Phoenix's simple workshop

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Yesterday I attended a workshop given by Kevin Swan and Nathan Holrwitz. They flew out here this weekend to give a workshop at Ograce Photography's studio. My good friend Jennifer owns that studio.

Kevin talked a lot about marketing and his album company Kiss books. Nathan spoke to us about making your workflow easier. This was such a big help to me. He gave out a lot of ideas and tips to help us all in that department!

Most people think wedding photographers show up at the wedding, shoot a few images and they're done. It really is not the case at all. In fact I wish it was that easy.

I think this is the hardest job I've ever done. Not only are you on your feet for 10 hours at an event. You are running around, trying to be creative, trying to stay on with the time line, trying to make your bride and groom feel comfortable and trying to make pictures that should be shot in 1 hour to fit into about 15 minutes. You carry around luggage, heavy things on your back, your sweating, and constantly on your toes looking for that great moment to happen so you can capture it.

Then after you go home, pass out and try and recover the next day, you have the hardest part of all to begin. Editing! Yuck, I hate this word more than any other word in the dictionary. I probably spend 20-30 hours after a wedding working on the images. There is the slideshows, blog postings, editing images of about 3000, color balancing, fixing images, uploading the images, working on album designs, blah blah. It's many many hours away from my kids. My biggest goal this year is to fix that. To some how come up with a plan so I still give you awesome images but am still a wonderful wife and mother. And that doesn't include all the time you have to market yourself, take people to lunch, drop off stuff to clients.

Unfortunately me being a good mother gets cut first so I need to do something about that.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, I love what I do and the people I get to do this for. I wouldn't trade this job in for anything in the world. It's just one of those things when you own your own business that you have to sort through. When you own your own company there isn't much time that you aren't thinking about your business, how to better it, make it run smoother, or keep marketing it. So coming up with a plan to make me a better wife and mother is on the agenda but also it will free up more time to be a better photographer, and be able to spend more time with clients.

This workshop was really awesome and it helped a ton for my business. I'm looking forward to putting these tips and ideas into place.

Thank you so much Jennifer for hosting, and Kevin and Nathan for coming out and giving us a new look on things. It will help so much! :)

Check out this picture of us yesterday that Kevin shot!

PS- why do I always slouch like that in pictures- ugh!! I should really make myself stand in the back and stand up tall- it makes me look awkward! :)