One of my most favorite photographer couples Justin & Mary Marantz (who I also had the pleasure of meeting and attending their workshop) posted on facebook last week:  “No one will respect your need for rest, balance and boundaries until you respect them yourself.”  Oh how I wanted to jump through the screen and give her a big ‘ol smooch for posting EXACTLY what I have felt off and on this year.  As you become more and more busy, and work even harder at becoming more and more invested in your clients and their lives, you find yourself giving over every second of your time…weekends, late night texts, facebook messages and early Sunday morning phone calls…nothing is sacred.  Nothing is off limits.  Vacation messages are bypassed and the needs of the business and the clients start becoming more important than your own, even worse, your families.  My families.  I found myself answering questions during dinner time, and jumping to every email that “jingled” on my phone during snuggle time on the couch with hubby.  Skipping snuggles with my kids…?  Ok, that is where I knew lines needed to be drawn.

So when Mary posted this, and I saw other photographers respond with exactly how I feel, I knew I wasn’t even close to alone in this.   And while I would love to say I have all the answers (I just answered an email last week during our “vacation” time), I have learned to at least put up the vacation responders, to change over the voicemails, even post on the business page on Facebook that we are OFF.  We absolutely love our clients, love this business, but if we don’t value, protect and respect our down time, or our time off, we certainly can’t expect anyone else to.  I am not sure why this took me three years to figure out, but I think getting lost in growing the business, and growing relationships took its toll on creating boundaries.

So, as you enter into this new year, I hope that I can encourage you to seriously reach for the stars with your business…but while you’re doing it, remember that without rest and protected time, everything else just might fall apart around you.  And ultimately that’s one of the big reasons I love what I do, it allows me to have both wonderful, amazing worlds!

Just to add a lovely piece of warm, beachy eye-candy to this post on this cold winters day…Chris & Sumer from their Tulum Mexico wedding in 2010….

But then here I am.  I was on my belly shooting 9 months pregnant in the Texas heat of July.  I shot two out-of-town weddings two weeks post-partum with my fifth child…our tiny little newborn slept peacefully in a Snuggli on either myself or my husband as we shared in two couples wedding days!  We’ve shot a wedding a week after catching the Swine Flu, in the middle of moving, and a myriad of last minute panic attacks when sitters have called to say they can’t make it.   And through it all, we have NEVER missed a wedding, never had a back-up or random second shooter…but I have to give my amazing husband a TON of credit, without his help there is NO way I could do this.  I would just be a mom, with some mad photography skillz and house full of gorgeous pictures of my kids.   He is an unbelievably talented photographer, the best father and husband, and does it all with so much integrity!

Trial by fire has taught me a few things, and yet I absolutely don’t have all the answers.  And maybe its just me…or maybe, just maybe there are a few other photographers out there wondering if they can do it too…if its worth it, if its even possible…if having a family, a marriage, and this career path is realistic.  Maybe you’re hiding under your desk right now, wondering if you are the only one.  I would love to give you hope…

1.  Divide and Conquer:   Home life/parenting and work/business must have their own place and time.  Have separate lists, have separate planned times for each, and allow your mind to live only in that place in that moment.  When I am doing housework, playing with my kids, making meals, I stay there.  I don’t check work email, I don’t dwell on editing.   I do all I can in that moment,and BE in that moment.  Divide physically, emotionally and mentally the two.

2.  Schedule it out, and communicate it to the WORLD.   Your family, friends, children and clients need to know that *these* are the days you are working and *these* are the days you are completely available to your family.  It might mean that these HOURS are divided out to each, but whatever you have decided on, make sure the expectation is laid out for all!

3.  Outsourcing is easier said than done.  I realize this.  sometimes financially you can’t do it, other times logistically you can’t.  Within the realm of what you can afford and do, try to outsource, whether its housekeeping once a month or two weeks to get the deep cleaning done, some babysitting a day or two per week, early evenings a day or two for hubby to help out, business, editing, whatever you can do, look for the most realistic way for you personally to get help!

4.  Change your expectations for yourself.  Its so easy to get caught up watching other photographers going to lunch meetings every day and constant networking, taking on fun personal projects, and a million other things.  Let it go.  Choose the most important things you need to keep up and stay successful and let the rest GO.  I believe this business is about passion and ingenuity, being genuine and working at only the highest level of integrity.  Running around keeping busy keeps your name out there, but the deepest connections are not made like that.   Do what you can, but take what you have and give it 150%, and if that means only taking on a limited amount of shoots, weddings, or clients, don’t be distracted by the busy-ness of those around you.

5.  Run your business, don’t let it run you.   Make choices to say NO, people will ask for your holidays, weekends, nights, and everything in between if you let them.   Keeping boundaries on your time will allow your be in control of your business…and clients and collegues respect that.

6.  Help others.  I have found that staying out of the controversies and appreciating those around me creates time and a joyful energy regarding this business.  You don’t have to look far to find photographers who like to stir the pot, always looking for a fight, or feel the need to throw statements out there to discourage excitement, passion, learning and growing.   Avoid it.  Momentum is built on the foundation of both  joy and passion!

7.  Perspective is everything.  In my quest for juggling it all, I keep a big picture perspective in my back pocket.  Am I being fair, giving, caring, loving, responsible, genuine,  because ultimately, I have to answer for the kind of steward I have been to my family, my friends and my clients.  And my time is blessed by keeping that above all else.  People know if you MEAN what you say, and success will follow.

I can say that this is the most challenging time I’ve ever had in my life, and I know there will be a day when my sweet babies are grown and this is all we do, but I don’t want to “work” this time away.   I have learned to give myself a brea on some things.  One of those might happen to be blogging, if you’ve noticed I am not stellar at keeping up with it.   But, if you see a skipped day or two, or week, just remember I’m rocking a baby…or coloring outside in the cool Autumn air, or baking cookies.   And for my fellow mommy photographers (and daddies too), it can be done.  

And here are two of the six reasons I juggle it all….love, love , love my family!

Treva

So I started, long ago, studying about composition. One of the easiest rules for me to understand, was using lines. I mean, it doesn’t get anymore simple than that, right? Lines are everywhere if you look for them. Not only that, the human eye understands lines, craves lines, follows line, knows lines instinctively. We find them pleasing. We find them infuriating. We find them distracting.  They lead our eye to the subject of the photo. Or they make a mess of things. We get lines. However, what I didn’t get was getting those lines into the frame of my viewfinder.

Like Treva does.

All…

….the….

…time.

So, yeah, I can study Treva’s pictures. I can study other photographer’s pictures that we admire. I can see the lines. You can see the lines. Notice the bridge that leads to the singer, notice the S curve as she walks away, the brick walk, and the lines it makes. It’s all there.

So, I guess I’m saying, for photography ideas. It doesn’t matter if it’s engagement photography, wedding photography, children’s photography…whatever. Look for lines. Use them to draw your viewer in. In Dallas…there are literally lines all over the place. But there are also lines in nature…

…implied lines from say girls jumping…in a corn field…as documented above…as they are so often inclined to do…

…looking European and ironic lines…sitting on a chair, in an industrial area filled with lines, wearing a pin striped (those are lines too, by the way) suit…

…tired…wandering along the train trucks…or the rail lines if you will…to find their way back home…it’s the lines, people!

So go forth, find those line, follow them, free them, and fire away with your camera. *Clickety-click*

Also, don’t forget to tell me… How do you use lines in your photography?

Can I also say, that, I am not a huge fan of five different photographers posting the exact same images?  I understand the need for practicing shooting, setups, leading on shots, editing..but in my humble opinion, it is only confusing to potential clients when they are searching around for photographers and find the exact same setups, outfits, model and images (even with a different spin) on blogs.  I actually had a client ask if there were chains disguising themselves as individual photographers out there–they had seen the same bridal on three different blogs!!!  I don’t know about anybody else, but I certainly don’t want to be thought of as a chain-style photographer!  (No offense JCPenney, Picture People, and Olan Mills) 

So, regarding the flow of a shoot/session, if you can’t shadow along on a seasoned pro, here are some tips/pointers on a typical session (at least for me):

Make sure you choose a time and location that works regarding light and theme.  You don’t want to fight lighting if you could have pushed it back an hour.  Check your location at the time your shoot is scheduled the day before, just to makes sure it works.  As an example, we booked a family shoot for a disk golf course, with gorgeous wildflowers…checked it the day before, and arrived at the shoot to find it had been mowed down!!  Always have a plan B!

1.  When you both arrive,  ask the client about themselves, first and foremost.  Its easy really, people want to warm up to you, and this will only make your images better, the rapport easier, and build a real, trusting relationship with your client.  There are times I’ve been hired on the spot, on the phone, and the engagement shoot or bridal shoot is our first real time spent together.  So, ask about their engagement, how he asked, how they met, where they will live, how the planning is going…be genuinely interested.  These are REAL people going through an amazing, beautiful experience in their lives and YOU are an essential part of that for them!  You clients truly look to you for their most treasured memory..wow, what a gift!

2.  Communicate, and do it WELL!  Go over your plans for that location.  The type of lighting you want to capture.  Great example of this, is if you are using some off camera lighting, you should prepare them that some shots will take some setup time.  If you are going to be traipsing around the location looking for some beautiful shadows with open light, explain so they understand when you are weaving in and out of terrain for no apparent reason.   Explain your vision, your posing ideas, the reflector that acts like a sail in the wind…there are times I just say that I have no idea what will inspire me, so let’s search and get inspired together!  If you give your clients an up front expectation, they won’t feel lose during the shoot, and you won’t feel awkward.

3.  Joke, laugh, ENJOY!  We are so incredibly blessed to be able to mix work with the creative.  Show your clients you LOVE what you are doing!  I had a client this past weekend ask me if all my shoots were this fun!  Often clients will say that they can tell how much I love doing this.   I know I get a wild-eyed, overly excited attitude when I’m shooting, but this is my PASSION (maybe I should communicate I’m truly not insane) haha!  If your clients aren’t seeing how much you love photographing them, something isn’t working!

4.  Ask if they need a drink, something to eat, anything!  Its easy to get so involved and entrenched in the creative side of a shoot, in getting certain shots and the inspiration that just takes over, you can forget those creature comforts for your clients!  Grab some Starbucks if one is close, even if its a bottle of water.

5.  Make sure you encourage them throughout the shoot.  When someone isn’t a pro model, they are completely unsure that the pose, the look, the smile, whether they should smile at all, is what you are wanting.  If you continually and consistently affirm and encourage, they will totally let loose and have fun!

6.  Read their cues, for when enough is enough.  Nobody wants the never ending photo session.  For Reals.  If you notice sleepy babies, tired brides, grooms who have had enough smiling…wrap it up.  I don’t put time constrains on my shoots for this very reason.  Some people don’t want more than 30 minutes.  Some love going for two hours.  Watch your clients closely for those cues.

7.  Handle all money discussion prior to the shoot.  Its just awkward and uncomfortable when you are trying to get clients to open up in a real way for your camera to have a financial obligation or expectation looming over everyone’s heads.  Whatever money needs to change hands, work that out before the shoot, or after when the images are ready.

8.  Be courteous to other photographers and respect the boundaries of personal property.  If other photographers are on site with you, take turns.  Show a kind spirit, and reach out to make sure everyone feels the space has been fairly used.  Your clients are watching how you treat your colleagues, and how you speak to and about them.  You colleagues are watching for drama, and believe me, nobody likes a drama queen photographer.  Don’t stomp on property that you don’t have permission to stomp on.  If you make a mistake, that’s one thing.  But, if it belongs to another studio, the city, or a business that you must receive permission from, ask…or leave it be!  There are plenty of places to shoot!  Some great locations for photo shoots in DFW?  Adriatica in Mckinney, The Cotton Mill in Mckinney, Uptown in Dallas, Downtown Grapevine, Aloft Hotel in Frisco, Myers Park in Mckinney, of course, the Arboretum in Dallas, Shops at Legacy in Plano, Waters Creek in Allen, Mainstreet Frisco, and really any street in Dallas has insane potential.  Also, more great locations for photography shoots?  Any place you find an interesting building, a field of wildflowers (that isn’t private property),  any area full of trees, railroad tracks…the list goes on and on!

9.  Tell them how long it will take to get their proofs, let them know that you KNOW you got amazing shots.  And then when you get home?  Thank them for the time they carved out to make photographs important.  Chances are there are a million things they could have been doing, and a million ways to spend their hard earned cash…they chose you, and that time with you.   Again, what a gift!

10.  Do what you say you will. 

If you have questions, please comment below and I’ll answer them the best that I can!!

And since all posts deserve a fabulous picture, here’s one of a laughing bride.  Something I said was goofy enough to make her laugh.  Oh, how I love to make a bride laugh!

Treva

The first thing a photographer will usually look to get going is a photography blog of some sort. Hands down the best and most affordable photography blogs out there are created by NetRivet. They are themes to the wordpress blog software which easily runs on many hosting companies. If you are looking specifically for just wordpress blog hosting with exceptional customer service, I’d recommend A Small Orange.

Next a photographer will want a slick and well presented way to show off their portfolio of wedding photography. We have had good luck with BluDomain for our photography website. BluDomain will install the site for you on their hosting provider for $100/year or on your hosting company’s server. I happen to know that BluDomain sites worked on A Small Orange when we were hosting there. Their prices are reasonable and you can usually be up and running with a great photography website for under $200-400. Their admin panel is easy and intuitive to use. Now to be fair, I must warn you that there are horror stories of their customer service, however, we have had good luck with them and any issues we have had have been resolved satisfactorily.

Stay tuned because next we will be talking about what you will need in your camera bag!

For your photography equipment needs a professional wedding photographer can hit up these Dallas businesses. For anything cameras, lenses, backdrops, lighting, books, and more you’ll want to visit Competitive Camera or Arlington Camera.

The best price for compact flash cards in the Dallas area is usually Fry’s electronics. You’ll be able to buy the ultra fast pro cards and they usually have plenty on hand. This is an obvious need for when you realize a card has gone through the wash. As any experienced Dallas wedding photographer knows when that happens, the card is not to be rewritten or used again. If there are images on it, download them and discard the card and count it as a loss. If you have any doubts, the wedding photographers on the photo.net forums that ignored or didn’t know this advice can explain to you their expensive and sometimses unsuccessful recovery efforts.

A wedding photographer also often needs good locations for shooting couples, or for bridals, or anything else they may need. Some good North Dallas photography locations are The Cotton Mill and the M Group in McKinney, Texas. Their hourly rates are affordable and the locations are wonderful.

Stay tuned for some more information on online resources for any Dallas wedding photographer to get their website and blog on!

To raw? Or not to raw. I fought the raw and the raw won? Who can decide?

If you ever want to know what photographers get into fist fights over (besides Nikon v. Canon) Raw v. JPEG is one of those items of sometimes heated contention and often confusion, so let me help clear up our thoughts and how these Dallas wedding photographers roll here at Treva Tribit Photographer. So before we get to the shouts of “Your mother shoots JPEG!” let’s explore for a bit what each of these different formats are and the factual advantages and disadvantages of both.

Raw(fulppluseraw!):

In the digital world your camera has a sensor. This sensor has pixels, not too unlike your monitor, but instead of emitting light, it detects light. Now you may now that how many million pixels your sensor is also how many megapixels your camera is capable of taking per shot, but what you may not know is that additional processing has to occur to take all of the reds, greens, and blues and put them together to form a picture. When you shoot raw, you are basically telling the camera, don’t do anything else but save every bit of information from that shutter release and save it to a file on my flash card please. This is raw. The image is the opposite of cooked. It doesn’t have a color profile, no color correction, no dynamic range enhancements, nothing. If you were look to at the raw picture it would be somewhat dull and not as vibrant as we come to expect.

JPEG(‘dyourmotherlastnight):

Now for JPEG. Your camera still has a sensor. It’s still raw when it moves off the sensor buffer, but instead of writing directly to a file, it undergoes another step- the JPEG encoding process and then that JPEG encoded data gets written to a file on the flash card. The JPEG file has a color profile (either sRGB, AdobeRGB, etc), color correction may be added according to your camera’s settings (maybe a desaturated look or high sat like Velvia), D-lighting adjustments, sharpening, and more. However, in order to do this, the camera has to throw away the baseline raw information in order to post-process the image in camera and give you your ready to use JPEG file. You can skip hours of editing! Unfortunately, you can forget about editing if you don’t like how the image turns out, because the raw data has been thrown away. However, this is only partly true for several reasons.

It’s true:

- That a JPEG file will have increasingly limited returns per edit since it’s encoded with lossy compression. This means you will want to preserve the original JPEG file for subsequent re-edits, so you aren’t losing even more upon a series of encodings.

- That your camera can probably do both at the same time, at the sacrifice of flash card storage. That is you can tell your camera to shoot Raw + JPEG and you will have the best of both worlds. Fast work flow with your perfect JPEG images, and the ability to go back and edit if you need to with the raw. The disadvantage is of course that you are saving two files to your card and thus exhausting flash cards twice as quick.

- That you can still adjust a JPEG file in lightroom or photoshop. It still works. The only difference is those programs have less information to work with than if they had the raw file, so some of your more creative edits may be limited.

- That Raw is a pig on storage, editing, and time. Because you are working with the raw data, your image isn’t done yet, until you convert it to JPEG or rather something deliverable to your client. You’ll also want to go in and tweak some of the color settings to stretch out the color curves to give the raw image the look you want. It’s as if you had a parking lot full of cars you have to wash and you told the attendants not to run them through the automatic car wash tunnel….”I’m going to take care of each one, myself, with my bare hands.”

- That Raw allows you to pull incredible dynamic range from the sensor. You can indeed get an additional 3-4 stops of range, which let your shadows look less shadowy and your highlights less blown.

- That Raw is sometimes the refuge of lazy photographers who really need to perfect their craft on exposure. Because you have so much dynamic range, you can be off on your exposure by 3-4 stops, and you are still able to save your image. This can be life saving if it’s “the kiss” and you were off a little bit or if it’s intentional and you need to push your shutter speed up and consequently your exposure down to capture something you otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

Finally:

Now, what do we do here at Treva Tribit Photography? We shoot raw. Partly for the creative advantages, partly for the image insurance (because when you absolutely have to have the image there are no excuses, or at least I don’t want to be the one to make them), and partly because I can’t stand to throw anything out. I drive Treva nutty with hard drive and storage requests, however, I feel it’s worth it when I can say to her, when a client from two years ago asks “can we get another copy of our disk? Ours appears to be damaged.” and I can say “Yup! We got it.” We keep backups of our lightroom catalogs, we keep the raw images, and we keep the cooked images we deliver to our clients. Of course, we don’t officially guarantee this, but we quietly (or not so quietly now) do it anyway.

Like anything, shoot within your comfort level. If you can rock it out with JPEG and it makes you a speed demon on image delivery and your customers have come to expect that, rock on. If you like to whittle away at images in Raw and squeeze and tease every level of detail out like we do here, we think that’s groovy too. Just know what you are sacrificing and/or gaining by doing either and you should be fine. As always, feel free to comment and ask more questions or if you would prefer…shoot us an email and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Thanks and don’t forget that your Raw wears combat boots.

This is why I post these Q&A’s.  Because there were a lot of photographers who didn’t give me the time of day when I started out.  And there were some, who posted such helpful information, I could given them a big hug on the spot!  Hollllla out to the awesome photogs who share their hard-earned knowledge for the rest of us!  You deserve an award, or at least, some chocolate.

We are going to be offering an opportunity for anyone interested in starting up their own business, a very cool thing.  We will be hosting a workshop for a day in late August/Early September, which will include valuable insight into this business, an opportunity to shoot with us and ask as many questions as you like, and we will be all yours for the day.  The first five who sign up can come at HALF price!  We already have a few who have emailed or messaged me that they want IN, so the half price opportunity won’t last long!

Here we GO! (grab your coffee, its 1pm, if you are like me I KNOW you need it right about now!)

{Q}  How many images do you give clients after a shoot?

{A}  It depends on the shoot.  If its just a couple, or a senior, the images vary between 50-100 edited images that they proof, and then ultimately receive if they purchase the CD with printing rights.  If its a large family session, its closer to the 100 images range.  Weddings are also unique in that a smaller wedding might yield 300-500 images, a larger more time intensive wedding may yield 1000-1500.   I know that I give more images than most photographers, and I do work very hard at each shot, editing them as if they are individual works of art.   The important part is that there is a high level of quality, over quantity.

{Q}  What’s the skinny on printing rights/copyright/ etc. with regards to the CD’s?

{A}  We (as photoraphers) own the copyright to every picture we take.  When selling the CD, we sell the printing rights, NOT the copyright.  This means we are still allowed to use the photos on our websites, marketing materials, blog, etc.  Without the copyright, you must gain approval from the new owner for every picture you want to use for yourself as a business.   Selling the printing rights allows the client to take the images and print them wherever, however, forever. 

{Q}  How do you stand out when there are so many photographers who are not necessarily as good as you, marketing and advertising?  How do you pull in the business?

{A}  You have to always remember, as photographers, we are selling OURSELVES as much as we are selling our work.  The relationships that I build with clients that I’ve never known prior to a shoot or a wedding, is invaluable to my business.  I am not just offering my work to my potential clients, I am offering a piece of myself, of my life to them.  This is my passion and my calling, and unless I am capable of showing and giving every client that part of me, as well as their friends and families, then I have not been successful for my clients.  We are more than just a vendor, and we are more than just our work.  THIS is what we need to offer our clients at every meeting, shoot, and wedding.

{Q}  How do you figure out your niche in this industry/business?

{A}  That is a GREAT question, and one I am still figuring out myself!   I’m not the cool single photographer.  I don’t jump around at photo shoots and sport Prada bags and sunglasses.   I am probably not the first name on the lips of the socialites, though if they met me they would love me.   Or at least love my beautiful babies!    I am just someone who loves people, who loves fresh, flirty, REAL and genuine photography, I want you to FEEL something when you see my work.  What niche does that fit into?  I don’t know.  But if people are looking for this type of photography, I’m their girl.  Because ultimately, I don’t want to be a photographer but THE photographer for my clients, and their families, and their friends.  I want my vendors that I work with to feel inspired, and that I genuinely appreciate them.  And hopefully this is my “niche”…Fabulous photography for everybody.  Be real with your work and your clients, and you’ll find your niche too.

Post any other questions to the comments section of this post!  Have a fabulous weekend, I’m off to edit more pictures, peeps!  And because what post is complete, without a picture….a reminder of some recent, gorgeous clients!

Treva

And because every post should have some eye candy….and I mean the cold frosty yumminess I’m sipping of course.