Resolution updates....

I thought today I'd write a brief post about my new year's resolutions, and how I'm getting on with them. It's very easy to lose sight of things you set out to do at the start of the year, once old habits kick back in and comfort seems like a more attractive option.

So to recap:

Professional Goals:
1. To provide my new 2012 bookings with a useful information pack.
2. To participate in the 2012 Murrayfield Thee Wedding Show this spring.
3. To hopefully produce more sample products for my wedding show, and showcase some of the gorgeous images that have made me proud of what I do from 2011.
4. To do more photo shoots.
5. Redevelop and assess my website and blog.

Personal Goals:
1. To shape up, so that I can complete a 10k run in the summer.
2. To read more books.
3. Sleep more! Or rather, get a better sleep pattern developed.

So where am I with each?

Professional Goals
1. Well, I've got my first meeting of the year with a couple tomorrow, and another wonderful bride-to-be on Monday, so the information packs are getting rolled out!
2. The wedding show is yet to happen. I've recruited a friend to assist me on the day, and am planning on how to make my stall attractive to potential couples looking to hire me. I'm also due to receive some tickets as well for this, which I'll be giving first to my couples if they're interested.
3. I've also sorted out my budgets for my sample products - which I'll start designing next week.
4. I've already had two photo shoots - one for a commercial client, and another for a fellow wedding supplier. I'm also lining up some more shoots, and had a great recce on Wednesday to find new locations for the shoots. It really feels like they're coming together. I've got more things in the pipeline as well, all in various stages of planning.
5. It's been assessed, and I'm identifying what the best options are. Hoping to have something new sorted out by end of April.

Personal Goals
1. Back at the gym! after a few sessions at the gym, I've also had my first outdoor run earlier this week, which was hard (cold air hitting the lungs wasn't pleasant) but I had a real feeling of satisfaction afterwards. I've also been making a point of going out for a walk on a regular basis, as well as trying to watch what I'm eating. With a bit of effort, I've lost weight already, and it's motivating me to do more.
2. I am reading more books! I discovered a brilliant website, called Goodreads recently. It's a mix of social networking and books - you can see what your friends are reading, how they rate it, and it gives recommendations if you're trying to think of what to read next. I've also set myself an annual reading goal. I deliberately set it at 15 books, because there are times when I am too tired to read after a lot of work, or I don't have time in the day. Since becoming self-employed, I don't have a morning or evening commute, and my weekends are no longer work-free time zones. Fifteen is a little over a book a month, which felt like a sufficient number.
3. Actually, I'm getting better at this... sometimes I do end up staying up later than planned, but mostly I've been quite good at trying to go to bed and give myself even half-an-hour's reading time.

I feel that overall, I am achieving (gradually) what I set out to do. I think after the wedding show, I'll be readjusting my goals for the remainder of the year, bringing in new ones, and also looking at what I did well and what I could have done better with the show.

I hope if you made any new year resolutions that you're getting on well with your plans. My advice though, is that resolutions can be made any time of year, you don't have to wait another ten and a half months to make them if your new year resolutions seemed to last a week - you could even make small, seasonal resolutions. Even if you don't "achieve" it, somehow explaining what prevented you, or what you could do to change it and make it more manageable is a good way of assessing how to make things work positively. Explain anything you didn't achieve, but don't let it be an opportunity to make excuses for not doing it. Even saying "I got bored of doing it", means you need to think of a way of making it more interesting, or assessing what aspects you actually got bored of. If your goal was too broad, for example, find a way of breaking it down into smaller goals. So "getting fit" can seem daunting, but saying "being fit enough to run a 5k by the summer" gives you a set goal and also a set date to achieve it by.


In the meantime, I'll share this with you, which is a wonderful blog feature - I really was on cloud nine when I saw this! I recently had my photographs from Steph and Tom's wedding in Glasgow featured on the incredible Whimsical Wonderland Weddings blog. I'm absolutely over the moon about being featured on the blog. These were also the photos (if you remember) from their gorgeous Loch Lomond engagement shoot .

Stand and deliver

I've been thinking a lot recently about what it is I'm trying to deliver for my couples, and how I can improve their experience of hiring me as their wedding photographer.

 I think it would be reasonable to say I come from a family where people are important. My grandparents, and great grandparents were very much people-orientated. They helped others, regardless of their own situation. While there wasn't much money on my mother's side of the family while she was growing up, the kitchen was the hub and from the stories I've heard there were always plenty of visitors. Their wealth could be measured by the closeness of friendships they formed and the bonds of strong relationships within the family.

My own parents are people-orientated too. My dad was always more people than money orientated through his work, and actually, he's had a very successful career as a result. He can still remember the names of people he studied with at college, or worked with throughout his career and he's always got a story to tell. It's been interesting growing up with those influences in my life, because it's been made so clear to me how important it is to build good relationships, and that a few good relationships outweigh hundreds of ones where you're just an acquaintance.

I also think about my experiences as a consumer. I think about how I feel when I go into shops what the relationship is like there. About nine years ago, I changed hair salon. I had been going to one hair salon for years, and one day my regular stylist had left, so I had a different stylist. I really didn't like his attitude. He gave me a very distainful look when I arrived; he made comments about my hair which came across as insulting more because of the tone he used; and afterwards I hated his "funky" haircut, which was not what I had asked for. (I should point out, whenever people use the word "funky" to describe my hair, it means its a really bad haircut). So what did we have? Negative facial and body language, curt words combined with a less than friendly tone, and someone who simply didn't listen. I didn't go back. I changed salon immediately, and since then, I go somewhere I genuinely have a good customer experience.  Now, if we were to work that out in monetary terms, if over the space of 9 years (since I changed salons), I actually went every 8 weeks as "recommended", and spent an average of £30, then that works out at £180 a year, or £1620 over the 9 years. That's a lot of money, and all lost by the first salon in the space of a 45 minute negative experience, and gained by my current salon because they know how to make me happy.

My mum bought a new car last weekend, trading in a faithful 16 year old estate for something newer. Actually, the dealership was over an hour's drive north, but some friends had recently been there and bought a car, and came back with such positive stories, that it actually inspired my parents to go there looking for a new car, even though there was a showroom closer to home. Now, it wasn't just a case of handing over the keys, smiling a lot, being a bit friendly. The salesman gave my mum a bouquet of flowers, and a fantastic break-down kit for the car, as well as the shampoo and cleaning set. he was fun, he was pleasant, and where my parents needed a few things done specifically, he was more than happy to help without so much as a deep sigh. It wasn't so much about getting "something", and throwing in lots of extras, but it was all about how special the experience made her feel.

So bringing it back to business. I'm constantly trying to work out, how I can make my couples feel like that.

Even when I started out on my portfolio, I used to send out one print (albeit of my choice) to my couples, as a small wedding gift. I did this because I understand that not all couples actually get round to printing their photos, and I wanted them to have one photo that they could have as a wedding photograph, and have it framed.

I did a survey last year, finding out more about how married couples viewed their wedding photography experiences. I posed the question, that if couples received a disc with the images from their wedding on it, had they printed the pictures afterwards? 9% had printed most or all of the images, 36% of respondees had printed less than half the images from their wedding,  and 9% hadn't printed any of the images at all. I should add for clarity, that 46% of respondees hadn't received a disk at all. This may be because digital photography and burning images to discs is a fairly recent phenomenon. I'd go as far as to suggest digital wedding photography is probably still in it's infancy in terms of what we are probably going to discover over the next few decades.

Getting back to where this began, which is the thinking process. Thinking about how and what makes a good customer experience. And that's why I've been thinking about my 2012 wedding photography package. My aim is to give my couples a really special package, not just full of lovely photos, but also full of good feeling and make it about them. It's that combination of making people feel good, and enjoying their wedding photography and being happy, and focusing (if you'll forgive the pun) on them as people, not just on "wedding photographs". It's what you deliver and how you deliver it that counts. Nothing quite takes the shine off a new purchase like an unpleasant customer experience.

So 2012, I'll be carrying on a few things that my 2011 couples have been happy with.  I've had really positive responses to my DVDs and their presentation boxes, and if you're doing something right, people let you know. However, I'm also planning on bringing in an introductory pack, which will cover all the main things my couples need to consider, for example advice on engagement shoot preparation, photographer's schedules (what, where, when for the wedding day), but also a few extra things, just to make it that little more easier and clearer.

But the question is, what would be the "ideal" package for a couple getting married? if you could add anything to the mix, what would it be? If there were no limitations on getting the experience right, what would make it perfect? What would be the dream scenario? feel free to leave a comment, or to email me directly with any ideas or thoughts.

Reflections

I thought today, I'd write a bit more of a personal blog entry. This is more about life as a photographer, businesswoman.

I formally started my business just over a year ago. Prior to that, I was out getting experience as an assistant, building up my portfolio as well as studying.

Being in Year One has been a huge learning curve. I had a lot of support from Business Gateway, and attended a lot of their seminars and workshops which are designed to help new businesses with aspects such as marketing, book keeping, and search engine optimisation. The thing about being a photographer, is how much time I'm actually "photographing". I do a lot of photography, but with that comes the editing, preparing images for client viewing, archiving, storage, and so on. I also have to think about contracts, legal aspects, book keeping, receipts and invoices, sending out letters, and maintaining my website.

It's all been a learning curve, particularly when a lot of things all happen at once. I consider myself to be fairly organised and good at administrative tasks, which helps. However, there are times when I identify a change required to make things more efficient, and that can be fairly time consuming. All new businesses and projects take a little bit of time - I think you need to go through it once to see what the process is actually about. Even with all the advice I've received, the curve comes from working out how that all impacts upon my business and my clients.

It's also been a good year for identifying things where additional training has been useful. It's been a year of learning how to research effectively too - finding out what products suit my business.

I'm fairly happy with the way things have been over the last twelve months. I've learned a lot about myself, as a person, as a business woman and as a photographer. I've pushed myself, and risen to the challenges set.

I've also been fortunate enough to build up a wonderful client base, who frankly, without them, I'd just be a girl with a business model. The thing that's been reassuring, is how some of my couples have gone from being "client", a person with a need where I fulfill that need (as their wedding photographer), to being people I've become friends with. For me, that's been one of the landmarks to let me know I'm doing the right thing. I think I've been able to attract the right couples by being myself. And actually, since that's how friendships form naturally, I've come away feeling a lot closer to my couples as a result. The thing that has been interesting though, is seeing the amount of similarities between my couples, in terms of traits or personality. It's interesting because it makes me wonder if that's a reflection of me - if I too have those similarities, and I suspect I do.

 This comes a lot into my branding - my branding is all about being me. Sometimes I think we all have an ideal as to how we want our branding to be perceived, but maybe it's not true to who we are as people.  Sometimes there's no better way of identifying your own brand than having your clients and friends as a mirror to your personality.

I also don't get too upset at "not" getting every booking. Not all people are well-suited together. I know those brides and grooms will find someone better for them, more suited to them. My personality and their personality may not be compatible, and that's not something anyone wants to discover on their wedding day.

On a slightly soppy note, I do love seeing my couples getting married. I love being there. It's an amazing thing to see two people make a life-long commitment, in front of a room of people at a formal ceremony. The idea that one of those two people decided one day that being in that relationship was what they wanted. They decided one day, that this was the person they couldn't live without, that they wanted to spend the rest of their life with. This was their life partner. And so they asked the other person to marry them, and the other person felt exactly the same way - this was who they wanted to be with, this was the right person for them, they felt so happy, so loved, so in love, and so secure that they wanted to continue with that for the rest of their life. Being asked to photograph and document that for them to have for the next fifty years of their joint lives together, that's special. We always think about royal weddings as being historic moments, but actually, every wedding is an historic moment in the timeline of a family. And photographs are the keepsakes, the treasures, for generations of family to look back and see. By the time I get to the wedding, I've gotten to know the couple enough, and I genuinely want them to be happy. It's also lovely to meet their friends and family. Every one of my couples has got an amazing friend and family base around them, people who approach me at the wedding and tell me how special the couple are. Things that actually, I can't capture on a camera. The compliments your guests say when you're not even in earshot, to the photographer... that's pretty fantastic to witness too. It's wonderful to go to a wedding and see couples who love each other, but who are so loved from their guests. When you've got that sort of love and support around you, you really can conquer the world.

Knickerbocker Glorious!

So today, I thought I'd blog about a shoot I did in Largs with Alison Tinlin from Plans and Presents, hair stylist Gail Rankin, Make up artist Sophie Edwards, with accessories provided by Wedding and Baby.

We went to Largs with the intention of doing a slightly kitschy, vintage seaside photoshoot. I wanted something that was a proper traditional seaside resort without the tackiness. Largs was a great location. From a photographic perspective, its a neat town, with very little litter or graffiti, not too many people, and plenty of wide open space to get the sky in and lots of details from it. We sought permission from Nardinis to use their interior as a backdrop for some of the photos (and they were very lovely about it all).

I've done plenty of location shoots before involving gorgeous dresses (including the bridesmaid shoot I did with Flossy and Dossy a few months ago), but I wanted something slightly different here. This shoot was less about being a fashion parade, and more about the individual - in this case, Alison. It was actually easier than some of the shoots I've done previously, as there weren't lots of outfit changes to incorporate into the timing.

I think the hardest thing I find is defining what I think my "voice" is. I have a particular style to my photographs, but sometimes when I'm up so close to the photos, I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it is. I know I like to have photos that have an element of pop - I want people to come out of the picture, to get an essence of their personality just jumping out of the image.

I wanted to get more of that from Alison. It's easy a lot of the time for people to shrink in the photographs, and a lot of people do. Camera comes out and people become shy and like wallflowers. Or, alternatively, they start throwing very awkward poses that they've seen in magazines and "think" I want from them.

What I really want, is to have fun photographs. I want fun, I want natural, candid, but most of all, playful. I don't want a fixed grin.

I think sometimes it's a bit like having a conversation with someone for the first time. I want to get beyond the small talk, the "what do you do/ where are you from" stuff, and right into the bit where there's a connection, the bit where the conversation just rolls and people start really revealing themselves. Years ago, a friend of mine referred to it almost as being like layers, numbering each layer. So small talk was layer one, then the bit where you start digging out information from the small talk is layer two, and then the really good stuff, the core, that's layer three. He'd smile when we got into a deeper level of conversation, the bit where we started to forget where we were and just got completely lost in our own world, and he'd remark "now we're here, this is the third layer". It's not necessarily about baring your soul and getting the skeletons out of the closet (or wherever else you keep them), it's just about figuring out who the person in front of the camera is, getting rid of your labels (mother, wife, girlfriend, husband, father, brother, son, daughter, work colleague...) and being all the wonderful bits of you.

So yes, that's what I want from these sorts of photoshoots. And I'll pretty much do anything I can to get people to that point. I'm not looking for the secrets, the dark stuff, I'm just looking for the playfulness, the humour, the light hearted, happy, lovely side, the bits that attract people to you as friends or romantic interests, the bits that make people care, and the bits that should make you realise how truly wonderful you are.

So, here for your delectation, the photos from the shoot.

Sophie prepares Alison's make up

Inside Nardinis

Knickerbocker Glorious!

Flying the flag

at the piano

bouquet courtesy of Wedding and Baby

Our generous host

Kicking it up in Largs

the most wayward balloons!

Alison and Largs

Bouquet

over to Cumbrae

The Wonderful Nardinis

shoes!

The team:
Shoot Organisation/Model - Alison Tinlin - http://www.plansandpresents.co.uk
Photographer - Kristin Mitchell - http://struvephotography.co.uk/
Hair - Gail Rankin - http://www.gailhardie.co.uk/
Make - Up - http://www.sophieedwardsmakeup.com/
Hairpieces/Jewellery - http://www.weddingandbaby.co.uk/
Gown/Shoes - courtesy of - http://angelfins.co.uk
Venue (inside shots) - http://nardinis.co.uk/

Hello!

Well, I thought I'd start off with a little hello from me, Kristin. I am a full time, professional photographer and Struve Photography is my wedding and family portrait photography business.

I'm based in Livingston but very flexible with traveling around Scotland.


I've got a website - http://www.struvephotography.co.uk where I keep my portfolio, but the purpose of this blog is to show some of my sources of inspiration, which in turn might inspire other people too.


I don't just get my inspiration from looking at photographs, but from a whole raft of sources, often the things I'm into in my spare time end up giving me ideas for my professional work. For example, I love knitting, and I'm fascinated by the whole world of D.I.Y. crafting and craftiness. In turn, that inspires the things I look at when I'm taking photographs, what I spot through the view finder, all the little details like buttons and bows. It also influences the way I treat photographs and present them, thinking about lovely vintage pastel washes, or bright and vibrant contemporary colours. 

So this blog is about all of that. It's about watching old movies or modern day classics, its about D.I.Y., its the wishlist of things I would love to have or do, a place for thoughts and idle dreams. And in among that, there are the things that I want to bring to the mix, to add as my contribution through my photography.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog. Before I sign off though, a request in advance - if you ever think about getting in touch, leaving a message, dropping a line, or simply saying hello across the internet, please do! It's always good to hear from people, even if you're not necessarily looking for a photographer (or maybe you are one yourself).


Regards,

K x