The past two weekends I’ve experienced a very rare thing in any wedding photographer’s life. An OFF weekend. Yes, really! I didn’t have a wedding and I took a off weekend! The best thing that could have happened to me!
As soon as a wedding season start, I feel like all my mussels tighten up, get my gear ready and I’m off to do what I do best…shoot! I just go go go without blinking. Don’t get me wrong, I looove my job and I love to spend time with my clients and to get some awesome photos that will last them forever. But on the other hand I have to look after my own health & creativity. Last season I realized that shooting every weekend from September to May (and sometimes 2/3 per week!) Was not healthy! I shot 45 weddings in 7 month.
I realized that I needed to scale down and since then I’ve kept out 1 weekend every month for myself. The scary thing about being a wedding photographer is that yo sell your weekends a year in advance. So if you don’t plan carefully you’ll find yourself in the middle of a season with bookings left right and center, unedited work, unanswered emails and you’ll just feel depressed! So you really need to plan ahead. Make sure you set out time for yourself. Tonight I decided to sit back and answer some unread mail, so I’m basically preaching to myself! But I thought I’d just through the idea out there that you should make time for yourself, especially with 2010 enquiries coming up, you might want to incorporate some of this into your calendar.
But I seriously don’t want this post to be all somber and dark…no way! It’s just something that was on my mind and a little warning to all my photo friends. But here is some awesome encouragement as well! I asked people on facebook why it was so great to be a photographer and got some awesome answers! So if you need some encouragement, check these out:
My favourite:
“You choose which moments to keen wand which to discard, but the click of a button!” Liesl Marx
I can relate and that’s why I chose not to specialise in one field, I mix it up, food this week, wedding next week, event, conference, portrait, landscape.
After last season I decided this season I would book out December but then that’s it for weddings, one a month is enough fun ;-)
photographing small objects and small things that people take them for granted that you can actually turn them to good,
Must agree with you. I need to take a break a bit I think… I’m falling very behind with my editing
I am there right now: unanswered emails and weddings every weekend. It’s all good but def booking off one weekend a month next season. thanks christine for being so open with other photographers; you are a true inspiration. Sacha Waldman told me he got hold of you to do his wedding im so glad it was you. Shame he was desparate. I was sad I couldn’t do it but hope it was fun. He is a great photographer. Have you checked out his site, http://sachawaldman.com/?
I read somewhere (and now for the life of me can not remember where) a quote that I read from a wedding photographer – that to me summarised why it is so very special;
You some how get a key into a family’s life for one day, no questions, no conditions, just a special key. To view and capture all thing so very true, intimate and personal. A key for one day where you are actually a member of their family. Very special indeed.