1. The Shooting
Mobile Fashion Week. Two incredible shows.
August 12th – The Temple Downtown, which had no AC for being stuck by lightning THAT VERY MORNING. Yeah…
So take an army of hair stylists, make-up artists and models and let them boil in a hot-as-Hades building in Alabama August for about 6 hours. Guess what comes out of that? Nothing short of awesomeness because let’s not forget: they ARE the pros!
August 13th – Space 301, a sleek and totally cool (literally!) art gallery known for adding the “awesome factor” to many events. And ooooh, lookie who’s on the step-and-repeat – the very fab Andrée Photography also known as the Photography Coordinator for this whole shebang! We. Had. Fun! Tons of it!
2. The Learning
I wouldn’t be true to myself if I didn’t try to cram 15 things to do in one week-end, so after the fab Mobile Fashion Week I headed to Atlanta for a day chock-full of photography learning! Accompanied by my kewl as cucumber friends Joe Newman and Jessica Anderson-Overstreet, we descended onto Molly, our beloved by-now Atlanta resident, but very much Auburn freak (and I say that with all the love I’m capable to show towards football 😀 )
Well, good golly… Miss Molly could not join us for the Turn Key Tour with JB and DeEtte Sallee and Lori Nordstrom, but lookie who did! Hint, he’s the KING, GURU, PIMP-DADDY or whatever-else-you-wanna-call-him of Photoshop and goes by the name of Scott Kelby… And yes, I took a very bad camera phone photo, that’s how much of a weirdo nerd I am!!!
Oh, but you say, why go to all the trouble of such a long trip just to see Scott Kelby and the Sallees and Lori? Because, for the love of a thousand daisies, my tiny photo business needs all the help it can get in marketing, getting creative, dealing with clients and everything else I gotta do, since I’m a one woman show here! And brother, did they deliver! I learned a ton of cool stuff, got another ton of cool stuff, had a ton of fun and… good thing our car was sturdy enough to handle all those tons… of everything 😛
One teeny-tiny thing stuck with me from Turn The Key and it was JB Sallee talking about “red flags” – those lovely clients who are trying to hire you, yet know (read *think-they-know*) more about WHY and HOW you’re in business than, well… you!
And thus we come to
3. Biting the dust
One would understand this phrase as failure, taking upon more than you can deliver, burning out…
To set up the stage for the conclusion, I was in talks with a client for their wedding photography since, well, April! For their event in August. Don’t ask.
3 in-person consultations, about 18 emails with 17.623 questions and them trying to get the sky and the moon for next to nothing from me despite the agreed upon collection later, I respectfully ask them to please make a decision as I couldn’t spend this ungodly amount of time for a booking that is not complete 2 weeks before their event.
Mind you I had made THE WORST mistake of giving them a draft wedding contract for them to look over and they returned it full of corrections and red marks and modifications! I was in utter and total shock when they finally asked that I modify my contract for them.
THAT, my friends, was my red flag JB was talking about! After informing them I cannot modify my contract as it was drafted by my lawyer conforming with industry standards, I never heard back.
Their wedding came and went and all vendors have been sued! Every. Last. One.
The biggest heartbreak is that I know all these hard working people and they didn’t see it coming, nor deserve it!
So, I lost a booking. According to some, I might have bit the dust… Or did I actually dodge a bullet?! Yeah, let’s go with the latter. Because I put all my heart and soul and a good chunk of time and finances into this little sweet endeavor of photography I run here, a frivolous lawsuit would have absolutely ended it all. Scary. I thought I can read people pretty good, but I think I might be trying too hard to be nice and sometimes lose sight of the fact others have their own agenda.
Client dissing? Nope, they were never my client, so let’s call this lesson learned!!!
Conclusion: when you think you’re losing, think how that loss actually saved your life!
Happy Monday!