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Why Experience Is Your Best Teacher

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PHOTOGRAPHY EDUCATION
BRANDING TIPS

We're professional photographers, Mr + Mrs and Mom + Dad. We like to share insights into our industry and empower other photographers to build their biz.

Hi, WE'RE ERICA+JON

PERSONAL

She took a fist full of fingers straight to the face.

Paislee was just one year old and after the look of utter betrayal left her face, she turned into my chest and started crying.

(rightfully so, I should add)

As bad as I felt for her, I almost felt worse for Jon who had just popped Paislee in the face while we were standing in the backyard allowing him to get in some reps with the camera.

I should back up a bit.

He was new to photography… brand new.

We had just wrapped up a three day in person photography workshop where he learned how to shoot a camera for the first time in his life.

When we left the workshop, he took the encouragement pretty seriously to practice, practice, practice.

And with all the motion blur (not quite the creative kind) that was still in his photos, he needed to get in those reps and get comfortable around the camera for his sake and well… for our future clients’ sake.

There’s no way we could afford for Jon to pop a client in the face!

So, what the heck happened?

Let’s just say there’s a natural learning curve around using a zoom lens.

They’re pretty fancy, after all. You don’t have to move your feet and can instead use the lens to zoom in closer to your subject – which so happens to be the part that hadn’t yet clicked with Jon.

He was practicing on a 24-70mm lens while I was standing and holding Paislee in my arms.

I think where things got a little too tricky is that we threw a baby into the mix. On top of him trying to get the hang of the camera + shooting in manual mode, he was also trying to herd cats get the attention of a baby.

Yeah… I know, and I’m sure you know too, that that’s a lot to take on. We should’ve eased him in with a still object as the subject, but back to how he popped her in the face.

As he was trying to get Paislee to smile and laugh for the camera, he forgot that he was physically standing closer than what his zoomed out lens was showing, so as he stepped forward to do a little *boop* with his hand (which thinking about it is a heck of a lot more terrifying than it is exciting or something to laugh at) he booped his fingers straight into her face.

I know… poor guy.

He felt pretty awful.

His excitement about implementing the things he had recently learned, died.

His confidence took another hit.

Starting something new felt hard, but now it felt even harder.

He wondered if he should just stick to what he already knew – selling tractors.

We put the camera up, we comforted and got Paislee calmed back down, and we knew right then that the road to where we wanted our dreams to take us wasn’t necessarily gonna be so easy.

Have you felt that?

No…not Jon’s fist popping you in the face, but the feeling of defeat or avoidance of trying something new.

We often see and chat with branding photographers who are hesitant and a little scared off by the “new” or the “unknown”.

And we get it.

We were scared too.

But we were more scared of letting Jon continue to work his butt off for someone else’s business while being reprimanded time and time again for selling tractors (side note: yes, that was his job, but his fellow salesmen didn’t like it when he outsold him so he’d get in trouble…but that’s an entirely separate story for another time.)

We were more scared of never knowing what would happen if we actually did step out and pursue our dream of starting our own business.

We were more scared of never trying and one day potentially looking back, regretting and asking ourselves, “what if we would have just gone for it?”

Experience is your best teacher!

I can assure you that Jon has never ever popped Paislee, or any client for that matter, in the face again while operating a zoom lens.

And if that “failure” that he felt in the moment was able to serve and benefit him, then so can yours.

Your missed shots aren’t failures.

Your emails that get ghosted aren’t failures.

The “no’s” you hear aren’t failures.

The photos you have to piece together and take into Photoshop to correct aren’t failures.

The reels or posts you market with that get little to no engagement aren’t failures.

YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE and for any shame you’re carrying because of things that haven’t gone right, you need to let it go and refuse to let it hold you back in chasing your brand photography business dreams.

Easy for me to say? Yes, but only because we’ve already had to exercise this ourselves time and time again. We won’t ever suggest for you to do anything that we haven’t already had to do ourselves.

You haven’t failed.

You’ve learned and you’ve grown and that’s why you can look back and be encouraged to see that those things that haven’t gone right have actually served you and happened for you.

Try new things, take new risks, believe in yourself, bet on yourself time and time again, but do not give up.

You have a special purpose in the photography business you’ve started and 20 years from now, we want you to experience the day where you get to look back and tell yourself how proud you are for sticking it out and doing the new, hard, scary things that got you to where you are.

And we’re here to help and encourage you along the way, so heads up:

Subjects in lenses may be closer than they appear! 😉

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