2013 in Review
How was YOUR year? What are YOUR plans and goals?
In 2013 I:
- more than doubled the revenue from photographic activities
- restructured my pricing and session packages to take pressure off me while still giving clients one affordable option if they're on a tight budget (eg grad students)
- spent some time unifying the look/branding OF my website and blog
- shot my first wedding (two, in fact!)
- connected in person with terrific dgrinners Michael Glenn and Nicole Shilliday
- finally gave up my longstanding position against the 70-200 2.8 and started shooting almost everything with a long zoom, despite my aching hand
- enjoyed more travel than I have in a while, including a very unexpected trip to France and my first visit in over 20 years to where I grew up in Southern California.... and was able to enjoy the trips with my camera in a way I have never been able to before.
Goals for 2014:
- maintain or increase revenue (if the rate of enquiries keeps up as it has, will be on track for the latter)
- find locations that free me from the limitations of my small home studio, but still give me the freedom of scheduling and light I have at home.
- improve my full-length posing
- experiment more with lifestyle vibe shooting - it's a look I have ALWAYS loved, but never explored seriously for myself; I have much to learn, but the way it looks for, and uses, light can only improve *all* of my photograhpic work, I feel sure of it.
- find a processing look that I really feel is "mine" and use it consistently
- Improve my processing and workflow to SAVE TIME (without cutting corners)
- Get lucky and find a flash sale on a 5dIII that puts it at the price I'm willing to pay!
A few from across the year (sadly some of my favorites aren't here as I don't have permission to share them, but so it goes....
Some blondes
Some redheads
Some guys
Some weddings
Some family
In 2013 I:
- more than doubled the revenue from photographic activities
- restructured my pricing and session packages to take pressure off me while still giving clients one affordable option if they're on a tight budget (eg grad students)
- spent some time unifying the look/branding OF my website and blog
- shot my first wedding (two, in fact!)
- connected in person with terrific dgrinners Michael Glenn and Nicole Shilliday
- finally gave up my longstanding position against the 70-200 2.8 and started shooting almost everything with a long zoom, despite my aching hand
- enjoyed more travel than I have in a while, including a very unexpected trip to France and my first visit in over 20 years to where I grew up in Southern California.... and was able to enjoy the trips with my camera in a way I have never been able to before.
Goals for 2014:
- maintain or increase revenue (if the rate of enquiries keeps up as it has, will be on track for the latter)
- find locations that free me from the limitations of my small home studio, but still give me the freedom of scheduling and light I have at home.
- improve my full-length posing
- experiment more with lifestyle vibe shooting - it's a look I have ALWAYS loved, but never explored seriously for myself; I have much to learn, but the way it looks for, and uses, light can only improve *all* of my photograhpic work, I feel sure of it.
- find a processing look that I really feel is "mine" and use it consistently
- Improve my processing and workflow to SAVE TIME (without cutting corners)
- Get lucky and find a flash sale on a 5dIII that puts it at the price I'm willing to pay!
A few from across the year (sadly some of my favorites aren't here as I don't have permission to share them, but so it goes....
Some blondes
Some redheads
Some guys
Some weddings
Some family
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Comments
I'm looking forward to shooting my first wedding this summer...hope I do as well.
KT
www.katetaylor.smugmug.com
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain
Cheers to another great year.
Yeah, the redheads kind of rocked it, although WITHOUT FAIL they are the hardest to edit. Redhead skintones can make me crazy sometimes (especially when face and chest/arms don't match - so much work to even it out! That's the kind of thing I want to improve in my workflow as it is often way too time-consuming).
KD You've hit on some of my own favorites - thanks!
In 2013 my photo count was: 8677 (keepers)
2306 Family photos
4507 Off road photos
1079 Motocross photos
785 Wildlife / Landscape photos
I'm sure I missed a few somewhere, like the ones I've taken at work functions and such....yep, I'm probably over the 10,000 mark, which is about 27 pictures a day, or 1.125 per hour.
My goals are to do more portrait work, more landscape and wildlife stuff, and try to step out of the box a bit more while shooting my off road stuff. I took part in some challenges in 2012, which was fun, I may need to do more of that again this year.
As for making money, I haven't even tried to make any money for the last few years. After 3.5 years as the track photographer at a local motocross track, a couple of weddings and some senior portraits my hobby was starting to feel too much like work, so I took a step back. I'll be retired in 4-5 years, so maybe I'll try to earn a buck or two again, then.