CARLI DONSKY PHOTOGRAPHY

Merestead

It’s been a very long time since I posted on here. I thought many times about making a post about why I was closing my photography business but I could not. I didn’t know what to say. It may seem as if I just up and quit, that’s not the case. It was a long time coming.

Photography had always been something I really liked. I have always loved to take pictures. When I was younger I never had enough film, always begging my parents to buy me more. Then asking them to pay for double or triple prints to give out. It was an expensive hobby, for them 🙂 The invention of the digital camera was in my mind the most amazing thing ever invented. I always had my camera with me. To me taking photos was fun. It could make the most mundane moment in life into a great memory. I was a total addict. The first time I held my friends DSLR, looked through the lens and heard the beautiful “click” I fell in love. Now instead of just taking lots of pictures, I could take lots of gorgeous pictures…I had to have it. About a year later my husband surprised me with a Canon 30d, amazing. From there I began reading everything I could about how to use this camera. I new I had an “eye” for photos, but I also knew I had no clue what I was doing beyond “Auto” mode. I joined forums, read books, and everything online I could find. I remember wondering when I would be able to call myself a “Photographer”. That’s what I wanted to be. When someone asked me what I did, I’d have answer, this was important to me. I had friends who worked in business, were teachers, nurses, doctors…I was a stay at home mom. And i wanted to be more.

I had never really considered going into business, I just wanted to take damn good photos and be respected as a true photographer. People started telling me I should go into business. “Stop taking pictures of people for free!”, I heard all the time. For a long while I would say no, I wanted to enjoy my hobby. Soon the idea of making a little money at doing something I loved became intriguing. The problem is, that’s not the way it really works. For solo entrepreneurs  it is 20% of doing what you love and 80% doing what you don’t love. Well that was the case for me anyway. Majority of my time was spent running the business, or learning how to run a business. There are all these guidelines, rules and “shoulds” you should be doing. It’s crazy. Through trying to follow all the rules, I started following lots of photographers, and then I started to realize everyone is trying to do everything the same way. Certain photographers stood out amongst the very large community of women photographers, they would create and image, then everyone would try to mimic the same thing, I including me. Everyone is doing it, it must be the thing to do right now. Stupid I know, but you get caught up. And then you get lost.

Between trying to keep up with the latest editing trends, social media posts, blog posts, not to mention building and maintaining a Website and a Blog…there were clients to please as well. Wasn’t that the point of a business, making the customers happy? The photo shoots were fun couple of hours, but then  came the daunting task of editing all those images.

I was killing myself with this business. The idea of making some side money doing what I love turned into a total joke. I started when my kids were 1 and 2. The visible photos in my home are from about the same time period. My computer and hard drives, the other hand are full of tens of thousands of photos from what might be called the “lost years”.

I have been living in limbo for almost a year now regarding the business. On one hand I did love it, but I love my family more and for right now my focus (lol, no pun) is on them.

http://carlidonskyphotography.pixieset.com/holidayhappiness/

Photo’s with Santa will be available for download this coming weekend. I will post the link here. Thank you for supporting the Primrose PTA!