trust

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everyone believes something. every photographer has a method. everyone has that feeling in their gut.

i feel like i haven’t posted a portrait session in forever that wasn’t an engagement or bridal session. when i first started getting serious about photography, i decided there was no better way to learn than to do two things.

one, second shoot. and i did, for free a lot of the time. sometimes it didn’t matter to me whether i had the same style as the photographer or not. because, in all honesty, i hadn’t honed my own style yet anyway. i had this grand idea of what i liked and how i wanted to tell stories but it took a very long time for that to boil down and simmer into something i could call mine.

and two, meet the photographers in my market that i looked up to. whether it was their skill, their style, what they stood for, or simply how they approached the business of photography. i’m pretty sure i love the schultzes for all of those points and for the fact that cheyenne agreed to meet me in a coffee shop just to chat. looking back, i love her even more because now that i have a toddler and i’m still trying to find time to run my business, schedule shoots and edit until the sun comes up, i realize how selfless it was for her to give up this time in her day for a complete stranger. i can’t stress enough how grateful i am to live in a market where photographers are so willing to help one another.

cheyenne gave me the best advice i could have asked for at the time. in more words and with way more confidence than i ever thought i could have, she basically said blog what you love shooting. there was a lot more to it but the gist was, decide how i wanted to focus my business.

now granted, it was the first time i had ever met her and we only spent about an hour or more together but, i trusted her. i left that day feeling awakened. if i ever wanted to go full time, i needed to really focus. i needed to trust my instincts, my method and most importantly His plan.

so, i stopped blogging portraits. it’s not that i don’t love spending time with awesome families who make me laugh. it’s that i really wanted to focus my business on wedding photography. on telling stories, writing chapters, about couples who found each other in this big, crazy, unpredictable world, and their gravity changed and the center became two.

it took a lot for me to finally quit my full time job and take the leap. it involved trusting God that He would provide. it involved telling stories on my blog that reached hearts that felt the same way about photography as i do. it involved creating and molding a method to my photography that did as little as possible to disrupt who my couples really are, separate and together.

but it’s still true for portrait photography. i do love it. but, i have to admit, i love it most when someone trusts my method. they ask for suggestions on where to shoot, they drive to that spot whether it’s 10 minutes or 45. and when they get there, they don’t worry so much about whether their child looks at the camera or smiles. they go with the flow, they support my efforts, follow my sometimes strange directions, and they let go.

don’t get me wrong, i love getting that great family shot where everyone looks at the camera and everyone is smiling and everyone is in focus. you look at the back of your camera and think… NAILED IT! but for me, in a perfect world, that’s only about 5-10 minutes of the time we’ll spend together. the rest of time, i want giggles and wonder and excitement and questions and silliness and fun.

sometimes, that is EXACTLY what happens. when people trust me, i trust myself more and that’s when the magic happens. that happened with caroline. and i just HAD to share.

decide what kind of photographs you want hanging on your walls.
photographs you can look at in albums twenty years from now and be able to remember exactly what that time in your life felt like.
there are always photographers in your price range, but price should not be the first factor.
it should be finding someone whose photography you connect with and adore.
and then, when you hire a photographer, trust them.

i’ve heard, life happens when you’re busy making other plans. and i don’t want to photograph the plans part, i want to photograph the life part.

so, the next time you go get ice cream or pick out a Christmas tree, call me, i’d love to come along while you spend family time doing something fun and just being yourselves. and of course somewhere in there, we’ll get a few family shots of everyone smiling.

ps. go check out the schultzes! if you are a photographer, they do workshops and webinars here and there that are VERY helpful for your business.