I sat down this morning with my cup of coffee since my daughter decided to sleep in incredibly late leaving me a bit of unexpected quiet this morning. I don’t really do “New Year’s Resolutions”, but I make lists of things I’d like to be better about. I do this randomly throughout the year when things are not necessarily going as smoothly as they should. Well I’ve been making personal goal lists, business goals, lists of changes I’d like to see in myself as a wife and mother, and also lists of new places I want to explore this year.
Today I focused on my 2016 business goals. Most photographers have lists that include getting destination weddings, booking their most expensive collections and lots and lots of customers. Not this girl. Last year my goal was to blog more. I would say I was somewhat successful in fulfilling that one, although this year my list also bean with BLOG – BLOG – BLOG – BLOG and so on… Oh, also I should submit some of my sessions to blogs.

2015 was a hard year with many lessons learned in business. It is going on my 10th year in business (how am I this old???) and I was thinking most of the hard lessons would have been learned by now. PAH! Each year presents new challenges, doesn’t it? Little recap, the first years were difficult working day jobs, and finding new clients, then came a move in 2012 which had a handful of different types of challenges and then came the rebranding in 2013, a baby shaking things up in 2014, a move to another state in 2015 and well here I am again in a new house (a lovely little Key West style home, in Dunedin, FL)

2015 was indeed difficult because of the move and also getting the baby through her first year of life, however the hard lessons I had to learn over time had more to do with allowing my business to go at it’s own pace. You see, I prefer taking time with each bride and groom, I prefer to shower them with gifts (My love language) and I prefer to get to know what moves each one of them and do my best to show the authentic emotions as my approach in wedding photography. But I also wanted to be busy busy busy since that is how I thought you should start out in a new market. That is what I had done in Savannah in the past. I am SO happy to say that 2016 is FULL of only the MOST SPECTACULAR couples I’ve met, whom I already call friends. I am at a place now where I have about one wedding per month, although slower than what I am used to, it gives me time to be dedicated to each brides requests, and responding to emails and inquiries, and giving the attention each bride deserves. I LOVE that. I am not sure why I fought it in 2015. Maybe I was just scared that the brides wouldn’t find me, but they did. :)

Goals regarding personal photography projects deserves it’s own BLOG post really. One regret I had from 2015 was not playing around with my Film Camera as soon as I had thought about it. I am getting it out more and more and loving everything I am seeing. It is truly bringing back some of the fun that got me started on this wild ride. I got a Medium Format Contax 645 and have been lugging it to weddings recently and the results are spectacular. I wish I’d done it much much sooner. When I used to photograph Large Format in Photography school we had to develop, process, scan and enlarge our own prints. Let me tell you, color darkroom printing is the REAL DEAL y’all. It was so involved I did not think I’d ever be doing it for a wedding. Well thanks to the awesome people at Richard Photo Lab, all I do is ship them my film, wait a week and ding, get a lovely email with my goodies waiting for me.

Some of my other goals are to stay extremely organized – this may sound easy, but I associate with the creative crowd that has a desk you can barely see.
I am aiming high this year and fully intend to take care of my couples, go above and beyond, put only my best foot forward, shower them with gifts that remind them I am here for them, and over deliver on every level. I truly do what I love, not because it is required of me, and I need to treat it that way a little more. :) Also, no more stressing. Easier said than done, but I’m finding that one easier and easier each day. I’ve found my zen and it feels good.

Enjoy some highlights from my 2015 weddings below. Cheers to everyone in this New Year. May all your goals and dreams come true too!