Today’s Topic Tuesday is an inspirational post from our Teen Guest Blogger Sara Cooney!  Sara shares some great kick-in-the-pants Just Do It (a la Nike!) information to really get you going on the things you have been wanting to do with your Senior photography business.  Check it out below!!

Hello everyone! So sorry I have been MIA, but I promise it was for a good reason! After a crazy summer with 51 senior sessions (WHAT?!), I finally have time to get back to blogging on here. I knew that if I tried to get out blog posts out during my busy months of August and September, they wouldn’t have been my best, so now I am back and ready to go!

The last time you heard from me was on Creative Live back in August for “Senior Portraits: Create the Ultimate Experience” with Leslie Kerrigan, and let me just say what an AMAZING experience that was. After spending hours on my couch, watching and taking notes from other talented photographers, never in a million years did I think that I would be on and people would be taking notes from me! It was so cool to be a part of the whole “behind the scenes” process, from planning with Leslie and one of the producers of Creative Live, to doing a test call to make sure everything would run smoothly, and even just being on stand by for a few minutes before I was put on. Of course my favorite part was actually being on for my interview, chatting with Leslie, and sharing my thoughts and experiences to everybody who was interested. I got so much positive feedback from people commenting on my Instagram, Facebook, and even sending me private messages. To have people tell me that I was inspiring and motivating them was such an amazing feeling.

It’s funny because I can be pretty shy at times but when it comes to photography and my business, you would never know. If I want something, I go and get it. Every once in a while I like to look on the Internet for inspirational quotes, and last night I found two that I loved. The first one is “If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives” and the second one is “The longer you wait for the future, the shorter it will be”. I really connect to these quotes because I think back to the certain things I did, that I didn’t necessarily feel ready for or 100% confident in myself, but I did them anyways. And if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be where I am today. If I hadn’t taken the leap in 2011 and created my Facebook page “Sara Cooney Photography”, I wouldn’t have grown to where I am now, as a photographer and as a person. I probably wouldn’t be hopeful that I could make it in this industry, and I definitely wouldn’t have booked 51 seniors this summer for the class of 2015. If I hadn’t sent an email to Leslie of Seniorologie, offering to make videos/write blog posts to help out other photographers, I wouldn’t be here right now writing this. I wouldn’t have had the amazing experience of being on Creative Live, and I wouldn’t have made the connections with other photographers that I did.

My work 2012-2014

I know there is something that you want right now. I know that you don’t feel ready for it. Do it anyways. The future is only getting shorter. If you still feel hesitant, make a list. At the top, write your goal, the thing you want. Then, list out every single thing you need to do until you will feel “ready” to make it happen. When you’re done, look at what you wrote down. Are you making up excuses for yourself, or are these things
you truly need to do before you can get what you want? My thing I want right now is to offer professional hair and makeup as a part of my senior sessions. I am 99% sure I am going to follow through and have it available this summer for the class of 2016, but there is that 1% of me thinking that everybody in my area may think it is too much just for senior pictures, since nobody else in my area offers it and it would be something new. But instead of looking at that as a negative, I need to look at that as an advantage. Nobody else in my area offers it, it would be something new. It will set me apart. Aside from my age and my different style of senior portraits, that could be my “thing”. Seniors will now come to me not only because I am young, but also because I offer something that they can’t get anywhere else. Turn your negatives into positives and make things happen.

I would love for you to share the thing you have been struggling with, the thing you want but may not feel ready for. Join my group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/700784033277979/ and share your “thing”, and lets get inspired to make moves!