Yowzers!

It's been a LONG while since I've posted anything to my blog..not that I haven't had ANYTHING to post to the blog, in fact things have been so busy between my day job, photography gigs and then trying to have a personal life in all of this that when it comes to updating the blog...well it just has fallen a bit by the wayside.

Part of my problem is that it's SUCH a pain to add a bunch of new pictures to the blog that I feel lately like I can't be bothered. My #1 wish list item for the Blogger setup is that they would improve the picture settings. I'm also waiting for my website company to add in a blog service that would help with the SEO on my photokat.ca site. It would be nice to have my blog traffic automatically push through my site and vice versa.

In the meantime I've been meaning to create a template in Photoshop so I can quickly comp together several images with Photography by Kat branding ...would make sharing images easier as I can then just upload one picture to the blog ...and could also easily send these to clients to have as an email teaser. There's also good things to be had there with use for future promotional items.

On the business side of things, it's really taken off. I've seen a large number of bookings come in since the start of August, and it makes it overwhelmingly difficult to stay focused at the day job when really what I'd rather be doing is editing or shooting pictures. I have a steady stream of bookings until early December, and I'm considering tossing in a Christmas portrait session blitz for the month of November. ..the question is...am I really that insane? How crazy do I want to be?

Wedding bookings for 2010 are starting to come in, there have been both ups and downs here. It's such an emotional roller coaster thinking you're going to get a booking and then having them book elsewhere...I'm hoping as things get busier that this becomes less of a derailing thing...the having a potential client book elsewhere... and more like a water drop off a duck's back.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing how lucky I am, how far things have come in almost a year...this isn't a state of the blog address...that's slated for early December; and just how much I've grown in my business and photography skills. There have been MANY learning points (you might also call them mistakes, learning points feels a bit gentler) and that's good. Hard Work U might be in Missouri, but I'm definitely enrolled in the distance ed program.

My first ad is slated to come out soon, I think in a month? and I'm hoping that generates a lot more buzz and business there too.

And as I'm writing this I get a phone call from some business development avenues that I'm pursuing. This also means I'm at the start of doing market research and on my way to creating a business plan. When I say there is a lot coming down the pipelines...there's A LOT coming down the pipelines. It also means that priorities that I had a year ago at this exact time are VERY different to the priorities I have now. I feel like the Goldilocks of business growth: some days it feels like things are going too fast, other days it's just right and still others it's just not fast enough.

So with all this buzzing around my brain, here are some blog posts I want to make in the next little bit:
-Pictures from Two Trash the Dress sessions
-Pictures from two family and one baby portrait sessions
-Pictures from a Thanksgiving weekend wedding
-Info and pictures about canvas prints
-Info and pictures about albums and guestbooks
-Info and pictures about metal prints (not metallic prints)
-My new client zone
-Decoding photography terms for the non-photographer
-State of the blog address and wrap up of Year 1 of my goal
-Announcement about Year 2 of my goal

...there are probably a lot more posts that need to/will be made as my brain is just buzzing with stuff. There will again be some more business related posts, as that's a huge part of what this time of year brings for me and what I've been obsessing about lately.

I've also been having this huge urge to run out and drop serious coin on some new gear. I'm drooling over a: D700, 70-200 2.8 VRII, 24-70 2.8, 14-24 2.8, 85 1.8, an Epson P3000, and the new Einstein 640 from Paul C Buff. Yeah...they're all fairly big ticket items and all my money is being diverted into other things, like paying bills and what not. Yeah that was a complete aside, as I was thinking I was wrapping up this long post, but then got distracted by my daily thought of "It'd be nice to have {insert product name here} ...sigh".

Okay really, that's it for now. Head out of clouds. Back down to earth. Time to get real work done.

More soon...