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2009 was an amazing, insane, wonderful year. One year ago I knew what I wanted to do: become a full-time wedding photographer. I read Malcolm Gladwell’s theory about 10,000 hours of practice and how the Beatles were transformed after playing non-stop gigs in Germany. I thought “2009 will be my Germany!” So from February through December I photographed 38 weddings… 18 engagement sessions… 5 portrait sessions, and took over 85,000 photographs. In the process, I left my full-time day job in communications and transitioned to my dream job of full-time photographer.
As I look back on the past year, I wanted to share a few decisions I made in 2009. These are promises that I made to myself at the start of last year, and they helped me start my business and thrive in 2009. And because a blog post on a photography blog isn’t fun without photos, I’ve interspersed some of my favorite “crazy dancing photos” of 2009. I am actually working on my “crazy dancing photo” skills, so I can get even better at taking these kinds of photos. I told you this was my dream job!
1. Don’t make business decisions based on fear. While owning your own business and being self-employed is rewarding, it can at times be a bit scary. So I promised myself that I would never make a business decision out of fear. Fear of competition, fear that I wouldn’t be able to master new techniques, or fear that people might not hire me. Being aware of the market, competition, and your own limitations is one thing. But making business decisions based on fear is another. Instead of acting on fear and doubt, I acted on reason and my vision of where I wanted to go and what I wanted the business to be.
2. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. I spent years keeping much of my personality and interests under wraps at the office. I decided that if I was ever lucky enough to have my own business I wouldn’t be afraid to say who I was and talk about kinds of things that interest me and what I believed in. Those of you who follow my blog, flickr page, or twitter stream might already know that I support gay marriage, campaigned for Obama, love The Huffington Post, Rachel Maddow, and Steve Colbert. I love the 1960′s and 1970′s, Turner Classic Movies, and documentaries. I have 15,000+ songs in my iTunes library and most of it is soundtracks and post-punk and other stuff most people have probably never heard of. Surprisingly, talking about these things actually helped me to connect with clients who related to my photographs. Not to say that all of my clients are interested in the same things that I am, but as a whole they’re a pretty diverse group of people who I am happy to know. I’ve even made a few new friends.
3. Don’t think you can go it alone. Just because the business is titled “Lisa Rigby Photography” doesn’t mean that I could completely go it alone. Yes, handing certain tasks over to others meant that things might be done in a way that’s different than what I would do. But it also freed me to concentrate on the things that I’m good at: developing relationships with clients and taking more photos. So I hired trusted professionals to design my logo, build my website, and fulfill print orders. I hired second shooters when we needed additional coverage to achieve a client’s vision. And I connected with other wedding photographers who could share their knowledge and help me book a few more jobs along the way.
4. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. I realized that being my first full-year in business, 2009 would be a year of trial and error. Am I perfect? Far from it! Did I make mistakes in 2009? You bet! I find that people are usually pretty forgiving if you admit where you could have done better or when you’ve made a genuine mistake. I mean, how many of us bat 100%, 100% of the time? It just can’t be done! So I am still trying to do my best, learn from mistakes, and always inspire confidence and trust in my clients. Which brings me to my next personal rule…
5. Always inspire trust. This is a hard one. It has to do with everything from the speed with which you respond to emails, to your frankness and honesty in dealing with potential clients at meetings, to how you handle photographing an outdoor session when it’s starting to rain. Inspiring people to trust someone with one of the most important aspects of one of their most important days isn’t small stuff. But you’ll only get that beautiful portrait if the client knows and trusts that they’re in good hands. And you’ll only get that referral to another couple if a past client trusts that you’ll do good work for their friends too.
6. Don’t mistake expensive equipment and technical hoo-ha for good work. Yes I have really nice photography equipment. I could really go crazy and keep buying new camera doo-dads forever. But I’m really not a technical shooter. I can’t say enough about how much client relationships, trust, vision, and studying art (beyond photography) shapes the photographs as much as any piece of equipment. If anything, we should learn to work the hell out of the equipment we have, which brings me to…
7. Keep learning. I still haven’t gotten to 10,000 hours of “practice” as a wedding photographer, but I figure I’m about a third of the way there.
All along the way I am constantly trying to find better ways to do things — better ways to shoot, different ways to use light, more streamlined ways of processing. I realize that as long as I’m in the business and for as long as I want to continue to grow, this learning will never end. Thankfully learning new tricks one of the most fun aspects of this job.
In addition to learning new skills in 2010, I am totally excited about some of my new clients and all of the fun and cool 2010 weddings I’m photographing around Boston and beyond. I blogged a run-down a few weeks ago. So I’ll see you in Boston and Rhode Island and California and Ireland next year.
Happy New Year!
