They say you'll get nowhere if you sit on the couch with a bowl of popcorn watching everyone else pass you by. So as I sit here typing this and eating my popcorn, I'm going to tell you about how to fight the urge to be lazy and follow your dreams.
As most of you know, my friend Holly and I decided to turn our shared love for photography into a business last year. Blush Birch Photography was born in January 2015 and as I sit back and reflect on the year, I never thought we would be as far as we are right now.
When I graduated Cre Comm, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do yet. I was applying for every and any communications job that popped up. I finished up that summer at St Charles Country Club and did a bit of Canada travelling while I worked on my resume and decided what I wanted to do. Well, 42 applications later, I accepted a position at Canadian Footwear as their Digital Media Coordinator. As I was working there, I was loving what I was doing, but I also knew it wasn't something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I some days felt limited to what I could do and I wanted to just do my own thing.
Holly has been photographing weddings for a few years now, and she had a couple in the fall of 2014 that she needed a second shooter for. Even though I hadn't shot weddings before, I figured it would be a great experience to see how they go and help Holly out. We loved working together so much that we were sitting together one day saying that it would be so cool if we could do this all the time. It was like a lightbulb went off in both of our heads at the same time, and from there BBP was formed.
It has been so rewarding to watch something we created become what it is. But let me tell you, it hasn't been easy either. My parents were a little skeptical at first of us starting a business. Neither of us have a business background, nor do we have thousands of dollars in cash that we can just throw into a new business. Both Holly and I still work full time, so configuring our schedules to match with clients, and each other's, was definitely a hard challenge for the first year. Not to mention advertising, promoting, finding our niche, taking on anything and EVERYTHING we could, it was a lot to handle. But it has all been worth it. Nothing in life worth having ever came easy.
A lot of people still ask me if I'm worried about not having a solid job or not having a pension for when I retire. Well no. I do still have both of those. And until both Holly and I feel comfortable going full time with photography, we both still will. Even though this is our business and our baby, we have to realize that we are not in a place to drop everything to focus on this. As much as we would like to, financially it is not the smartest thing to do right now. We are still learning and growing in the first few years and we are both okay with taking it at a slower pace. This allows us to still learn in the communications industry, as well as turn our hobby into a profession.
The main point I'm trying to get across is don't let anyone tell you that you're not good enough or not experienced enough. You lose out on a lot of opportunities if you just let everything pass you by because you're not confident. Trust me, there is still a lot of learning I have to do which is why I am still in school. The more you keep your mind open, the more opportunities you'll have in life. And while I'm at it, I and Holly are both so thankful that you all have decided to support us through this crazy adventure. All the likes, shares, comments, and referrals, we couldn't thank you enough! If you haven't had a chance to check out our new website please do. Holly's amazing graphic design skills features a lot of changes we made going into this year and we would love any feedback you have :)
WEBSITE | http://blushbirchphotography.com
FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/blushbirchphotography/
INSTAGRAM | @blushbirchphoto
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