The Beginner Photography Podcast

513: Hope Taylor: Senior Photography: Posing Tips and Confidence Hacks

• Raymond Hatfield

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In this episode of the podcast, I chat with Hope Taylor, a seasoned senior photographer who shares her journey from a high school hobbyist to a full-time professional. Hope emphasizes the value of digital tools for client convenience and business professionalism, the challenges of instilling confidence in solo subjects, and the intricacies of pricing and marketing your services. 

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Prioritize Client Convenience: Making processes easier for clients increases satisfaction and builds loyalty. Tools that offer seamless interactions are vital. 
  • Capture Confidence: Senior photography often involves capturing individuals' self-assurance; a confident connection between subject and lens is critical. 
  • Professionalize Your Business: Implementing digital contracts and a cohesive branding strategy imparts a professional image and adds trustworthiness. 
  • Trust Your Journey: Balance your creative passions with entrepreneurial instincts. Trust your gut and stay focused on incremental growth.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  1. Streamline Client Interactions: Set up a digital contract system to simplify agreements and ensure both parties are clear on terms. Use online scheduling tools to manage bookings and provide clients with an easy way to set appointments.
  2. Enhance Your Online Presence: Regularly update your portfolio website with your best work, ensuring it reflects your current style and capabilities. Engage with potential clients on social media by sharing valuable content and behind-the-scenes insights.
  3. Refine Your Pricing Strategy: Create a tiered pricing system to offer different levels of service, catering to diverse client needs and budgets. Review and adjust your pricing annually to reflect your growth and market demand.
  4. Improve Client Communication: Use customer relationship management (CRM) tools to track client interactions and maintain organized communication. Deploy automated follow-ups after sessions to request feedback and encourage referrals.
  5. Boost Marketing Efforts: Collaborate with local businesses frequented by your target clients to increase visibility and create cross-promotional opportunities. Offer complimentary mini-sessions or special promotions during slow seasons to attract new clients and keep your calendar full.

RESOURCES:
Visit Hope Taylor's Website - https://hopetaylor.com/
Follow Hope Taylor on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/hopetaylorphotography/

Grab your free 52 Lightroom Presets at
http://freephotographypresets.com/

Build Your Dream Photography Business and Keep More of the Money You Earn with CloudSpot Studio.
And get my Wedding and Portrait Contract and Questionnaires, at no cost!
Sign up now at http://deliverphotos.com/

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Hope Taylor:

I always say when you're capturing a family or a couple or a wedding day or, children, you're capturing the connection between multiple people. So you're posing people together and you're connecting them on camera. When you're photographing a senior by themselves, you don't have that. When you're photographing a senior by themselves, you have to capture confidence. But you have to be the one to instill the confidence. There's no connection to capture where they're feeling comfortable because they're snuggled up to their spouse. You're having to make them feel confident enough to capture the confidence on camera. And when you're in that beginner phase, you barely know how your camera works. It's very hard to communicate that confidence and kind of project that onto your client.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield. And today we're chatting with senior portrait photographer, Hope Taylor about how to go from hobbyist to full time portrait photographer and what you need to focus on to get there. But first, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by CloudSpot. You know this. CloudSpot helps you to impress your clients with a beautiful gallery that is easy to view, share, and download on any device. Surprisingly, not every gallery service can say that. They also let you control image size, add a watermark, and download limits as well. So grab your free forever account today over at DeliverPhotos. com and only upgrade when you are ready. So today I chat with Hope Taylor. I love chatting with Hope. She's not only like super kind and fun to chat to, but she truly believes that there are no secrets. And she shares so, so, so openly. and it doesn't hurt that she's also a CloudSpot ambassador. So hashtag team CloudSpot. But even if you're not a senior photographer, I promise you, if you've ever photographed people or if you charge money for photography, you're still going to learn a ton today for hope shares her secrets to capturing confidence in portraits, right? Extremely important when it comes to seniors. She's also going to share her tried and true method for setting boundaries and maintaining professional yet personal touch in her communication. That's a big one that I learned. very late. Plus she's sharing some of some great tips on how to price your sessions as you grow in experience. So as always, a ton here to get into. And I just quickly want to invite you to join the conversation over in our podcast community, which you can join by heading over to beginner photopod. com forward slash group. We'd love to see you That's it. Let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Hope Taylor. When did you know? for you was going to be an important role in your life. I know that you got into it early, but like, when did it turn from, Hey, this is fun to, Oh, this is going to be a thing for me.

Hope Taylor:

I love this question because I always joke that I loved entrepreneurship first and photography second, like I'm just kind of an entrepreneur that happens to be good at photography. It took a while for it to sink in that photography was going to be the thing for me. I always loved it, but I would say when I decided to go full time and revoked my college admission to the school I was planning on going to was the moment that I realized, okay, this is it for me. This isn't a side hobby, little fun thing. this is going to be the thing. And I think that's when it really started, to shift.

Raymond Hatfield:

What goes into that decision to say, you know what, like, how confident were you that photography was going to be the thing? You were already making money with it by that point, right?

Hope Taylor:

I was so yeah, two years of fighting with your parents goes into making that decision. No, just kidding. So I started my business my junior year of high school, accidentally like it was really just a hobby and then my minimum wage job got very boring and I started doing it more frequently and more regularly. And, so my senior year is really when I started to take it seriously. But at that time it was still just kind of a high school job in my brain. But I was, working hard to make it a lucrative high school job. And, by the time the end of my senior year rolled around, I was making enough money where it was a serious thing for me to consider. And so lots of conversations with my parents, lots of middle ground compromise and figuring out what the day to day was going to look like. And, there was a semester there where I did local community college and thought that it was still going to just be a side job while I went to school. And I really went truly full time after that semester. So there was lots of back and forth, lots of compromise, lots of figuring out how practical it really was before we, meaning my parents and I, because I was 17, took the leap to make that decision. So, lots, lots of back and forth, but it was the best decision I've ever made in retrospect.

Raymond Hatfield:

I'm always interested in like, so making that decision for one, you have to get to that point, right? To make that decision, but also I feel like there's so many life things going on right now. Today, obviously you're, focused on senior photography. Like, was there ever a thought that like, Hey, maybe as I get older and I don't have friends who are seniors, maybe how do I continue to get in front of seniors or what was that like?

Hope Taylor:

So that really wasn't at the time. My thought process was at the end, I'll be always wedding photography. That was really when I was a senior, I was photographing seniors just because they were naturally my peers. And it kind of came full circle now that I'm 10 years in and it became my specialty. But at the time I was like, Oh, this is my segue to get to where the big money is to actually make this a career. And that's in weddings. And that's just because that's what I saw everyone doing. That's what I saw everybody charging a lot of money for. And it was the scalable career worthy option in my brain. So at the time that wasn't even a thought because it wasn't going to be that I would be photographing seniors in 10 years. It was that I'm trying to get to the wedding world and get comfortable enough with my camera be brave enough to photograph someone wedding that's 20 years older than me. and so that wasn't really a thought then. and I think that now that I'm 10 years in, I definitely have had to shift how I market because I've obviously very far removed from that world, of being in the senior year, but it definitely wasn't a thought back then, which is actually kind of funny to look back on.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah. It's like, my son always has all these crazy ideas, I take that back. They're not crazy, but it's clear that. He doesn't have the life experience because he's 10, that these ideas aren't fully thought out. I think back to when I was in high school and how many not fully thought out, ideas that I had as well. 100%.

Hope Taylor:

100%. This was definitely one of those for quite a while.

Raymond Hatfield:

So why did you decide to continue to focus on seniors rather than, I mean, make weddings the thing for you?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, actually, I did make weddings the thing for a while. So I don't remember exactly what year this was. It was probably 2016, 2017. So about a year or two into being full, truly full time. And I was still in the like, weddings is the goal. Weddings is the number one priority. And, I needed something to pause. I had so much going on. I was kind of breaking into the education space at the time. So I was juggling photographing weddings, engagement sessions, and seniors, all of the editing, and of course, front end work that comes along with that. And then I was simultaneously hosting workshops and mentoring. I had a studio space. I was trying to get into the online course space. space. And I was juggling so many balls and I was dropping all of them because I was just way and over my head and I knew something had to change. I needed a break somewhere and I decided to take a break from seniors. So that year I actually completely stopped booking seniors with the thought process that I ultimately wanted to be a wedding photographer anyway. And so I kind of did it quietly. If I got inquiries, I just, I pointed them to a friend. It wasn't really something I ever announced, And that year, and I actually don't think I've ever told her this, but my friend, Caitlin James, I ran into her at a conference and completely unprompted. She was like, this is so random. And I don't know why I feel like I need to tell you this, but seniors are your thing. And you're really good at them. And every time I see your senior work, it's phenomenal. Don't stop doing those because a lot of people stopped doing what they started with. Just don't stop doing those. That's your thing. And she was like, okay, have a good day. And like unprompted, just like random. Her and I've been friends for a long time. And I think she probably noticed I was posting less of them. And so she just felt the need to mention it. And, that shifted in my brain because I was like, wait, I've never thought about it like that. I've just always viewed weddings as the end all be all. And I've never had somebody say that was your thing and you're good at that thing. And it just kind of clicked something in my brain where I was like, Oh shoot, I think I'm on the wrong track. and I, in a year later I got back in the seniors and now that's my bread and butter. I don't do weddings anymore.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, that is so funny. Caitlin James works in mysterious ways for sure. It doesn't. She

Hope Taylor:

does. She does. she's a magician. She really does.

Raymond Hatfield:

Focusing just on the photography side for a moment, you said that you always saw yourself more as an entrepreneur and then the photographer kind of second. but obviously there's a lot of technical, um,

Hope Taylor:

you

Raymond Hatfield:

things that you need to know about photography. Was that a challenge for you to learn? Did you feel like this is just part of the entrepreneurial, journey that I'm on or, how, much do you, envision the images that you're going for? That was a very roundabout question. I apologize.

Hope Taylor:

No, it wasn't. It makes total sense. I, a photojournalism class as a sophomore in high school. That kind of ignited the, passion for photography because despite the fact that I consider myself more of an entrepreneur and loving business, it's definitely still something I'm really passionate about and really love. So I learned the technical basics in that class from like a super technical, very like almost sterile perspective, not the creative side at all. Just like, here's how a camera works. We had dark room, like we developed film, it was all very like technical. But I found it very interesting. So I went into my junior year of kind of continuing doing photography with the technical kind of baseline already established. So I never really remember struggling with that side. I practiced all the time. I'm an Enneagram three. I hate being bad at things. I'm very bad at being bad at things. And so I just wanted to get good at it. I just wanted to feel comfortable with it. And so I practiced all the time, pictures of my dog, pictures of flowers, pictures of raindrops on grass, the typical, thing. so I don't ever remember struggling a ton with the technical side because I just kind of made it my whole personality for a while. Figured it out. Looking back, the biggest thing I, struggled with was posing. I had a really hard time communicating posing and having to take what was in my brain because I was totally envisioning what I wanted, but communicating that to my client and having to be like in charge of my friends that I was photographing at the time was a super weird shift for me. And that you almost don't think about that as, technical as, shutter speed and lenses and vocal links. But it was for me because it was the part that I couldn't communicate well to get my vision to come to life. So that is the part that actually took the most practice for me.

Raymond Hatfield:

I'm going to write that down. took the most to bring vision to life. That is a, a big part of it that as you said, I don't think that a lot of people truly understand how much goes into a great photo of a person that's not related to the camera at all Yeah, just making them feel comfortable and then even on your end just as you said envisioning what it is but now how do you communicate to get them right to get there? That is big I appreciate you sharing that for sure. How did you get over that? Like how did you learn that side of it then?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, it was a lot of, and I don't even remember watching tutorials. Like I want to say that it was a lot of learning, but it was really just a lot of getting out there and forcing myself to figure it out because I also have anxiety. I'm a very like, not socially anxious person because I'm very extroverted, but the like power dynamic, which sounds so weird of me being bossy to one of my high school friends who was probably already thinking, who does this girl think she is that she's starting a business when she's five years old. And so it just felt weird to me to be like bossing them around, which is not what I was doing, but it's what it felt like. It just felt strange. And so I think for me, it was shifting that perspective from, I'm not bossing them around and telling them what to do. It's my job to make them feel comfortable. That's what I'm doing is I'm just making them feel comfortable. Sometimes at the expense of making myself feel silly, but it's my job to make them feel comfortable. And when that started to become a compliment, I received that shoots was you made me feel so comfortable. It was so easy, and that started to be a reason people liked to shoot with me. I think it just kind of naturally shifted by confidence level, which is really what I think the problem was my confidence as a photographer in communicating because there's such a big difference in like Okay, I think what I want you to do is maybe put your hand on your hip and then maybe put your other hand on your face. That is not confidence. That is going to make your client feel awkward and feel uncomfortable. But just saying, okay, what I'm looking for is let's do something like this and something like this. And actually demonstrating and just straight telling them instead of being like, maybe kind of that all of a sudden you're not being bossy, but you're communicating in a way that makes them feel comfortable. And I think that confidence shift slowly but surely made me feel a little bit more comfortable with that side of things.

Raymond Hatfield:

that's funny. My, wife is, uh, any grand three as well. And, I can attest to the, need. to, master anything that you set out to do, uh, and every single aspect of it. And, it's funny because I can hear my wife saying those exact words right there. So, Your wife

Hope Taylor:

and I would get along well.

Raymond Hatfield:

I know, I know for sure. So Hope one of the big reasons why I brought you on today was because, as you said, not only are you, a master at senior photography in this world, but you're also an educator and there's a lot of listeners who are also into senior photography and despite being called the beginner photography podcast, we kind of have listeners of all ranges, right? People come in and then they just kind of stick around for a long time. I've been thinking about the journey of being a photographer for a while and I've kind of narrowed it down to there are. Four stages and this is kind of really four stages of anything. There's those who are newly aware of something. There's those who are aware of this thing and now they're trying it. There's those who are trying the thing and now they're growing it and then there's those who are growing it and now they are thriving. So yeah, this would be complete beginner weekend warrior full time and then master photographer, right? So kind of what I wanted to do today is because you have been all four of those steps. So I thought, how great would it be to have you kind of break down what each one of those steps looks like and kind of what the main struggles is. Sure. My question here, I guess, for ya, is, in the world of senior photography, what does A complete beginner look like and from a photographic standpoint and from a business standpoint, because senior photography, typically you don't get into it just for fun. There's kind of the expectation that you're going to do it as a business

Hope Taylor:

story. Yeah. Well, first of all, what a compliment to be called a master senior photographer. Thank you for that. That's so kind. That came from Caitlin James.

Raymond Hatfield:

You heard her yourself. Oh, my

Hope Taylor:

gosh. Oh, my God. She hears me. okay, from a complete beginner perspective, when I think of a complete beginner, I think about 17 year old hope who, we kind of have already briefly talked about, went in with a very vague understanding of a camera, but really nothing else. When I'm talking about the photography side of a complete beginner. I'm picturing somebody who is YouTubing and Google University ing their way through understanding their camera and manual mode That is gonna be number one. That's really your number one priority as a complete beginner photographer in any niche So this is not going to be senior world specific But you are completely needing to understand your camera and manual from the top down What each setting does how it affects your lighting how it affects your shutter speed, how it affects your depth of field, all of the basics from a technical perspective. You're starting to learn. And we'll talk a bit about how that advances and kind of the next phase. But You're really struggling for me. Like I mentioned, I think struggling with authority, struggling with being able to confidently communicate to a client. And I think that that's specific to seniors because that is such a huge part of photographing clients by themselves. And that's a very like. Underrated challenge in the senior world is I always say when you're capturing a family or a couple or a wedding day or, Children, you're capturing the connection between multiple people. So you're posing people together and you're connecting them on camera when you're photographing a senior by themselves. You don't have that And it's not that it's a crutch because it's not photographing anything is difficult. But when you're photographing a senior by themselves, you have to capture confidence, but you have to be the one to instill the confidence. There's no connection to capture where they're feeling comfortable because they're snuggled up to their spouse. You're having to make them feel confident enough to capture the confidence on camera. And when you're in that beginner phase, You barely know how your camera works. It's very hard to communicate that confidence and kind of project that onto your client. So for me, and I think that's probably me projecting my personal struggles from the beginning, but that I think is a big struggle of beginner senior photographers is the posing element, because it is so intimidating to do just one on one with a person who's in high school and feels way cooler than you by default. And you have to tell them what to do and how to pose and make them feel comfortable. So. I think from a photography kind of technical perspective, those are the biggest struggles that kind of what I think of when I think of a beginner, senior photographer, when it comes from the business angle, I'm thinking of somebody who really hasn't even gotten to that point In thinking about things like consistency or contracts or client experience or booking systems We haven't even gotten there yet because we're still trying to figure out the right way to deliver a finished photo Do we do it on google drive? Do I do it in a gallery? what gallery websites are there? How much does that cost? What do I need to charge for that? We have so many questions about the technical side that we haven't even really gotten to the business side It's really still those technical questions You that are related to business, if that makes sense. Like what editing softwares do I need to download and how much do those cost? How much time is that going to take me? How do I deliver these photos to my customer? What does high resolution mean and how do I make sure they can be print worthy? It's a lot of technical questions, both on the front and the back end.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow. What a breakdown. Would you say that the beginners and senior photography are those who are at this point from a business standpoint, just shooting friends or family or things like that. They're not actively searching for clients at this point. Right.

Hope Taylor:

Typically, that's kind of what comes to my mind. What I was doing in that phase was photographing a lot of my peers. And if they gave me a tip on the way out, I was so grateful, but it was really in more of a, like a model call phase where I was like posting like, Hey, if you want me to take your pictures, I'm available on Saturday, but I wasn't really expecting money. I was doing it for the purpose of practice. So for me personally, in that phase, I wasn't charging anything. I was really just trying to get people in front of my camera for the sake of getting more comfortable with it.

Raymond Hatfield:

As somebody who said that you started off, knowing that you were an entrepreneur, did that kill you inside to do something and not, do it for money?

Hope Taylor:

I think it did sometimes I think I did this process on an accelerated timeline. So I was photographing peers daily. I wasn't doing this for a year where I wasn't being paid for a year. I probably spent two to three months maybe where I was truly trying to photograph somebody as many days out of the week as I possibly could. And I could do that because I was in high school. So that's an important caveat is I didn't have a family or a full time job. This was all I had to do in my spare time. but I kind of accelerated that process. So I think the disclaimer here is that obviously that is not sustainable. And I think that everybody deserves to be paid for their time. But I do think there's something to be said for giving yourself the freedom to mess up and giving yourself the freedom to learn, so that you can be better and feel confident enough to charge what you're worth versus charging 20 bucks and dealing with back and forth of all of that, it can just almost be more stressful in my experience.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, of course. Absolutely. For some reason, once you introduce money into something, there's so much more of an expectation. And when you're still trying to figure out who you are behind the camera, that puts lot of stress on you. A lot of stress. Sure. You did this for a number of months, and then, is that when you started charging for your work?

Hope Taylor:

It is. Yes. So then I kind of moved into charging consistently for my work. I basically, I think I actually on my time hop app or it does the throwback to 10 years ago, eight years ago, it still pops up every year and I don't remember what month it is, but it pops up and I posted on facebook and I was like, I'm going to start doing sessions now and it's 50 bucks for a senior session. 75 bucks for couples and don't know, families maybe is what I put. And if you want to work with me, let me know. And that was kind of the caveat of what started. It was just a Facebook post. That was the extent of my professionalism at that point. But that was kind of the beginning of the shift where I started charging for my time.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's when you start to move from beginner to weekend warrior. So at this point you've done a real good job kind of figuring out what those technicals are, those technical basics, the aperture, things like what editing software you need. Now, what does it look like to be that weekend warrior? What does it look like from the photography standpoint and the business standpoint? And what's different for them?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah. So I think that the biggest thing from a photography standpoint that shifts is now we're not focused on learning. We have a basic understanding, but now we're focused on consistency and that becomes the biggest challenge is okay. We know how the camera works. We maybe 60 to 70 percent of the time are producing the result that we're wanting, but there's still that 30 to 40 percent of the time where we're put in a weird lighting situation and we just can't get it right. Or we're editing an image and we can't figure out why it's fuzzy or something goes wrong technically and we're still trying to navigate. So the biggest problem or thing that we're trying to focus on from a technical perspective is consistency because we know that we can charge more for consistency. We know the more consistent our work looks, the more our signature style looks, the easier editing becomes. But we're still kind of working on figuring out how to get that consistency 98 percent of the time, never a hundred percent. That's just not realistic, but 90, 95 to 98 percent is what we're aiming for here. Solid,

Raymond Hatfield:

solid rate.

Hope Taylor:

Yes, exactly. So we're looking for more consistency, but you still, have some off days, still some technical things that you're kind of navigating, but from a business perspective, this has become more of the focus. Now we're kind of comfortable on the photography side enough that we have the mental capacity to shift and spend 60 percent of our mental time thinking about business. That's kind of the shift that happened for me in this phase is okay. If I'm going to be charging money now, there needs to be. Not necessarily this full thought out experience, but there needs to be consistency and what it looks like to work with me. What step one, what step two, what step three, and how can I streamline that so that it makes my life easy, but also feels professional. I think that's probably the word to sum it up is I wanted to start to feel professional. and not so much like a friend giving me 50 bucks, but more like a business. So for me on the business side that looked like establishing pricing. in establishing those prices on a website, that was kind of the next step for me. I learned very quickly the hard way that if you communicate your pricing over Facebook or in a Facebook message, people take that as negotiable. if somebody messages me and it's like, how much do you charge for a senior? And I say 50. They say, what about 25? But if they say, how much do you charge for a senior session? And I say, you can find my prices on my website here. And I send them a link. For some reason, something in their brain finds that more concrete and more solidified. And they stopped trying to negotiate with me. Um, and so that was a step that was big for me. It was creating. And at first I am pretty positive. It was just a singular page that housed my pricing and some of my portfolio, that eventually evolved into website with a homepage and an about page and all of those things. But, you're thinking more about those things about, okay. How do I streamline this? How do I make it feel more professional? Oh crap. I probably need a contract where we're thinking more about these steps of the process when it comes to client experience and less about the photography side. because we've kind of already mastered that side of things. So now we're thinking about those systems and getting them in place and making things feel more professional. so those were kind of the shifts that were happening in my brain then, and it was really a matter of figuring it out as I went. Like I didn't have a plan of okay, step one of my business plan is we're gonna figure out the legal side, and step two is we're gonna figure out the client system didn't. I was figuring it out as it went, like if somebody asked me, do I need to sign a contract? I'd be like, Oh crap, probably. And then I would go find a contract that I could use. And then if somebody was like, can I pay you online? I'd be like, should probably set up a PayPal account. Don't even know if I can do that when I'm 17, but I was really figuring it out as I went. But those were the questions and the challenges that I was facing then.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow. So before we move on to what a full time senior photographer looks like, I want to know, how do you decide, that something is worth pursuing? Like, Oh, do I need a contract? I mean, obviously, can I pay you online? I mean, that makes sense. But like, at what point do you say to yourself, this is a distraction?

Hope Taylor:

Sure. So that's a great question. I think for me, it always kind of boiled down to. What I wanted to do and the things that made me excited, which is really probably not the efficient way to make decisions. But when you're 17, 18 years old, that's the efficient way you're making decisions. But I also think there's something to be said for your gut reaction when you own a business and just kind of trusting your instincts. Like I vividly remember I had somebody ask if they could sit down with me to talk about ordering their prints and products. And I was like, I just, cause I don't do in person sales. That's just not something I've ever to do. And I remember I vividly was like, I don't want to do that. And this just feels like it's going to be a meeting. That's going to take hours and nothing's going to come of it. Cause I don't know what I'm doing. And I very reluctantly did it anyway, and nothing came of it. And it was a waste of two hours and she didn't buy anything. And that was kind of a moment for me where I was like, okay, I don't have to do everything just because somebody asks, I can say, no, I can try it. would try things once most of the time, just to see if anything came of it. but for me, it was really focusing on. And I, now I call it closing Apple Watch rings, like that's kind of how I refer to this, but I was really trying to kind of complete projects before I moved on to something else. So I tried to really stay focused on one thing at a time, and not venture too far outside of something that was going to take my time away from what I knew was going to happen. Make the biggest impact at the

Raymond Hatfield:

time. I see. I don't know what that's like. I'm always starting something new and trying to figure something. I don't finish, nearly anything that I start. It is, uh, it is definitely one of my flaws for sure. but I appreciate the breakdown because trusting your gut is so important and it's hard in this world of so many different things to try and different social media apps and techniques and presets. You know, how do you make a decision? And sometimes It's your gut. You gotta listen to that. So let's go ahead and move on then from weekend warrior to full time because that description that you just gave of a weekend warrior sounded to me like full time. So I'm really excited to hear what it sounds like or what it looks like to be a full time photographer. So just to recap, Weekend Warrior, you're working on the, as far as the business goes, you're trying to figure out what does the process look like, uh, working with me. And from a, photography standpoint, it is, let me continue to increase my hit rate for images that I hit versus images that I miss. Okay. So what does full time look like as a senior photographer?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, and I think part of being a weekend warrior to is refining your style. I think we skipped over that a little bit because we mentioned consistency, but not from an editing perspective. So I think that's another huge part of the weekend warrior that we just finished talking about is making sure that you're getting consistency and you're editing as well and refining what you want that to look like and aiming for consistency there. I think with senior photography, it's also important to mention weekend warrior is going to sound like a lot because the client experience for seniors is so much shorter than weddings. there's not nearly as much involved. and so it's shorter and easier to figure out than it would be for a wedding photographer, but for a full time senior photographer, and I actually wrote this out ahead of time, but, I, I view full time as somebody whose style is mostly mastered and you're, aiming for closer to that 80 to 90 percent consistency because now we're focusing on consistency in bookings. Now our consistency with our work is enough and powerful enough and consistent enough that we can focus on scaling. Through consistent bookings, because now we've got the work done. That's kind of like a closed Apple watch ring, right? Like work is done. Photography is consistent from a shooting perspective and an editing perspective. We have a style that is maybe not recognizable yet, but you know that you can produce work that looks the same time and time again, and any lighting situation. This is when we're going to start to invest in maybe better gear than we've had before. Maybe we had invested in one lens, but now we're going to invest in a lineup of them. Or maybe we had an older camera body. Now we're going to get the newest one. version where we're kind of growing and scaling and focusing more on consistency and bookings than consistency in our work. And from a business perspective, we are booking more consistently. We have systems in place. so we have a CRM in place. We have our contracts in place. We know our payment schedules. we have a website now built out at this point. So now our biggest business focus is the marketing side. Okay, how are we going to now. Um, obviously if we're going full time, now we have enough time to do that. We're not so much focusing on the inward parts of the business, like the editing workflows and the contracts. We're focusing on the outward parts of the business, like how are we presenting this online? What does our brand look like on social media? What are ways that we can be getting in of, uh, vendors or getting in front of local businesses, boutiques, hair and makeup artists. Because networking does also exist in the senior world, which some people seem not to believe or to think about, but it does. And I also put that one of the biggest struggles and the biggest business side of things that we're focusing on is setting boundaries. Because for me and that season of my business, that was when I was in way over my head because my work's consistent, I'm excited about it. I maybe haven't raised my prices to where they should be yet. So I'm getting more inquiries than I can handle and I'm trying to do marketing, but now I'm in over my head and I'm working 24 seven, which is the opposite of the point of working for yourself. So starting to almost not take steps back, but kind of retroactively figure out where boundaries need to be set so that we're working a manageable amount of time and not working 24 seven.

Raymond Hatfield:

What did those boundaries look like for you? did you just make sure that you would leave at 5 PM every day or was there more to that than that?

Hope Taylor:

There's a few, the biggest one was that I stopped giving out my personal cell phone number. when I wasn't in the professional realm of things yet, that was a really easy thing to do for seniors because that's what they do is they spend most time on their phone and that very quickly got out of hand. So stopped passing out my personal phone number, set very clear business hours. and I also set boundaries on how many shoots I took per week. Now I'm at the point that I only shoot two days per week and it's only Tuesdays and Thursdays. back then those boundaries weren't as harsh, but, just making sure that I was setting parameters so that I wasn't working. It's just so easy when you switch into that full time to be like, I need to make as much money as possible. I'm going to do literally everything I can at the expense of my sanity and my physical health, even sometimes that it's really important to be like, okay, but wait, no, if we are not priced high enough that we can maintain our business without having to do that, then we need to make some changes, set some boundaries and increase our prices. Just kind of figuring out what that work life balance really looks like, I think is a huge part of that going full time phase.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's so important. before we move on, can you briefly talk about, pricing a bit specifically the mentality of pricing? Because I know for those who are looking to get into senior photography, maybe they are in that beginner phase. Pricing is quite the beast, right? And as you just alluded to, you need to charge enough to be able to live your life and have that time freedom. So could you talk about the, mindset there? Sure.

Hope Taylor:

Sure. So I think in the senior world, there are two kind of, thought systems or pricing systems that you can really choose from. That's definitely very generalized. There's definitely more than that, but I think from a general perspective, there's two thoughts. one is to include digitals in your packages. And be priced higher because of that. Option two is in person sales. You don't include digitals in your packages. You sell your digital images or you do in person sales for prints and products. So you're sitting fee or you're shooting fee is lower, but you make more money after the session. For me, option one, including digitals means that you prefer shoot more. You like the volume of actually shooting. You prefer the photography side. And so you would rather shoot more and make the same amount of money as somebody who prefers the selling side and the print product side and is going to charge more per session, but also spend way more time per session. So to me, it's a trade off of really your personal preference. That's always what it's boiled down to me, I've always preferred shooting more. I would rather shoot. One or two additional sessions a week, then do two hours at a print and product meeting and then have to order those prints and products and then check the prints and products and repackage them and ship them. That's just not the process that I preferred. To me, it really boils down to making the same amount of money. It just really comes down to personal preference and what you enjoy. I always have included digitals in my packages. You can still sell prints and products on the back end and your digital gallery. whole different conversation. But, I started, at 50, as I mentioned, but very quickly went up to the 150 range, which I think if you're in the beginner photographer phase, where you are like, brand new, still learning, but you want to start charging for your time, 150 is an awesome place to start for an hour long senior session. Don't stay there long because that's obviously not lucrative or scalable. And my kind of rule of thumb was every three sessions I booked, I increased my prices a hundred dollars. Until I got to a spot where I was booking the number of sessions that I wanted to book consistently. So for me, that was kind of a process of supply and demand. I'm getting way more inquiries than I either care to shoot or incapable of shooting, I'm going to increase my prices until the number of inquiries I'm getting matches the amount that I want to be shooting. and that typically ends up landing somewhere in like the four 50 to five 50 range for me, or. When I was in the weekend warrior phase, I'd say I was in the 450 to 550 range. When I was in the full time range, it was more like 650 to 950. now closer to 1500 plus. But, I was raising my prices anytime I felt like I was getting more increase than I could book or that naturally the expenses of my business became higher. I was in a season where I had more experience. There's lots of reasons to raise your prices, but that's kind of what the trajectory looked like for me.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow, that was a complete roadmap right there. And, I appreciate that. I know that listeners are going to appreciate that as well.

Hope Taylor:

Well, it felt like a brain dump, so I'm glad that you thought it was a road map. That makes me feel pretty good.

Raymond Hatfield:

No, it did. Well, again, it's one of those things. How do you know when did it raise your prices? You answered that. how do you know where to start off? You answered that. How do you know, when you've topped out, you answered that as well. So, no, it did. It was like a roadmap. That was wonderful.

Hope Taylor:

Thank you. In fact, I

Raymond Hatfield:

literally wrote down here on my notes, pricing. Roadmap. So that's exactly what it was. Yeah.

Hope Taylor:

Awesome. Love it. Thank you.

Raymond Hatfield:

before we move on to the next phase, the master photographer phase, where you're at right now, I want to know, can you tell me, like, so many people are envisioning going full time? imagine all of the great things that is going to bring to their life, not having to go to the office. Can you tell me maybe your first week of saying to yourself, like, this is my job. I'm a full time photographer. what was that like?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I remember it being so freeing. For me, just like paint the picture. So my dad's caveat to me not going away to college, which for reference, I had committed to a college. He had already paid a lot of dollars to that college because I'm very, very lucky that my parents were willing to do that for me. I had a roommate. I had classes I signed up for. I dropped out of my college about two weeks before I was supposed to move in. So it's just important detail. And so when I decided to do that, my dad. basically said, I will support you in staying home, but I still want you to pursue your education. So the negotiation or the compromise here is that you'll go to community college classes. And so I was doing a full college course load, for the first time. So experiencing what college course load felt like. Plus I was in a season where I had just started booking weddings for the first time and was doing workshops and had a studio space. And I was just drowning. Like it truly felt like I was drowning. I have a vivid memory of having a meltdown to my poor, sweet community college English professor, because she told me if I missed class for a workshop, I had signed up for and spent a lot of money on, but she was going to fail me because it was the final exam day, even though I had a 98 in her class and I just had a meltdown. So the moment that my dad agreed to give me at the time, it was just one semester off. I just remember being like, I've never had the ability to focus 100 percent of my attention on my business. And I don't know what that's gonna feel like or look like, but I knew I wanted to go into it with a plan. And so I just remember I really thought through, okay, If I wake up at 10 a. m and because at the time I was still sleeping until 10 a. m because I was a teenager if I sleep until 10 a. m and I work until 6 p. m Here's how i'm going to use that time to actually move the needle and like make more money because I have to make it lucrative The agreement was if you can make enough money to make lucrative, you don't have to go back to school and so that was my plan and I just kind of went into it with a plan and I just remember feeling so free and like a bajillion pounds and it lifted that very quickly shifted into overwhelm when I got in way over my head, but that initial feeling of freedom is just so huge.

Raymond Hatfield:

I feel bad for that English teacher for sure because that is quite the predicament to be and my goodness.

Hope Taylor:

Oh, she didn't know what hit her. I felt bad for her too. I felt so bad.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's funny. okay. So, sticking on the full time aspect of it for just a moment, you had spoke about the importance of the marketing element, right? and making sure that you are still getting in front of, seniors on a consistent basis so that you can book them. for those who are brand new, right, or for those who aren't, in high school, right, maybe they're a little bit older, they're starting, not in high school, what are maybe one, two, three of the best ways that we can start to do that?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, great question. So I have always believed that specifically in the niche of senior photography, the best thing that you can do to start to get the word out there about your services is to infiltrate the senior market at the source. And what I mean by that is not trying to like shout from the rooftops, Hey, I'm a senior photographer and get people to start paying attention, but instead just put yourself in front of the people that you wanting to book by reaching out to them first. It was very easy for me. It was low hanging fruit for me at the time because I was a senior in high school, but I believe there are so many ways for people to find seniors in their area or even just connections to people that look like seniors or are sophomores or juniors, but somehow integrated in the high school, and offering them the opportunity to model for you for free. I know that's controversial because again, we should all be paid for our time. But I really think that if you use those opportunities wisely and strategically, You won't be doing it for long. so I have a YouTube video where I, it's like 30 minutes long about how to work for free in a way that's actually going to push you forward and not be a waste of your time. But, I on Instagram recommend trying to find some seniors in your area. And I know that sounds so creepy, but it doesn't have to be. you can search your local high school hashtags, geo tags. you can even, well, I'll use that as way number two, and reaching out to them on Instagram with a voice message even. So it just feels personal, but introducing yourself, saying, Hey, I'm new to the area. Here's the reason that I'm looking for models, but I would just love to offer the opportunity to work with you for 30 minutes and get you some awesome senior photos, blow them away with an amazing experience and beautiful images. And they'll post about them and you will naturally start to gain the followers of their friends. It kind of gets the ball rolling a little bit, by just Infiltrating at the source, getting right into the high school by actually working with someone that goes to the high school. Option two is also something that I did, that anybody can do, which is to photograph some sporting events at your local high school. I would bring, I got the cheapest Zoom lens I could find and brought it to football games with me. And, I photographed the games and the players, but I also photographed the student section, because there's always the student section of the bleachers where everybody's dressed up for whatever the theme is for the night. and then I would just make a massive gallery of those pictures and send them out to all my friends. And that can be super easy for you to do. You can pass out your business cards even and just ask people to email you and you'll send them a link. and those photos will start circulating and they'll be like, Oh, who took that. That's a cool picture. And now all of a sudden your name is circulating. So one, reach out to a senior, offer them the opportunity to work with them. Option two, put yourself at the games, put yourself at the school, take pictures and create content for some of these seniors to get your name out there. Option number three is to start to network with businesses in your area where your seniors also shop so for me this was networking with a lot of the local boutiques in downtown Fredericksburg, which is a very tiny town in Virginia but I actually had an office space downtown in that kind of probably more like the Newly full time phase or maybe a little before that I had a studio space and I would just regularly shop there And go home and post pictures of what I bought or post a picture of my dress and tag the place that I bought them from They would repost that picture and I knew that my seniors shopped there too and or were following that boutique and now seeing me there and that was actually how I got infiltrated into the charleston market when I moved in 2019 was Anytime I went to a coffee shop a boutique a cute restaurant Anywhere that I knew that my ideal clients were also hanging out, I would post those photos, share that content and get reposted in front of an audience of thousands of people that were local to the Charleston market that followed that restaurant or coffee shop or boutique. And I started to build a following there through that. those are my three favorite ways, to start kind of infiltrating yourself in the senior world.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's perfect. There's that phrase, if you want to be interesting, you have to be interested. Right? And what better way to, show seniors that, you're right for them than by showing them that you're interested in the same things that they're interested in. So that, that is totally

Hope Taylor:

love that quote. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield:

I hope people do that because what's hard is that, it's not just a soundbite. It requires work, you know, it's not like, how do I think about this? It's you actually have to do the thing. but if you don't do it, you don't get the reward. That's great. I hope that people do that. Okay, let's go ahead and move on to the master photographer phase of being a senior photographer. The full time photographer is, focused on marketing from a gear standpoint. They have upgraded their stuff. Maybe they have, you know, made some changes. Gotten into off camera flash. I don't know maybe that's a personal choice. Yeah,

Hope Taylor:

really up to personal choice. Yeah. Okay.

Raymond Hatfield:

So then from the next phase, that master photographer phase, what does that look like? Because from the full time phase, That looks great. Right? you got all the new gear. You're marketing. What comes next?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah. So for me, this is kind of the phase that I felt like I am in now in terms of scaling in terms of really focusing on my creativity and kind of revisiting some ways that I can continue to grow and scale my business. for me from a photography perspective, I think that the biggest struggle for a master photographer is almost going back to the beginning and forcing themselves to be creative again, and this feels like so advanced because it almost feels like that's the silliest issue I've ever heard. Like a beginner photographer listening to this is going to be like, that is a dumb struggle. what do you mean by that? But when you've been doing the same thing for a decade, which is what I've been doing almost 11 years now, It can be so easy to get in a rut of everything you do looking the same. And we've talked so much about consistency that it's probably like, okay, yeah, but that's a great thing. And it is a great thing. But if you get burnt out of creativity and you stop enjoying the artistic and creative side of what you do, that's going to show in your work. And so. Almost fueling your creativity and finding ways to stay creative and, work with new trends and kind of move, especially in the senior world. Trends are big. figuring out how your work can adapt to what's currently popular. and the current generation of seniors and remaining creative and excited about your work is really the biggest challenge from a photography perspective, because like you said, we've got the good gear, we've mastered our photography, lighting, editing, we've got all that down to a science now, so now it's really a matter of, okay. I've got it down to a science, but how do I make sure that that science is still relevant and that science is still exciting to me? So that's from a photography perspective. I think the biggest challenge from a business perspective, I want to stay there for,

Raymond Hatfield:

for, just another moment right now for you. What does that creative side look like? What is different about your images today than from a year ago? Yeah.

Hope Taylor:

Great question. I think for me, from a creativity perspective, like protecting my creativity and making sure that I'm only shooting when I want to shoot is a huge part of that for me. There are times I bring camera on vacation and there's times that I don't. And I just try to be really in tune with, is it going to burn me out to do this? Or is it going to be exciting for me to do this? Referring more to photography outside of work. and then from a more like practical perspective of what my work looks like now compared to what it used to. In the senior world specifically, there's lots of trends and changes in the realm of posing, which we've talked so much about because, and I think that's so interesting because again, it's not something you really think of when you think of technical things, but in the world of seniors, there's lots of trends with posing and what's cool. What's not what your friends are going to post on Instagram versus what they feel like is cheesy. One of the biggest trends is lots of movement in photos and photos that feel candid, like that you weren't even there and the senior was just twirling down the street of Charleston, and it was completely unprompted and unposed. Those are very, very popular right now. Anything that is like forced or even smiling directly at the camera sometimes feels too posed for the Gen Z seniors right now. and so that has been a super interesting shift in just my style. Style of, kind of how I approach senior sessions. that to me is like the first thing that comes to mind in terms of like current senior trends.

Raymond Hatfield:

Wow, man, that is so weird. Cause, when I think back to, when I was in high school, it was very much the look at the camera smile, but still like kind of look relaxed and cool and maybe lean up against something. But, it's totally different now. It's totally different. But I guess you should expect that from everything. So, okay. I appreciate you sharing that. Cause that is, I never would've thought about that. okay. So from a business perspective, what struggles are you facing right now? What does it look like to be you?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, so I feel like the things that came to my mind were more the entrepreneurship angle at this point of, okay, we've closed the Apple watch ring of like mastering our craft. We're proud of. We have consistent booking. So now it's a thought process of, okay, how can we diversify our offers? How can we create new streams of revenue? This is clearly the entrepreneur side of me coming out. But I think that that side of things you start to have time to think about that really is what it boils down to. It's okay, now my mind doesn't take it up with mastering my camera, mastering my editing, figuring out work life balance. Like now I have time to think about, okay. And making X amount of money, but how do I make more? Or how do I make more per session and automate a system for selling my prints and products? How do I automate my front end with AI? I mean, there's just so many things that you can do to streamline and scale and diversify your business once you hit the point where you have the mental capacity to do that. To get excited about it, and it's kind of that quote of working on your business versus in your business, there's not much to do in your business anymore because it's also consistent and streamlined. What can we do to work on it and grow it and scale it and diversify your revenue, to become even more successful if, and I think the big caveat here is if you want to, if you're making 100, 000 as a photographer and you shooting 10, 15, 20 weddings a year, however many you want to, or 20 senior sessions a month, and you are content and you love what you do. This is an optional step for you. Like this does not have to be an option. but if you're a serial entrepreneur like me, or you want to be an educator or you want to diversify your revenue, this is kind of that phase where I believe you have the capacity for that to begin to happen.

Raymond Hatfield:

Let me just say that if you're making, six figures with your photography, you're 60 percent better than the national average of other photographers. So like, that's already a huge accomplishment right there. And I just want to take a moment because there are so many podcast, there's so many, so much education out there on being that six figure photographer and that's not the most common thing, right? that takes a lot of

Hope Taylor:

totally. oh, yeah,

Raymond Hatfield:

I appreciate you saying that if you want to, because that already right there is one of the things that a lot of new photographers feel, they want to be creative, they want to have this business, but they also want the time freedom. And they're not expecting to, I don't know, make, Seven figures, but six figures would be great. So that is wonderful.

Hope Taylor:

And everyone's definition of success is so different. It's so different. And mine gets redefined every year, truly. And I've learned a lot about my definition of success is more tied to my freedom and my time and my ability to be present with my family than any monetary amount of money or success I could have from that side of things. And so I really think it's also figuring out what your own definition of success is, and then stopping there and knowing that stopping there is. It's completely acceptable and probably the biggest one you could have is setting the boundary to stop there. so I just always, I think that's so important to mention. So I'm glad we

Raymond Hatfield:

hit on that. Yeah, for sure. For sure. want to touch on the importance of a CRM because I know that you are CloudSpot ambassador and CloudSpot has released CloudSpot studio. so let's just talk for a moment about the CRM side of senior photography. When do we need to introduce a CRM?

Hope Taylor:

So I think the sooner you can introduce something like this, the easier your life is going to be. I really think it's just a matter of when the expense makes sense for your specific business, which is going to be different for everybody. Some people a year in are gonna be booking consistently enough that they can rationalize the expense. Some people that's gonna take two or three years, some people that might take two months, it's gonna depend on. What that value looks like for you in terms of a time and organization and sanity perspective. In my opinion, I think a CRM just provides so much sanity and reassurance. and so for me, I had a CRM built into my business probably within a year of going full time. So I would say that that was an integral part of my experience within that first year of going full time, probably more like within six months because I knew that I needed the organization of it.

Raymond Hatfield:

Why can't we just use paper and a Google Calendar for everything? Why? Why? does that not work as well?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah, so the number one reason I can think of is a selfish one and it's just the matter of convenience and peace of mind For me again, I mentioned earlier. I'm a very anxious person I'm the type of person that lays down to go to sleep and I'm like did I lock the door is the oven on? I haven't even used it for a week, but I feel like I need to go check I'm the type of person that just that reassurance and level of knowing that like Everything I need to know is backed up in one place. Everything I need to know about my business is like, I can log in and just look at it in one kind of bird's eye view. that's invaluable to me and my mental sanity. so that's a huge one. It's just the convenience for myself of knowing that everything is streamlined and backed up in one place. And I'm not going to lose a piece of paper or a contract that my dog's going to eat or something like that. Second is the convenience for your client. I'm huge on this, I really believe that if you make your customers jump through hoops to give you money, they're going to be annoyed with you. they don't want to have to mail you a physical check. they don't want to have to like, fax you a contract. It is an inconvenience for them to have to do that. People will do it. It's okay if that's what you're currently doing. but I do believe that it's an inconvenience to your customer and the easier you can make the process for them, the more stoked they're going to be about giving you their money. and I just think that's a big win. and then third for me is professionalism. I really believe you guys heard me talk about that earlier and the power of like consistency and professionalism and, things for you. Feeling elevated and my customers receiving like a digital contract that has my logo and is beautifully branded and it's easy to use, just feels like it's worth way more money from an experience perspective than having to fax me or mail me a physical printed contract. So, convenience, peace of mind and professionalism are the biggest things for me. I could go on, but those were the top three

Raymond Hatfield:

that I wrote. Yeah, those are the big ones. And, I have to say if my son came home from school and said, dad, I need. I don't know, 150 to give to this kid at school to take my photos. I'd be like, what is going on here? But if that person sent me some sort of link that I could look at and see some sort of package or contract and pay online, it would feel more, elevated from a business perspective and definitely more professional. So that is such a good point right there.

Hope Taylor:

It's totally a perceived value thing. It really

Raymond Hatfield:

is. But still. A value, right? So regardless, regardless. Yeah. Well, hope I really appreciate you sharing everything that you have today. I know that it's going to help out a lot of, listeners who are looking to get into senior photography and, I know that we talked about this before getting on, but we somehow didn't get to it. Where can we find more about you, online?

Hope Taylor:

Yeah. So Instagram is where I share most regularly, most real life. So you can follow me there. It's Hope Taylor photography. if you want to learn more from me, we actually recently started giving away a free month of my membership where you can watch me photograph an entire senior session from start to finish. So if you want all of this to kind of come full circle and actually see it in action, you get to see me working with a real client. It's actually sunrise session on Rainbow Row in Charleston. It's super beautiful. you get to see all my camera settings, hear my real time thoughts on lighting and location and family dynamics and outfits and wardrobe selection and why we shoot each thing, which place. And, it's like a two and a half hour shoot that you get to watch from start to finish. So super jam packed content, totally free, just as my gift to you to say, thanks for listening. So the link for that is below. In the show notes,

Raymond Hatfield:

it will absolutely be in the show notes for sure. Yes. well, hope again, thank you so much for sharing everything that you did, because this is, quite the masterclass or maybe the roadmap masterclass for senior. That's way too long of a name, but I think everybody understands what it is. All I'm trying to say here is thank you so much. Hope.

Hope Taylor:

Yes. Thank you for having me. This was wonderful. Such a great conversation. And I'm so glad to be here.

Raymond Hatfield:

What did I tell you? Great, great, great time chatting with Hope. Let's go ahead and recap what we have learned today. First, you need to start incorporating some digital tools. I think she made this great distinction that, using digital tools are not just about making your life easier, which they will, of course, but also, They make your client's experience more professional, and that will help set you apart from those who are unwilling to do so. It really helps the clients, to feel taken care of. And that is so important. Next, also how to pose with confidence. Start practicing that clear communication with your clients to make them feel at ease in front of the camera and not super awkward. as I said, like would drive to an engagement session. I would literally talk to myself in the car as if I was talking to the couple just to get them into a pose. It sounds crazy. But again, super helpful. That'll help with your confidence. Try it out. And lastly, Hope talked about how to, understand the psychology of pricing. She shared that obviously, there's a benefit of starting out and shooting for free early on, but then, you have to transition into charging at some point, right? And not just charging, but also earning a good living, especially as your experience grows. So that was, extremely helpful. And I hope that you took something away from that. If you did, I would love to hear your biggest takeaway in the beginner photography podcast community, which you can join for free over at beginner photopod. com forward slash group. That is it for today. Remember until next time, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon.