I started writing this post the day I said the words, but of course I was too busy to actually finish it and now I’m a week out and have had some time to actually enjoy my freer schedule.  It has been, in a word, relaxing.  I actually watched a movie this week.  I cooked dinner for my husband.  I cleaned.  I’ve started to tackle all of the projects that just couldn’t make it onto the must-do list (cleaning my “area” of the house, laundry, website/branding stuff, reaching out to old and new friends to catch up, reading a damn magazine).  I’m still busy, but I’m starting to breathe.

Things got crazy for me quickly in April.  I more or less had everything under control up to then, even though I was swimming in engagement sessions.  But somewhere early April things started to tip for me, what with a trip to New York to do two engagements, followed the next weekend by a wedding and two engagements, and the following weekend by a boudoir session and two weddings.  The next weekend, I went to New Orleans.  The following, one wedding, one engagement, one headshot and another boudoir session.  And then… I quit.  And this past weekend, I had absolutely no photo work to do whatsoever (besides editing, of course).  Actually, typing this out, I can’t hardly believe I got all of this done and delivered and the way I want it.  And in-between, I was trying desperately to get together my Artomatic space!  And all through the weekdays, looking through my calendar from the past month, I have orange (my color for photography business events) all over the damn weekdays – client meetings, networking events, meetings with other photographers.  In short, I’ve been really busy.  Busier than even I realized up until right now.

And looking at this list of things I’ve done the past month, I’m really proud of myself.  Proud that I held it together.  Proud that my clients (hopefully) didn’t realize I was on the edge, just a bit.  Proud that, as of today, everything is delivered.  I have outstanding items with some clients, of course, but they’re not waiting on me.  It’s a beautiful feeling to be able to work on the less urgent matters.  Naturally, I have two weddings this weekend so that all goes out the window tomorrow, but today is nice.  I might even watch another movie.

So I quit the job.  Would have been wise of me to quit before everything got crazy, but I set the date months ago knowing this past week was an important one for my organization.  I’ll still be working here part-time for a while (at their request) but spending a lot more time at my other computer.  I don’t have any great revelations about self-employment yet… we’ll see what happens when I really do have to rely on this income.

But in the meantime, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who has helped me get to this point.  Just a few years ago, I was a total newbie shooting my friends for a “fake wedding” so I would have portfolio images.  Just a few years ago, I was blogging about what I ate for dinner, just so I would have material and hopefully improve my SEO ranking (for the record, I don’t think I have a single booking from keyword searches, just to be clear).  Not so long ago, I signed a contract with a lady to give her a twenty-two percent commission rate for weddings she sent me (we’ve since dissolved our relationship and I never did actually shoot a wedding on that contract).  In short, not all that long ago, this day seemed like a far away place.  I’m so grateful for the guidance, help, knowledge and money from these amazing folks:

• My clients.  Obviously.  Especially those first few who took the leap with me.  I recently told my first paying bride that she was – and she either gracefully lied and said she didn’t know or I was playing it that cool.  I never forget what a huge decision a wedding photographer is and I’m really grateful for each and every couple that chooses me to be there on their day.  Every wedding I photograph is an honor, a privilege, and a huge responsibility.
• My photographer pals.  Cassidy DuHon in particular.  I’ve worked my ass off the last couple years, yes, but I wouldn’t have weddings in which to work it without the amazing photographers who had me along to second shoot their weddings.  There is absolutely nothing that will help you learn like experience and these folks gave me what I need to rock out weddings for my own clients.
• George.  He’s been plenty busy himself, but my man is a constant source of strength for me.  He rubs my feet when I get back from weddings, he understands when I’m spending my fourth night of the week at client meetings or networking events.  He endures me hemming and hawing over this image or that image for the blog post.  In short, he’s amazing and I’m so lucky to have him.
• SWPB.  If that acronym means nothing to you and you’re a wedding photographer, shame shame shame.  Photographer friends who are new to the biz – no need to write me to “pick my brain” or any of the other things people want to do.  Get thee to SWPB and soak in the knowledge.  SWPB put me three to five years ahead of the game in virtually all ways possible, but especially in client management, business savvy and industry best practices.  I cannot overemphasize how important this group has been to the growth of my business.

So here I go.  I’m self-employed, reliant on a business I created from scratch.  It feels good.  A little scary, but mostly really, really good.

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Quitting the day job, people to whom I am exceedingly grateful and, as if you wanted to hear it, how busy I’ve been the last few weeks.
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Their wedding was at the most fantastic venue ever, the Patapsco Female Institute, the “ruins of a girls school” Amelia told me at our first meeting.  And that is exactly what the space is – no roof, half-walls, columns that lead to nowhere.  The space is maintained as-is – half falling apart, totally awesome.  Amelia and Javier’s friends and family filled the space with all manner of joy and love and par-tay.  It was a good old time.

The light in the Hotel Monaco in Baltimore was out-of-this-world.  Check it.

Meanwhile, in a suite across the hall…

Bear is not one to be left behind for the festivities.  He wasn’t invited to the main event, but he did get to hang with everybody before and after at the hotel.  And insisted on being the center of attention.  He’s a good dog.

Possibly my favorite getting-ready picture ever.

The flowers at the wedding were not blooming things but “meaningful herbs” - but I never did catch the meanings. From Amelia: “Rosemary for love, loyalty & remembrance, thyme for strength, lavender for luck, mint for warmth, sage for domestic virtue.”

Her dress was perfect so we had to rock some of that floaty, swaying action.

Amelia and Javier hired Rebecca Dick of Blue Canary Events a couple months before their wedding to help them with the planning.  Amelia told me she wished she had hired her from day one.  I was so impressed with Rebecca’s attention to detail (she signs her emails “party planning perfectionist”!) and general I-got-this attitude.  She was amazing to work with and everybody should get on her bandwagon!

Vendors:
Getting ready venue: Hotel Monaco, Baltimore
Ceremony and reception venue: Patapsco Female Institute
Planner/coordinator: Rebecca Dick, Blue Canary Events (highly recommend!)
Photography: me!
Florist: Willow Oak Garden
DJ: Ricky Bulles
Catering: Kloby’s Smokehouse
Dessert spread: Heidelberg Bakery
Hair and makeup: First Impressions Salon
Equipment rental: Grand Rental Events

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Amelia & Javier | Patapsco Female Institute wedding.
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Or in the lobby of my building.  I have been looking at this spot since they rebuilt the lobby earlier this year.  So fun to actually get to take a couple here!  PS: How completely adorable is Sara’s outfit?

And my current favorite plaything on the Mall.  Yes, you’ve seen it before.

See you guys in June!

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Sara & Cory | L’Enfant Plaza & National Mall engagement.
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She walked down the aisle with her mother and when she arrived, there was a puddle where she was supposed to stand.  So she shrugged and took a step back and laughed it off.  I was so impressed with the grace and ease with which this couple handled the day.  So rainy we can’t do photos practically anywhere?  No big deal.  We have to move from Plan A not to even B, but right on down to Plan C?  Okay, that’s cool.  These guys were so chill and it was clear they put every one of their guests at ease and as far as I can tell, everybody had a rockin’ good time.

Her mom and aunt did hair and makeup for all the girls.  A seriously talented duo.

We managed to skip on down to the dock which was, thankfully, covered!

Love this one of their families dancing together.

Their little nephew pretty much stole the show.

Congratulations you guys!

Vendors:
Photography: me
Ceremony and Reception Venue: The Oaks Waterfront Inn
Hair & makeup: Bride’s mother and aunt
DJ: Mark Savage
Catering: The Oaks

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: The Oaks Waterfront Inn wedding.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
And if you want to read my tweets, read them.

Their wedding was warm, the food was great, and they’ve got some way-talented friends.  Plus, these two wanted to do photos in the industrial warehouse-looking places near the Corradetti Glassblowing Studio.  What more could a photographer ask for?

Corradetti is a really beautiful venue.  And it’s in this amazing little artist colony type place in the middle of ho-hum Baltimore.

Laura and Adam’s friend Chase rocked it hard in a little serenade for the couple.

And something he played was outrageously funny, but I have no idea why.

The caterers made ice cream on demand!

Congratulations Laura and Adam!

Laura and Adam’s vendors:
Photography: me, of course
Ceremony and Reception Venue: Corradetti Glassblowing Studio
Caterer: Chef’s Expressions

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Laura & Adam | Corradetti Glassblowing Studio wedding.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
And if you want to read my tweets, read them.

Those ladies put up with all my ridiculous college antics senior year.  We shared an apartment in the on-campus housing.  We had dance parties.  It was awesome.  Jenny’s the only one of us to multiply, with the dude in the hat.

And because we a) are all dorks and b) didn’t have a lot of money in college, we decided to do a swamp tour since none of us had ever been.  It was actually really cool.

This is a picture of an alligator.  Oh, you see it now, right?  You can say I’m a crap travel photographer but it’s just because I didn’t want to haul a bunch of lenses with me.  50 did just fine, thankyouverymuch.

This is a shrimping boat that blew up the river during Katrina.  Crazy.

The swamp was a very beautiful place.  Swamps get a bad rep.

Poor little R fell asleep before the baby alligator came out.  Here’s where I might launch into a rant about how I am terrible at doing snapshots because I’m used to doing “photography.”

Further proof of dorkiness.

Yesterday morning, the last day in NOLA.  Erin and Lara took early flights and mine wasn’t until 2:45, so I rolled on down to the Quarter to wander around and have a last food experience.  Here’s a couple snaps.

Neon is back in style, go figure.

Also, dear friends, every time I see someone I used to know well but haven’t seen in a long time, they always tell me they read my blog.  This should equate with me doing a lot more personal stuff in-between all my client work so these friends get some actual reward for checking in on me.  I’m going to try to do that more often and maybe I’ll get better at doing snapshots!

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: New Orleans, three fantastic friends (and then some) and a hefty dose of nostalgia.
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I was reading a book by Seth Godin (something I do frequently and highly encourage others to do as well) and came across this passage about not disrespecting your clients with your marketing.  It really struck a cord with me, as I thought this is why I set up my pricing like I do.  Seth was talking much more generally about marketing, and probably about big companies, but his article was nonetheless insightful to a small business owner:

I believe that it’s all about to come crashing down on slash-and-burn marketers. Consumers (especially the business-to-business buyers) are getting ever smarter, cagier, and more sophisticated. They won’t sit quietly as marketers steal their time and attention and money. Ask yourself a simple question: If all of our customers were well-informed, would we do better — or worse? For many companies, the answer is grim. McDonald’s was stung when it was caught slipping beef flavoring into its supposedly all-vegetable french fries. And Kmart went bankrupt for committing contempt of consumer — telling its shoppers, “Hey, it’s cheap. What do you expect?”

As I was reading this, I realized that not only is my pricing “structure” easy on my clients, but it also trusts them to be able to make their own judgements and makes the process of buying (yes, buying, not “investing in”) my services as transparent as possible.

I have a price.  One price for coverage.  For all-day coverage, with two photographers, because I honestly believe there should be two photographers at most weddings – both to capture everything and also as an important backup in case I trip and break my leg or crash my car at the wedding.  This includes full-resolution digital files.  All day because I don’t want you to have to pick and choose what to have captured from your wedding.  At the same time, if I’m going to ditch my husband on a Saturday, it doesn’t make much difference if I’m gone for 6 or 8 or 10 hours.  Sure, I’ll be more or less tired, but it really works out to about the same.

That is, I don’t have packages.  When I was first getting all my pricing together, I started to put together packages.  6 hours and digital files here, 8 hours and a small album here, 10 hours and a big album with parents’ albums here!  None of this makes any sense to me.  What if you have a 6-hour wedding and want an album?  What if you don’t care about an album but want 10 hours of coverage.  I honestly don’t know where the wedding photography industry gets all this stuff from.  Everyone else has packages, so you figure you should also.  Everyone else calls it an “investment” so you should too.  Everyone else likes to put their lowest package on the site and say that’s where things “start”, so write me to find out what you’ll actually pay.

So I threw all of that out.  And here now reading this article, I realize this is about respect.

My clients are grown adults.  They can make their own decisions about what products they want from their wedding day.  I respect that they know what their budget is and will choose whatever tangible items they want from my extremely short list of things to buy.  Offering one price, with whatever add-ons they like, makes me feel like I am not talking down to my clients, like I am not trying to talk them into anything they don’t want.

In the meantime, I haven’t created any “anchoring effects.”  That is, if I give you a package at $2,000 and one at $3,000 and one at $4,500, most people will be drawn to the $3,000 package as a comparative “savings” from the big package.  This is silly and (take it easy, photogs) seems sort of deceptive or underhanded.  I in no way want to trick my clients into buying something they don’t want.  My clients really seem to appreciate this approach and I’m always pleased when someone tells me it was easy to understand my pricing, referencing other photographers they researched with confusing package “options.”  It makes me feel good to make it easy on them.  Maybe I’m leaving money on the table but that wouldn’t bother me as much as feeling I was tripping up my clients.

And I’ll wrap up by saying that it isn’t necessarily disrespectful to present packages.  I’m sure many photographers would say they are helping their clients choose items they want, or are offering discounts with the bundled products.  Others have time limits on their day or charge hourly rates – great!  We all have to figure out what works for us and our clientele.  I know one photographer who never works more than 8 hours at a wedding.  He is respecting his family.  Others don’t offer coverage without an album purchase, because they truly believe an album is necessary to enjoy the photographs from the wedding day.  But for me and mine, 100% in-the-open, no-comparisons-to-make pricing is how I show my clients I respect their values, priorities and budgets.

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Pricing and respect.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
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I’m constantly concerned I won’t be able to pull off the happy-family photo.  Got this one – score!

And who couldn’t love a face like this?  P is so handsome and mom had to talk him out of wearing a tux to the photo shoot.  How cute is that?

Congratulations everybody!  I’ll see you soon!

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Pamela & James | National Cathedral engagement.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
And if you want to read my tweets, read them.

Eric had actually just sneezed in this frame, but I love it.

This sparkly installation thing is totally new and completely cool.

And, yes, I should probably be too embarrassed to post this (especially after the “30 most awkward engagement photos” or whatever that post is called has been making the rounds) but I think this is hilarious.  These trees confound me, really.  They are so cool, so weird, so creepy.  And I have been at Dumbarton Oaks with a couple way too many times not to have done something awesome here.  So we did some stuff.  And then I figured – heck – if you’re going to go with silly, go with silly.  And voila!

So much congratulations Marla and Eric!  I’ll see you guys soon for that wedding!

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Marla & Eric | Dumbarton Oaks engagement.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
And if you want to read my tweets, read them.

Ann’s bridesmaids – in blue saris, no less! – were her sisters.  Chris’ dad told me his girls jumped at the opportunity to wear saris for the wedding.

Ann and Chris got hitched at the Chapel at Quantico, a really nice little church on the base.  Special thanks to Angel for coming out to work with me on this wedding.  A couple of these images are hers, including this nice portrait of Chris in the pews.

There was no shortage of adorable kids at this wedding.

When Ann told me all the decorations were “included” with her reception, I was pretty skeptical.  I’ve been to those wedding halls before.  But Fredericksburg Square really impressed me with their classy decor, experienced waitstaff and friendly DJ.  I’d definitely recommend it as a venue.

Congratulations, Ann and Chris!

Ceremony: Chapel at Quantico (I think you need the hookup to get married there)
Reception: Fredericksburg Square
Photography: that would be me
Videography: Natasha from Dolce Studio Films
The cake: The Cakery
Florist: Anita’s Petite Fleur
Hair: Bella Hair Salon
DJ: provided by Fredericksburg Square

Yo! I'm a wedding and portrait photographer based in Arlington, VA. It's kind of awesome. You can read this post on my blog right here: Ann & Chris | Chapel at Quantico wedding.
And if you want to be my facebook friend, friend me.
And if you want to read my tweets, read them.