Categories
BlahBlahBabble

It is All a Matter of Perspective…

I logged in to WordPress to write a post, and then I saw the number. This blog has 29,330 comments. 670 comments shy of 30,000 comments. Real comments, not counting the spam ones Akismet has caught.

Whoa.

Granted, it has been around since 2000, but there have been a few starts & stops along the way. Just 670 away. 670 seems like a huge number, but then you look at it in the context of 30,000, and it becomes pretty small. I should do something special when I reach that mark, don’t you think? What should I do? Give me some ideas – lets have some fun with this!

Meanwhile, sorry for the silence. I’m wrapping up SEO & Better Blogging Site Reviews, and helping with a ShootQ set-up. Meanwhile, Mike & I did a pretty big blog move for Tasra of Tasra365 (I know the new site’s name, but I can’t share!), although to be honest Mike did most of the heavy lifting on that. It involved a WP migration along with a TypePad export & migration. The TypePad one was a bit tricky, as an export through their system doesn’t bring over all the image files. Mike sorted that all out though, and the new site looks fabulous with the tweaks Tasra has made! Now that we’ve worked out all the kinks on TypePad to WordPress migrations, we’re ready to help others with theirs as well! Sound like something you need? Let me know!

On the photography front, I have a lot of 2009 weddings, engagement sessions, and more to blog about over on the wedding photography site. Later this week, I’m going to start with the recaps. It has been an AMAZING year, and I can’t wait to share! The year isn’t over though — I have two more boudoir sessions and two more weddings, with one of the weddings being on New Year’s Eve!

I always wonder if people think the silence means I’m not doing anything — when, in fact, it usually means the opposite! It feels like 2009 has just blown right past. I can’t believe it is almost over!

Leave me a comment – it would be kind of awesome to wrap up 2009 by hitting that 30,000 mark!

Categories
Amuse Me

I’m a Canon Gangsta…

I saw this today and I was very amused — Canon Boy Meets Nikon Girl. How can they possibly survive together?

PS – It is rap style. There are a few words in there that your 3 year old shouldn’t hear. Consider yourself warned.

Categories
Getting Down to Business

Don’t be the Uncle Bob of Your Own Business…

So you’re a professional photographer, right? And if someone shows up to your wedding, portrait session, whatever and whips out the fancy camera they just bought at Best Buy or Amazon and starts firing away, you’re probably going to be thinking to your self something along the lines of, “Awww… how cute. But my photos will be much better because I’ve got mad skillz at photography, YO!”

(What? You don’t talk to yourself like some bad-ass photo rapper? Well, whatever. I do. Run with it.)

The point is, you know what you’re doing. You know your skill set, and the long hard hours that it took of practice to get to where you are at. And 99% of the time, your photos will be better because of it. Sure, there is always the one person that is just kind of a natural that will show you up, but they won’t know how to deal with a tricky lighting situation or how to balance flash with ambient light, so whatever. YOU are the SUPERSTAR!!!

So why the heck are you designing your own logo? Your own business material? Trying to create your own website or blog from the ground up from scratch?

How is that any different then the person that dropped $1500-3000 to have a camera as fancy as yours? They are not an expert.

Yes, you’re artistic and creative. But that doesn’t mean you know all the ins and outs of what makes a graphic design truly sing, or that you should spend hours and hours learning CSS and how to code HTML, PHP and smoosh it all into a awesome blog.

You’re a photographer (or a wedding planner, a cake artist, a caterer – whatever you are) — not a graphic designer or a website developer. Know what you’re good at. Hire someone else to do the rest. Leave it to the experts.

It is the same thing you expect of your clients every single day.

Oh, In case you were wondering – Uncle Bob: Definition, and what you usually get. Don’t do that to your business.

Categories
Creative Geek

It Starts at the Top…

I can’t tell you how often I’m reading a blog or a website, and I glance up at the title bar on my web browser only to see a completely pointless title like “Home” or “Blog” even worse, the name of the company that mad the template you’re using for your portfolio.

Stop what you’re doing right now and go look at your sites. What is your title? What is it saying to people?

Titles are used in countless ways — first and foremost, it is the information that Google pulls when it is displaying your site among their lists. It is also what the people that read your site, your potential clients, see if they are using tabs in their browsers, when they bookmark your page, and so much more!

If your title isn’t clear, how will they ever find you again? If your title says something like Bl*d*main or Templates for Photographers, does that help you? Or the company that made your template?

To change your blog’s title in WordPress, log in and go to Settings (it is the last item on the column on the left). Under General Settings, right there, you will see “Blog Title” as an option – make it something that helps people and computers! Start with your business name, and then maybe include where you are located at. People always want to know that!

Be sure to change the Tagline as well while you’re there. I noticed yesterday that even if you don’t have that showing up on your blog’s template, it does get pulled by Facebook. Looks a little silly if it still says something about you being just another WordPress blog, because we know you’re not just another anything. You’re FABULOUS! Now help the world see that!

Categories
Getting Down to Business

You Need a Friend or Two… Emergency Planning for Wedding Vendors

Finally

If you follow me over on Twitter, you may have seen my post earlier today about the fact that it is the two year anniversary of me having major – nearly life-saving – emergency surgery today. Some of you may know the back story already. For those of you that don’t, feel free to check out the November 2007 archives. Oh, and that photo above? It is from 2007. Not today. I’m all healthy now!

As a wedding vendor, you have to take care of yourself. It is absolutely essential. Most of us are running a one person show, and if we’re not we’re still in a position where our client booked us and expect us to be there. You don’t really have an out. Especially as the photographer.

Have you spent some time thinking about what you will do if something happens and you can’t be there?

The fall of 2007, I was sick. I knew I was anemic, I had no idea how badly. I was seeing a doctor, but in hindsight he was doing a horrible job of taking care of me. When you’re sick and you’re scared, and super anemic on top of that, you might not be thinking so clearly, so I didn’t fire him and seek out other care when I should have. By the way, if you’ve never been anemic, the best way I can describe it is 1 margarita drunk. You can function, but things are a little swirly and just not right with the world. It isn’t that fun though – I don’t recommend it.

So here I am, super sick, and the only way to fix it was to give me three blood transfusions and do emergency surgery. The emergency surgery had a 6-8 week recovery time; I wasn’t even allowed to drive for 4 weeks. And I had a wedding scheduled for exactly ONE week after the surgery.

Fortunately, I used to work with the IT department of one of the big three law firms in Houston, and I also worked for two web design companies. For places like this, disaster recovery is essential, and worrying about the “what ifs” has always been a part of my business plan.

When I got sick, I already had a network of other photographers in Houston. I only had to make two calls, and I had found a replacement. I was also fortunate because I had a clause already in place in my contract that in the case of extreme medical emergency and if time allowed, would allow them the opportunity to approve the replacement, and if they did not, I would give them a complete refund of all monies paid. (Obviously this won’t work if it hours before a wedding and you need someone to step in for you, but I had a week.)

Going in to surgery knowing that all of my shoots were covered was a HUGE load of weight lifted off of me. My clients still were taken care of. Something like this can be business killer if you don’t have a plan in place to take care of your clients.

ShootQ is also now a big part of my business because of my “what if” planning. If something was to ever happen to me on the day of a wedding – lets say I was in an accident( I almost called lawyers from https://www.mycaraccidentattorney.com/tempe/, seriously) and in a coma – my husband could log in to ShootQ and find out all the information needed about the wedding. He has a phone list of other Houston photographers to call. He could get on Twitter and start posting on my behalf. He could do whatever was needed to make sure the wedding was covered. Of course I would want him to rush to my side, but I would want to know that those calls were made first. Elaine & Brittany have this power as well.

An emergency like this can – and often will – happen to ANY of us. Matter of fact, I’ve stepped in two times as the primary photographer and two times as the second photographer in an emergency situation to help out other people. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

What is your emergency plan? Do you have a list of people who could step in in your place and take care of your clients if anything happened to you? Do you have an emergency clause in your contracts with your clients in case you ever found yourself in a bind?