Growing, Taking Baby Steps

The past 18 months for me has been quite a journey: from getting married to deciding to quit my fulltime job to do this photography thing fulltime!! I’ll give you a quick recap in case you need one…. My sweet hubby David and I got married July 12, 2008 in Nashville, TN. NEITHER of us had jobs on our wedding day — talk about TERRIFYING.

Photo by Tec Petaja

But the Lord provided abundantly for us after weeks and months of praying for good jobs. The week after we got home from our honeymoon, David got a job offer on Friday and I got a job offer the following Monday. Whew! Crisis averted.

I worked fulltime on different digital media projects at an agency: email marketing, website design, content management updates to websites, etc. I am so thankful for the opportunities that I was introduced to while at that job, I learned SO much — it was like a crash course in all things technology that I would need to run my photo biz.

But all the while I had a desire to grow my photography skills & learn more about my craft. Up to this point in my life I had been a Canon-Rebel-toting-photography-hobbyist (which, there is NOTHING wrong with that, I just knew that I wanted more!). Sure, I had an eye for good composition, I could capture a great moment and my fine art travel photography was good. But I never felt sure of myself or of how I would nail a great photo in any lighting condition.

Enter into the story an amazing mentor: Becky Byrd. Becky befriended me one Sunday morning at church because I was taking pictures and she introduced herself as a fellow photographer. It was like friendship at first sight… haha! From that point on it was such a fabulous experience… having a mentor is indescribable. Being able to ask ANY question, no matter how dumb I felt was liberating. The very first time we met she mentioned a photography group called PUG and I knew that I had to go!

Becky also explained this thing called post-processing to me and then we went to a class taught by the great Whitney Carlson of Dove Wedding Photography. Sure, I knew that I should edit my photos but I didn’t have a workflow. I would just pick random pictures that I thought needed a little “umph” and then I’d open them in Photoshop, move some of the dials/settings around until I liked it and then VOILA!! Whitney explained in depth about her workflow and what good post-processing should be.

OK, so I had my post-processing workflow down, I had my community of photographers in place, I was networking my butt off with other photographers but how do I actually run a business??

I definitely soaked up all good info like it was a sponge! I listened to every good podcast I could find, and I would listen to Ask Dane by Dane Sanders as he would interview guests from the perspective of “Just starting out,” which was exactly what I needed. I would ask my photographer friends, “How did you know when it was the right time to go fulltime?”

Knowing the right time for me was hard, but one day it just kind of happened. Hubby and I had been talking about it for months but there never seemed like the perfect moment. What it boiled down to for me was that I was completely exhausted. I was so tired from doing two fulltime jobs & as my photography business kept building I realized that I was having to turn down amazing opportunities because of my fulltime job. So we had a good talk one night and just thought that it had finally come time. That God was leading us into a new big adventure, full of big photoshoots, beautiful weddings, chubby babies and wonderful clients.

So, last week I gave my two weeks notice and March 15th will be my first day as a fulltime photographer!! I’m really looking forward to what God has in store for hubby and I as we make this huge leap of faith!

I have very VERY big dreams of what this is going to look like and I’m sure it’s not going to be easy. I hope that documenting my journey into fulltime photography will help you in your process, wherever you are. I know that we can always be learning! One day I’d like to start a photography mentor program of some sort, since that’s been the best way for me to learn all that I know up to now. I’d love to setup great photographers with starting out photographers with huge potential & see where it takes us. If that’s an interest to you, comment below and I’ll add your email & info to my growing mentor list. I have more dreams but that’s the one that’s been on my heart lately!