BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

So you all know that I do my best not to bitch about work, and almost NEVER complain about clients. And that really has to do with the fact that I really love 98% of my clients. TO DEATH. I am fortunate, beyond fortunate, with the people who find me. But sometimes I just melt down and I rant a little. Rest assured, this is NOT that kind of post.

My work is truly an amazing gift that I have given myself. Yes, in my busy months I sleep little, work 60 hour a week, and spend 75% of my time RUNNING MY BUSINESS [not shooting]. And THAT is a story for another day [the one to clear up the myth that it's a BLAST being a professional photographer]. But right now, what I do is a gift to me [and thus my family because HAPPY MOM = HAPPY FAMILY and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise]. This year, I have been fortunate to photograph some of my VERY FAVORITE repeat clients. Clients who have been with me for years. It’s also been a chance to meet some new ones [like I think I might love my new clients tomorrow!].

It’s also a gift to me that I have STUDIO SPACE to play, to work, and to call my own. And apparently to be able to say “please come keep me company tonight at 8PM… bring wine…” Again, another story.

But the studio, it’s really opened up possibilities for me. Let’s get something straight, it is PAINFUL to write my rent check each month. That is money that could be in my pocket, paying for home repairs, buying things the kids need, going into an IRA. And should I ever decide I don’t want the expense [and perhaps would rather fund my Lululemon/Anthropologie/Frye Boot/Weekly Facials habit], it’s going to give the perception that my business isn’t doing well, when in fact, that might be the opposite. But right now, it’s my space and it allows me to meet my clients in a professional environment, show them my work, and honestly, it gave me a place to store all my crap.

But it’s kind of been under utilized and that was kind of bumming my high. I had a vision in my mind, executed, and when I was done, it just didn’t feel right. From there, I let it get messy. And I hated it more. Then I enlisted the help of a simply DIVINE design genius and she gave it one look and was like “WHOA. GREAT SPACE. BAD DESIGN.” And from that, gave me some tips using her high/low strategy and I was able to slowly execute her plan. It needs a few more details, but finally, when I get into work, I sigh and I am happy. So thank you Katie Rosenfeld… you and your daily blog inspire me.

OK, so land the plane Kristina.

I decided to try to push myself to create an indoor studio space that would do two things [1] to photograph in the lifestyle portrait style that I love, using primarily natural light, and avoid creating a typically proppy studio look {especially with newborns} and [2] to learn how to use my overabundance of natural light to create the perfect, classic, studio portrait.  And while those two things are almost on completely different ends of the spectrum, they both to me represent clean, unadorned, timeless photography.  They also each provided me with a different set of learning challenges and gave me something to get excited about. [The dork in me is FANATICAL about learning].

So yesterday I decided to go forth with a solid round of good old fashion practice [in addition to the previous day's session].  See?  This is where I can repeat “MY JOB IS A GIFT.”  Because Tuesdays and Thursdays are my days home with my kids… and the fact that I can turn them into productive working hours, while keeping my kids [and their friends] amused is AMAZING.  So I spent the day arranging and re-arranging set ups.  Trying out the light from each side of the building, and at different times of the day, pushing my gear when I had to, running to download, grabbing a fresh card, and starting over again.  And it was SO refreshing to be able to say “wow, these SUCK” and “holy cow, I am in LOVE.”  And with some, it was so great to get really constructive peer feedback on what I need to tweak and then get super excited for next week when I can set it up again and see if I can improve.  [The dork in me is also FANATICAL about getting feedback from my peers... because my mom and friends will always tell me I am awesome, even when I am not].

So here’s the result of it, with some notes. What a great deal of learning to be had. I am so excited to finish the room… to nail down the light the way I vision it… to shoot! So stay tuned for some studio tours, get together opportunities and of course session opportunities.

You may want to file these under Mommy Goggles, but honestly, I am in love with these.  They are actually SO GOOD at doing what I ask, and giving me what I need from them, and as long as I move fast, and keep it simple, they are gems.  One of the biggest things that has helped me working with kids is to greatly improve my instructions.  “Look up” doesn’t work if you need them to raise their head a bit, but instead “follow my finger” while you raise it just slightly.  “Smile” doesn’t work either… that’s a recipe for gritted teeth and scrunched smiles.  But instead, “Think about what you are getting for your birthday.”  And laugh, well, that’s easy.  Just mention farts. So being able to manage commands has really reduced the amount of stress and frustration during our shoots.

Peace.  Grace.  Thanks.  Calm.  Fortune.  Mine.

Another gift, while we are on the topic, is that these two girlies will have their friendship, almost from week one, documented and preserved.  They are truly best friends, speak in their own language, and are tremendously sad when apart.  Her mom and I are eternally grateful for their bond, and that we have them in our lives.

A few weeks ago some of the Seniors that I photographed me contacted me to tell me that they were doing an article for the Chieftain Chronicle in the Tri-Town Transcript about Senior Photographs and would I answer a few questions for them.  I was sort of spacey and didn’t quite realize the entire article would be about me.  It’s one of the first times I’ve ever seen anything written about me as a professional photographer and to say I was so happy is an understatement.  Let me clarify, I am not “so happy” because I am “so awesome.”  I am so happy that every so often it feels like maybe my hard work is paying off and maybe I am doing a job well done.  After a season of questioning myself, it feels good to have a little confirmation that I am moving in the direction that I want.

It means even more to me because the article sums up a few things for me.  Primarily that we have chosen an awesome town to live in with a great school district and good, solid, family values and that with a little luck, our kids will grow up to be as amazing as the Seniors I have photographed this year.  Every session I shoot, I walk away thinking “this kid is AMAZING.”  And I truly mean it with everything I have.  When I say to the girls “you are beautiful,” I mean it.  To every one of them.  When I say to the parents “your son/daughter has exceptional poise, grace and manners,” I mean it.  About every single one of them.  And I have to believe that some of it has to do with the community we’ve chosen to live, and the values we chosen to instill in them.  It’s a town where supermodel-brain-surgeons-to-be still babysit and mow the lawn.  And where sports and academics are still so important.  And where for the most part, the fast-paced, grow up to fast, perils of high school are still sort of removed.  The town rallies around the teams… people still bring cookies to their neighbors… and everyone helps each other out.  So to think that this is where we’ve grounded our family and I’ve built my business, is amazing to me.

But this also means a lot to me because it feels like I’ve been able to connect with the High School Senior Market.  Last year, I shot about 10 seniors and said “If I do 20 next year, I’ll be happy.”  I think I’ll end up around 30, and still have a few more that need to book.  For me, it’s not about volume.  I don’t need every Senior at Masconomet High School, nor could I handle it.  What I need are kids, and their parents, to connect with my style, and understand my philosophy, and think “that’s a fit for us.”  And I feel like this year, I got just that.  I am not the girl you should call if you just want a head shot.  If you don’t want to keep the images I shoot of your children, we are probably not a fit.  But if you understand that this is one of the last times you’ll be able to professionally capture your son or daughter before they walk out that door, and that means something to you (and maybe makes you teary), then you are looking in the right place.

So to all the Seniors I photographed, and to the Juniors that are thinking about next year, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  And to those that are now on my text list for babysitting, thank you all just a little bit extra!

*To clarify, I was actually at IBM for 13 years!  Just about 18 months overlap!

[The sheep are totally unrelated to anything.  It's just amazing to me that I live on a road with horses, sheep, and chickens.  They catch me off guard when I come around the corner!].

Every September I hit a wall.  A big, unforgiving wall, that seemingly should break me into many pieces.  It’s not a summer-end thing, because September is my favorite month of the year.  It’s actually a wall of growth and change, but with that, comes all the uncertainty and pains and headaches and sleepless nights.  So I thought I’d blog a little bit about it because then I can maybe stop beating myself up, figure out a plan of action, grab some ropes and hoist myself over it.  Although I am an extremely open “live out loud” sort of girl, I typically keep my introspection close to my chest, or I share little bits, and only a few people ever get the full story… so take it with a grain of salt that this stuff has been on my mind a while, I’ve talked about a lot in my head, and it’s for sure not the full story, but it’s necessary for me to get it out so I can move on.

Three years ago September… I hit the wall when Janey was about 3 months old.  I had it in my head that I wasn’t going to return to IBM, but it was in my head, I hadn’t really said it out loud.  And so when September came and my short 7 week maternity leave was up, I sunk into a big funk.  I had a 3 month old and a 2 year old, I thought I was ready to be in business for myself, and I had a full time job in Corporate America that we really needed as the country was sinking into a financial depression/recession.  Hindsight being 20/20, I wasn’t ready to be fully in business… but that didn’t stop me from acting like I was.  I shot something like 27 session over a 3 month period, I screwed up a whole lot of orders, I shot some amazing work, and some not so great stuff.  I was late on orders, I processed holiday cards with typos, and I probably lost almost every cent of profit re-working and re-doing.  I was exhausted.

Come January I learned I needed to come up with a business plan, set some immediate and long term goals for myself and my brand, and that no matter how it pained me, I needed to allocate time for IBM.  And my family.  And my husband.  And my house.  And finally, me.

Two years ago September… I hit the wall because I hadn’t allocated the time for anything past IBM, Photography and the kids (not necessarily in that order).  I was a wreck.  I built an awesome business.  I doubled what I had planned for my average sale.  I had a recognizable and distinct brand for my work and a successful strategy in place to manage my business.  But everything else was falling apart.  I had 25 lbs of baby weight to lose, my baby wasn’t a baby, but a Toddler.  My husband was pretty tired of being put last on the list, and my house was a wreck (well, not a wreck, just at a standstill).  I decided that no matter what it cost me, I was putting myself on the line and I decided to leave IBM.  That’s sort of a bold decision, because when you stop caring what things cost, you risk losing those things themselves.  I went back and looked at what I wrote back then, and my decision… and I am so surprised that I actually could have re-written my feelings verbatim.

In the past 18 months, I short-changed IBM.  I short-changed my amazing clients.  I short-changed my husband.  And probably my kids.  But most important, I short-changed myself.  I stopped working out, I let myself go and I got to the point where I don’t even recognize me in the mirror.  I have worked more 70 hour weeks and pulled more all-nighters than I ever did during Babson MBA exams.  I distanced myself from friends because I just didn’t have the time.  I made a lot of friends and family incredibly mad at me, and perhaps lost a few relationships because they couldn’t understand why I just didn’t have the time to get them their photographs.  I disappointed a lot of people.  I lost a lot of emails.  I gave away a lot of freebies as “thank yous” for my disorganization.  But I kept on going because I knew where I wanted to be.

Come January I was fully self-employed.  It was the hardest decision to make.  I risked so much doing it.  But it was the BEST.  DECISION.  EVER.

One year ago September… I hit another wall.  It was the “can I even do this/am I a farce?” wall.  After a year of working — to a degree in panic — to make ends meet and my business successful, I hit a string of technically difficulties.  Everything literally went to hell with respect to my gear.  I had to reshoot 3-4 sessions or just hand over galleries for free.  I didn’t realize how heavily weighted my business would to Q4 (even though I had spreadsheets to back it up).  I was doing the math for Q1-Q3, and calculating that I just couldn’t make it work.  IT IS EXPENSIVE TO RUN YOUR OWN BUSINESS.  Everything else in life was moving along swimmingly.  Kids were thriving, I was home with them two days a week, I’d lost some (not all) of the weight, and Owen had an amazing new job.  So when I finally sat down to breathe, I felt like my business was collapsing.  And since business is such a big part of me, I was collapsing too.  I sat on our front staircase and sobbed.  if you know me, and have for years, you know sobbing used to be a BIG THING for me.  It’s not anymore, and so when I lose it, I tend to lose it big (like everything in my life, I thrive on “go big or go home.”).  From that, I made a to-do list, I got the right people at Canon on board to fix my gear this time for good, and I decided to just plug through the holiday season and make big decisions in January.

Come January, I realized that I had actually booked 60% of my annual revenue in September – December and that my gross sales (certainly not net) had matched my IBM salary almost to the nearest $100.  I had figured out how to work around sticky situations.  I had built and expanded my customer base.  I revised my pricing strategy just slightly to really support my financial model.  All was good.  I made it work.

This September… I am hitting the wall again and I am FREAKING OUT.  Internally.  Silently.  With a big smile on my face.  People say “Good for you, you found something you love, you are so busy!”  And I smile and nod because I am scared to talk because I might vomit.  I am totally behind.  I have three clients that should FIRE ME.  I am completely unable to accomplish anything other than shooting sessions.  I am working 60 hours a week on 24 hours of day care.  I have a family and house that requires my attention.  And I have to prioritize myself so that I eat well or get to the gym or it’s all even worse.  And so with everything on my plate, I move into complete paralysis.  I come home, exhausted, after shooting another AMAZING session (not that I am amazing, it’s my clients!) and I upload images, and then I stare.  I try to talk myself into opening the orders sitting on my counter.  I try to talk myself into packaging them up.  I try to talk myself into placing orders, proofing, sending out galleries, returning emails.  But I am at the wall, and I am just too tired to hop over it.  For someone who’s “happy place” is shooting 8 sessions a month, shooting 22 this month has taken a toll.

The problem is that I LOVE LOVE LOVE what I do.  I can’t stress that enough.  I find joy in EVERY SINGLE CLIENT I shoot.  I can’t repeat it enough, and my friends even repeat it back to me, that I truly adore my clients.  Every session I shoot is this simply amazing gift that I’ve been given: to document life and pause it for a moment and to tell your story.   I want to shout it from rooftops that I love what I do, and that another amazing person or family has entered my life, that I have more new friends to worship and think about.  I am THAT fanatical about it..  And so to think that I wouldn’t shoot or would turn down sessions, is gutwrenching and heartbreaking and soulcrushing to me.  I’ve been known to perhaps dramatize (me?  really? stop nodding you jerks, I know who you are), but with this I am not.  Shooting is pure bliss for me.  It’s the other stuff that has me down.

So come January 2012, I am so excited to find out what my lessons learned will be.  Probably it will include me hiring someone as I can’t run a business this big on my own anymore.  It might include a few new offerings within and outside my studio space so that I can maximize my real estate and offset my rent with a new line of business (some of you lovelies know what this is already).  But who knows.  I feel like there might be some personal growth to be done once I can get out of these weeds, so I am interested to see where it all falls come winter.

So where am I going with all this?

Mostly a thank you to my clients that have put up with me, especially the three whose orders are going out this week.  You know who you are, I am sorry. And a thank you to all my new clients and their patience.  I am so thrilled with every session I have sitting on my hard drive and am so excited to share galleries, slideshows and final print orders with you.

But really, it brings up some business related items.  I have a long list of things to tell you as I update my schedule and business plans.  I’ve arranged my schedule so that after today (when I finish my 7th shoot of the week), I won’t be shooting during the day M-F for two weeks (until October 10th). I’ll shoot the Senior Sessions I have booked + the weekend sessions, but my days have to be allocated to actually working.  My hope is that by adding 24+ hours of “work time” to my week, for two weeks, I’ll be totally caught up.   And with that, I’ll share schedules and mini-session dates and all that good stuff.

If you made it this far, thank you.  I wouldn’t expect you to read it all, I’d expect you to scratch your head and ask “what up, girl?”  But it’s important for me to let you know where I am at, so that you don’t think I am careless and flighty, and so you know that as clients, you are the single most important element of my business, and your support and faith in me is appreciated more than you could ever know.

Thank you.

What does that mean?

It means that this year I am going to focus on helping you display your images in ways that make sense to you and will provide you with an amazing return on your investment. We are going to really talk during our pre-session conversations and find out what you are looking to do with your images and make sure at the end, you walk away with tangible products that decorate your home with your life.  Still not sure what I mean?  Check out my thought process for my own family sessions below. It doesn’t meant that you need to purchase huge wall displays if you live in a home with limited wall space, but it does mean you can think through your display options, which also include albums of all sizes, mini mounts and anything else you could imagine.

To kick off this new direction, I am going to offer a limited-time sale on canvases, frames and gallery mounts.  This sale will only be good for two weeks, until March 7th.  If your session occurs during the month of February or the first week of March, I will extend it to you as long as your initial gallery period is open.  If you are interested in any of the products I showcase below (canvases, frames & gallery mounts), please contact me so I can re-open your gallery.  Additional terms and conditions and FAQs will be emailed to you along with access to pricing.

Read on for a brief description of each product and click on thumbnails for images. Please email me with questions or for additional information and pricing.

Fine Art Gallery Wrapped Canvases are a wonderful way to elegantly display your images without needing to worry about framing or matting your images. Each image is carefully inspected and edited prior to printing and all images include appropriate re-sizing and or editing to ensure that the image wraps correctly (i.e. critical elements of your images will not be left out due to size/edge constraints and color borders will not be substituted in place of your image). Our canvases are printed on state-of-the-art canvas printers with non-fade, non-toxic inks that are guaranteed not to fade or warp for 120 years (provided they are hung in a moisture free environment out of direct sunlight). They are backed with clean white paper with a variety of hanging hardware and rubber backers to prevent slipping. There are a lot of inexpensive options for canvases these days. Trust me when I say I can spot them from across the room. If you would like to preserve your images as art within your home, it’s worth it have them professionally sized and printed.

Gallery Mounts are also a wonderful “ready to hang” solution for more casual areas as well as high traffic areas such as staircases (they are more flush to the wall and secured with a keyhole screw and thus less likely to be jostled or knocked around). A Gallery Mounted image is one that is printed on professional-grade paper, then heat sealed to a wood substrate product that has beautiful beveled and painted edges (white or black, 3/8″ or 3/4″ inch thickness) and they are finished with a finelinen texture. We can add a digital mat to any image, or we can group multiple images together on one mount for a storyboard effect.

Mini mounts are are the Gallery Mounts cute little sister. They are made for 5X7 prints — they come ready for display with a built in paper easel. They are also lovely when seated on a small plate stand. You can pop them anywhere from a counter top to a bookcase to a mantel. They are the perfect for a quick gift solution — they come to you wrapped and ready to go! [Mini mounts are NOT included in the 2 week sale.]

Frames. Kristina Young Photography now carries a full line of frames that range from light, airy, fun and whimsical for you brightest images to classic, traditional and elegant worthy of holding your most beautiful portraits. We even have a simple, black, non-glare glass frame if you just want a simple wall gallery display (with optional mats available). For framing ideas, it is best for us to do an on-site consultation either at your home, or via email with images of your home provided.  [Frames are included in the two week sale if they are purchased with a print, standalone frame purchases are available but not at a sale price.]

I do NOT run sales or discount my products at any other time during the year.  As you know, I am not a low-cost provider photographer nor do I generate business and attract clients because I run specials and promotions.  I do not want anyone feel that they need to wait to book a session until I lower my prices or that if they paid full price, they somehow lost out on a great deal. Additionally, my packages already take some of these discounts into account.  I think it’s important that you understand my philosophy because I constructed my business model to serve my client’s best interests in hopes of building long term relationships and deliver consistent value.