Day 175: Taking the first steps in a restarted photography business

Recently I decided to restart my own professional services. After contemplation of what I am able to offer to others, I narrowed down the options to photography services. I purchased basic photo equipment and started to experiment with creating animal and human portraits. For that, I used cats of my neighbors and the neighbors and their friends themselves as the models. The location was the back yard of our apartment building where I hoped that would be also able to shoot other commercial sessions since there is enough space there. Yesterday I asked the landlord if he will allow me to do photoshoots there and he granted me permission. But then one of the neighbors complained that such activity would be too much of disturbance for her. I hoped that this place will enable me to at least make some business before an additional room will become available in the building that I could equip for a photo studio. Now I will due to additional constriction have to change my plans.

I feel disappointed because I hoped that by being allowed to shoot in the backyard I will be able to start offering professional photo services knowing that I have a proper location at a hand. Especially because I planned to start earning money with portraits for which I need a more intimate location. I also planned to offer wedding photography but usually, this kind of jobs are being negotiated at least one year in advance. If I am to rent an additional room for my photo studio I need to somehow get an additional several hundred euros by the end of this month or maybe even sooner since the payments are being collected by our landlord around 22nd day of each month for one month in advance. And what also prevents me from fully engaging in the photography business is a delay at a district court due to holidays where I filed the papers to change the name and services of my private institute as the legal entity that I plan to use to charge my clients. Usually, the applications are being resolved within one week however now I have been waiting for their response for over one month and they say that only in 4 days they will restart with sending the written responses to all applicants.

Despite all these downsides, I am at this time able to sell my services and issue invoices however I would need to do jobs at different locations and to use my current educational institute to be the legal entity which is not ideal. The question here is only how to get first jobs as soon as possible in order to generate income so that I could invest it in renting the studio and then to also purchase additional photo equipment. My plan was to visit other local businesses where a lot of people mingle and to place stands with my business cards so that people would be informed about my wedding and portrait photography. And to also visit other companies in surrounding to potentially get product and business portraiture jobs. I could also shoot events and stock photos however I am not sure how fast I could generate income from these services. There is also potential to get hired from online searches however I would need to invest a lot more time in the redesign of my website and search engine optimization. The other thing that prevented me from visiting local businesses already is the current high summer temperature that reached up to 40ºC in past weeks. However, since it is expected to drop to around 25ºC in a couple of days, that will enable me to distribute the stands with my business cards a lot easier very soon.

Then I need need to decide how to price my services. Years ago when I first started with photography I have been charging quite a lot however I lived in a different area, before the period of the financial crisis and I had much better equipment. I have been for the past 6 years living in the second largest city in our country that is considered to be much poorer than our capital city where I also lived before for some time. So I will have to research what the local prices are in order to be competitive and to also see how photography business has changed in the last decade of me not doing any professional photoshoots. What I am also not sure is if it would be best for me to stay in the current city or to move somewhere else. The reason why I moved here was due to predictions that I would be much more successful with the selling of educational software that I have been a national distributor of for several years. Since I then quit the software business there is nothing much that is holding me in my current city. Also, two of my best friends have moved out of the city to a farm and I have also been thinking of joining them there soon. On the other hand, a large city could offer more photo business opportunities and I have also quite settled down here and established a lot of new friendship connections.

There are many options to earn a lot of money by doing professional photography and many are not connected to my current location at all. For example, I could do much more profitable photoshoots for the nearby Austria residents where the economic situation is much better than in our country and I live very close to the border. However, I would need to become more skilled in speaking and writing in the German language. Then there are other international jobs available like becoming a destination wedding photographer but I do not see me just ready for such kind of demanding jobs yet. And of course, as I mentioned I could do many kinds of stock photography in order to generate a residual income. So what I find the most challenging at this moment is in which direction to turn, what kind of services, to whom and in what way to offer in order to start earning money. And even if I should besides photography also be offering graphic design services as I already did before when first established my own business and to even possibly add video services for which I also have sufficient technical equipment to produce some commercial videos.

And within all this, I also wonder if I should specialize in a specific field of photography and to develop my own style and genre of photos. One reason for this is for me to be able to stand out from the crowd of other photographers and the other reason is to have a mission that would be adding more value to my work. Because for the past 15 years I have strived to make an impact in this world by participating at many different international NGO projects. So I am thinking about how to use the photography to in a way also contribute to making this world the best place for all. Many photographers are focused on beauty and artistic aspects of the photos which definitely have their own market however I am not very excited about only creating something that is attractive to the human eye just from the perspective of esthetics. What I am not also very fun of is the discomfort of my physical body that I am feeling during the process of photography especially when using the computer. Doing photoshoots is much more dynamic however sitting long hours to process and manipulate the photos can be much more painful. Thus ideally I am looking at how to earn enough money by expressing myself creatively, to have as much positive impact on this world as possible and also to feel physically enough comfortable while doing it. Now I will be correcting my subconscious believes in order to become more stable and grounded:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel resentment towards my neighbor due to believing that she made the execution of my photography services and earning money harder than necessary by not allowing me to shoot at the back yard of our apartment building. I realize that due to her past traumatic experiences she has become very sensitive to disturbances in her surrounding and that she needs to have a quiet end stress-free home environment. Thus I commit myself to understand the current state of her mind and to execute my business projects so that I will not create too big disturbances for her. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to treat our communal back yard as a place that is mostly unused and that each of us who share it can do anything that we desire there at any time. I realize that doing photoshoots with my clients there is an activity that would intrude into the lives of my neighbors too much and would disturb their inner peace. So I commit myself to when and as I plan any activity that is out of the ordinary in the space that also effects my neighbors to not only ask the landlord for permission but to also ask my neighbors if that would be something they are able and willing to tolerate.  

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel pressure in regards to my restarted photography business by believing that I need to rent an additional room in order to be able to execute specific studio photo jobs as the quickest and most reliable source of income. I realize that in any situation that I find myself in there are always many different solutions available to deal with any challenge and that I never need to feel any internal unrest about anything. Thus I commit myself to when and as I see that situation has become different than how I imagined initially, to breathe, slow myself down and see what other solutions are available as the best alternatives for me to be able to move forward.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself with the younger generation of photographers and to be threatened by them. I realize that I have been defining myself as a youthful person that looks in the eyes of others at least 10 years younger. That shows that I have not fully embraced the fact that I am getting older and will be very old and also look different someday. Thus I commit myself to when and as someone asks me about my age to not reply with me asking them to guess my age based on my outer appearance and then to be proud about them giving me about 10 years less than how I actually look. And also to treat other people, especially young ones as equal with the understanding that we all transition through different age periods however we can at any time find a place for anyone in this existence for all of us to collaborate and express ourselves equally.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel left out due to a past decade not working as a professional photographer. I realize that I have changed my business path many times in the past and that also in the future I might decide to do something very different if I find enough motivation for that. Thus I commit myself not to treat starting something new at any age as a defeat and having the same business for a long time s a victory but to rather treat all situations equally. What matters the most is how each of us within what we do is expanding our awareness and improving relationship towards self and others in order to practically live the principle of oneness and equality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as an outcast due to living for the past 6 years in an area of our country with a different dialect and economic situation. I realize that nationalism and local patriotism are tendencies throughout every country on this planet besides many other acts of separation like race, gender, and religious conflicts. So I commit myself to treat everyone equally regardless of their original place of birth and differences of their looks or mental states. And to also treat any attempt of others to create separation between them and me individually within understanding how any expression of hate is actually a projection of bad self-image and traumatic experiences in the past.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel depressed due to discovering how easy is now to acquire the professional knowledge for any profession and how many people are sharing behind the scenes videos that display their excellency in what they do. I realize that me feeling low is the polarity state of my behavior pattern of wanting to feel elevated due to the perception that I am someone special because I possess special knowledge and skills that almost no other has. Thus I commit myself to stop being motivated by trying to impress others for the sake of receiving positive feedbacks but to decide for a profession when I will motivate myself to express my creativity and for my inner guidance to be the main measure of how I am letting the best of me to manifest in this reality.

Here are additional related links to a free online course where also you can learn how to become aware of and change your mind patterns and to some of the other supportive audios from the website that provide answers to any existential question imaginable:

DIP Lite course
The Outsider
Why Do I Feel Left Out?
What Does it Mean to Support Yourself
Isolation

Day 174: Sneaky little thoughts creeping in

When it comes to the mind it is like weed suffocating your garden plants. Very slowly the weed is growing among the edible plants and you have to weed it out constantly before it is too late. It is a challenge to decide when the weed is still small enough not to endanger other plants and when it has grown so big that it is about time to get rid of it. The mind is in a similar way tempting us with constant small thoughts that looks very innocent and we can not measure and categorized them by their harmful impact because since are not physical. Often time it is only by the pain and illness that manifest as the consequence that we can see how damaging they actually are. And as has been explained, the existential process of amalgamation of the mind with the physical body is increasingly shortening the time between the accepted and allowed thoughts and the physical consequence.

Lately, I am being challenged especially by the consequence of the pain in my right knee and the pain in my lower back. The pain in the knee manifests very quickly, almost suddenly when and as my mind is producing specific unconscious thoughts. And the pain in my lower back has been a recurring manifestation after I take a quick nap in my bed during the day and I think about things that are worrying me while napping. Besides that, I am also experiencing like a sort of pressure or inflammation of some internal organ right below the right half of my rib cage. I am not sure if it the intestine or liver or something else. Occasionally I also feel slight pinching pain and some kind of liquid or gas movement there. I remember to have the same sort of feeling during middle school and doctors checked me with the ultrasound and found nothing unusual. So I am not sure if it is worth to spend time for the doctor's appointment and if they would again find nothing. Anyway, what I can at least do at this moment is to check my thoughts and face them and then I will see if any of these symptoms will change.

So what I am currently dealing with is the decision to restart my photography business after 10 years of not offering professional photography services anymore. I started my own graphic and web design business in 2000 and then completely focused only on photography from the year 2004 to 2008. After that, I sold all of my photography equipment and changed my photo studio into a counseling office. In the following years, I have also shot a lot of events however only for my personal use, with my mobile phone camera and for free. However, I did invest many hours into photos of each event to process them professionally with photo editing software composition and color-wise. That proves that photography has remained my passion but I did not earn anything by it. So I have spent a lot of my time for free instead of shooting photos for some clients and earning my living with it. Well, that was my decision since I worked on projects where I planned to earn a lot more by doing other things but sadly the promises of my financial compensation were not fulfilled by others.

Now, when I am returning to photography after a decade, I started to buy the basic gear so that I can start executing photo jobs. I managed to purchase a camera body, two zoom lenses, a flash, a stand, and some accessories which enable me to shoot many things. I had to refresh my photography knowledge and learn all the functions of the DSLR camera body. What I started to experience is the heaviness and bulkiness of the camera and lenses comparing to shooting with a smartphone. It is also a strain to look through a small optical viewfinder with just one eye. Although the professional camera body and lenses enable much more technical options for photography they are a much more demanding experience to work with. And if I add also the stand with the studio umbrella and external flash, combined with different backgrounds and data cable for tethered shooting via the notebook computer, it takes a lot more physical work to just prepare all the equipment for the shoot compared to taking snapshots with a smartphone.

Then there is a business aspect of photography. It takes around 2 to 3 years before others start to recognize your services and the orders are becoming more frequent. So I will have to spend a lot of time and money just to share the word about myself to the surrounding inhabitants. I already made the first move by designing and sending to print 3.000 pieces of business cards and have ordered 50 clear plastic business card stands that I plant to distribute among hairdressers, florists, sweet shops, makeup artists, restaurants, hotels and wedding planners in my local area. And I started to redesign my website with the sample photos of my previous projects. What I found is that I am looking with different eyes on the photos than when I shot them a decade ago so it is hard for me to decide which photos to include. Because I now have an improved artistic taste and plan to create much better photographs than before. Of course, I will, in the beginning, be limited with a lower quality of the gear compared to what I already had before, so I plan to invest most of my initial earnings into better lenses.

15 years ago when I had the need to enhance my photography skills there were very little options to acquire additional knowledge. In our country, I was able to find a secondary school for design and photography which would mean me having to physically attend classes in our capital city for 3 years. However, I was lucky to then discover a distant class of professional photography at the New York Institute of Photography. It offered me more flexibility so I picked it and was able to finish it within one year with great success. But now I am being offered new photography courses via Facebook ads on a daily basis by many online learning platforms, famous professional photographers and also there have many new physical photography schools emerged in our country. And there are so much free YouTube tutorials available where photographers are sharing their biggest professional secrets. It looks like now some photographers are earning more from sharing and teaching that from selling their photography services.

Sharing videos from behind the scenes of photoshoots is something that a lot of photographers do now. This has become a new way of advertising in order to increase the number of followers and potential clients. It is cool that we are entering an era of transparency where more and more things are being exposed. And the new type of a profession that is emerging is actually called the influencer. So many clients are not looking for someone that is the best professional at a certain job but how large their group of followers is and how great exposure they would get if hiring this influencer to do a job for them. Basically, it is the attention that has become a very sought-after product. In this era of social media with a constantly increasing quantity of information and shortened attention span, people are craving for attention. So within all these new trends of how marketing is being done lately, I am now facing a challenge of how to position myself and my professional services. And especially in what way to be different from others in order to create a competitive advantage that would result in me getting hired and being paid for my services.

In photography, we are seeing great technological changes. The biggest one is, of course, smartphone cameras becoming more and more powerful and capable. Almost everyone is on a daily basis producing photos and sharing them via their social networks. And also there are online photo banks where professionals are uploading their work for sale. The number of snapshots and photography artworks is growing exponentially and the generation of millennials is entering the workforce market with new approaches. Whoever wants to stay in business has to adapt and reinvent themselves in order not to become outdated. I have seen even the artificial intelligence software that creates photos from scratch in a matter of seconds by only giving it the input of what the elements the photo needs to be composed of. In all fields of profession, technology is taking over more and more jobs so society will have to change the support and distribution system in order to provide for the people who are not capable to adapt to effects of technological progress effectively. Regarding all these observations I will now align myself in order to remain grounded and stable enough for me to exist in this fast-changing global situation:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to a new generation of millennials and feeling old and outdated. I realize that while younger generations are contributing with their new ways of communication older generations will always be able to contribute with their accumulated experiences and wisdom. I commit myself to when and as my mind is producing thought like: “You are like a dinosaur and there is no use for you anymore in this world.” to stop and breathe. I commit myself to look at my strengths and find out the best ways of how I can be a useful part of this society within all the challenges that humanity is currently facing. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up on myself and losing motivation to basically do anything and believing that there is no point in doing something. I realize that such an attitude is based on my previous desires of wanting to be more than others and then dropping this motivation which places me into a position where I need to redefine myself and discover what I would like to do in my life as pure self-expression without any kind of need and desire to be recognized and accepted by others. Within this, I commit myself to look deeper into myself in order to discover what I would like to express and than use this as the base for my self-movement and professional activities. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel inadequate due to past experiences with my very demanding father that constantly criticized my work no matter how hard I tried. I realize that his criticism has been a projection of his own feeling of inadequacy due to his past experiences and that I need to break the chain of transferring this pattern from generation to generation. I commit myself to when and as my mind produces thoughts like: “Why even bother to try since what you will do will be no good to anyone.” to stop and breathe. I then do the job the best I can by my own inner measure of quality and understand that whatever others will say about it that will be mostly a reflection of their own mindset and their own relationship towards themselve. 

Supportive free online course and audios in regards to this post:

DIP Lite Course
Using Criticism to Your Advantage
Taking Feedback Personally
You Define Me
Bringing Creation into Reality