After months of planning, the November Month of Education is finally here! For the entire month, daily education is posted on my Instagram and weekly blog recaps are posted on my website so you can come back any time! If you’re brand new to the game, thinking about starting a business, or already years into your work, this education is for you. We should never stop growing, so investing in education is the best thing you can do for yourself, regardless of what stage you’re in.

And this education is FREE. Who’s ready to get started??

Week 1 is all about finding your style as a photographer. We’re getting into the mindset of figuring out who we are and who we want to be, and taking actionable steps to get there.

Day 1: You Are a Photographer

The very first step you need to take in this journey is to say that you are a photographer. Tell yourself that you’re a photographer, tell your friends that you’re a photographer, tell the checkout lady at the grocery store that you’re a photographer. Say it loud and say it often.

Why? Because the first step in accomplishing your dream is making it real. If no one knows you’re a photographer, they can’t support you. If you don’t tell yourself you’re a photographer, you’ll be brought down by thoughts saying you’re not ready or you’re not good enough. But guess what? You ARE ready and you ARE good enough, because you’re here. You wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t ready. You might have a long way to go before you reach your dreams, but you just took the first step.

You are a photographer.

Day 2: Ask Yourself What You Like to Shoot and Where

Now that we know we’re photographers and we’re ready to start, we have to ask ourselves what we want to photograph. Look at my website for 20 seconds and you’ll see that I love couples, weddings, and seniors out in nature, particularly Shenandoah. I’ve built my whole brand and life around this, because that is what I love to do.

What gets you excited? Families, newborns, seniors, weddings, couples, or something else? Look back on your past work or another photographer and see what makes you want to run out the door with your camera. If you dream of photographing couples out in nature, do it. If you really dislike photographing kids, stop doing it. More on how to do this later.

The next question is where? Do you like all-white studios, downtown streets, mountains, or somewhere else? Again, look at your work and other photographers and see what gets you the most excited. When I see a beautiful image of a couple running around beautiful mountains, I get SO excited. All I want to do is be with them. What makes you pause and wish you were there?

If you aren’t sure, that’s 100% ok! I didn’t start specializing in Shenandoah couple and senior photography until years into my business! Let’s just get you started by asking yourself these questions and thinking about what makes you happiest and most excited to be a photographer, and we’ll go from there. Step by step.

Day 3: Prompting and Posing

Prompting: giving directions and letting them follow it through and interact without further instruction

Posing: helping direct every part of their bodies, either in movement of stillness

Prompting and posing are two sides of a coin. Some photographers create their client experiences based entirely off one or another, and have systems that get consistent and great results. Other photographers, like me, use both. I read my client, see which one they react to better, and see which one shows off their personality most accurately.

Both take a lot of research and practice, but each can get you beautiful moments that you and your clients will love forever.

Day 4: Editing

One of the best ways to distinguish yourself as a photographer is to find your own style of editing. The best photographers have styles that are recognizable because all their work is so consistent, you can guess it’s them. But the secret? We’re always changing. Every year we can look back and see how much we’ve grown and how specialized we’ve become with our own editing. We figure out what we like in our own work and fine tune it.

So what do you like? Darker images with rich tones? Lighter images with cooler colors? Or something in the middle? I like to think that I’m somewhere in that mid-range, but I wasn’t always here. It’s taken years to find a style I’m consistently happy with. The best thing you can do for yourself is to figure out what you like and WHY, then start practicing with your own images. There isn’t a correct style, so you’ll never be wrong. It’s all about what you like and how you use it.

Day 5: Where Do You Want to Be?

We all have dreams for our businesses, and asking yourself where you hope to go is the first step in goal setting. Ask yourself: Where do you want your business to be in one month? One year? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Even if it’s the craziest, most far out idea that you dream about, write it down. Write them all down. Write them in a notebook, in your agenda, in your blog. Writing your goals down on paper is proven to help get them done. Next, put them somewhere you’ll see them and think of them constantly. My big, life-long dreams are written on sticky notes that are on the wall directly in front of my face when I’m sitting on my desk, so when I look up from my computer I can remind myself of where I want to go.

Dreams can be as broad as wanting to photograph weddings within the next year or as narrow as wanting to live in a van and be a traveling photographer. Personally, I want to become a photographer educator and help others start and grow their businesses. I want to have systems and a solid base of photographers within 5 years, and in 10 years I hope to do it full time. And yes, I also want to live in a van for a little while.

What about you? What are your goals and dreams for your businesses? I’d love to hear them!

Day 6: Goal Planning

Your goals are written down and they’re right in front of you. It’s time to get them into action. Goal planning is a HUGE topic that we’ll cover in depth at another time, but for now I’ll give you my #1 piece of advice: break your goals down into tiny actionable steps. If you put a major goal on your to-do list, it’ll never get done because the task is too daunting. Instead, write the big goal down and separate it into steps, then break those steps down further into tiny tasks. Assign due dates for those tasks, and little by little your goal will get done. When you can check off a task, you’ll feel great! Instead of letting a huge goal intimidate you, show that goal who’s boss and get. it. done. What goals do you have and what are some steps you can break it down into?

Day 7: You Will Change and Grow

Finding your style is a lifelong process. We can ask all the right questions, make all the right plans, and feel great about where we’re at, but we have to understand that even the style that is perfect for us will change over time because WE change over time. If you’re still unsure of what your style is now, that’s 100% ok because it’ll develop over time.

If we ever stopped changing, it means we’ve stopped growing and learning. Every day we should strive to grow as photographers, business owners, and people, so it’s natural that our styles will change and grow with us too.

So it’s ok if you don’t know what your style is yet. It’ll come over time. When you find it, you’ll know. Cherish it and let it grow with you.

Until then, practice practice practice.

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