A University of Scranton poll reports that only 8% of us are successful at keeping our New Year’s resolutions. Pretty dismal statistics. Would you like to be successful at keeping your resolution this year? Big resolutions die hard, but small ones are obtainable.
If you are looking to succeed in your resolutions and in your professional photographic endeavors, make goals that are specific, measurable and achievable. Let me propose a list of ten resolutions that should be on every professional photographer’s list for 2017, if they are not already firmly in practice.
Resolution 1: Back up!
If you can’t walk away from your home or studio each night with confidence that your precious files are backed up and safe from a hard drive malfunction, theft or a fire, you are not in a good place. This may seem like a monumental task, but it is actually quite simple. There are numerous online backup storage services that will make this process simple, including Google Drive, DropBox, Adobe Creative Cloud, Carbonite, iDrive and BackBlaze to name a few.
Start with the most manageable and also the most critical files you have, which are your working files (your undelivered images). These are the files that will destroy your business should you lose them. Don’t trust in a manually copied second drive backup that is tucked away in a small fireproof safe in your back bedroom closet. A fire will melt that drive, a thief will find that safe and that drive will probably go bad!
If I sound like I’m trying to scare you, I am. This is serious, but the solution is simple. Choose an online backup service today, choose your “working drive” (the drive that holds your undelivered, original images) as the source for your backup and let the serenity begin. It may take two weeks to upload that entire drive to the cloud, but when it is done and you’re are constantly and effortlessly making off-site backups of your undelivered jobs, you will sleep better, and relax more completely when you are away from your studio or home and you will finally be able to truly call yourself a “professional.” Until then, don’t kid yourself or your clients – without this kind of backup, you are not a professional, you’re are just dangerous!
Chances are, your Lightroom catalog of work is not on your working drive, it is generally stored on your computer, in your “pictures” folder. It needs to be backed up as well. When you close Lightroom, it will ask you if you would like to make a backup of your catalog. Your resolution for 2017? Simply resolve to click YES. If you back up your catalog each time you close Lightroom (which should be often) you will avoid losing weeks worth of work should you have a corruption issue, or make a stupid mistake when you are up late at night working on photos. When you back up your catalog, tell Lightroom to save the backups on your “Working Drive” that is being backed up by your passive online backup system.
Resolution 2: Calibrate your color
Professional photographers know they have the right color! They don’t guess. If you haven’t calibrated your camera and your monitor, you have no idea if what you are sending out the door is any good. Monitor calibration systems are not expensive and will give you 100% confidence that you are posting and providing your clients with color accurate images. There are many systems out there, I use the x-Rite Color Checker Passport on the camera and the i1-Display Pro on my monitor to ensure that I have accurate color all the way through the process. For a less expensive option, buy the Color Monki display calibration system. Whatever system you choose, resolve today that you won’t spend another year in the preverbal dark, not knowing what your images actually look like.
Resolution 3: Clean off your desktop
If your computer desktop is a mess, with seventy documents, five photo job folders, three downloaded movies and eighteen PDFs sitting on it, you are probably experiencing two things: problems finding your files and a slow computer. Take some time to clean off that desktop, put your files in folders in the hard drive where they belong. If you need quick access, make an alias (or shortcut) to them and leave that on the desktop. A clean desktop and organized file system makes for fast access to documents and avoids lost files. A messy desktop will also slow down your computer, so clean it off and enjoy a rejuvenated computer.
Resolution 4: Invest in a new lighting technique
Investing in new gear does not give you new skills. You must also invest in the techniques needed to use that gear well. Too many photographers buy new gear, but continue using the sophomoric techniques they have always used. A new technique takes time and hard work to master, but you have to start somewhere. Take the time this year to master a new lighting technique.
You will need to identify the lighting style you are interested in learning, and look for educational material on how to accomplish it. You may be able to accomplish it with the equipment you already have, if not, MacGyver it, borrow it, rent it or buy it. Then schedule a day to play with your equipment (don’t test on a paying client, find someone who needs free photos or pay someone to be your subject). Plan on a full working day of trial and error without interruptions, this should give you enough time to get your mind around the concept you want to learn. Don’t be afraid to follow along with a video tutorial, or reference an instructional book. Once you understand the lighting technique, frequent repetition with studied alterations to your technique will allow you to add it to the list of your lighting skills to pull out anytime you need it.
Resolution 5: Share your photography more often
Are you interested in SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? I am sure you get emails from many self-proclaimed experts in the field offering to do something amazing to your website to make it happen for you, but there is no magic code anyone can put on your website that will bring you to the top of a Google search. The magic happens when you share your work in the right way and often… daily if possible. Consistent and frequent posting is a huge plus for SEO. You need to add the right Alt Tags and text to your posts and name your image and title it, etc, but in the end, doing all that and posting an image on your blog once a month will not give you a huge boost in SEO. And posting fifty photos in a blog post will not help you either, but posting an image a day for 50 days will!
Now comes the hard part, deciding what you can actually accomplish. Don’t resolve to “post more often” because that is too nebulous and you will never know if you’ve accomplished your goal. Instead, decide on an achievable frequency for posting that is considerably more frequent that your current rate of posting, make a calendar and stick with it. This is a resolution that will positively affect your business this year! So make it happen.
Resolution 6: Outsource something
As a professional photographer, you wear too many hats and most of them don’t look good on you. You wear them because you either think that you are the only one in the world capable of doing that particular job, or because you think that you cannot afford to pay someone else to do it. But there are few things that only you can do, and in most cases, you would make far more money if you cleared your plate and focused on the important parts of your business, like your clients.
So, make a list of everything you do that could be done by someone else, find something on that list that you hate doing or that you aren’t even good at doing, then find an outsourcing partner, or hire someone into your studio to take that task (and others) off your plate. You will be surprised at what you can accomplish when you are not tied up with all those delegated tasks. Warning: you might become addicted and end up delegating more tasks and end up with a lot of free time to pursue even greater things.
Resolution 7: Know your exposure is right
Too many photographers put their trust an extremely inaccurate depiction of their images while they are making them. If you are viewing your images on the LCD on the back of your camera in full-screen mode without the histogram, you are not getting the real picture. The LCD screen is not accurate and its brightness is only relative to its ambient surroundings. Resolve today to always have the histogram available to judge your exposures, when you are using your camera’s LCD screen. Also, you will find it useful to see the LCD screen and better judge your sharpness and composition with the addition of an LCD Loop, which is an extremely useful and affordable addition to any photo bag. (Learn more about getting the Perfect Exposure here.)
Resolution 7: Shed some weight
The standard New Year’s resolution is to lose a little weight. Time to put your camera bag on a diet. Sit down with your camera and other equipment bags and look for items you never use and pull them from your bag and enjoy the weight reduction. If it’s a rolling bag, and weight isn’t an issue, find something more useful to take its place. Here are a few items I have in my bag that are small and extremely useful:
- A very small gaffer tape roll: I use this every day, from making snoots to mending grooms tuxedos.
- A folded square of cinefoil: flagging off stray light, or extending your lens hood is a snap with a bit of cinefoil. It fits anywhere and can do so much.
- An Allen wrench tool: lights and tripods and other gear can be frustrating without the right tools to tighten them up. You never think of that loose head until you are on location using it.
Resolution 8: Update Your Portfolio
Your potential clients will hire you based on your portfolio. If you are showing them work from 2006 and your best work is still hiding in the depths of your computer, you are missing opportunities. Take some time this winter on a slow day or two and find your best work and add it to your portfolio. Then make sure to share that portfolio on your website, on your walls and in printed books and materials. And while you are in there…get rid of some old images that don’t represent your current style or skill level.
Resolution 9: Take a day off
You work too much! Resolve to take a day off once a month. No shooting, no working, no emails, shut it all down and relax. Enjoy your family. Go on a hike. Build something or have a tea party with your child. Read. Sleep in. Go ahead, take out your calendar and schedule it right now and let your family know about it so they can plan for it and get excited about it. Burnout is avoidable with a little R&R every once in a while. I do this once a week. I don’t work on Sunday, I don’t accept jobs, I don’t look at clients’ images, I just spend the day in a state of rest. I focus on family and spirituality. A regular reset is invaluable.
Resolution 10: Upgrade your brain
Lawyers, accountants, doctors, engineers, teachers and pilots all take continuing education courses in order to maintain their credentials as professionals. You may not be saving lives or building bridges, but you are in an industry that is rapidly changing. Customer expectations are changing as fast as the technology you use to create the products they want. You cannot afford to grow old and become a dinosaur. Photographic education is available everywhere and at every price. Adorama has a host of educational videos and articles online. Subscribe to a new blog or YouTube channel and take 15 minutes a week to learn something new. Sign up for an online course on a new photo topic that mystifies you. Find a creative workshop to attend and learn new techniques. Make 2017 a year of learning (free or not free, it doesn’t matter).
This year can be a game changer for you. Take stock of what you know and what you don’t know, make an honest assessment of where you are falling short, professionally and resolve to change things. Remember, you will have more success with a shorter list of accomplishable goals. Pick a few from my list, or use my list as inspiration for your own, but do something great this year by improving yourself and your photography.
As we ring in a new year, I hope yours is full of success personally and professionally.
