Owning/Operating a successful full-time photography business is not for the faint of heart.

Given only 24 hours each day, and a brief 168 each week, there’s a limited amount of time to devote to everything that’s required to thrive. There’s communications (emails, calls, meetings with potential clients, etc.), marketing/advertising (updates on website, Facebook, Google, local publications, etc.), finance/billing/accounting/taxes, upkeep and maintenance on photography equipment and supplies and tools, workshops/articles/seminars/conferences/expos to attend and learn from, computer and photo editing concerns (lack of computer and/or external hard drive space and memory is an ongoing challenge!) and keeping the studio vibrant, fresh and compelling…. Then there’s a wee bit of sleep and exercise to round out the schedule!

But, as always, it’s the actual moments of photography that matters most to each day. The incomparable experience of sharing with another person, the outcome of which is meaningful and impactful and personal and genuine.

We get asked all the time “Should I/Can I bring my dog on the photo shoot?”

The answer is always “YES!!!”

Dogs bring an abundance of joy to a session, and their presence is amazing at creating added positivity. Dogs are, perhaps it could be said, exactly what the world needs more of right now.

Cheers to running around with distracted optimistic curious purpose, smiling at every stranger you meet, feeling overjoyed to see loved ones, stopping to smell the flowers, collapsing in exhausted bliss after an outdoor adventure and living every moment as the vast miracle that it, indeed, is.

This week I pulled out of the driveway from a client’s home, following a family portrait session on their property, and there was a car pulling in to the home next door. As that driver pulled in, with me backing up beside him, I immediately recognized him as a client from two years ago. We laughed and chatted and I drove off again reminded how small this community is. There’s only a one-step separation from who you know, and who knows who you know.

I love how this is so helpful for my business. I gain so much satisfaction when a conversation begins “_____ recommended you to me, and I’d like to book a session….”

Impeccable quality and reputation, at a wonderful price-point, in a town that is part of your life’s fabric. It’s a wonderful oasis of hard-earned peace.

Just finished a Friday morning family portrait session, on my way to an overnight corporate shoot and, in the midst, uploading a shot here from a surprise proposal two weeks ago on the spectacular IU campus…. What a crazy-hectic-unstructured-spontaneous-everchanging profession this is!

The underlying constant. The bedrock. The foundation of it all. Is beautiful, irreplaceable moments.

Helping good people get gorgeous visual memories of meaningful life moments….. What a kind, simple, blessed way to live an enriched life.

I pause momentarily and head out for tonight’s session….

Touch lives. Make a difference. Matter to someone. Matter to a few. Pause. Give thanks. Feel. Feel gratitude. Appreciate. See light. Feel darkness. Know the difference. Reflect. Be a reflection. Grow. Enjoy coffee. Enjoy sunshine. Steer away from adamant. Embrace nuance. Know that everything you are won’t matter in 50 brief years. But know that everything you do matters now. Create. Share. Give back. Turn your hourglass over, and understand that every. single. moment. is. unimaginably. precious. and. just. as. soon. gone.

Robin, Mike and their kids are recent transplants to Indiana, and it was love-at-first-sight for them. They bought a farmhouse on a 28-acre lot, and are living the dream with off-road vehicles, a boat, a truck, the freedom to create as they choose, and fresh country air as far as the eye can see (and beyond what the eye can see, that said!).

How rare and how precious to have a career where I get to meet people each day and have personal, intimate conversations about their lives, while simultaneously capturing beautiful images for them to frame in their homes….. While the world around me appears to be as chaotic as has been the case in my lifetime, I’ve got a small-island niche that’s about appreciation, gratitude, wonder, beauty and treating each person with straightforward open-minded goodwill.

As busy of a week of photography as I’ve ever experienced, yet I wouldn’t trade a second of it….. Two sessions in Lafayette, two in West Lafayette, four in Indianapolis, four in Bloomington, one in an Indiana state park and one in Nashville. Combined with traveling to-and-fro, I believe I’ll enjoy a cocktail this evening, before two sessions in Bloomington tomorrow and a full weekend and upcoming week ahead, as usual…. Whew!

Following no fewer than 7,000 images shot this week, I’m pulled back to an outtake photo shot in Indianapolis. This was an evening family session — father/husband is a physician and mother/wife is an Indiana University professor — and, combined with their two boys, they’re a wonderful collection of souls. I asked the mom if I could get a few images of her with the boys. The younger brother was getting interested in their upcoming dinner (he was promised his favorite: cheese pizza!), and the older brother was being incredibly mature — very much helping facilitate the session. That is, until he sensed an opportunity to pinch his mom’s backside! These are the millisecond moments that bring smiles and comedic relief to portrait shoots, and I’m grateful for each one, as they remind us of the innocent joy of children, and the irreplaceable gift that laughter brings to everyone involved.

I took, perhaps, thousands of “better” photographs this week. Perhaps, too, that said, none that make me smile as broadly.

While uncertainty persists (has uncertainty become the actual norm?), so, too, do weddings, engagements, family reunions, professional headshots and company events.

I love seeing joy. I love being in the midst of joy. I love, that even though I’m working hard during sessions, I can feel the joy.

We take one book off the shelf. We place another back onto the shelf. The pages turn. The wonder continues.

Surprise Proposal Photography should be its own distinct branch within the stately tree of Careers In Professional Photography. Shooting surprise proposals is exhilarating, and the high — for everyone there — is extraordinary.

It’s so fun to hide behind (fill in the blank — I’ve hidden behind many things! in this case….) a row of bushes and to capture the first moments of a couple transforming from “dating” to “engaged”. Amazing energy.

In this particular case, the couple shares a love of mixology, and the proposal was at the awesome Hard Truth Distillery in Nashville. Shortly after her “Yes!!!” response, they headed in to stir up their first cocktail as fiancée and fiancé….

So very many reasons to love a career as a self-employed professional photographer in a cool town/county/region….

Well I was born in a small town

And I live in a small town

Probably die in a small town

Oh, those small communities….

Mellencamp

(amen)