Over the coming months, I will slowly be changing this blog over to a portfolio page for my photography.  Since last fall, I have done a lot of soul searching.  Since the birth of Sam, I feel like I have been lacking a creative outlet.  I focus all of my time and energy on raising him, but I need to create things in order to recharge my mental batteries.  I haven’t done much of that.  I stopped taking photos.  That speaks volumes right there.

So at the beginning of the year, I did what most people did and thought about my goals for 2013.  I have always been the dreamer; I talk about making plans, but I never follow through.  I wasn’t going to do that this year.  I need to change.

I evaluated my “professional” life and found it to be non-existent.  We shot a grand total of 2 weddings last year.  2.  That’s pathetic.  Don’t get me wrong, they were AMAZING weddings with fantastic clients, but I want to do more.  Want to be more.  So I thought long and hard about how to remedy that and I have decided to branch out on my own.  My business partner Lisa and my relationship has become extremely strained.  Our friendship is suffering, and we’re not even doing any business to show for it.  We’ve had a long talk, and we are no longer partners; we will do our own photography and help each other out because we want to support our friend, not because we feel like we have to.  I feel like our friendship is already improving, but it’ll take some time and effort to be where we used to.

So, now that I’ve broken free of A Thousand Words Photography, what’s the next step?  Education.  LOTS of education.  I have workshops after workshops lined up and have already learned so much.  I have a feeling I will be going through notebooks with all of the note taking I’ve done so far.  On top of the education, I am networking, finding a decent lawyer and accountant, and finding clients.  But the most important thing is that I get out there and shoot.  It’s what I love to do, and I miss it.

Before I can really go full throttle in this business is that I need to be accountable for my faults and actively work on improving them.  I am AWFUL when it comes to procrastinating and returning phone calls.  If you’re reading this, you know this.  While it’s not my intention to be rude, that’s exactly what I am.  This absolutely cannot be a part of my work ethic any longer.  So, I’m going to have to come up with a weekly schedule to keep me on track and basically staple my phone to my hand so it’s never far away.

I know it’s going to take time to work on all of this, especially my habits, so I have no intention on really starting up the business until later this year.  But until then I’m just going to keep working my hardest to be a great photographer.  In the end, I just want my family and friends to be proud of me.  I want to be proud of myself.