Oliver the…. And changing things up

Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through a whole process of trying to figure things out; both on the personal and business side. It one of those times where you start thinking and reflecting on what you are doing and where you can go. The key being is making sure thy whatever I do I end up happy.

So I guess we will start on the personal side. There’s has been a lot of things going on. A lot of things that has me thinking and reflecting on doing things. I have made and fostered more friends, reconnecting with some, working out some issues with others, and making plans with others. But ultimately I have realized that I need to make myself happy and make things happen no matter what. I have also been more willing to share a bit more in person. The conversations that I have had with friends recently have been good that have challenged and questioned me to do better and seek what it is that I want.

And that is where the question rest; what do I want. At the moment I don’t know. I just don’t know. I can’t at the moment decide on just one thing. But here a few things that I would like;

1. Do a little more traveling.
2. Display more of my photography work.
3. Open and share a photography place with friends.
4. Spend more time with family traveling and seeing the sites.
5. Improve and continue a good overall health outlook.
6. Advance further in my engineering career.

So as you can see, there is a lot of things on the plate of wants. I am starting on whatever allows itself to be work on. And I do recognize that every little victory that I accomplish everyday helps me get closer to my aspirations and goals. And that currently concludes the personal side of things.

The other thing that I have been working on has been on my business. Over the last several weeks, I have been reorganizing, rethinking, and redoing my business from scratch. This all began a couple of months ago when my friend Jared, invited to attend he in studio audience on CreativeLive. He’s class was about the business of photography. A lot of the topics we discussed and learned there hit home for me. It was one of those lightbulb moments of life. During the three days of class I realized the following;

1. I must design a business to make me happy.
2. I must make the business centered around me.
3. I have to understand every aspect of my business.
4. It’s going to be a lot of work and success won’t come easy.
5. Share your work and business with others
6. Be unique ( think of three words )
7. Your Art and your Business are two different things.

So over the last weeks I have been working on refining my photography business into a business that I’m proud to work on and share with the work.

With the help of my fellow friends that were in the audience with me, we are part of a group called the Bauman Six. Together we help each other through our processes and journey through the forest that is photography. Over the weeks I have discovered, toiled, and figured out my three words. I started with the words of; passionate, loyal, and explorer, and those have evolved into; tailored, outdoorsy, and geek. I have learned from and still learning from this experience. A few things I have learned is that you have to allow yourself to be seen. Allow yourself the time to figure it out. This is something that doesn’t occur overnight but it is a process that takes some time. And most importantly you have to be Yourself. Your true Authentic Self. With that in hand, I have found that you will and continue to discover yourself.

Other than a journey of self discovery, I have also been working on learning the process. The process being everything! And I mean everything. From the easiest to the most complicated task. Everything that I do, to run the photography business. This experience has been. Great and eye opening. It has been one of those things that you didn’t realized you do but once it out on paper you realized that you do a lot of work to run the business. And when you do this you realized that you are WORTH IT. And in doing this, I finally realized that all my work and art is WORTH the cost that I charge. I realized that my cost are justified and it is what I feel comfortable with. So now my outlook with my business is bright and shiny!!! And I’m looking forward to where it will go.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to have my new photography websites up and running. My goal with the websites is to have them represent me and my vision of the world. I will focus both on landscape and wedding photography. Both will be completely different from on another but still have the words; tailored, outdoorsy, and geek, as the main themes in them. They may not be visually apparent however they will be interwoven.

That’s been the latest with me in the personal and business end.

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