End of Year Wrap Up
Like the cover photo of this blog post? That's my family photo this year! Me, my fiancé George and my amazing dog Decoy (my photographic inspiration).
So many of you know that photography is a part-time passion of mine, booking shoots on my days off and weekends. And most of my regular clients learned that I returned to graduate school on a full-time basis this fall after serving as a community planner and development director for a small New England town. This was a HUGE change for me. I had not been back to school since completing my undergraduate program in 2007 and it was terrifying to up and quit my full-time position to study Urban Design at Northeastern University. Thankfully, I have a very supportive fiance and a successful photography business to help me through this change!
BUT...I completely underestimated the time commitment graduate school requires (especially when pursuing it full-time) and I was unable to accommodate a few clients this fall. This was very difficult for me as I try and do everything I can to work with my clients schedules and timelines. Between class time, homework and what time I had left over, I quickly became NONSTOP BUSY. You see, with photography, the work does not end when the shoot is over. There is usually 3-4 additional hours of work for each shoot. Why so much? Well there is the culling to start. I usually take SEVERAL, if not hundreds of photos for each hour session, and culling through them for the BEST photos can take some time. Then the editing begins. Usually this involves correcting the white balance, enhancing the contrast, sharpness, shadow adjustments ( I won't bore you with the details now), but occasionally, I have to do some major edits - such as SWAP HEADS! Yes, in photoshop, us photographers can perform magic. When you have multiple people in a photo, there is usually one photo where 2/3 look great. And then another where the remaining 1 looks great. So we bring the two photos into photoshop and swap heads. This can take some additional time, usually 10 minutes to make it look like it never happened (sneaky huh?). Now, multiply that by 10 photos, thats another hour and half + some. Then lastly is the exporting, and loading to a CD, preparing for shipping and bringing to the post office. This may not sound too difficult (and trust me it isn't), but it does add up!
This fall, many of my regular clients wanted to get their holiday photos done and as I mentioned, I was unable to accommodate a few clients this year. And you may have noticed some silence on the blog and the Facebook page as well. There are two reasons for that 1) I was just completely overwhelmed with the amount of homework from my graduate program and 2) I understand many clients use these photos for holiday cards and I felt I may ruin a potential surprise!
So, to catch up on some amazing photo moments this fall I've collected a few of my favorites and have them here for your enjoyment!
Next semester is my last semester in graduate school. After I graduate I plan on pursing another full-time position in Urban Design/Planning, but will continue to run Wildlee Photography. In the meantime, I will continue to offer client sessions throughout the spring and hope to hold a few mini sessions as well! So stay tuned and keep an eye out on more information in the future.
The last thing I wanted to do for this post is to THANK all my wonderful clients. I love seeing your smiling faces on return sessions and see your families grow. It really is amazing and I look forward to each and every one of our sessions. So for that, I'm thankful.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! <3 Jessie
