I have entered year 4 of this business and I am finding more about what it is that I want to give rather than what I want to receive. The number one thing that I want to give, is to give clients what they want. Through that, I have learned that I am not the right fit for every client, and through that, I have become very much okay with not being the right fit. I want EVERY SINGLE PERSON that chooses to invest in a photo session to get exactly what they want from it. I am just thrilled that they see the importance of preserving memories through photographs enough to invest in a photographer, even if I’m not the photographer that they choose. There have been many times where I was the chosen photographer and I was clearly not the right fit at all. Both parties, client and myself just didn’t see it coming, I guess. I have learned that my communication as to what I offer and how I work needs to be more clear. I am working on that and with the help of this blog post and blog posts in my near future, I hope to become very clear about what I do.

I am so thankful for all of my clients old and new and even my future clients for helping me build this little business. It has been a learning experience as I go along and I have grown so much. Lots of growing pains and plenty of room for more growth and learning. I look forward to it. In this process of growing, I have finally found what I have been searching for in regards to my brand.

I think most of you know that I strive to take real life pictures like this:

And I get a lot of people who want more staged photos like this:

And YES, those are MY kids with my nieces! I took this picture because frankly, OLD PEOPLE LOVE IT! It’s a fantastic gift for grandparents. This image above took HOURS to produce. Ok, I may be exaggerating, but I am not a patient person in post production and this shot required 4 head swaps! I am not a comedian (although I often think that I am pretty hilarious) and most of the time I am lucky if one kid comes close to looking into the camera with a giggle. I achieved this image by becoming a magician and photoshopping the heck out of it. Was it the best time of my life? Not at all! I love what I do, I love photoshop, I love new challenges, but head swapping in photoshop is exactly the opposite of what I believe in: REAL LIFE. Also, I have 3 kids that got robbed of this time that I spent making a “picture perfect”. Plus, all sorts of other things got neglected like cleaning, cooking, editing, client correspondence. This image caused neglect in my life. HAHA! I am being “funny” but you get the idea. Not only do I strive for real life, I strive for imperfection because it’s what inspires me most.

I would prefer a forced image to look like this:

The awkwardness wins for me. How photogenic are my kids, btw??? HAHA! It’s an old photo, but one that I LOVE!

So as I sit here on a tangent about MY preference in photos, I am arriving to a point that I am about to make. A photographer is an artist of sorts and artists thrive on inspiration. I am inspired by real life and imperfection. When a child is not allowed to get dirty at a shoot, a bit of my motivation gets hindered and my spirit just gets sad. I totally get it, though, why they can’t get dirty. You have invested in nice clothes for the photo shoot that you have invested in. It’s hard to see money get spent on something that might get ruined. But, you are preventing real awesome moments to happen by not allowing your child to get dirty. Just saying. Oh, and that’s really not my point entirely. My point is: In the future, I will value the images that were real because it will show me how life was at that time. It’s so easy to forget who these little people were after they become big and start getting their grown up teeth and/or their sassy attitudes.

I mean really! How could Eloise go from this sweet cuddly shark (snapshot alert):

To DUCK FACE????

Okay, that duck face image is funny but she has been banned from making that face for pictures ever again.

The thing that I have been striving for in regards to my brand is simple. Taking story telling REAL LIFE images during a shoot and then putting the edited images into something tangible. A book. A small book that can sit on your coffee table or sit in your bookshelf for you to take down and look through and relive the moments. A book for you to put into the hands of a loved one who can enjoy looking through a book versus your online gallery. You want to hear the sad story of how I got to this realization? I am a victim of digital image hoarding. I realized one day that I was on facebook looking through baby pictures of my kids! FACEBOOK!!! I have not one album. It’s true. Just last year I made time for an album of my 2012 instagram pictures. My very first family album and it’s instagram. At least it’s something, but still. Just a year and a half ago I put up our very first framed picture. It’s not a nice framed picture, it’s one of those Aaron Bros collage frames.  That is all I have on my walls at this very second. But, the good news is, while I currently haven’t found a way to make time to put together my family albums from 2006 to present, I have finally bought photos for my walls and as soon as I get them up there, I will be sure to share before and after images. Now, I am not assuming that your issues are the same as mine. But, I can’t help but feel a sense of guilt when you choose to purchase digital images through me. I worry that those memories will get lost on your hard drives. Not just that, but, did you know that some computers are being made without CD/DVD trays? DVDs are becoming obsolete. I only sell the DVD because of that need to provide you with a tangible item, but in reality, I could save money and just give you an online gallery where you can download your images in minutes. I don’t want to do that. It doesn’t feel right. So, being that it’s 2014, and I have procrastinated thus far in announcing my changes to you, please take a minute to view my new packages and pricing.

Now I have confused you. Why am I giving you digital negatives? Well, they are low resolution and it’s because I don’t want to sell you 4×6 prints anymore. I want you to have those digitals to print on your own, put on your holiday cards, and mail to family. I want to encourage you to buy the big prints for your walls. I don’t want you to buy the big prints through Costco or Wallgreens or Shutterfly because they are not archival quality and they look TERRIBLE! They really do. As soon as I “FIND TIME” I will be sure to make prints at each lab and show you a comparison so that you can see the difference. Why big prints? Well, why invest in the photo shoot and then have nothing to show for it? I can’t even begin to tell you how many clients have walked away from their shoots with nothing because they didn’t use their print credits. That is another reason why my prices went up. To allow me to provide products with the packages that I offer. I can’t handle the guilt of getting paid for something that, yes I worked for, but where the client walks away with nothing. No thank you, I need to give you SOMETHING! 🙂

Now this post is getting long and I will need to touch on some other things at a later time. But I hope that you now understand where I am coming from and why. Also, I APPRECIATE my clients and referrals so much! THANK YOU! If you were a client of mine and are reading this, please expect an exciting email from me soon ;).

WISHING YOU Peace, Health, and Happiness for 2014!

❤ Angie