Amanda Kraft is a photographer and holistic health coaching living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She photographs high school seniors and recently created Stop Editing, Start Living to help creative professionals regain control of their businesses, so they can live the life they have always dreamed of. Most days she can be found coaching her clients, preparing gourmet dinner, relaxing with her husband or enjoying the open road in her jeep. Read part 1 and part 2 of this series before continuing ahead.

In Front Of The Lens

Have you ever become the subject of a guests camera at a wedding? You know, the crazy uncle who wants to take a photo of the photographer taking photos. I never understand the importance but, that isn't the reason for this post. A few years ago, I was the unfortunate subject of a guests camera and my super sweet bride mailed a copy of the photo to me. I was instantly horrified! How did I get here? I knew I gained some weight, but I looked like I ate an Olsen twin. For those of you who aren't photographers and maybe had head shots taken recently and weren't exactly thrilled with, you might be able to relate to this. 

Truthfully, my diet was pure garbage. Leading up to an event I would carb load in order to make it through the day. In my mind, I thought I was preparing to compete in an ironman competition and having HUGE pasta dishes were what I needed to make it through an 8 hour day of shooting. During the week, I was sitting on my butt editing and eating whatever I wanted, because in my mind, I had “worked out” enough at the wedding over the weekend. My diet consisted of sodas and carbohydrates – not discriminating between products that lived in a box or a bag. Saying that I was “too busy” became a convenient excuse to do not do something about my health and wellness. Along the way, I allowed my business to swallow me whole. Every dime I made was invested back into my business for a new piece of gear, another set of actions or template that I didn't really need or a seminar that wasn't exactly aligned with the direction I wanted to take my business in. In retrospect, a portion of my profits should have been invested into my personal development along with getting me well both physically and mentally. 

All of this lead to a massive meltdown on my closet floor one evening before my husband and I attended a birthday party. In that moment of crocodile sized tears, clarity set in and if I didn't regain control of myself, my business would never survive. The moment I cleaned up my diet, made morning workouts part of my daily routine, my overall attitude began to change. Email requests, phone calls or deadline that had once bothered me no longer frustrated me, I had massive amounts of energy, began to loose weight and clients who had booked me months prior took notice. If that wasn't motivation enough, I don't know what could be. 

You're asking yourself “How do I get from burnt out, stressed out and a to list longer than my arm, and maybe a few pounds heavier than I want to be to living the life I have always wanted?” First of all, you have to want to change. If you don't have the fire from within to change your life than no one can help you. One of the easiest ways to start to feel clearer, lighter and happier is to change what you are eating. Now, let me say that I am not suggesting that you become a vegan, vegetarian, juice junkie, go paleo or only surviving on twigs for the rest of your life*. What I am guiding you toward is eating whole foods that are not only going to fuel your body, but allow you to appreciate real food again. With all of the changes I've suggested in the previous posts about getting your business under control, it makes sense to slowly transition into cleaning up your diet. You will be amazed at the amount of clarity and focus you will have throughout the day once you stop treating your body like a trash can. New levels of energy are going to push through and your going to sleep better than you have in months. Let me caution you by saying this: Just because you defined your schedule, created boundaries and are now on track to eating clean doesn't means that you can put in one week of effort and then slack off. This is something you will need to work out until it becomes second nature. 

Getting Back To Square One With Your Diet

Start Drinking Water – what a concept right? One that so many people over look. I was a 2 liter of soda a day kinda girl. No wonder I piled on the pounds and couldn't sleep at night. I had claimed for years that water didn't taste good. One day, I quit drinking soda cold turkey and became a water-holic. On a rare occasion, I will treat myself to a soda and the moment I do, my body feels sluggish, my sleep pattern is effected for days and all of that isn't worth the few sips of the cola. 

Get Walking – it's quick, easy and free. Take an early morning walk with your dog, friends or your kids. You know those friends or neighbors you never see because you are editing non-stop, now it time to catch up and do a non-work related activity. Silence all of the notifications you get on your phone and soak in the moment and enjoy the fresh air. The emails and texts will still be there when you get back. 

What's On Your Plate – this is where my tough love is going to come in. I am going to keep it real for a minute. You are big, bad ass and awesome enough to run your own business, than you are big, bad ass  and awesome enough to control what you put on your plate. What you eat, order and pick up at the grocery store starts with you. If you allow the processed junk food into your house than guess what you are going to eat … junk food! Of course, no one is making you fill the bowl to the top with sugary cereal or throw down a double bacon cheeseburger with a jumbo sized fry. If you truly want to get healthy than you need to be aware of what is going on your plate and into your body. 

What's For Dinner – Plan, Plan and Plan some more. If you find yourself ordering take out 5 nights a week – something needs to change. Two things are happening: you are consuming an unbelievable amount of calories and you are draining your bank account. Think back to when you were a kid, dinners out were a treat. Maybe you went out and celebrated a parents new job or an “A” on a test you had been studying really hard for. Not because mom was “too busy”. How many hours do you spend on Pinterest looking up dinner ideas – yet, you haven't made a single one for your family. Stop pinning and start cooking!  

Once you start to take responsibility for yourself and what you put into your body amazing things are going to happen. Honor yourself by fueling your body and mind with foods that are going to provide you with energy and longevity, not those that weigh you down physically and mentally.  

*I completely support vegan, vegetarian, juicing, paleo and clean eating lifestyles and want you to realize that not one lifestyle works for everyone. You will need to do a bit of research to find out what works best for you.

Amanda Kraft is a photographer and holistic health coaching living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She photographs high school seniors and recently created Stop Editing, Start Living to help creative professionals regain control of their businesses, so they can live the life they have always dreamed of. Most days she can be found coaching her clients, preparing gourmet dinner, relaxing with her husband or enjoying the open road in her jeep. Read part 1 of this series before continuing ahead.

Enough With The Head Trash

Mental head trash is more than likely what got you into this mess. You started to feel that your images weren't good enough or investing a few more hours than necessary editing a particular design, photo or video to make it absolutely perfect, or maybe an unhappy client has left you jaded. Please know that you are not alone and those who you view as industry rockstars have fought the same battles along the way. This is when you have to dig deep and learn to recognize your self destructive ways. All of the head trash you allow in your mental space starts to manifest and instead of attracting the positives you start to attract the negatives. Ever notice how one bad thing leads to another, it is because you are investing more time on the negatives instead of focusing on the positives.

1) Stop Comparing Yourself – Jealously is an ugly monster and we often look for fault in others successes. In our minds we try to come up with reasons our competitors or industry rockstars have it easier than we do: we think of all the “easy” ways they might have become successful, claiming that they are trust fund babies, their husband must make a lot of money, maybe they won the lottery or have a huge inheritance. We have all fallen victim to this. Personally, this happened to me years ago when I would compare the number of bookings with my circle of friends. It felt like we were in a competition to see how many bookings we could get. It didn't matter if the client was a good fit, we wanted to have more than the other person. If that wasn't the stupidest thing I had ever done. I completely took myself, my brand and lifestyle out of the mix and purely did work that didn't make me happy. That is the beauty of what we do, we can choose when we photograph, who we photograph and why we photograph. Another wise line told to me by a photographer friend – “there is the right photographer for every bride, and the right bride for every photographer.” Stop comparing everyone else and start comparing your business to the life you want to live.

2) Go After The Work That Inspires You – I can't begin to tell you how freeing it has been removing weddings from my business and turning my attention to high school senior portraits. What is the point of doing work that doesn't make you happy? You'll argue and tell me that you HAD to take on a booking or client that you weren't a fit for because of the money and now you are dealing with an unhappy client. Is it the client at fault or are you at fault for not declining the booking? If you have been shooting, designing, or programing for a while you will know what elements inspire you about a project. Maybe it is the location, the connection with the client and hopefully the client is not even flinching on the rates you are worth. Find three key elements that every project needs to have and then it will be a no-brainer that the gig is the perfect match for you and your business. I call this the booking trifecta.

3) The Power Of NO – When my business was still in it's infancy, I never used the word “NO”. I would cave to my clients requests for fear that they would ‘hate” me if I didn't give into their request. My clients didn't hate me, I hated me. The moment that I began to push back and set boundaries with my clients the relationship between us changed and for the better. We all have an understanding of each others expectations. If you are uncomfortable with saying “No” then say “Yes”, and attach a price to the request to make it worth it for you.

4) “Surround yourself with people who will lift you higher” – a great quote by Orpah and in our industry there is so much truth to this. If you find yourself surrounded by a lot of negative nellies, it is time to remove yourself from the toxic black hole you are being sucked into. Same goes for your family and non-photography friends – if the relationships you are investing time are negative, or make you feel badly about yourself and your work than it is time to walk away. Why do you think you keep seeing the same successful, go getters together all of the time, because they are aligning themselves with like minded people who lift them higher.

Amanda Kraft is a photographer and holistic health coaching living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She photographs high school seniors and recently created Stop Editing, Start Living to help creative professionals regain control of their businesses, so they can live the life they have always dreamed of. Most days she can be found coaching her clients, preparing gourmet dinner, relaxing with her husband or enjoying the open road in her jeep.

Introduction

I've been on the receiving end of text messages that go something like this: “OMG, my to do list is kicking my butt, who did you recommend outsourcing editing to?, Is it November yet?” My group of photography and designer friends are all hitting mid season burnt out and we are only in July.  While my shooting season is just getting started I am feeling cool as a cucumber. The same feeling I have been experiencing for the last three years. Your going to say to yourself… isn't that great, she probably isn't shooting at all!  Wrong!  I am shooting, but on my own terms. For the first 7 years of my business I was a manic one woman show; completely unhappy, working countless late nights and traveling non-stop. Every ounce of me went into building my business and the only thing that I received in return was a bigger waist line and major headaches. Fast forward to three years ago when I finally woke up and realized that I might have the career I have always dreamed of, but the life I wanted to go along with it, clearly wasn't happening. 

When I actually decided to Stop Editing and Start Living my life changed and over the next few weeks- I am going to share my top tips to help you to regain control of the business that you love so much, so you can live the life you have always dreamed of. 

Create Structure

a) Take a social media vacation: Allocate 30 minutes a day to check in with your social media accounts and then close it down for the rest of the day. You will be amazed at how much work you can accomplish in a day when social media distractions are taken out of the equations. I remember sitting in a photography seminar with Travis Guggleman speaking and he said something that really changed my life, he said “In 40 years, when you are sitting on the front porch with your husband/wife, it isn't going to matter who won this past season of the Bachelor or American Idol” and he is completely right. All of this extra “stuff” we distract ourselves with really has no bearing on our daily lives. Sure, who doesn't love a good YouTube video, but if you are already feeling overwhelmed, watching the video isn't going to help cross off tasks off of your to do list. 

b) Create a schedule: Take 15 – 20 minutes to create a schedule for the rest of the year!  Yes, for the next 6 months.  Start with scheduled weddings, events and sessions you already have contracted. Then add in family obligations and a few “personal” days. Determine which days of the week you want to designate for shoot days, admin days and editing days. Don't tell me that your clients won't understand or your business won't survive.  Trust me, it will and by limiting yourself to the days you shoot for your sanity will only put you in greater demand.  For my business,Monday and Wednesday's are shoot days and are the only two days given when a client calls to book a shoot.  On a very rare occasion, I will open a Thursday if I am planning to be out of town for a few days, but I control my schedule not them!  When you go to the dentist or doctor, you are on their schedule, so why do we as photographers feel the need to cater to every whim of a client? 

c) Hours of Operation: If you aren't creating defined business hours than you are doing yourself a major dis-service. You can't expect clients to adhere to your boundaries if you haven't set them for yourself.  If you choose to work from 9 – 5 daily than don't email your clients at 11pm at night and get mad when they start an email conversation back and forth or worse yet, call you on the phone!  Once you have created your defined business hours and shooting schedule, start to leave the “office” at quitting time.  All of the “extra” hours you are putting in more than likely aren't greasing your pocket in overtime pay.  So, why work and put in all of these extra hours working for “free”?

d) Do one thing for yourself everyday: Take a 30 minute walk in the morning with the dog, stop by the driving range and hit a bucket of golf balls or try a new fitness class. Better yet, prep dinner for that evening in the morning before your day starts, so you actually have something healthy to eat.  For most of us, we wanted to have our own business to allow freedom and flexibility in our lives, so don't feel guilty by actually taking the time to workout or do something other than edit photos.  

e) Sweet dreams: Ask yourself when you last had a great night of sleep? Spending countless nights working til the wee hours of the morning isn't doing you much of a benefit. More than likely you are oversleeping in the morning, running behind schedule and never feeling caught up.  Get yourself back on a normal sleep schedule.  Bed by 11 and up by 7 or whatever works for you.  If you set your office hours to start at 10am imagine what you can get done before 10 each day.

Come back here in a couple of days to check out the next installment in this series by Amanda Kraft. If you would like to share your experiences, please comment below!

I struggle to write. No, it's true. Given the choice between writing a paragraph and finding an image to photograph in a bare 200 square foot room, I'll choose the latter any day. That's just the way my brain works.

I visit many blogs each week. If they are any indication, I suspect other photographers are very much like I am; choosing to publish images more readily than text.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

When Jenika McDavitt of PsychologyforPhotographers.com posted an invitation to join her for four weeks to learn to write persuasively, I jumped at the chance to learn from her. Perhaps you feel you could use a bit of a lift too.

Why am I recommending this course? Let me be wholly transparent with you and say that I gain nothing more than good karmic brownie points. No money has been exchanged and in fact, when I signed up for , I paid the full price.

Like Tiffinbox, Jenika runs a “Top 10” photography blog that I have come to respect. Her course “From Portfolio To Profit Engine: How To Build An Absolutely Irresistible Photography Website” is something I have recommended (as an affiliate partner) in the past because the systems and strategies she teaches has borne results for scores of photographers. Read more about it here.

So, why is it essential for photographers to learn how to write? Isn't it sufficient to take amazing images and post them to our blogs or websites and have our “art” do all the talking? Good question.

Sorry to break your bubble, though. Your images have to rock. No doubt about that. But something amazing happens when you marry your images with powerfully engaging text. When images and complimentary text are both presented, the value of that work goes up. Still not convinced? When was the last time you picked up a National Geographic magazine that was nothing but images in it? Yeah, probably never.

Want another example? It's probably not very obvious, but Spencer Lum, Zack Arias, Joe McNally, and David Hobby are great photographers. Guess what else they have in common? Yep, fantastic images AND blogs with very descriptive and in-depth posts.

The other, perhaps more obvious, reason you should learn to write is because you may want to rank higher in all the search engines. They weigh text much more heavily than images when making their decisions on where you stand compared to your competition. Want to beat your competition: write.

Ok, back to Jenika's course on writing persuasively. It starts on July 8th and wraps up on August 2nd. Registration, though, closes on July 4th. She and I recently riffed on the subject of photographers and writing in this video below:

So, why not sign up to take this course with me? At the time I wrote this post, there were only six remaining seats left.

Here's what's included:

– 4 weeks of writing instruction, delivered via PDF once a week
– 2 Skype Writer’s Dates with Jenika
– 2 Short Writing Assignments (e.g. website pages or blog posts) edited by Jenika
– Private Facebook group for after-hours help
– Surprise gifts & in-group contests

All that with a total value of $836. You can, however, sign up for this course for only $399. But knowing how quickly those 8 seats were taken (yes, she will only work with 14 of us), I wouldn't wait any longer if you feel a course on writing persuasively will elevate your profile online and help you beat out the competition (who will invariably continue doing what she/he always did before, which is to simply photograph and post those images up on their sites).

Hopefully, I've managed to persuade you [grin], but it's totally your call!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you are likely a semi-professional or professional photographer. That means you are either looking to make a living at photography or already are making a living at it one way or another.

If that's the case, you probably don't need to be told how crazy and competitive things are in the industry. You have two choices – continue going about your business and eke out a living or find a way to stand out so much that you can't be missed and you are the obvious choice for most people in your community.

How do you stand out in a crowded marketplace? Focus on these two words – customer service. A popular post here already discusses why giving away your images on a CD or DVD is terrible mistake. What's been forgotten by a lot of photographers is that we are in service of our clients – from the moment they call you on the phone till it's time to deliver their images to them.

It was when I spoke with Chris Scott of Preveal recently, that he hit home the idea that to truly serve your clients you need to be their guide all the way to that point where you even help them hang their images on their walls. Taking them through all of their options where they get to enjoy and experience their images every day should be your ultimate goal.

Here is more of my chat with Chris. He touches on the exciting new features that have been added to the next version of his iPad application, Preveal, that launches on July 8th. More importantly, he showed me how photographers can benefit by using Preveal in their own businesses, to show and sell images that their clients want for their homes.

Now, Preveal isn't inexpensive ($74.99), but I am going to take Chris' word that photographers like you and me can easily make double or triple what we are making by using this application in service of our customers. You see, that's an important point to highlight. It's not merely a tool to show of your work or to make selling easier. There are portfolio applications that do that just fine.

What Preveal does and does very well is it provides your clients a visual facsimile of what their own images can look like on their own walls. You will agree this is extremely powerful as it takes the guesswork out of the sale and ultimately reduces and eliminates the perceived risk your clients are likely to harbor when doing business with you.

When you know as plain as day what you can expect to receive from your photographer, what client isn't going to see it as a big win for them?

Use the application to show your client's images with frames or as canvas prints:

Here is an example of finished canvases in a bedroom:

If you ever get stuck, help and support is built right into the application (yes, with links to videos showing you how to use the features):

I twisted Chris' arm to give away two redemption codes for two lucky commenters below. Before you race off to type anything below, please first vote for Preveal on PPA Magazine‘s website.

As a pioneer in this industry, I feel it is Preveal that totally deserves to win the Hot One Award for Best Mobile Business App. Voting ends on July 7th and you can vote daily.

Once you have voted, come back here and tell me a little bit about yourself and why winning one of two redemption codes will mean the world to you and your business. Please do not forget to include your email address as that's the only way we are going to be able to notify you. Good luck!

And do remember, version 3 of Preveal launches on July 8th. If you buy Preveal today, updates via iTunes are always included.