DON'T LOSE YOUR FOCUS

For those of you who may not know, I have a photography business capturing families, couples, seniors and your occasional wedding. I never dreamed to have a business of my own and never one in photography. It all happened on accident. I've always loved taking pictures and one day I asked my uncle if I could borrow his old Fugifilm. From there, I explored with it and took pictures of my family.

Dec of 2011 my parents got me my first "real camera" as a college graduation gift and my family then began to pay me to take their pictures! Whaaat?! From there they encouraged me to pursue photography. Sooo, in 2012 I did what everyone else does when they start up a business and created a facebook page and a website to share my work and photography journey.

>>> Fast forward 5 years later: My journey with photography has certainly grown into a true business (contracts, taxes and all). I have clients and new friends; I have seen properties I didn't know existed and look at old buildings, doors and country fields with a different eye now. Oh, and I made a little income along the way too! I'm so grateful my family, friends and clients trusted me to capture their moments, to step inside what their life looks like and to give them memories to last a lifetime. It really is an incredible feeling. However, after the reality hit of, "I have a photo business" I set the expectation that I did not want to pursue photography full-time. My actions on the other hand did not follow my own expectation.

Currently, I have lost focus.

Full-time, I am an Intervention Specialist and work as a high school transition teacher for our County Board of DD. I teach those with special needs aging from18-22 years old. We work on life skills, employability skills, recreation/leisure activities and personal life choices. With teaching full-time and photography full-time, I'm feeling overwhelmed! I spend hours responding to clients, traveling to and from sessions, capturing them, culling and editing pictures until the weee hours of the night, setting up photo galleries, sending galleries, placing off gallery orders, sending off yearbook photos, setting up USBs and mailing them out.... must I go on? I LOVE this work, don't get me wrong, but I make less than minimum wage and work my booty off!

With all of the work, like I said, I lost focus. I lost focus on my marriage, personal life, me-time, everything. My focus was solely on getting the images edited and out to my clients. I felt like a robot. When one of my good friends asked me to take newborn photos for her and I had to turn her away, that is when I hit a wall. That is when I said I'm shutting it down and rebooting, I need a break to refocus!

Future Goals:

When I say future, I don't have a set date, but for now I'm going to finish out my contracted sessions and refocus falling in love with my old hobby again. I want to start photo projects for me and focus my business specifically to my family and close friends again; just like when I first started out. I'm no longer going to be in the fast lane for photo bookings, but I am more than willing to pass you onto photographers I admire and look up to.

Thanks for reading! Perhaps you are in the same boat, feeling the same way about your business? How do you juggle life, the biz, and everything else?

#photography #focus #business #goals