{Here’s to a great 2015 and exciting prospects in 2016}
Happy New Year to all of my clients, friends of Sarah Angel Photography and anyone else who might happen to be reading my blog posts. At the beginning of every year, no matter how busy life gets, I like to take the time to reflect back over the year that has been in order to plan how I will move forward into 2016. This Christmas I even took the extra step to switch off my computer and pack it away to make sure I spent adequate quality time with my family, sparing me the temptation of snatching a few moments here and there to do a little more work!
I hasten to say I have really missed popping into social media to post little updates of my latest family and baby sessions and I have been itching to get going on a larger than normal set of Christmas babies to edit this year. I am so eager to get going this year!
So looking back at 2015 I cannot really believe we have reached another year already! Where did the time go? And I look back at my 2014 reflection, which you can read here, and I am surprised by how far I have come with my business this year and also a little disappointed with some of the goals I did not achieve.
However, without being too harsh on myself, I have set a new New Years resolution to be more realistic with my time! The one reason I decided to develop this business was so I could be more available for my children and to have more flexible time.
Mark my word, I knew I would have to work hard and spend many long hours developing aspects of my business which I have little or no experience in, such as accounts, managing orders, marketing and social media; just to name a few. If you have ever had an email from me you will know that these usually appear in your inbox at silly hours of the night, as this year especially, I have often been working into the wee small hours.
Surprisingly though I am enjoying every minute of it and I am forever grateful to have a business that is busy. I am just very happy that I have been able to serve so many lovely local families over 2015 and hope to serve many more into 2016.
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So here is a list of highlights from 2015 plus a few of my plans for 2016:
- I am firstly very happy that my foundation business of newborns, children and families has gone from strength to strength and this year I really struggled to choose which beautiful children, families and newborns to include here in my 2015 collage!
- My very affordable mini session packages (which you can read about here) are becoming more and more popular so I now have a very special preferential booking list. If you are on the preferential booking list you get to hear about session dates first and you get first pick of the dates and times before I advertise them on my website and on social media. Families can ask to be added to this list simply by emailing me using my contacts page here on the website or message me at [email protected].
- I will be releasing my Spring Mini Session dates very soon so now is the time to message me to get onto my booking list and to receive my newsletter and announcements.
- I have met so many lovely new families and some very special new babies this year. The youngest baby photographed this year was just 4 days old and the oldest was 25 days old. I have even had the rare pleasure of photographing twins, which I was so nervous about, and they were actually just such relaxed wee babies, we had the most remarkable session. I look forward to posting their session here next month.
- I attended some very exciting professional training events again this year. The most rewarding event was a children’s photography workshop in Norfolk, run by the very talented Sarah Evan’s. You can see the results from my training here.
- After 21 very rewarding years of teaching Fine Art and Photography to GCSE and 6th form students, I finally decided to call it a day and focus full time on my life long dream to run a commercial photography business. It has been the best decision ever and I owe a lot of my current success to the 20 years experience I gained as a teacher.
- I hope one day to be in a position to begin passing on my skills to enthusiastic amateur photographers, parents who wish to take better photographs of their families and to train aspiring professional photographers too. I have received a few very flattering email requests from students and aspiring amateurs asking if I would run a training session. Running a professional photography business and taking care of a young family mean I need to focus very carefully on the needs of my core business and the customers who require my services as their family photographer. However, in time I do see the potential in offering these types of services and I very much look forward to it.
- I am now an approved member of the Baby and Newborn Photography Association (BANPAS). It’s members are amongst the UK’s leading baby and newborn photographers.
- The association does a lot to promote safe practices within the newborn photography industry and it encourages photographers to ensure baby’s are comfortably posed whilst aiming to create beautiful newborn images for families to treasure.
- As well as working with families and newborns, over the Autumn I have begun offering head shot and lifestyle sessions for business professionals. I have had many requests for these so this Autumn I decided to give it a go. I have been pleasantly surprised with the results and I have really enjoyed helping other business professionals enhance their business profile through good quality professional images. I have just completed a set of promotional images and head shots for Donata’s Face Painting and you can see the results here. I have also done head shots and business lifestyle shots for Lynette Jackson at My Colour and Style (http://www.mycolourandstyle.com/about-me/ ). Look out for these on my blog very soon.
I hope 2016 is a great year for all of us.
