NoBs Digital Dogbowl
The NoBs Digital Dogbowl Newsletter:
Keeping you up to date and informed on the latest, coolest, and outrageous happenings inside the world of NoBS Photo Success.
Loaded with Free photography tips, Photoshop tutorials, photo reviews,
and other totally relevant essentials. Be sure to check out the whole thing!
Hungry for more? Visit our digital photography forum.
NoBS Member of the Month: 4LifePhoto
Photography for me started after I graduated college. I bought myself a Nikon N70 (yes, that is a film camera), took an adult education class at University of Texas, and started doing landscape photography. I absolutely wanted no people in my pictures! I remember my mother saying "they are nice honey, but there is no people in your pictures".
At the time I was a software consultant and traveled five days a week, so I got to take some shots here and there. A group of us went to Colorado to go skiing and I spent the entire time taking photos. I never could get quite the images that I wanted and I would go through rolls and rolls of film and get maybe one or two that I really liked. I got frustrated and had no idea what I was going to do with all those photos anyway. I put the camera away.
Life got busier and the rat race kept pushing me farther up. I had a good career and by this time I was working from home. It was perfect, but I still wasn't satisfied. There was just "something" missing, but I felt like I couldn't leave my job. I had my son and continued to work for another six months and then resigned in January of '03. Still needing some "mommy" time, I worked a network marketing business for the next two years. That is one of the hardest things I have ever done, but it definitely helped prepare me for running my own photography business. The networking, marketing, and communication skills I had to learn are invaluable now. I came to a cross roads in that business and I started thinking of just what I could do that I could truly love, be constantly learning, and something that I could be good at - not just good, but be really good. Photography kept creeping into my mind, but I had no idea where to begin.
One night in May, my father gave me an envelope that said "just because" on the front. I opened it up and it was a flyer for the Nikon D80. He gave me my camera as a gift and said "go see what you can do with it". I immediately joined a Better Photo class to learn my camera and then started doing research of where I could learn more. A friend of a friend is a photographer in Florida who I found out learned a lot of what she knows from forums, but I couldn't find out which one. So, I did my own research and somehow found NoBS in late June. I pored over everything in this forum. I took each forum section and started with the last page and worked my way to the beginning. I started with one Alien Bee, my SB800, and a reflector. I played, I practiced, I CRIED, I gave up, and then I pushed forward again.
One of the best pieces of advice I got regarding my business was from this forum. I was told to set my prices for how I would like to charge in the future. Then, tell people that while I am building my portfolio, my prices are 50% off. I set this time limit until December. I had people coming to me for this "great deal", I built my portfolio, generated some income to purchase other things, but all the while never came across as the "cheap" photographer. I had my first "official" shoot in August of a newborn. My very first sale, I projected on my computer with a trial version of Proselect. Even with 50%, I made $384. I was in business. Not too far after that, I photographed my choir directors kids and they loved them. I always make people their own business cards with a picture from their session (a tip I got from NoBS), so he took his to work (he's a chiropractor) and that day I booked two sessions from those cards he handed out. I now have a huge stack of cards in his office as well as a wall display. From that, I had my first $1000+ sale and another one on the way that combined with their family and their son's senior portraits, may hit the $2000 mark. My advice, get in quick with someone that deals with the public in an area that you want to target.
I did not think that my business would take off as quickly as it did. I feel like I have been in business for a lot longer than I have - I just have that mindset. I truly feel that after 30+ years, I have finally found the thing that I could be not just good, but really good at with a lot of time, patience, persistence, playing, training, and sharing. And the best part is, I am having a lot of fun doing it.
