It shouldn't have to be so hard, right?
Is photography grinding you down?
"Why does this have to be so hard?"
"Ugh I'm SO not excited to work on this..."
"I'm so tired of nothing getting better."
A pastor I'm studying with talks about a concept called convergence:
Where your talents and skills align with your passion. Where what you're good at aligns with what you're interested in; professionally, a convergence that leads to something people will pay you for. (I can't convince anyone to pay me to be mediocre at playing videogames...hmm...)
If your back were out of alignment, you'd feel pain, and do what it takes to get it right.
I want to set you free tonight.
I don't know who this is for, but it may be you.
You don't have to do it this way.
Let that sink in... It doesn't have to be this way. Chasing your dream shouldn't hurt all the time. It shouldn't be a grind.
I want you to let it go.
Let what go?
Let go of whatever you're stuck on. You've wrapped your thoughts, imagination, fears and anger around something... Something you think is absolutely essential.
You've convinced yourself.
I want to free you from the lie that's holding you back.
"BUT JAMES MICHAEL, my photography sucks! I can't get clients! They won't pay! My web site is a mess! I'm a has-been and an imposter! There's nothing I can do!"
I know. You've been telling me for 12 years.
I promise you... It's okay. I just need you to let it go.
Your art is good enough. Your skills are good enough. Your people are out there...you just need to connect with them, and help them. Help them get what they want...what you have to give. You can start simple, start small, start today (or at least this weekend). You can take steps toward where you dream of being.
It's that easy. (And that complicated.)
My encouragement: get clear on how you want this professional photography business to make YOU feel. What needs to happen to make YOU feel that way? What needs to change? What steps can help?
Does that make your path a little clearer?
Whether it does or doesn't, please, e-mail me and let me know where you're at in your journey, and what you're feeling about where you're at today.
I'm here to help.
James Michael Taylor
www.parttimephoto.com
Are you a professional photographer or an information collector?
This one might hurt... If it does, I'm sorry, but it had to be said to me to get me unstuck, and I'm hoping it will help you do the same.
Let's take off our masks for a minute. Get real with me, raw, honest, vulnerable, no ego.
Are you really a professional photographer?
Or an information collector?
You know what I'm talking about...the fact that you're reading this blog right now might itself be a sign that you are more collector than photographer.
Pop quiz:
- Do you spend more time making photographs or reading about / watching videos about making photographs?
- Do you spend more time talking to potential clients or reading about what to say (sales & marketing) to potential clients?
- Do you spend more time talking to strangers about your business or talking to your friends about your business?
Eeeeeeeeeesh... I am 100% convicted by every one of these questions.
Which is why my dear friend Steve Arensberg recently had the "come to Jesus" talk with me... That talk broke my pattern of mental masturbation (should I do this or that? what's the perfect next step? what's the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?) and got me to DO THE WORK and hit PUBLISH on my art, my new book, Freemium Photography.
One of my beta readers, Laci Reynolds, said this was one of the most powerful lines in the whole book:
"Your photography can’t change anything for the better - not your life, not your family, not your friends, not your community, not your market, not the world - if you never do anything with it."
This is why I ask the hard question of you today, my friend:
Are you a professional photographer or an information collector?
If you're the latter today, it's totally okay: the very first step is admitting you have a problem.
The next is to do something about it.
A powerful challenge: stop reading, stop watching videos, stop buying books and workbooks and courses - including mine... And don't consume one more word of 'information' until you are ready to implement and take action.
Read one word, one sentence, one chapter at a time, and then take action on it.
Watch one video at a time, then take action on it.
Read one blog post, or e-mail, then take action on it.
Stop the mental masturbation of consuming information and feeling like you've made progress because of it.
Proof is in the production, right?
What action have you produced, what change have you produced, what client- or market- or even self-facing improvement have you produced as a result of what you've just read or watched?
Sometimes that production is private: "I am making the personal rule right now that I will not consume one more e-mail, blog post, book, or video unless I'm ready to stop and take action on what I learn."
Sometimes that production is public: "I am calling Stacy right now to ask if I can interview her for a testimonial, and then I'm putting that testimonial with her photo on my web site and social media pages."
But there must be fruit for all the time you're spending in the garden.
If there's not yet, or very little to show for your time, that's 100% okay - there is no time like right now to change.
It can be scary. And confusing. And frustrating.
But you can do this.
I've done it. I've drifted and had to come back and make that change from consumption to creation and connection over and over again. To err is human, right?
Grace. Forgiveness. But, then, change.
Don't know how? E-mail me and let me know.
James Michael Taylor
www.parttimephoto.com
P.S. Ready to 'start over' and take action? Pick up a copy of my new book Freemium Photography, and work your way through chapter by chapter, taking notes and action every step of the way.
Help! My photography prints don't look like what I see in Photoshop
Alaina recently asked for help with a technical challenge that has hurt her confidence to go pro:
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When I edit in Photoshop CC, I save my RAW images as JPEG. When I went to print images from a print shop, the color looked terrible... I have been having to convert every photo’s profile from Pro Photo to SRGB before saving it, and every edit I make to the photo after saving it, I have to do the conversion all over again. It’s affecting my confidence moving forward into a business. I've asked many people about this, and found no one who knows what I’m talking about.
---
Ahh, color calibration - one of the more technical and frustrating of challenges we professional photographers face, as we try to get the prints we deliver to our clients to look like what we showed them on the laptop or tablet.
Early in my career, I shot sports photos for the Bandera Bulletin newspaper. The school colors were blue and white, but what looked right on my monitor came out orange and just nasty in print. It took me YEARS to upgrade my monitor and get it calibrated so that what I saw on my screen was close to what came out of my printer.
This can get complicated.
But let’s keep it simple, by working backwards from the end.
There are three ‘filters’ that can affect how your images look on the screen versus in print or on other devices:
- Your Printer’s color profile.
- Your monitor, video card, and computer’s color profiles.
- Your monitor’s calibration.
Do your prints come out looking like the images on your monitor?
Do your images on other devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones) look the same as the images on your monitor?
If the answer is NO to both these questions, it’s a safe bet the problem is either:
- Your monitor isn’t color calibrated, and what you see visually are not the ‘true colors’ you’re working with when editing. What you see is not what you’re going to get; or
- Your color profile settings have been changed to some obscure setup that looks good on your monitor, but not to anyone else who isn’t viewing the images in that same color space.
If your images look good on your monitor and on other devices, but your prints aren’t coming out right, the problem may be that your Printer needs you to export your files into their custom color profile.
To fix that problem:
- Go to your Printer’s web site and seek out their custom color profile. If you can’t find one, ask them for it. If they don’t have one, they’re probably not a very good printer. Tell them the problem you’re having: your images look consistent across digital devices, but the prints are coming out [warm, cool, color-shifted, etc.].
- If they do offer a color profile, download and install it into Photoshop per their instructions. Export some test photos using the new profile, and send them off for test prints. When you get them back, see if this fixed the problem. Consider grabbing a color chart online and having this printed as well - if the chart comes back perfect but your photos don’t, the problem may still lie on your end. If the chart and prints both come back off-color, send this info to your printer and ask for their guidance.
If your images only look right on your monitor and nowhere else - not in print, not on other digital devices - your monitor is probably not showing you true colors.
If your monitor, video card, and/or Photoshop are set to a color space other than good old SRGB, change it back. I know... I know what you read about Adobe RGB and Pro Photo and other fancy color spaces...gamuts and raw data and such. Let it go. If your prints look like dookie, none of that other stuff matters.
Reset everything back to SRGB? Very good. Process some test photos (and a color chart), look at them on other devices, and see if you’re getting consistent results.
[Due to the prevalence of Apple products among consumers, you may as well use someone’s iPhone or iPad as your standard against which to measure your calibration results. If your photos don’t look right on those devices, they won’t look right on most devices used by your potential clients.]
Still look wrong?
Odds are good your monitor isn’t calibrated - it isn’t showing true colors. Monitors can display warm or cool, color shifted, too bright, too dark, highlights too light or dark, shadows too light or dark, compared to ‘true.’]
If this is the case, you’ve got three options:
- Expensive: Buy a new monitor well-reviewed for its trueness of color.
- Less Expensive: Buy a monitor color calibration tool like a Spyder, with the caveat that if your monitor is too old or worn out or cheap to display true colors, no tool can fix that (although it may get you closer to true).
- Cheap: Eyeball it. Manually adjust your monitor settings (color temperature, brightness, contrast) until what you’re seeing on other devices is what you see on your monitor. Edit and export some test images and see if you’re getting closer to true. Repeat until you’re as close as you can get without a calibration tool.
What’s your favorite process to get consistent results across print and digital mediums? Share in the comments below, or drop me an e-mail at james@banderaoutlaw.com.
Of Dungeons and Dragons and Professional Photography
Don’t worry.
Whatever you’re doing right now to make better art and be a better professional, even if it feels like you're spinning your wheels, is forward momentum.
Steve Arensberg and I were talking recently about that hard, frustrating, slow “grind work” when you’re slogging through a motivational dip, and compared it to “killing rats for experience points in Dungeons and Dragons.”
Keep that in mind when you’re clumsily playing with Manual settings, practicing depth of field work, and photographing your kid/friend/cat for the 316th time.
You’re killing rats for experience points.
It all adds up.
What's the biggest challenge holding you back today? E-mail me and let me know.
- James Michael
"I feel guilty making the same photos for different clients..."
PTP reader Aimee writes:
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Hey there - I finally had a light bulb go off (and it's 'easier' to ask here than in one of the thousands of social media platforms where I would be subject to potentially hundreds of different opinions...): I think I overthink changing things up with every single shoot.
I try so hard to find different, unique spots and different poses but maybe that's not even necessary? Sadly to the point where it causes a lot of undue stress. Do I really need two dozen 'go-to' spots and countless different poses to pick from?
---
I know exactly how Aimee feels - I've felt guilty about repeating the same photo with different clients, especially at the same location. Not very creative of me!
But that said...
There's a fence line at the City Park in Bandera, Texas, and I have shot hundreds of the exact same photo on that fence line. Kids, seniors, families, couples.
Not only has no one never complained...I've had many ask me, "I love this photo you made with the Smith family. Can we shoot there, too?"
It's the inside ball thing...
Us photographers cus and spit and holler about a thousand topics that mean absolutely nothing to our clients.
At least when you're early-stage, consistency beats creativity. Far more important that I can consistently reproduce one, three, ten specific shots with any client, than to be 'wildly creative' and fresh with every single client. If I've got an hour with a client, I'll spend 45 minutes getting my must-have shots, then 15 minutes just freestyling and having fun.
Aimee told me this advice was exactly what she needed to hear.
"I only wish I would have saved myself a few extra gray hairs and realized this much sooner in this journey... I feel like I was nearly killing myself with trying to be fresh every - single - time. Those days are officially over!"
What internal stories are holding you back from growing your art and business with peace and grace?
E-mail me today and let me know.
- James Michael
P.S. If you don't already subscribe to my newsletter, drop me an e-mail and let me know you'd like to join. It's been free since I started PTP in 2009, and I respond to every single e-mail. Don't hesitate to reach out and let me help you get unstuck. Your art and business are important, and bring blessings to your family and community. It's my honor to help.
How to get a photography mentor who will change the course of your career
When I launched Outlaw Photography in 1999, the online photography forums were a wild and dangerous place. The digital revolution had just begun, and established photographers were out for blood - the blood of the newbies, the unwashed masses, the "shoot and burners."
I got cussed out, discouraged, run off, and hated on.
There are a lot more photographers out there today willing to help (99% "for a price...").
But still today, most established photographers aren’t going to mentor you.
That’s okay - they’re busy, like most folks, for a thousand reasons. Add on the opportunity for them to a) see you as competition, b) hate your guts (unreasonably) for ruining the industry, and c) probably give you terrible advice that does more to hurt your success than encourage it, and truly - it’s okay if they don’t respond.
[I'll never forget the one PPA-approved photoguru whose entire business model was doing whatever it took to ensure no client left the sales session with money left for groceries. I all but wretched.]
But the one?
That one photographer who, with just a few wise words, could change your life?
They're worth fighting for.
So we’ll play a volume game. If you have to reach out to 250 photographers, 80 respond, 10 respond more than once, to get to one photographer who will really take an interest in your success, and become a key part of it...would you do it?
If so, here’s Ramit Sethi’s advice [not an affiliate link] for that first-touch e-mail to a potential mentor:
“Hey James, I love your article about XYZ.
I noticed you said I should XYZ in that article, and so I tried it. I’m stuck due to XYZ. So I’ve come up with 3 possible routes:
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Which do you think I should do?”
The topic can be your artistic technique, sales funnel, portfolio, whatever is your greatest immediate challenge - a place where you truly, after all your best and creative efforts, are stuck.
Whatever their response, DO IT - there’s nothing mentors hate worse than taking the time to invest in someone who never even attempts the advice.
Then, once you’ve done it, and really exhausted your efforts with it, e-mail a follow-up. Report back with your results. Research what your mentor photographer’s current project is (professional or personal), and make an offer to help them with it based on your unique skillset.
If you make homemade jerky as a hobby and your mentor is trying a slow-carb diet, offer to send a batch of your best. If you know a guy who’s a whiz with responsive web site design and your mentor’s site comes up all snickerdoodled on your iPhone, make the connection. If you’re a stay-at-home mom who has mastered math games for elementary-age kids, and your mentor has kids, show them a few of your favorites.
Is your biggest challenge today artistic or in business?
Have you exhausted every idea you can in solving that problem?
If so, identify as many photographers as you can from anywhere in the world whom you think could solve your problem. E-mail all of them. See who responds, what value you can give, and with whom you build the rapport needed for a real, mutually-beneficial mentorship relationship.
250 e-mails; 80 responses; 10 who go deeper; 1 who changes the course of your photography career for the rest of your life.
That's the challenge.
As in, yes - right now, or in your next time block, start collecting e-mail addresses and sending those e-mails. Reading this post won't change anything until you take action.
What’s the biggest challenge holding you back today? E-mail me at james@banderaoutlaw.com and let me know.
The one thing you have to do to be a professional photographer
Emphatic doesn't mean honest.
And passion doesn't mean truth.
What almost anyone tells you you need to... have to... must do... is partisanship.
"You need to get a better camera or you're not a real professional!"
"You have to be on the top social media venues multiple times every day!"
"You must do these three things [read: buy my training] or you'll never be successful!"
Here's your permission to let go of all that horsesh*t; the expectations, the pressure, the discouragement.
You have one requirement as a professional photographer:
Be honest.
This translates to every corner of your business:
- Don't put art in your portfolio you can't create with reasonable consistency.
- Don't not perform due diligence to get legal when you start charging.
- Don't make promises you can't keep.
I know how scary it is to just...be honest. As a startup photographer, there's so much fear that people will reject you if you don't puff up your art and abilities and presence to look bigger, better than you feel you are. These are the same fears we had as teenagers trying to act smarter, stronger, prettier, and more confident than we really felt.
Separate yourself from those masks and expectations.
Let your unique, worthy, true light shine.
And let your community see the reality of you and your art, so those who are in alignment with you today - and this will change with time and growth - can choose to be blessed by your work, today.
This is the secret to peace as a professional photographer.
NEXT STEPS
- BRAINSTORM SESSION: Get out your pen and paper. Make a list of 10 ways you're holding yourself back from making art and asking people in your community to do business with you. File this away in your Brainstorms folder.
- SUBSCRIBE TODAY: Book yourself solid shooting clients you love for pay you're worth. Don't miss out on my best stories and ideas: subscribe to my e-mail newsletter today at the top-right of any page of this site.
- DO THIS NOW: What's the biggest challenge holding you back? E-mail me at james@banderaoutlaw.com. I read everything, and I look forward to helping you make a breakthrough today.