The life of a photographer.

From a friend of mine in Florida. S.L. She is an incredible wedding photographer and shoots in Jamaica, and all over the US.

Love you S.L. you are right on! (PS She is single and no children yet.)


"I often get asked the question, "So if you shoot weddings on the weekend, what do you do during the week?"There is a definite misconception about photographers. Shooting is only 25% of what we do.I was reading my friend J.S. about her venting her frustrations on how much time we as photographers are stuck in front of a computer.

I could appreciate her words as I relate all too well with it. Some days I look for an excuse to go to the grocery store for the third time that week just to get away from my computer and out in the real world.
Working from my home, it is easy to get stuck in my cave and not realize the sun went down in the midst of being zoned into my computer screen.So what do I do during the week? Here's a day in the life of:

Wake up about 10am.
Grab some water and a piece of grapefruit.
Check email.
Finish grapefruit.
On a good day, go for a run or spend an hour with God writing in my prayer journal.
Shower.
Check email.
Respond to the high priority emails.
Go through and select fave photos from a recent session or wedding.
Edit photos.
Create a slideshow.
Blog about the session or other random ramblings.
Check email.
Respond to email and new inquiries.
Realize three hours went by responding to email.
Stress about the rest of the stuff on my To Do list.
Realize it's 3pm and I still haven't taken my dog out to pee.
Feel guilty about being a horrible mother to my dog.
Check email.
Respond to email.
Stress about all the out of the blue stuff that ALWAYS comes up to distract me from doing more editing or album design that needs to be done.
Procrastinate.
Remember to eat lunch now at 4pm.
Try to get through more email and editing that I can.
Go to yoga to keep my sanity.
Shower.
Eat dinner.
Watch a TV show.
Edit until my eyes are starting to close.
Go to bed finally about 3am.

And there are days like today, a Saturday where I don't have a wedding to shoot, but because I'm going out of town for a week on Monday, I have to use my Saturday to squeeze in a week of work before taking a week off.

Some days I actually get out of the house and do errands like deposit checks or meet someone for lunch or drop off dry cleaning. Today I really need to take my car in to get my tires rotated and check my oil before my road trip, but my dad is an angel and coming over soon to take that off my To Do list. My goal in the new year is to learn to outsource more of the things that I can hire someone else to do to help free up my time for growing my business or writing my book. Unfortunately I'm too much a control freak, and the only child in me stubbornly still wants to do it all herself. But I'm trying to slowly learn the beauty in letting go.

So that's my answer in what I do during the week.

Simply put, run a full-time business.

The hat of CEO I wear is bigger than the hat of photographer."