President’s Message for November 2006

Learning to say NO.  Wow this is so hard to do.  I have really begun to evaluate my business, life and goals.  How much business do I want to do?  I realized that as my business has grown tremendously over the last 4 years I have become swallowed by it! 

 As I began to struggle balancing my children, parenting, business and other responsibilities, I realized that I just really had to re-structure everything.  It’s so hard to say NO when it’s your business, your blood, sweat and tears!  However, you have to!  To maintain the quality and YOUR SANITY!  So, I have scaled back on a few things, and made a schedule for myself of when I can do appointments.  It is such a relief now that I have made that commitment to myself, my business and my family.  I realized that my babies are growing up, and I am missing a lot of stuff with them.  Now, I have that time for them that I was sacrificing before.

 Ask for help!  Wow, another hard thing to do…, but sometimes you just have to do it.  So many studios are contracting out their work.  Work such as color correcting, and album design.  This is something that I am now looking into.  Many labs offer this service already, but finding the one that does the job to your liking is the challenge.  I am working with companies such as GraphiStudio, Zookbinders & The Wedding Lab.  

 There is even a newer movement in photography where photographers are turning into graphic’s designers, and taking on the job of only designing albums for other photographers! 

 I am currently training a new assistant to hopefully help with some of these duties in my studio, such as filing, packaging orders, color correcting etc….  It’s taking some effort and time in the training, but I am told by others, that it will pay off in the end!

 So, my message to all of you is just that it’s okay to say NO.  It’s okay to maintain the level of quality and service you want to give even if it means turning down a job once in a while.  Your other clients will thank you and your family, and sanity will thank you too!

 I look forward to our November meeting with our special friend, and guest Roy Hanna.  He will be treating us to an evening program on wedding photography.  Looking forward to seeing all of you there!

 Aimee Hood

President, PPNV

 Passion
is in all great searches and is necessary
to all creative endeavors.

W. Eugene Smith