Have you ever wanted to go to a conference focused completely on something you love? DragonCon? A teacher's conference?
Have you ever been on a retreat filled with people who you know "get you" and you can be completely yourself? Like on a band trip or a Speech and Debate competition?
Last year I was able to go to Conference Twelve in Nashville and hang out and learn from the most amazing senior photographers in the country. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd ever get to go to something like that so when I did and it ended up being so completely worth it I was in heaven!
I signed up for the extra day of learning and got to stay at this gorgeous house with about ten other ladies and we had an extra day of learning and even a quick photo shoot for ourselves as well as a styled shoot with a couple senior girls. Getting to know the photographers there was definitely my favorite part of the conference! There is absolutely nothing more validating than getting to chat with people who understand what it's like to be you, your struggles, your dreams, your goals, and your motivation for why you do the thing you do. Even though we are all really different women we have this thing in common: senior photography. It's such a narrow little field to work in and I really believe that most people who choose this as their career genuinely love teens and can't imagine doing anything else. It was so refreshing to be with them and to learn from and encourage each other!
When I knew I was going to the conference I made the decision to only take pictures on film and to take some video. I knew that I didn't exactly need to come home with a ton of images for my portfolio (I've been doing this for almost a decade after all) so that wasn't my priority. My main goal for the weekend was to learn more about my business and if I came away with even a handful of fun pictures then that would just be the icing on top. Honestly, it was the best decision I made! I ended up only taking one roll of film and nearly all of them were awesome! It allowed me to just relax and not stress about getting a bunch of pictures that I would end up needing to whittle through and edit later. It also gave me room to just shoot a couple images from each session and not sweat about not having enough time or something silly. I could jump in, grab a couple shots, direct a 20 second video clip and voila I was done and could enjoy hanging out with everyone.
I can't even detail how much I learned from Leslie and the other instructors and even a year later I'm still digesting and implementing some of their suggestions and I feel it's really helped me grow my business and to love on my clients even more! The whole experience made me excited to go to another and I'm hoping one day soon that will be a possibility. Until then I'll keep looking over the materials from a year ago and continue making small and significant changes to be an even better photographer.
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