Light the fire
Admit it:
Your problem isn't that you're spending too much time doing the second best thing (or the third, or fourth, or fifth...) - your problem is that you're not doing anything at all because you're a perfectionist and scared to paralysis of doing the wrong thing.
Which deep in your ego, is anything that isn't the best thing.
And let's divorce 'reading' from 'doing' - let's say here that 'doing' is what you're supposed to be in the act of after you're done 'reading' something.
Blog posts. Tutorials. Books. Magazines. Forums. Facebook groups. Twitter.
Every one of them invaluable sources of wisdom, perspective, and ideas.
But reading them doesn't get anything done.
For an author who blogs, my posts are outrageously long compared to what most gurus say is 'best practice.'
But even the average reader can knock out one of my 3,000-word doozies in 15 minutes or less.
Fifteen minutes.
That's it.
The average non-fiction book is 70,000 words: that's just under six hours of nose-on-page time - say, 35 minutes per chapter.
Thirty-five minutes.
That's it.
Here's my question for you:
What are you going to do with the rest of your day?
Almost every blog post you read, here or elsewhere, intends to spur you to action - a new idea to try, a new perspective to see with, an exercise, a 'try this,' a straight up Next Step.
Almost every book you read has a purpose to each chapter, something you're intended to gain from and grow from and change from. Many even have specific "what to do now" steps at the end of each chapter.
If we put your reading time on one side of a scale, and the time you've invested in tangible, progress-driving action based on what you've read...which way would the scales tip?
What if we were to tip the scales the other way for the next week? Three months? A year? What would your days and your life look like?
Better yet: what if we reset the scales for an appropriate balance. Somewhere around, "for every thing you learn, take swift and violent action."
Do read.
Reading instills within you the fuel you need to light the fire - the inspiration, the motivation, the clarity, the understanding, the new knowledge, the new math.
But Step 2 is: light the fire.
I'd bet you have years of fuel stored up.
If you would just put boots on the ground, your camera in your hand, and your business card in the hands of others - you will light up your art and business like a fireball.
Now let me ask you again:
What are you going to do with the rest of your day?
Next Steps
- Brainstorm Session: get out your pen and paper. You are the world's leading expert on you; as an artist, as a marketer, as a business. Nobody knows you like you. Let's pretend for a minute that you know what you're doing, that you are well-studied, and you're brave enough to take imperfect action on a daily basis. #1: What can you put on your schedule and do to take action on improving your art? #2: What can you schedule to improve your marketing? #3: What can you schedule to improve your business? Make a long list of each, every baby step of tangible action you can think of. Keep this handy for the next Next Step, and then file it away in your Brainstorms folder.
- #1: Schedule something from list 1. #2: Schedule something from list 2. #3: Schedule something from list 3. Get these on your calendar and commit to them, no matter how small or how scary the steps are.
- Just do it, even if it's the wrong damn thing, as my father would say. You won't believe the gains you'll make and momentum you'll build by taking imperfect action at every opportunity. Congratulations: you are now a man or woman of action.
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
Letting go of expectations
If you're unhappy with your business, you have a problem my dad has a solution to:
"Don't let your alligator mouth overload your butterfly butt." - Mickey Taylor
Now, this quote is more applicable to my bravado as a teenager, but it also speaks to the expectations we create for our businesses - most destructively about things over which we have no control.
Can you learn, practice, and improve your art? Absolutely.
Can you Show Up, F8 and Be There, and make your ideal clients say they see you everywhere? Doubtless.
But can you make them call? Can you make them buy?
No.
No, you can't.
Whether you're a day or a year or 10 years post-launch, you can't make potential clients pick up the phone.
This can be hard to accept.
You're wildly excited about engaging and serving your clients, but they don't feel the same way...yet.
All you have control over is your art, the experience you create for your clients, the policies of your business, and the methods you employ to get your message in front of your target market.
Every part of the process of growing your business can be refined.
It's inevitable: the more you refine your business, the more your phone and cash register (so to speak) are going to ring.
You're always striving to evolve:
The more salable and exciting your art;
The more surprising and remark-able your client experience;
The more friendly and welcoming your policies;
The more engaging and motivating your marketing...
...the more impossible you make it for potential clients to say no.
Where you'll trip yourself up is when you get so caught up looking at your vision of success that you lose focus on the next step along the road to that dream.
Your Next Step is never "[ ] Get first client."
Your Next Step is always learning and practicing within some arena of your business.
- Learning and practicing a new senior portrait scene within your favorite outdoor location.
- Learning and practicing a new moment of 'rehearsed spontaneity' to incorporate into your booking follow-up process.
- Learning and practicing a new, more simple way of explaining how your retainer works.
- Learning and practicing a new technique for generating leads through Instagram.
This is a hugely important distinction that will shift your focus off of results you can't control and onto processes that you can control - the processes which generate results.
I hear from so many fellow PTPs who are distraught and disenchanted days, weeks, months after they've hung their shingle because they haven't yet scored that first client.
You can't control that. You can't tie your expectations to the results you can't control.
Now, this is anything but an excuse to sit back and wait for your phone to ring.
The opposite, in fact.
You need to get off the computer, get social, and do the work that leads to a ringing phone, or a Facebook notification, or a "You've got mail!"
Get better.
Take action.
Learn and practice with purpose (and not just your art).
Don't allow distraction to take root; schedule and commit to working on your part time photography business.
Don't let results (or a lack thereof) slow you or stop you from taking action, because those actions are what create the results you're striving for.
Manage your expectations.
Expect yourself to Do The Work that will lead to the artistic and business success you dream of.
Next Steps
- If you have a list of written, SMART goals, translate those goals into actions - into steps, processes, habits - that will enable those goals. If your goal is to get booked solid, what Work are you going to Do in order to get booked solid?
- If you don't have a list of SMART goals for your art and your business, make one now! Goals were made to be broken, so be bold and specific, but reasonable. Unless you manufacture an incredible launch, you won't be booked solid with paid clients from Day One. But can you keep yourself booked solid with paid and free (practice, referral, donated, testimonial-growing and portfolio-building) shoots every week of your first year? Can you get your average per-client sale up to $100? $150? $200? Can you commit to four hours a week dedicated to the processes which will enable your success? How about an hour a day (hint: go to bed and get up an hour earlier)? Can you find a dozen scenes to shoot at your favorite local location? Can you meet one potential new co-op partner each week for coffee? As always, break your goals down into action steps, processes, and habits that will enable real progress.
- Brainstorm session: How does your PTP time investment break down right now? Do you know? If you don't, track how you're using your PTP time daily for a month and see. What many PTPs realize is that they are spending way more time than they realize Consuming information (reading blogs, books, magazines, forum posts), and way less time Taking Action on the knowledge they've gained. Seek a balance between working on your art, your business, your customer experience, and your marketing - we all go into the business of art thinking success is 90% art and 10% everything else, then come to learn that the art of business is more 25% art and 75% everything else - no single category is any more or less influential on your success than the other. Not to say there aren't exceptions, and depending upon skill set, market, and natural inclination, those percentages can cheat into one bucket more than another; but that's more likely to be true for a photographer three, five, ten years into their business when they're allowed the flexibility to specialize in their strengths and outsource their weaknesses. Early in the game, even though you think you know, you don't truly know where in your business you'll make your greatest impact. All arenas will need attention to accelerate your journey down the road to success. [The most unhappy, frustrated PTPs I meet are the ones focused so deeply into their art that they invest almost nothing into the rest of their business.]
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
Do you even lift (your camera), bro?
Know how to grow your muscles?
Feed them. Use them.
Know how to grow your art?
Feed it. Use it.
If you're not doing practice shoots, if you're not doing paid shoots, if you're not going click once a day...
What are you doing?
When's the last time you took a photo of another human being?
Well, partner, that's too long.
I dare you:
Grab the nearest person you can find and make their portrait in the next 11 minutes.
Process and post to Twitter with the hashtag #flashphoto.
If you don't tweet tweet, e-mail your shot to me.
I'll take a look at it and let you know how awesome you are.
Double dog dare you.
Next Steps
- After you've posted or e-mailed me your own #flashphoto, tag or challenge a few fellow amateur or professional photographers you know by sending them to this post. Tell them to pay the challenge forward. Heaven forbid we get off Pinterest long enough to act like photographers for 11 minutes.
- Brainstorm Session: get out your pen and paper. Just a reminder: we do this because we love creating art through photographs. Brainstorm a list of people you know within an hour's drive with whom you'd have fun making portraits - even that cool barista whose name you don't even know. Unless you're booked solid (and maybe even if you are), start One Shotting your way through your list. Keep it up; lest we forget this is hella fun.
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
How to overcome limiting beliefs about sales and marketing
"God didn’t equip us with unique talents, insights, drives, and ambitions for us to be ashamed of them. He meant us to use those to serve others in the marketplace. And people are waiting for what you have to offer." - Michael Hyatt
Many artists just starting their photography business have the Betamax dilemma: a superior product saddled with inferior marketing.
Don't worry - you're not alone.
I totally understand the distaste you have for the business side of art; I think it's shared by every artist who has suffered the trip outside their comfort zone to ask for business, or ask for the sale.
Good news, mates:
Marketing is a blessing to your community.
And sales is a blessing to your clientele.
There are limiting beliefs artists get saddled with from a lifetime of cultural experience:
- Marketing is a bunch of horsesh*t; tactics used to trick people into spending money they don't have on things they neither need nor really want.
- Sales is where you grab your innocent client by the ankles and shake until their lunch money (and mortgage payment) falls out of their pockets.
- To have to employ these 'tricks' - SEO, copywriting, graphic design, mass marketing, advertising, e-mail lists, elevator pitches, promotions - is unseemly, like begging for money.
- If you have to do more than make beautiful photos to get people to buy from you, you must be a mediocre photographer - an imposter.
- This isn't worth it.
Early in my photography career, I struggled with every one of these limiting beliefs.
But I learned through experience and wise counsel that I saw these aspects of business through a tainted lens - my understanding was biased, and immature.
It's the difference between seeing the stars as little lights in the sky, then later understanding them as billions of suns within billions of galaxies hosting sextillions of planets.
What we think we see isn't always what is.
Forget everything you know and feel about business and marketing, and let's play what if:
What if you create really beautiful art that your subjects love to be a part of - art they will enjoy and cherish for generations?
What if there are people out there - 'your people' - who are a perfect fit for you as a professional photographer: they would love your art, love your personality, and be thankful to give you their money in exchange for your time and talent?
What if 'marketing' is just the methods you employ to connect the dots between the value you create and the people who would feel truly blessed to invest in your work?
What if 'sales' is just the natural result of doing the honest work of making those connections? Of blessing your clients with your art, and them blessing you with their investment?
What if those sales, those financial resources, enabled you to multiply the ways you're able to bless your community? (enabling workshops to refine your art, marketing to grow your reach, training and coaching to develop your business acumen, financial security to focus on your passion, unforgettable life experiences for your kids, resources to benefit your family, church, or beloved non-profits...)
...what if these what-ifs are true?
That if you're willing to grow beyond your limiting beliefs, and reach outside your comfort zone, you can build a business as a professional photographer that changes your life and the lives of people you care about?
It's no hyperbole - I have been blessed to live it and see it come to fruition, as have thousands of others who have been brave enough to Do The Work.
What do you say? Think we can get your heart where it needs to be, so you can enjoy success - however you define it - as a working artist?
We are passionate, inspired working artists - the onus on us is to create value (art and experience) and communicate value (marketing) that is so clear and authentic that our ideal clients have no question as to why they should do business with us (commanding value).
Those artists who tenaciously persist up the mountain of success, with a passion for blessing their clients and being blessed by them, will enjoy both the journey and the destination.
Next Steps
- We all have limiting beliefs - it's okay that you do, too. Open up your heart - look inside with open eyes, and grace - and make a list of all the beliefs you're holding onto that are holding you back in your journey to become a professional photographer. Just recognizing these beliefs and forcing them into the light will show you how these negative thoughts and preconceived notions are not serving your dreams. Let them go.
- Brainstorm session: get out your pen and paper. Play the What If game with yourself. Let the weight off your chest, and ask: What if... Your art is already good enough, and there are people out there who will love working with you? Write out how you would think, and take action, differently. What if... Your clients will love you and your personality, just the way you are; you are more than good enough, and worthy? Write out how you would think, and take action, differently. What if... You were guaranteed to earn $5,000 in income with your photography in the next 12 months, if you would just launch today and do your best along the way? Write out how you would think, and take action, differently. File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I am truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
The After Action Report (how to get better faster)
The power of journaling is earning its rightful place up there with vegetables and meditation in the pantheon of things that are scientifically and undeniably good for you.
Addicts and alcoholics in AA often put journaling one notch below God Himself on the list of influences that have changed their lives.
The reflection and clarity that comes with journaling is every bit as valuable in art and business as in bettering your personal life.
As a professional photographer, the two primary ways you create value are through the art and the experience you craft for your clients.
They say to become a better writer, write more.
So in photography: to become a better photographer, photograph more.
But just as I promote for reading, absorbing, and taking action on books, you can multiply your earned wisdom from every photo shoot by sitting down and breaking down the shoot in an After Action Report.
The term After Action Report comes from gaming culture, mostly wargamers, who will play out a battle or scenario and then write an After Action Report detailing what went right and wrong, and what they'd do differently next time.
As soon as you possibly can after a photo shoot, even as soon as you shake hands and send your client on their way, sit down with a pen and paper (or your preferred digital equivalent) and write out all your thoughts and emotions about the shoot. Do it while the experience is fresh in your mind and heart.
Write out what went great, what went as expected, what went bad, what went unexpectedly, what made the shoot unique or interesting or different. Really evaluate and identify everything of even minor significance, blow by blow. Be fair and honest: don't just beat yourself up over the things you feel you did wrong or poorly. Recognize your best and worst choices during the shoot - work through both your emotional thoughts and your logical thoughts about the shoot.
Brainstorm from these thoughts: What are your biggest strengths right now as a professional photographer? What are your biggest weaknesses? What can you do to take your strengths even further? What can you practice to shore up your weaknesses, and more importantly, what can you practice to multiply on your strengths? Be specific. If it's not an action you can schedule on your calendar to do, it's not specific enough. Focus on baby steps.
Another list: What do you most wish you'd have done differently? What steps do you need to take to choose better next time? Remember, these can be issues of art, of lighting and posing and background and scene, of personality, of conversation, of social interaction, of body language, of encouragement, of comfort, of eliminating stress or worry, of humor, of fun, of preparation.
Another list: What's one thing you can do differently on your next shoot to make it more fun for you? What's one thing you can do differently next time to make the shoot more fun for your client? What's The One Thing?
Another list: Flip through the images on your camera. What did you do right? What did you do wrong? These are more technical issues: did you miss a big, blue trashcan in the background of your best shots? Was the posing flattering? Are the expressions fun or evocative, authentic? Did you blow the focus over and over again (that's my most common whoopsie)? Did you really draw out some great expressions, big smiles, laughter? How'd you do that?
Another list: Based on everything you've learned, the wisdom you've gained from doing this photo shoot and really mined for some best (better) practices, make a single-page list of Do's and Don'ts for your next photo shoot. This will be the basis for a permanent, ever-evolving list that you'll update with every single photo shoot. This is your growth list - the things you're going to do better or differently every time you pick up your camera. Take this list with you to your next shoot; read it every day, then read it before and multiple times during your shoot. Stay engaged with your own growth.
Slow down and take the time to make your growth assured instead of incidental. When you do your AAR for this shoot, go over your Do's and Don'ts list and see how you did. Keep adding new Do's and Don'ts, moving those items you've mastered lower on the list until they drop clean off the page. If your list of active, working items is too long to fit a single page, use a smaller font!
This AAR and the resulting Do's and Don'ts list are two tools that you will use to turn your practice into consistent performance that you're proud of. These tools ensure you are always growing at maximum efficiency, turning experience into wisdom far faster.
These exercises will help you create and command more value with your photography.
Next Steps
- Write an AAR right now for your last photo shoot. It won't be as good as fresh, but it's better than what you've got! Take a quick glimpse through the photos to remind yourself of the shoot, but try to focus more so or as much on the experience as on the resultant art. Give the shoot its due on paper, and produce your Do's and Don'ts list for next time.
- When's your next photo shoot that you can put this list to work? If it's not within seven days, get on the horn and get booked. If it's at all possible, stay booked solid so that instead of doing 12 AARs a year you're doing 52 or more. Imagine your rate of growth if you multiply both your number of shoots and the wisdom you earn from each.
- Brainstorm session: Brainstorm 100 things you can do better on your next shoot than you did on your last. Of these, what are the 10 that are going to make the biggest difference in the value you create for your clients? Of these, what's The One Thing you are going to study, learn, practice and completely ace on your next photo shoot? (Again, imagine where you'll be by adding 52 amazing improvements to your photo shoots this year!)
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
The Selfish Part Time Photographer
"No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light."
- Luke 11:33, King James Bible
That little light of yours?
You oughta let it shine.
I hear you - you're worried that there's a perfect "right time" to take the leap and hang your shingle officially as a professional photographer, but you have no idea when that time is, or even how you'll know when that right time comes.
The problem of course is that there's no way to know when that time is. We are absolutely the worst people to judge for ourselves when we are "ready" to go pro.
And if I had to bet, the "right time" lies in your past, not your future.
You're already there.
Truth: Way more often than not, when a PTP reader asks me to review their work, I'm blown away by the talent on display. Photo after photo of great lighting, subtle and tasteful processing, clean backgrounds, personality, expression, warmth, uniqueness, real value, a real blessing for the subject and their family.
You are way more talented and artistic and capable than you give yourself credit for.
That you're reading these words shows you are deeply invested of your time and heart toward the goal of becoming a successful part time professional photographer.
But - here's the gut check - at some point you risk crossing the line from sponge to vacuum... From enthusiastic student to selfish daydreamer.
Don't feel bad though:
With every nugget of wisdom you gain, through study, through your mentors, through practice, you grow your value as a photographer and business owner. Your art gets better, your marketing gets better, you refine your business acumen.
But like fruit grown in a garden, if you don't translate your growing value into contribution, production, or creation, you're letting the fruit die on the vine.
And just like a college sophomore can easily earn pay as a tutor to freshmen, it doesn't take much to be the 'expert' in your market - to be Jane Doe, professional photographer, able and willing to produce better art for her clients than they can produce for themselves.
Give yourself grace: you don't have to be the best photographer in the world - your goal is to become the best photographer in your client's world.
However, growing in value becomes an exercise in vanity when you don't put that value to service in your market.
What worth does your art and knowledge have if you never use it to bless your clients?
At every level of talent as a photographer, there are matching, eager subjects waiting to be blessed by the art and experience created for them by an enthusiastic artist - and who are willing to pay for the privilege.
Your people are out there, waiting for you.
But you can't create value for your people if you don't make the art.
You can't communicate value to your people if you don't show them what you're capable of.
You can't command value with your people if you don't give them the opportunity to invest in you.
Don't think I'm preaching from an ivory tower - I'm as guilty as anyone of letting fear, self doubt, comfort zones and unchecked distraction hold me back from making my best and most valuable contribution to my community, my readers, my people.
I'm not trying to force your hand, to shove you off the cliff and guilt you into launching your business today.
Just think about it, okay?
One of the most powerful questions ever posed to be by a mentor was:
What would you do if you couldn't fail?
...
Let that question steep in your mind and in your heart for a minute. Read it again. Feel the weight of responsibility and fear slip off your chest, and really let the question sink in:
What would you do if you couldn't fail?
...
When I let the question get inside me, it brought me to tears.
It made me strip away all the worry, all the stories of self-defeat and the limiting beliefs I'd allowed to insulate my heart and my courage and my spirit from the truth.
The truth being that I had long grown beyond the threshold of due diligence and appropriate reserve.
I had buried myself - my creativity, my potential - in a mire of inaction and vain self-indulgence... In countless hours of growing my value without giving anything back to the world.
Friends, I can't count the ways I have been blessed in my lifetime.
Every day I strive to slow down, to be conscious, to be grateful, and to remember that for all the blessings I've been given, I have the gift of a responsibility to multiply those blessings through sharing what I know and what I'm capable of.
Just think about it.
The time to take those Next Steps to get your art and business out there in the market, to share the blessings of your knowledge and creativity - wherever you are in your journey up the mountain of success - may well be nigh.
Taking the leap to go pro doesn't mean an end to your learning and growth - quite the opposite, working with paying clientele will act as a multiplier as you put all you've learned about art and marketing and business to work in the world.
You will continue to study, practice, and learn.
But no longer will it be in a vacuum.
No longer will it be in the realm of theory and daydreams, but in the real world of trial and error, experiments and feedback, progress and results, clients and paychecks.
It's time to get real.
Are you ready to launch? Comment below or e-mail me and let me know - I want to hear your stories and celebrate your victories!
Feel like you're not ready to launch yet? E-mail me right now and let me know what's holding you back - we'll work together to get you where you need to be, in your business and in your heart, so that you feel empowered to launch and bring the blessings of your art to your community.
Next Steps,
- Just writing these words, I'm excited for what you're on the verge of doing - for the art and experiences you're soon to bless your clients with, and the financial, social, and creative blessings you'll enjoy in return. If there's anything, anything at all holding you back, tempering your excitement and breakthrough moment, please don't hesitate: e-mail me at james@banderaoutlaw.com right now and let me know what's stopping you. I don't care how simple or small or embarrassing or stupid it may seem, share what's on your heart, and I'll do everything I can to help.
- I love Tim Ferriss' perspective on scary-but-awesome new projects: he said recently on Derek Halpern's Social Triggers podcast that there is no failure, only experiments and feedback. If you were going to let your ego step aside for a minute and launch your business as a three-month experiment, to test your art and your marketing and your market, what would that experiment look like? What would you be trying and testing and measuring and getting feedback on? Pull this thread long enough and you'll have an entire business plan in hand. And that's a good thing.
- Brainstorm session: get out your pen and paper. Let's shine a light under the bed: brainstorm a list of everything - every fear, every concern, every worry, every feeling of inadequacy - that makes up this knot of resistance holding you back from launching your business as a professional photographer. Look Resistance in the face, name it, shine the light on it and see it for what it is. You may be surprised at how not scary the boogeyman is. Now, flip the page over: list everything and everyone on your side, everything you've got going for you, all the ways you've studied and practiced and prepared, all the nice things people have said about your art, all the moments of inspiration that have brought you to this moment, this day, this site, and this exercise. Keep writing until you run out of page, and get another if you need it. You can do this. You can do this.
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I'm truly grateful for your readership, and encourage you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!
Why does photography feel so good?
Do you ever secretly realize that photography lets you feel like a kid again?
One of the most important conversations happening in the world today is between small groups of friends and peers who realize that what they're doing isn't what they have to do - and often far from what they were meant to do.
How many people do you know who went to school and now work in a career because it's what they were told they should do?
By their parents, by their school, by their guidance counselor, by a magazine article.
As often, where we are is not by design but by default - our 9-5 job came about through a series of accidents and circumstances.
Even when we got those first tugs from our soul that said, "Hey, I don't think this is what you really want...", through practicality or perceived necessity we stamped out those feelings and went on about the business of life.
It's not your fault.
Our parents grew up in the industrial age, when consistent work was good work, being a company man meant regular raises and financial comfort, and retirement behind a white picket fence was the life goal.
Our education system was built to feed the industrial machine with somewhat well-rounded, rule-abiding, predictable human resources.
Our colleges were fashioned to turn predictable generalists into needed specialists - as in what the markets needed us to be, not what we as individuals needed to become.
There are countless exceptions - but the system is what it is.
And thanks to the explosion of social media, the failings of the system are better recognized than ever before: the conversations that used to be had over backyard fences and in fraternity meetings are now broadcast to a world of listeners, likers, and sharers.
While many who preach against this system make bold recommendations to quit your job now and not suffer another day as a cog in the corporate machine... I won't do that.
That fire is powerful.
The fire of indignance, outrage, umbrage at a life seemingly hoodwinked and wasted in the pursuit of making the rich richer - that fire can burn out of control.
It can consume you - and those you love.
It did me. For years.
Reading books like The 4 Hour Work Week and No More Mondays took the wool off my eyes, let me see clearly that the soulless feeling I had about my day job was warranted, that it wasn't my fault, and that I'd been duped into believing my life wasn't mine to design.
I learned of lifestyle design, of location freedom, of life hacking.
Of dreams and vocations and callings.
And in my immaturity, my rage burned out of control - my outrage and discontent became a fit-throwing tantrum of emotions instead of powerful energy to fuel a better life.
Sure, I'd wasted years in a corporation believing that if I worked hard and did a good job I'd have job security and growing prosperity.
But after the realization of this falsehood, I wasted even more years in a state of anger and discontent as I mouthed off to coworkers and my spouse and raged endlessly inside about the injustice of it all.
I went from blisslessly ignorant to blindly enraged - what I learned, my immature self couldn't handle.
It wasn't until I was introduced to zen practice, to internal control, to 'mind like water,' to meditation, to stoicism, to Walden Pond, to practices of contentedness and satisfaction and gratitude, that I was able to turn the raging fire of my dismay into a powerful engine of purpose.
I learned how to make my day job work for me as hard as I worked for my day job.
And I learned how to make my day job serve and empower my dreams.
All this to say:
That camera in your hands...
The art you create with it...
The feeling of play, of discovery, of creativity, of anticipation, of excitement...
Of showing and telling, of sharing... "Look what I did!"
They are feelings you likely have rarely felt since childhood.
Feelings you may have been so disconnected from for so long as an adult that you don't even remember them.
They are childlike.
And they are wonderful.
In a life where so much feels wrong, feels like it isn't what it could or should be - those playful feelings are an elixir for your soul.
It's why photography feels so good.
And why the dream of doing photography professionally is so powerful.
Wherever you are in your journey up the mountain to success, take pause and take heart: where you are is where you are supposed to be, there is no better day than today to take action and honor your dream, and you will look back on your choice to become a working artist as a turning point in your life when you took back the reigns after so many years, and made the brave decision to live by design and not by default.
Next Steps
- Pick up your camera, and put down your responsibility, expectations, anger, and control. Go make photographs. Have fun again.
- Brainstorm session: get out your pen and paper. Daydream five years down the road with me: if you could design your life, what does your ideal day look like? What does your work life look like? What does your family life look like? What do you wake up happy about, and excited about?
- My writing at PartTimePhoto.com exists to serve your needs as an amateur photographer making the transition to paid professional. I appreciate and welcome your readership, and invite you to subscribe to my e-mail newsletter at the top of any page of this site.
- What's the biggest struggle holding you back right now? E-mail me your answer (yes, right now!), and let's make a breakthrough today.
- If anything in this post has spoken to and inspired you, please comment below, drop me an e-mail, or call or text me at 830-688-1564 and let me know. I'd love to hear how you use these ideas to better your part time photography business!