I am plagued by ambitious dreams. There are so many things I love and so many things I wish I could spend time doing… one of my greatest downfalls is that I try to do them all.
I just got off the phone with a local photographer friend of mine who is very busy doing a lot of projects that I WISH I was doing. I started perusing his images… with all due respect to him, my quality of work is absolutely commensurate with his. But he most certainly has an edge on me…
…and then I saw a photo of Geddy Lee. HE SHOT RUSH on this last tour, and I did not.
HE SHOT RUSH.
R – U – S – H……!
That lit an incredible fire under my ass. DAMMIT. GOD DAMMIT. ROB has done one of my dreams shoots, and I don’t think he even gives a shit about RUSH!!!!
That’s all I needed to see in order to drive this point home. I have spread myself too thin, and many of my goals remain unaccomplished.
This is not me giving up – this is me realizing how ACCOMPLISHABLE my goals really are… and realizing that I have been saying yes to too many things, and in doing so, have unwittingly said no to some very important things.
So, here we go.
No. I will not shoot your family portrait.*
No. I will not shoot your senior portrait.*
NO, I will not shoot your paintball team.
No, I will not photograph your baby.**
No, I will not take pictures of ____________.
*Unless, of course, said photo shoot will take place in a very exotic, exciting location, or there are famous people involved, or you are paying me a god awful huge fee to do so, or some other reason that makes it an exceptional case.
** Unless you are my sister.
I am getting laser beam focused on what I want to accomplish. I am going to straight up start asking for work in these 2 or 3 categories. I will make phone calls. I will shoot for free at first. I will do bust my balls to create epic pieces on these gigs. I will say NO to anything that does not fit into one of these groups.
By saying NO, I can now start saying YES to what really matters.
Nice paul. You absolutely have the talent, insight and ingenuity to do exactly what you want.
Well damn was just gonna ask you about pricing for modeling pics. Have a guy friend that wants to get into it and not sure I could do him justice!