Opportunity as a photographer might be the single most important factor in your success if you are running a business. We plan, practice and sharpen our skills for countless hours trying to produce images and video that are worthy to ourselves and others. What good is all of this effort if no one gives us a chance to show them our value as a creative professional.
You quickly discover that your work will sit and collect digital dust without you speaking your own success into existence. Who will know how talented you are if you don’t share your talent with them. As entrepreneurs and small business owners we have to create our opportunity ourselves. You’ll discover that this is a completely different beast than just taking a photo or video and whisking it away to edit on our high-powered computers.
I have discovered that opportunity is also part of my own creation and is created in the same way as my work. My energy and desire in some strange way seems to attract more and more opportunities to come my way. We can then take these chances and direct them in the way that we see fit.
Is being discovered more important than the work itself? We draw inspiration from others in our field and notice that they might draw more success using similar work and techniques. What is it that causes one to break through the invisible wall that keeps us from being discovered the way you want to be. Once people start to notice your business success is going to flood your space but there’s an important question that will confront you. Have I prepared myself enough to capitalize on this moment?
When we finally start to get the work or jobs that we strive for and sacrificed so much to get will we be ready to deliver? Don’t forget you can’t just complete a job and think that you’re finished. A little polish and wax really makes that car shine and our work requires the same and has to be added on a consistent basis in order to please. At the end of the day pleasing strangers is what determines how successful we made our opportunities.
Photography makes us build relationships that could be a one night stand or we would hope that we can create a long-lasting bond with our clients. Capitalizing even on a job you’re not excited about can slowly start to change the way others think about your efforts. One by one we can influence people around us and use them to help us build up our companies. Sometimes we have to look past just producing work and focus on the small parts that add up to become a great web of success and recognition. Once we become better at putting together the creativity with the marketing while maintaining tremendous effort our opportunities will start to benefit us much more and not continue to be just another gig.