ON THE BUSINESS SIDE - In need of a new Professional Headshot?

We always want to put our best face forward when networking in person or even online.  Is it time to update the portrait on your business or marketing cards?  What about your social media profile?

Just wanted to share with you my information about Professional Business Portraits/Headshots.

For more information, email me or check out the brochure via the link below.  You'll need to view that on a non-mobile device.

Professional Portraits/Headshot Information Brochure

Thanks for looking!

 -- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE - 4th Anniversary!!

I'm finding it really hard to believe that it has already been 4 years since Picture Your Life Photography was officially 'born'.  I am so very lucky.

When I get to this point each year, I put together a photo video of some of the people, pets and events that I've photographed throughout the year.  Unfortunately, I can't include everything, but if you've been following along, you will have seen the ones I've been able to share online in my various blog posts, facebook posts and newsletter updates.

Here is the video.  If you are going to view it full screen, please make sure your settings are set to 720p.


Thank you to everyone who has and continues to support me.  I love you all! :)

Thanks for looking!

 -- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Mix & Mingle with Dufferin Mompreneurs

Just over a week ago I went to a networking Mix & Mingle over in Orangeville.

Sara and Rachel started Dufferin Mompreneurs to help local Mompreneurs by providing affordable opportunities for local moms in business. They plan events for mompreneurs to sell and showcase their products to the local community.

Meet Sara and Rachel of Dufferin Mompreneurs

On January 15th, they held their first Mix & Mingle.

So off I went. :)

I took a few photos as I knew I'd want to do a blog post about it.

A bit of 'Mixing & Mingling'

Mini-Facial Demonstrations

Jewellery

A selection of our business cards & marketing materials

Door prizes donated by those attending

It was nice meeting all of the ladies and hearing a bit about their businesses. It was a nice cross section of businesses: Photography, Baking, Jewellery, Fitness, Handmade textiles & other cute things, Cosmetics, Interior Design, Housewares and I know I missed a few.

Thanks Sara and Rachel for hosting the event and it was great meeting everyone! :)

Thanks for looking.

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Refresh Your Professional Headshots for 2011

I had been hoping to have my January Newsletter out by now, but it seems that hasn't happened yet. So in the meantime, I thought I should post this before January was over!

You'll save at least $20 as the digital images are not usually included with the session fees.

If you require that I take your photos at your location, a small travel fee may apply. Let me know what you're looking for and I can customize a session just for you. :)

Thanks for looking!

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Happy 2nd Anniversary...To Me!! :)

Wow, I can't believe yesterday was already the second Anniversary for Picture Your Life Photography. It's been such an exciting year and I can't wait to see what year three will bring. :)

There have been so many fun sessions and events that I enjoyed being a part of this past year. This would be a very very long post if I talked about them all, so I've made this video to try and summarize. It doesn't include everything, but does give a nice picture of what Year 2 was all about.

Today I will hopefully be announcing contest and raffle winners on the blog (they've already been notified), as well as have a post about the Women's Christmas Showcase and how we did with the Mrs. Claus photos. :) Oh, and one little new thing that I haven't mentioned yet. ;)

Thank you to everyone who has supported me. It really means a lot :)

I hope you enjoy the video. Don't forget to crank up the sound.



TO VIEW IN HIGH RESOLUTION CLICK HERE.  You may need to wait a bit for it to buffer.

Thanks for looking. :)

 -- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Mrs. Claus Wants You!

You've all heard about the woman behind the big guy in the red suit. But have you ever met her? I got to meet her today!

And did you know........

She's Cute

She's Sweet

She's A Bit Cheeky

And She Wants To See You!

There are a few places you can find more details:

Facebook
Newsletter
My Sister's Place Web Site

Hope to see you there!! :))

Thanks for looking.

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Mini-Sessions - October 16/17, 2010

I finally have some time to offer Mini-Sessions! :))

What are Mini-Sessions you ask? Mini-Sessions are a smaller version of my full photo sessions.

The length of the sessions is approximately 30 minutes (vs. 60-90 minutes of a full session) with a cost $75 (vs. the cost of the full session which is $125) and the sessions are going to be at my location just outside of Tottenham. They are great if you don't have a lot of time but still want the flexibility and creativity of a custom photography session. Sessions will be done outdoors.

Available Times:

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16TH

8:30am - 9:00am
9:15am - 9:45am
10:00am - 10:30am

5:30pm - 6:00pm -- no longer available
6:15pm - 6:45pm
7:00pm - 7:30pm -- no longer available

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17TH

8:30am - 9:00am
9:15am - 9:45am
10:00am - 10:30am

5:30pm - 6:00pm  -- no longer available
6:15pm - 6:45pm  -- no longer available
7:00pm - 7:30pm  -- no longer available


These Mini-Sessions will be eligible for the Client contest I will be having in November on Facebook (stay tuned for more details about that soon).

It's also a good time to have your family photos taken for your Christmas cards (I know.....I said Christmas already and it's not even the end of September!). Better to be early than scrambling when you're super busy with your Christmas shopping!

Special pricing for cards purchased with photos from these mini-sessions are:

$30 for 25 4x8 custom cards with envelopes
$57 for 50 4x8 custom cards with envelopes

Contact me for more details (see poster above for contact information). Sessions are very limited and must be booked ahead of time.

Thanks for looking :)

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Product Shots

I love delivering products to clients. And I love it even more when they are happy with the end result :))

This was from a recent Story Book Photo Session. Such fun!!

Thanks for looking :)

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: See you on the golf course September 7th!

Next Tuesday will be exciting for a couple of reasons.

1. My little guy is starting Grade 2 that day.
2. I'll be shooting photos at the Mayor's Annual Links For Learning Charity Golf Tournament again this yearat the Nottawasaga Inn Resort Golf Club in Alliston, Ontario.

Last year was the first time I shot photos at a golf tournament.  What a learning experience that was!  Don't get me wrong.  Things turned out alright, but there were several areas that I could improve upon for this year.  LOL

Last year with the Mayor

This year I'm more prepared for the day and I also have a second shooter and good friend, David Chang, coming to assist me.  I'm really looking forward to it and I hope the weather is golf and photo friendly.

That's a lot of golf carts!

Putting contest

So I'm looking forward to getting out on the course again this year.  If you're golfing in the tournament, I'll see you there! :)

Thanks for looking :)

 -- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Stats from the ballot bag

I've finally been able to sort through the ballot bag from the show last weekend. 

In case you missed it in my post on Sunday, the winner of the complementary photo session was Diane H from Woodbridge. Diane has been contacted and hopefully we can schedule a session soon :)

I found out who won the photo session that I donated to the silent auction as well. It was Sonia M in the 705 area code :) Sonia, I will be contacting you this weekend to discuss when you want to schedule your session for.

Congratulations to both of you! :)

So here are the stats from my ballot bag:

93 people filled in a ballot

• 33 of those people indicated they wanted to be added to the mailing list :)
• 6 of those people indicated they wantd to be added to my mailing list but unfortunately didn't provide their e-mail address :( (If you think you signed up for the mailing list but don't remember if you included your e-mail address, contact me if you don't receive an e-mail within the next week)
• 3 of those people included their e-mail address but didn't indicate whether or not they wanted to be added to the list, so I've added them  ;)
• 51 of those people indicated they did not want to be added to the mailing list.

I know there was a fair number of people who stopped by who didn't fill in a ballot as well.  My guesstimate would be around 20 or so people, but my assistants may have a better idea.

I will hopefully get you 33 people added to the mailing list this weekend and will send out a message.

I'd like to thank everyone who stopped by for doing so.  I wish I could have met and chatted with everyone.  Hopefully I'll get that opportunity in the future :)

Here is another peek at one of the photos I took at the show.

Thanks for reading.

 -- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: My feet hurt!

It's the end of the day of my first vendor show. My feet are sore, I'm very tired and I learned a lot today. It was such a good day :)

First I want to thank my AWESOME Assistants. I wouldn't have made it through the day without you. Thanks so much Debbie & Jane. You guys are FANTASTIC!! :))

Also, big thanks to Al for bringing us food and drinks. You're awesome!! :)

I rented a double space so that I could set up a spot to take photos on site, which was my little fundraiser activity. 25% of the proceeds from that activity I donated to "My Sister's Place", along with the item for the silent auction (a free photo session). There weren't many takers on the on the spot portrait, but I did manage to add another $12.75 to what I contributed. Not tons, but better than nothing. :)

And here was one of the little cuties who got her portrait taken and printed on-site.

For next time, I don't think I'll try and do the portraits on-site as it took up a lot of extra space and wasn't very popular. Perhaps if there had been more kids attending? I think I'll have to just determine up front if I think it will be worth it.

I also did a draw for a complementary photo session at my booth. Congratulations to Diane H. from Woodbridge who won that! :) I'm not sure who ended up with the session from the silent auction. Once I find out, I'll post the info.

I did get a lot of people stopping by to have a look, which was great for local exposure. I just found out that there were about 350 people in attendance at the show today. Not bad for the little town of Tottenham, ON. :) I still have to go through my draw entry forms to see how many people entered. Not everyone who stopped by filled in a ballot, but it will give me a rough idea of how many visitors I had.

I almost forgot to take some shots of my booth. The space was smaller than I was expecting and at the beginning there were stacks of chairs in the corner. But with some creative adjustments, things worked out just fine.

Lara, the banner design you made for my web site looked so good as a large banner as well. :)

Here are the pics:

After looking at it now, I should have tossed the extra white sheet I had over those chairs!!

All in all it was a good day :)

I saw some familiar faces, met A LOT of new people, snuck in some time to see some of the great businesses run by women in South Simcoe, did a little bit of networking, learned a lot about being in a vendor show and had a lot of fun along the way!!

Thanks so much to everyone who stopped by today and also thank you to Sarah Toth and everyone who helped with organizing the event.

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Women's Showcase of South Simcoe

This weekend I'm going to be in a local vendor show in Tottenham, ON that is supporting a local Women's Shelter ("My Sister's Place" in Alliston, ON).

I'm very excited as this is my first formal introduction to the local community.  There will be a lot of local Business Women participating and I can't wait to see what products and services everyone has to offer and am looking forward to hopefully raising some money for "My Sister's Place".

If you're in or close to the area, I hope to see you there!!  Stop by, say hi and get your photo taken and printed on-site.  Part of the proceeds will be donated to "My Sister's Place".

Please see the following information for more details.

There is also information posted on my Facebook Page.
Thanks so much for looking.

 -- Lisa P.

GETTING ORGANIZED: Finally, another 'unveiling' \o/

Do you ever have so much on the go that you have troubles knowing where to begin? Or you seem to be crossing things off of your list, but the list never seems to end as things are added faster than they are removed?

I feel like that pretty much every day these days!

But at least I know I AM accomplishing things, even if the pace isn't as quick as I'd like it to be right now. It can be very overwhelming, but as long as I keep the ultimate goals in mind, I somehow keep moving ahead.

There is so much to catch up on and so many things to sort through.

You may recall when I announced my new logo back in November. Lara Vujanic worked on my design and I was so excited to share it with everyone. :) Well, a few weeks later she finished a web banner for me. I've been waiting to try and make updates to my overall colour scheme, etc. for my blog and web site before I launch the banner, but I decided last night that I just can't wait any longer! I decided that I just have to move ahead and put it up and sort the finer details out as I go.

So if you look up at the top, you'll see the new banner. :)) Thanks so much Lara for the awesome design. I LOVE it and how it ties in with my logo!!

Here's a version of it for this post:

I'm actually going to also be creating a physical banner with the same design for something I have coming up in March. I'll have a blog post soon about that exciting little event, but if you follow my facebook page, you should already know what I'm referring to. ;)

So thank you again Lara! And if anyone is looking for design work, I can put you in touch with her. :)  You can also see some of her work here.

You may have also noticed that I expanded the width of my blog.  I wanted to be able to display the photos in a larger size, so from now on you should hopefully be able to see the photos better right here on the blog :)

Thanks for looking.

-- Lisa P.

{I usually try and keep things pertaining to only one label, but I can't decide if this is about "Getting Organized" or if it's more "On The Business Side". So I'll title it about "Getting Organized", but I'll label it with both labels since it does have a hint of Business. ;) }

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Photographer....MIA??

So I received an e-mail this afternoon from someone who had gotten their wedding photographs done by a Photographer in the same Province I reside.  I know this Photographer, only via an online forum we both are members of and I've followed his work from time to time on his web site and Twitter.  He's very talented.

The e-mail basically asked if I knew how to get in touch with him (the writer saw that I followed him on Twitter and he only has a handful of followers).  Apparently he photographed their wedding last October and since that time they have not had any contact with him.  He's disconnected his phone numbers and email addresses.  :-O

I checked his web site address and it doesn't exist any longer and I checked the forum that we belong to and he hasn't posted anything there since last May. 

Yikes!

I don't like to make assumptions, but it really looks like he's disappeared off of the face of the Earth and this poor couple is not going to have any professional photos of one of the most important events of their life.  :-(  How sad.  And how maddening if he has basically 'skipped town'.  I'm really hoping there is some reasonable and valid explanation, but from the information I have, it doesn't look promising.  Also, I hope nothing bad has happened to the Photographer.  There doesn't seem to be any information.  So strange!

I could not leave a client hanging like that.  There are a lot of situations where a re-shoot can replace lost photographic opportunities, but a wedding isn't really one of them unfortunately.  It's a once in a lifetime special event that is supposed to be captured in real time.

I feel badly for this couple and I really hope somehow they end up getting their photographs or at least the digital files and then they can get someone else to edit/process them.  *crossing fingers*

OK, so I can't just post a blog entry without including any pictures!  So here's a couple of shots of my favourite couple :))

Thanks for reading and looking. :)

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: A Milestone :)

long post warning......)

So today is Friday the 13th. Unlucky? Just a regular day? Maybe both, depending on who you are and if you're supersticious. For me, it represents a milestone.

Although I've been doing photography work more seriously for a few years now, it was November 13, 2008 that I officially started 'Picture Your Life Photography' and registered my business after probably about 6 months of trying to come up with a name.

So today is the 1st Anniversary of 'Picture Your Life Photography'!! woohoo :))

What a year it's been. The part I'm most amazed about is how quickly it has gone by. There are so many things I've done, yet my white board is full of projects that I have on the go that I have to complete before Christmas.

I think the biggest challenge for me this first year has been managing my time between my full time 'day job', my part time Photography business and my family. I think my life has been managing me vs. me managing my life. So change in that area is definitely high on the priority list for 2010. :)

The most exciting thing for this first year has been developing the business and defining what 'Picture Your Life Photography' is all about, as well as developing my own preferences and style. There are so many photographers who inspire me in one way or another, and the world of Photography will continually be a learning ground for me. Having said that, though, I was actually pleased (and maybe a bit surprised) on a few occassions where I was actually inspired by my own work and the progress that I did make in the past 12 months (well....really in the past few years, but the progress was more aggressive in the past 12 months). And it's that, along with clients who are happy when they see themselves in a photograph that I've taken for them, that make me sure that I'm heading down the right road.

But getting to where I am now after the first year was achieved with the help of a huge team of people, some who have been involved for much longer than this past year. If I tried to name them all, I would miss some for sure, so I'm not going to attempt that, but there are a few who would be on my staff if I could only afford staff. LOL :)

My Uncle Pete, who passed away this past September, and my Aunt Phyllis were often my reality check and helped scrutinize my business plan as I was developing it, to help ensure that I always consider all of the key areas.

My awesome critics and providers of feedback, whether I asked for it or not (just kidding!! haha), Jane C, Al McP., Chris B, are always there to provide me with a different perspective than I might have.

My patient friends Aimee, Debbie & Renee, who agreed to be guinea pigs for me as I tried out new lighting, photography and post processing techniques, as well as my family guinea pigs Matt & Robyn who helped me try out new locations. I promise I haven't forgotten about the proofs I still haven't finished editing for you and I'm still plugging away at them.

My online Photographer friend Sheba, from Denver, whom I've never yet had the opportunity to meet in person, provided me with more guidance and inspiration than she probably realizes, as I've watched her travel down a very similar road to the one I'm taking.

And there are tons of my family members and friends who have helped in each of the above areas who I also can't thank enough. :)) They have all been very patient as so many of my personal photography has had to take a back burner this year. But I hope to catch up with things in the next few months.

Last but not least, I can't forget my hubby Paul and my sweet peanut Ben who put up with my craziness and lack of attention on a regular basis. I am so lucky that Ben likes to be in front of the camera (most of the time) and that he also seems to be showing a small interest in photography as well. How cool is that?! :D

One of the things that was on my list of things to do for year 1 was to sort out my Branding. So I'm working on that with Graphic Designer Lara Vujanic. I'm so excited to launch my new logo today for Picture Your Life Photography......................

This is the main version

This is the reversed version that I'd use on a black background

Thank you everyone who gave me feedback on the various logo options. Even if the one you liked best wasn't the one I ended up chosing in the end, your input was very helpful and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to give it. <3

I wanted something fun, fresh and not traditional and I think Lara has helped me do that. She's also working on some other Branding components for me, so stay tuned for some changes between now and 2010. I'm soooo excited about it :)

So thank you for reading this and all of the other posts you read and comment on, both here and on my facebook business page. I hope to be able to see more of you through the lens in 2010 (I'm all booked up for 2009 now...).

I can't wait to work on all of the new projects I have planned for year 2!!

-- Lisa P. :)

(PS, if anyone notices that I've forgotten to thank someone, please let me know. I don't want to miss any of you but I'm getting old and my memory sucks when time is travelling at the speed of light! LOL)

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Exposure & Twitter

One thing that I think is important is exposure. And I'm not talking about exposure in my camera. ;)

I don't have a budget for big advertising and marketing campaigns, so what I'm using are tools available to me that have no associated monetary cost. Things like:

Word of mouth
Facebook Page
This Blog
Google Maps Ad
Twitter
and a few other things....

Twitter is the most recent addition. If you're a follower of my blog, you may have noticed that I added a Twitter Feed to this blog about a week ago. If you didn't notice, you can find it on the right side column, just under the Live Traffic Feed.

Twitter is an interesting thing. It's filled with SPAM and useless information. But on the other hand, I've also found useful information there (things like news related items, industry specific information, etc.). I figure I have to take the bad along with the good.

My Twitter profile name is 'PictureYourLife'. I pretty much from the beginning decided to tie it to my business.

How does it work? Well, you 'follow' people, which means that whatever they are writing about is pushed to you. Someone sees you following person 'X' and they decide to check you out. If they like what they see, they might follow you. Then they get whatever I'm writing about pushed to them. And it goes on and on. It's a slow process that seems to just grow over time. You follow people, they follow you, their followers follow you, etc. etc.

My goal in using something like Twitter is basically to get the word out about my business. I've noticed that maybe every other time or so that I post an update I get a random hit on my blog. It's also helping me become more aware of information in my industry as well.

There has been talk that Twitter might not be free to use in the future. If it does become a pay to use service, I'll have to re-evaluate if it's still worth it to use. I figure, even if I only get one or two leads from using Twitter, between that and the tidbits of useful information that are pushed to me daily, it's worth using if it's free.

I decided to try out Tweet Deck, which is an application that helps to organize the informatin you're following on Twitter. I find it quite useful. It helps me to weed out the people I'm following who I don't necessarily want instant update from.

So if you're on twitter. Follow me!!

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Lovin' my 'new' network!! <3

So my meeting with my friend and previous colleague Chris D this past weekend was definitely eventful. :)

He got almost all of the computers in the house to talk to each other and share 'stuff'. We had one problem child and that's hubby's desktop. It's the senior of the bunch, maybe 6 years old, and it's being stubborn and not wanting to communicate openly with the rest of the group. That's not that big of a deal though as it's not used extensively anymore.

I know I could have eventually figured out how to get it all set up if I had the time to spend, but those who know me and my already hectic schedule know that there aren't many extra minutes in a day. Having Chris come over was a much better use of my time and money! :)

There are two time savers that have been implemented. I can now share files easier between computers. This is handy because all of my photo files are on one computer where I do all of my photo editing, and it was a bit of a pain when I wanted to use some of those photos on the other computer I usually do web work on. So that was step number one in my file management improvement project. The second thing that I am VERY happy about is that I can now print from my computers to my older printer that is attached to my 5yr old's computer. Sometimes I just want to print out text or draft items and I hate doing that on my dedicated photo printer.

I really confused my son the other day when I printed something on his printer. He was playing a game on his computer and I sent something to print and walk out of the room to do something else. It took a little while for the document to spool to his printer and when it started to print he started hollaring for me. "Mommy! Mommy! I was playing my game and I didn't even print any pictures or anything and my printer is printing something out!!!!" heeheehee ;)

I know for some, these are little, simple things to set up, but sometimes it's the simple things that make me happy :D

The next step in this project is to implement a dedicated file server. Hopefully in the next few weeks that will all get sorted out. Chris is working on a couple of other jobs right now, so I have to wait until he's done with those.

Thanks Chris for coming up this past weekend. :)

In case anyone is interested, here is a link to his web site:

www.demaninservices.com

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Networking & Data Storage

I'm excited because an old colleague of mine is coming over tomorrow morning to help me sort out my networking and data storage issues and requirements for both my personal and business environments.

Why am I so excited? Because my hard drives are full, my backup drives are full (I over do things when I do backups because I'm so paranoid about making sure I don't lose ANY files, especially client related files and those personal ones that are near and dear to my heart) and I'm tired of not having the photo I need on the computer I'm working on when working on various client and personal projects. I see a positive impact to my workflow in my future, and that's before adding some new software tools into the mix!!

I'm not looking for a really complicated or expensive solution. Just something that will meet my needs and is also relatively simple to manage and maintain. I'm not a techie, but I'm not computer illiterate by any means. My biggest issue is just not having the time to research and set things up properly by myself. This is one situation where I can buy time for myself. And I'd much rather work with someone I know and trust than hiring a complete stranger. My client (and personal) files are REALLY important to me and I won't allow just anyone to mess around with them. We won't resolve everything tomorrow. He needs to come and take a look at my current set up first. But there may be a few small things that can be done right away that will help. :)

The downside is that I have to tidy up my office. OK....more than just tidy it up. It's a disaster. While it may sometimes appear that I'm very organized, if you look in my office you see a very different picture. I can't take all of the blame. I have to share space with my 5 yr old. He does have a small corner filled with 'artwork' he prints out along with his various computer CD's, random toys and miscellaneous articles of clothing which he feels is perfectly acceptable to leave tossed around his computer. And while I did contemplate taking a photo and posting it here, I changed my mind and will keep that tiny detail a mystery to most of you! ;)

The question is whether or not I will start tidying up tonight, or if I'll take the night off and just get up early as usual tomorrow and tackle the job then. I'm hearing a Smirnoff Ice calling my name from the fridge. Or wait....is that a chocolate martini I hear? I might just have to go and check it out. ;)

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE: Meeting with my Accountant

I intended to meet with my new Chartered Accountant, John Karram from Norton McMullen & Co. LLP a few weeks ago, really....I did! It's amazing how time slips away.

Fortunately, I had spoken with him in March and had gotten most of the information I needed to collect ahead of time.

I'm surprised he didn't laugh out loud at the amount of Revenue I have vs. the amount of expenses. But hey! I still have a full time 'day job' and photography equipment and supplies are expensive!! ;) He was also surprised at how little mileage I had listed down and was sure it was a mistake. Once I explained where my 'day job' is (approximately a 90 KM round trip each day), the numbers made a bit more sense.

He sent me away to try and find more revenue, more mileage and a few other things. Funny thing was, I actually did find some. Seems I need to keep a bit better track of things. How did he know?!

Amazingly enough, despite my tardiness, it sounds like there's even a chance that they will complete our returns by the end of April on time! Of course, I forgot to confirm what the cost will be. I'm bad that way. I'd buy time if I could. And of course, it was the first thing Paul asked me.

So even though I was relatively organized, it was quite different this year getting things ready for someone else to do our taxes, as well as having to track the business expenses for the first time. I'm sure next year will be even more straight forward. I think I'll invest in Quickbooks though. Seems it would be a bit simpler than using my 'start from scratch' excel worksheets.

The final file of information has been e-mailed to him and now we wait to see how it all turns out.

Don't forget the deadline to file taxes in Canada is this Thursday!!

-- Lisa P.

ON THE BUSINESS SIDE - Tax Consultants, Lawyers, Oh My!!

Making sure the business side of my photography endeavour is set up properly is as important as continually improving my skills as a photographer. It doesn't matter if I'm the best photographer around if I'm not managing my affairs appropriately, have no idea what my costs are, don't target my marketing and advertising efforts in the right direction, have poor contracts, etc. etc. The list is pretty long.

The way I see it, overall, I should be spending about half of my time on 'being a photographer' and the other half 'being a business person'. I think that in the first year or two, it's probably even more emphasis on the business side. Of course, I'd love to just spend all of my time 'being a photographer'. That would work out alright if I had people 'on staff' to take care of the business side of things. But, unfortunately, I can't afford 'on staff' people for that. So it's up to me to sort it out.

Since part of 2007 and all of 2008 was spent slowly laying the foundation for formalizing my business, it's important that I spend time with a tax expert. Figure out the right way to keep track of things now so that I don't have to worry so much about it later.

Not only do I have tax items that need to be looked after, I also have things like contracts and model releases that need review, to ensure consistency and appropriateness for my intended use. The phrase that's always in the back of my mind is 'you don't know what you don't know'. That's why there are people who specialize in just these areas. You most likely wouldn't hire your plumber to be your wedding photographer and you probably wouldn't hire your photographer to fix your plumbing.

One of my goals is to establish a long term relationship with professionals such as a tax expert and a lawyer. This way there is someone I can go to who does know.

Not being able to dedicate my full attention to this means that it is a long, slow, frustrating process. But regardless how painful it is, it is absolutely necessary. So now I spend hours organizing my documentation in preparation for meeting with the experts.