Keeping A Balance
In keeping with my goal of blogging once a month, I want to take the opportunity to talk about ‘keeping a balance’. What I am referring too is the balance between finding time to go on regular photography shoots, and all the things that need to be done to maintain, and grow, a photography business as an independent owner.
In my experience I’ve found myself leaning to one side [photography shoot] and then back again to the other side [maintaing the business]. However, I find that I can often get wrapped up in the time consuming business side and then it becomes harder to find sufficient time to get out with my camera. Personally I do like both sides, the adventure of a photography shoot and participating in galleries or art events where I can met potential customers and show off my photography but I do feel that I need to find a better balance between the two demands.
Maintaining the business side has many facets. To simply join a gallery, attend a local art event, or even submit a photograph for a competition, there is a lot that happens behind the scenes. Before you can even show your photography off in public there is much planning, organizing and basic logistics that must be thought through. And then, if you're like me, you want to keep things fresh and you’re always thinking about how to improve or change up your presence at a gallery or local art event.
Added to that, I’m always thinking about how to expand my photography business and gain more market reach. I’m not even talking about blogging, mailing campaigns or social media, but getting more visibility in the local community and being aware of all the potential galleries and activities that I could participate in. Obviously, taking on more to achieve greater reach means more effort on the business side and potentially less time out on location.
However, once I get back out in the field with my camera gear and discover a new location, a different perspective or composition, or the light is just fantastic, I have an overwhelming satisfaction. Then, I just can’t wait to get the image produced and into my next gallery display or art event, and the potential of chatting with prospects, or even other photographers, on how the image was captured.
The greatest satisfaction is not just being on location capturing a perfect image but also when someone appreciates the end result and ultimately purchases an image, that will always make the effort seem worthwhile. Keeping a balance between making time for regular photography shoots and maintaining as well as growing my business, is something I will have to continually work on and fine tune.
