When my oldest son was a junior in high school, I decided that I wanted to take his Senior pictures. But I didn’t want to be one of those stay at home Mom’s that all of the sudden becomes a photographer. I wanted to study the art of photography and use professional tools to show off my abilities!
I started by searching the web for online photography classes. And that is where I discovered CreativeLive.com. I started with 28 Days to Portrait Photography with Sue Bryce! I was floored! I couldn’t believe that I could get this kind of training with someone like Sue Bryce! Sue is an internationally award winning photographer. I learned how to pose and style my clients along with lighting, marketing and how to exude value in my talents and not under-price myself. Later I took more classes from Sue such as, Confront Your Challenges and Promote Your Studio with Show Reals. And then I took a class from Kirk Voclain. This class was an eye opener for me. He not only taught me how to customize my clients photo session but he taught me how to price correctly and raise my average sale in my first year to $500-600 per session. I was so thrilled that I could offer quality photography and earn a decent amount of money working part-time!
I can’t see how I could have gained this training without CreativeLive! Not only did I have three kids in school but my husband worked far from home and it just wasn’t in the cards for me to go back to school.
My second favorite tool to use is Animoto! Now don’t laugh, but I had one goal in mind when I would present the newly taken photos to the parents of my Seniors. Do you know what it was???? I didn’t have a dollar amount in mind, I wasn’t trying to sell a certain amount of prints. It was to see a tear rolling down Mom or Dad’s face. Not because I was trying to upset them. Because I was trying to touch their heart! Their babies were about to graduate from high school and move on to the next chapter of their lives. I was trying to capture who these kids were in high school and create a wonderful memory for their family. This is where Animoto came into play. Animoto gave me the ability to create show reals or videos that show-off the photos to parents and families along with customized music and give it gave my clients a complete presentation. It was truly a game changer for me and the best part is that Animoto isn’t expensive so I included an Animoto video as part of my clients package when they booked a photo session with me.
Unfortunately I don’t have the ability to show video’s on my blog but you can see them on Pinterest and Facebook.
I want to be completely transparent. I do receive a small fee from CreativeLive and Animoto but I truly believe and use both companies. They are truly the best in the business in my humble opinion.
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