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Chasing The Dream (Not Toddlers)

posted 26th September 2011    Written by: Hannah    CATEGORY: All Posts, Hannah, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 5

When I first started my business I wasn’t sure where I wanted it to go or what I wanted to do with it.  I let it take on a life of its own through a series of “Yes, ma’am”s, taking every job that was offered to me from headshots to first birthday parties, newborns to weddings.

In the beginning, the vast majority of my shoots were of kids under the age of four.  If you’ve ever spent any time around a toddler, you know.  Those things are FAST.  I spent every two hour session literally chasing the kid around whatever park we were at and trying to get him to look anywhere near my lens.

It was fantastic for growth as far as technical ability, but the creativity was lacking, or rather it was required in a different area than I had intended when I started a photography business.  Trying out new shots is one thing.  Finding creative ways to tie down a toddler (duct tape?) is quite another.

This business I was creating was starting to look an awful lot like the nanny job I was trying to get out of.  It took a good year and a half of wearing myself way too thin, doing things I wasn’t loving (on my evenings and weekends no less)  before I had this revelation:

If I’m going to put everything I have into building my own business, I’d darn well better LOVE what I am doing!

I don’t want to give you the wrong impression.  I like kids.  I like family shoots and yes, even two year old shoots.  I don’t like them as my only creative outlet.  Not to mention that walking away from a steady income to do the exact same thing I was doing as a nanny seems just silly.  So I’m trying some other things.  I’m toying with several ideas that all end in the same product: beautiful images of you and your _____ (fill in the blank: spouse, family, pet, best friend) being who you are.  Loving how you love.

Everyone loves differently, and that’s what I want to capture.  You don’t want a photo of you and your husband cheesing at my camera.  You want an image of how your husband touches your face or how his eyes squint up when he really laughs.  He wants to capture the way you look at him when you’re REALLY looking at him.  And that’s what I want to give you.  I’ve been diving deep into the concept of experiential photography.  Whether your shoot consists of playing games and working through verbal prompts as a couple, or doing an activity (think baking cookies or exploring the pumpkin patch) as a family.  My goal is to bring out the real you, to show your genuine emotions and expressions, to capture who you really are.

The problem?  My brand.  My website is bland and lacks personality.  What I expect of my clients is that they’re willing to show their personalities.  My business cards are cute, but don’t evoke any emotion.  My clients have to be more than cute.  They have to be real.  My internet presence: spotty.  My expectation of my clients: completely present.  My brand needs a booty load of work, and it’s time to get started.  The message I want my business to portray is that I am genuine, creative and detail-oriented.

Actually, the message I want myself to portray is that I am genuine, creative, and detail-oriented.  Funny how that works, isn’t it?  When you find something you love to do it resonates with who you are.  Once again, my core values come in: autonomy, authenticity, connection, exploration, family, creativity, play/whimsy.  Each one is so me, that it is something I’ve intuitively incorporated into my business.  This is a concept that’s been weighing heavy on my mind.

My business needs to reflect who I am.  Not who I’ve, in my laziness, let myself become.  So here I go.  The daunting words,

“Goal Setting”.

Autonomy:

  1.  Making my own schedule requires MAKING my own schedule. Go figure.  Map out when I’m doing what (approximately) each week and when I’m OFF work.  Follow it.
  2. Create systems that work for my business (and in my small space) and use them. (Financial, work flow, client communications.)

Authenticity/Connection: You can’t have connection without authenticity, so I’ll stick these two together.

  1.  Flesh out a plan for rebranding and making my business reflect me.  Write out exactly what I want it to look like and how I intend to get there including a timeframe, smaller goals, and action items.
  2.  Make a list (Yay, a list!) of the types of jobs I will accept and those I will not.  At all cost avoid selling my soul to pay the mortgage.  Book clients who get what I’m doing and we can both be authentic.

Exploration/creativity:

  1.  Avoid getting stuck in a rut.  Once a month ask a friend or stranger to model and do a shoot that’s just for me with no consideration of client expectations
  2.  Create two new “experiences” a quarter for family shoots (i.e. pumpkin patch, baking cookies).  Create 2 new prompts a month for couple shoots.  Keep mixing it up!

Family:

  1.  Find balance.  Use my off time to spend quality time with my family and friends.  Plan a date with a girlfriend once a week and a date with Mister once a week (or make him plan half of them!)
  2.  Talk seriously to Mister about our plan to move closer to family.  Figure out our timeline. Figure out how I will keep my business going in both places.

Play/Whimsy:

  1.  Don’t take my shoots too seriously.  Help the client relax, have fun,  and play.  Suck up my nerves and be open with my clients no matter what they might or might not think of me.  Make a point to put myself out there, knowing that if I do my clients are more likely to do the same.  Give myself permission to relax and play too.
  2.  Don’t take myself too seriously.  Life is meant to be fun.  Change the way I talk to myself when I’m getting caught up in something little.  If it isn’t serious, don’t make it that way.  Give myself permission to relax and play.

When I first started my business I wasn’t sure where I wanted it to go or what I wanted to do with it.  Now I know.  The only thing I can tell about what it feels like to attempt to line up who you are with your career is that it is completely invigorating.  Now if only I can get there.  Those of you who have taken this leap, any tips for those of us who are just diving in?  I’m ready to go!

[Photo credit: Hannah D Photography]

 

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Injecting a Little Passion in my Life

posted 3rd February 2010    Written by: Heather Rae    CATEGORY: All Posts, Heather Rae, Job/Career/Work, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

INTRODUCING HEATHER RAE

As life goes, I used to think I was doing things right.

Now, I’m not so sure.

I went to college, then grad school – I got a solid education.  I studied things that interested me, but I wasn’t necessarily following any great passion.  I was trying to be practical.  I should also confess that I was trying to make other people happy. If I wasn’t attempting to impress a professor, it was a boyfriend or some family member.

After being out of school for a while, life really looked good – on paper, that is.  I worked at a prestigious university, had a seven year relationship with a wonderful man, lived in a sought after zip code.  Yet, I looked around, and something just wasn’t right.  All that time spent impressing someone else left one person completely unimpressed – me.

So I decided it was time to make change.  What kind of change?  I had no idea.  I just knew I needed to inject a little passion in my life.

First things first, I had to figure out what to do about my career.  My job might have looked good on a resume, but it certainly didn’t look good on me.  It was boring.  Really, really, mind-numbingly boring.  The good thing about doing work that made picking my hangnails seem entertaining was that I had a lot of time to think.

So I did just that.

I researched, examined, even tried out, nearly every job that seemed remotely interesting. I read every career guide on the library shelf.  I took quizzes in magazines, had a psychic read my fortune and met with a career counselor.  They all told me the same thing:  my personality suited science and research. 

What? Seriously, that’s what I already did.  The career path was logical, practical and, it seemed, perfectly matched my natural tendencies.  Only, I was miserable.

So in the midst of all this career planning, and a seemingly endless lack of ideas, I did something different.

I stopped looking and took up hobbies.  I took classes at night at a local community college.  I started reading voraciously.  I took hula dance lessons and pole dance lessons.  I took drawing classes and bought books about art.  I started blogging.  I started writing.  And that’s when it hit me.

I fell in love with the idea of creating something. I wanted to write, make art, dance.

Of course, now that I had this newfound love, what was I supposed to do with it?  I’d always been told all this creative stuff made for great hobbies, but it sure as heck didn’t pay the rent.  Only a select few got that lucky.  And I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

But then I had this thought:  why not? That’s right – why couldn’t I make a career out of writing novels or painting canvasses?  What made me limit myself to jobs that seemed practical?  There was no good reason.  I realized it was all just fear.

I told my fiancé about my wild ideas, perfectly ready to accept the disparaging look he was sure to give.  But instead, he cheered.  He said I should do it.  He was behind me 100%.  Wow, maybe I am one of the lucky ones.

So here I am, staring fear in the face.  I’m turning it all upside down.

As of last week, I officially quit my job.  I’m giving myself one year in which I’ll attempt to have it all (I would give myself a lifetime, but I really do have to eat and pay the rent) – I’m working to finish a novel, exploring the possibility of selling my art and finding time to travel.  I want to sleep under the stars, soak in hot tubs in the snow, go cycling, go rock climbing, go skinny dipping, learn another language.  I want to do all the things I’ve dreamed about but never had the guts to try.

Maybe I’ll fail.  But at least I’ll fail trying.  And perhaps – just maybe – I’ll be wildly successful.

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