesday and call it tourist Tuesday.  If you have a business that you would like to be featured, please contact me via email with your request and business information.

Are you a photographer reading this post?  Feel free to share your business goals for 2013.

Back to Work Mondays is a series of business related blogs for the professional and want to become professional.  These are all opinion based blog posts where I share my personal thoughts and experience being a professional photographer in today's market.