A very candid review of 2014 and a New, Refreshed Vision for 2015

As I sit here and I look back at 2014, I find myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion, thinking of the highs and lows as a business owner and a person . 2014 marked my 3rd year in business in July, it was a year filled to the brim with family sessions, milestones, newborn sessions, weddings and fairy sessions, 265 sessions to be exact. Wow. And in the middle of all that we moved to our home in Adel in May and welcomed our 3rd child a baby girl, Mila Joy. It was the year I first started the Glitter and Glam fairy sessions. The response to these was just plain overwhelming! Who knew that these would spark such an interest!? I sure didn’t. This year also marked the first time that I found myself putting on the breaks, especially this fall. It is a hard pill to swallow when you realize you just can’t do everything. Trust me, I am a goer in every sense of the word. I thrive on being busy, in fact in down times I find myself just digging up extra projects to do, I can. not. sit. still. I am also a people pleaser, many times going above and beyond to make others happy and I hate to admit it that sometimes came at the expense of my family.

Well a new kind of busy fell in my lap on July 24th and that was Mila. All of a sudden all those miles I had traveled back and forth to Omaha for sessions in the fall of 2013 and the summer of 2014 just didn’t seem to make sense for my family any longer. It was really the first time that I thought you know what,  at this stage in my life, with 3 kids 5 and under I need to present 110% at my home, they need me, my husband needs me and for the time being I need to slow down. Literally a light bulb went off when Mila was about a week old, and I thought to myself “you crazy lady what in the hell are you thinking with your schedule this fall?!” I am thankful that 99% of my clients understood, most of them saying “we will see you next year Katie”, as they had worked with me plenty of times in the past and they knew this came from a genuine place in my heart. I mean lets talk mom to mom here, you would without fail do what’s best for your children and family right?! I had one though that I had to cancel their session along with about 20 others and they emailed me back saying I was unprofessional for canceling. I was taken back by this, here I gave 5 weeks notice and I thought we all have those times within our own job that we have to take a day or time off right? For sick kids, things come up, I’m human with very little humans depending on me. And there that people pleaser part of myself kicked in. I dwelled on that much longer than I should have. I felt like that maybe only other small business owners would understand. I am everything in my business I have no one else to answer emails, edit, shoot. I am the HR, I am the finance department. But there is a confidence that arises in many when they are behind a computer screen they tend to attack. I have learned over the years to grow a much tougher skin, to realize that not everyone is your right client and it is okay to let them go, because I tell you what when it clicks and you have found your ‘right’ clients, their sessions take on a whole new level, you start to form this bond and trust that allows a creative soul like myself to grow and thrive. It has also made me become a more gracious person, realizing that we all have things going on behind the scenes. It is okay to cut some one some slack, do it, you probably will make their week.

2014 marked the year that I knew I needed to start growing my business in Des Moines. I love photography. I love my business and I knew to keep this dream up and going it needs to start happening closer to home. That was tough for me to admit. Here after many sleepless nights, tears and sweat over the last couple of years I was going to have to be okay with no longer pushing to grow in and around Omaha. But something else clicked that hadn’t crossed my mind before. I am so content with the families that I have met and that have chose me to capture priceless moments for them over the years that if it were just their families that I continued to see over the years my heart would remain full. I no longer needed a bajillion (yes that’s a number) people knocking down my door and wanting my services to feel worth it. I also became okay with knowing there are many people who are looking for the best deal, trust me I see it all the time posted in mom groups on Facebook etc., and that guess what it’s okay they are not my clients, there are plenty of services for them. I do not want anyone to choose me based off of price alone. That  to me is such an empty service to give. I run one big special a year because I do know that not everyone can maybe afford my prices, I also did not raise my milestone session prices this year because as a parent I get how expensive that first year with a new baby is. I want these parents who do want me to capture their little one the first year to be able to. That is important to me. Some of the bases that I started this business on will not change. One of them being I give the digitals to each and every session. There is a big push back against this. But you know what for my son before I started my business I chose to go to a photographer that was prints only for the full year. I have the prints which I LOVE and I agree that you HAVE to use a quality print lab (in fact I only allow certain labs to be used) but guess what those prints over the last 5 years are now stuck to the glass and if I attempt to remove them they will rip. I have no back up. Zero. That really hurts. I don’t want the same thing to happen to my clients. Print them, do it multiple times if you so choose, double back them up, they are your memories not mine.

So what have I found to be the most rewarding part in 2014? I got to know my clients and their kiddos a little bit more, it was another year of learning what they like and what they don’t, to get to see how big they have gotten literally in front of my lens, getting to chat about their new quirks, I got to capture first kisses, and first dances, I got to see the ‘I do’, I got to catch up with families that maybe I hadn’t seen in a year as they continue to come back to me time after time. Now that is fulfilling. Relationships are being made, there is a trust, I look forward to our time together. It’s a pretty unique relationship. I am often the first person they tell they are expecting, or about a special gift they giving a loved one. I have had the opportunity to do final family sessions for a loved one that is dying. I get to fill those family albums with my images of their most prized possession. Some day many generations down the road will look at all these moments that I helped to document.

So that leads me to 2015. What would I hope for this year? For Omaha I hope to continue to grow my relationships with families that I have met and new families that I will be meeting. I have something special in store for these past clients. They have helped to shape me into the photographer I am, they have continued to give me their unrelenting support. They make my life easier, they make my life fuller and for them I am so thankful. Des Moines I hope to continue to meet new families that God puts in front of me. I hope to get to the point to where I have with my Omaha clients. I want 2015 to be more about an experience and continuing to build relationships. I want 2015 to be much more personable. I want to have the time for the extras. I don’t want to continue to spread myself so thin in all aspects of my life from my relationship with Jesus, to being a mother, to being a wife, daughter, sister, niece, cousin, friend and not just a business owner but as your photographer. I want 2015 to be about slowing down, enjoying what is in front of me and creatively and personally becoming a better photographer and business owner. I want to push new boundaries in my work on a personal level, an organic level. At a level that is done for me and my soul.  This year is going to be about growth in a different sense of the word, no longer in numbers but as a person and an artist.

“I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” – Van Gogh
Quote from Sara Bareilles