December 31st….how did you get here so fast? It’s weird how the older you get, the faster time seems to go by. I wonder why that is? Whatever the reason, 2015 was a wonderful year for my business. For the first time since I moved to Houston, I finally felt like I broke into the Houston photography market and made some connections with some awesome people. I met and got to work with fellow local creatives and had amazing clients that I was blessed to be able to work with and hope that I get to work with each and every one of them again next year!
This past year, I really wanted to focus on getting technically better at shooting images and learning my camera inside and out. I wanted to start getting images correct in camera in order to avoid spending hours in front of the computer editing. For a while there, I felt chained to my computer. I started asking myself, “Is this really worth it? Do I really want to spend all my nights and weekends ‘fixing’ all of my images? Shouldn’t I be spending time behind a camera? Not in front of a computer…”. So I decided I wanted to do something about it. I needed to make a change. I got inspiration from some of the best leaders in the photography world, Amy and Jordan, Katelyn James, Justin and Mary, and several others… their blogs support, encourage and inspire other photographers to grow their business. They talk about how to refine your workflow and be the most effective with your time. Time is the one thing we have that is limited. I realized I needed to spend the little time I had very wisely.
So I started watching every tutorial I could and utilizing every resource out there to improve my skills and ultimately save time on editing. I wanted to work smarter, not harder. I finally feel like it has paid off…for me and my clients! I found that consistency is key. Consistency of images, my workflow and my brand. I didn’t want images that I took last year to look drastically different than this year. If that was the case, nobody would ever book with me more than once! I’d say that I’ve come a long way in the consistency of my images. I think most photographers struggle in the first few years on finding their signature style. There are so many photography trends out there that it’s hard not to get sucked in. I was guilty of falling prey to that as well. First, I put textures on everything, then I was spending WAY too much time tweaking the tiniest of things that nobody would probably even notice and my photos ended up looking way over processed. Then there was the “every image needs to be matte” phase…So I finally stopped and started to figure out what types of images my eyes kept going back to time after time. I asked myself what I liked about those images and I figured out it was that they were natural looking, lively and bright. Images you could look back on in 10 years and say, “Yep, that’s still a great photo.” And so finally, I feel like I’ve found my signature style, or at least what I’m going to strive for with each and every shoot. Light, carefree, and natural looking photos that create emotion.
So with today being the last day of 2015, I wanted to look back and reflect on this past year. I want to learn from it and get better each and every year. And to do that, you need to look back and see how far you’ve come. Here’s a few of my favorite images from all of this year’s sessions (prepare yourself, there’s a lot!). Here’s to a happy and healthy 2016. Cheers!
