We’re teachers at heart. It’s just in us. We spent four years in elementary school classrooms before we became full-time professional photographers, and that teaching bug just hasn’t left us, except now, instead of teaching 10-year-olds, we’re passionate about teaching a different group of people: photographers. We get such a high from watching other photographers have “light bulb” moments. We love watching the transformation from lost, scared, and stressed to relieved, excited, and empowered. Over the next week, we’ll be doing three FREE speaking and teaching events in person, online, and we’ll even be leading a mock shoot for fellow photographers, so we hope that you’ll join us!
1. Tucson, Arizona
In October, we spoke to Phoenix PUG, a group of local photographers from the Valley, and we presented a topic that’s close to our heart, helping other photographers make the transition from part-time to full-time. It’s called “Making the Leap: 10 Practical Steps to Going Full-Time.” In the presentation, we share our journey, how we went from full-time elementary school teachers with dreams to the reality of being full-time professional photographers, getting to do what we love every day with the person we love.
Since October, our ten steps have been featured in a national photography magazine and we’ll be speaking more in depth on this topic again on Wednesday, February 19 at SunStreet Photo, 439 North 6th Avenue #143, Tucson, Arizona 85705. If you’re in Tucson or the surrounding area, we’d love to meet you, share our journey with you, and help you take the next step in yours. If you’re not able to make it, you can still catch a Cliff Notes version of the ten steps by re-watching the live webcast with did last September on Shoot & Share Live.
2. Shoot & Share Live
We were so nervous the first time we did an online webcast. We didn’t know if anyone would watch, if they would like us, or if what we said would even make a difference in anyone’s life, but once the light went from green to red and the webcast was over, we had our answer. Within minutes, we started getting encouraging messages from all over the country, fellow photographers offering everything from a few words of encouragement to touching words like these ones that caught totally off guard, “Thank you for the inspiration. Your story is so incredibly encouraging. Listening to you has finally spurred my motivation to move toward that full-time goal.” Wow. We just felt so humbled and honored that God would use us to encourage someone to make a real difference in their life.
On Friday, February 21 at 11:00 a.m. MST, we’ll be back on Shoot & Share Live teaching on a totally new topic. What’s it going to be? You’ll have drop by and hang out with us online to find out! For now, the Shoot & Share Facebook group in the ONLY place to see Shoot & Share Live, so if you’re not in the group yet, you’ll definitely want to join!
3. United 2014 Conference
We’ll be attending the United 2014 Conference in Santa Barbara for the first time next week. The focus of the conference is serving clients and each other well. It’ll be three days of building and strengethening relationships with photographers from across the country, listening to and learning from some of the nation’s most successful photographers, shooting in cool places, like vineyards and yachts (more to come on that in a few weeks), laughing a lot, sleeping very little, making ourselves better as professionals and people, and, yes, doing two things that we’ve never done before:
First, on Monday, February 24 from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., we’ll be leading a mock engagement session for 20-30 photographers on the California beaches, where we’ll walk them through how we run an engagement session step-by-step, demonstrate everything from client communication and interaction to how to pose couples together and find great light, take questions and answers on the fly, and make time for other photographers to build their portfolios along the way. We’re excited for the chance to share what we’ve learned with others and hopefully help them take their engagement sessions to the next level.
Second, we’ll be speaking to the entire conference crowd of about 300 people one night during the “5-Minute Fuel” segment, where we’ll have five minutes to share a story from the road, something from our time as photographers that’ll make the audience laugh, cry, or leave feeling inspired. We’re hoping to do all three. We don’t have plans to share this story online — at least not yet — so you’ll have to come to the conference to hear it or ask us about it in person, but suffice it to say to involves Jordan crawling military style, in the dark, through the dirt, under cobwebs, over pipes, underneath a 200-year-old building, on a wedding day, without his shirt on. Oh, it’s gonna be a good time…