And we’re BACK! (SNL skit? anyone?) It’s time for more Questions From The Audience. I love love LOVE answering questions- I think it stems from my two years as an RA, being a tour guide, and serving as a freshman orientation leader at Radford. Or maybe it’s because I’m a know-it-all. Whatevs. I just liked being able to supply information when it’s needed!

1) What’s your advice for someone that’s just starting out?
Anytime I get this question, I reply with this: a) read photographers’ blogs. They’re chocked full of advice, mistakes we’ve made, and fun tidbits. 2) Find what you love and specialize in it. Don’t try to do everything. Don’t try to shoot NASCAR, infants, families, weddings, senior portraits, architecture, food, boudoir, landscapes, sports, etc. Do that and you’ll find you’re a jack of all trades but a master of none. Find what you love and specialize in it. After attending the Katelyn James Workshop Experience, I decided to stop taking requests for anything but weddings and engagements. It doesn’t mean I can’t experiment with other types of photography, but it does mean that I’m going to concentrate on building my reputation as a wedding and engagement photographer because I LOVE shooting couples.

2) How does your album process work?
Instead of asking a couple to narrow your wedding images down to between 95-100 photos (it’s HARD!), I do it for them! I use the images from their blog post to create a preliminary design, and then they have two rounds of review in which they can make changes if they like. I’ve found that asking brides and grooms to review and make changes to an existing spread is about 3,762X less stressful than asking them to choose all of their own images. Plus, as the author of those images and someone with album design experience, I know which images flow together better than my couple might, making it a smoother process altogether.

3) What camera/lens combination do you shoot with the most?
My 5Dmkii and 50mm 1.2L are like my children. I shoot about 75% of a wedding with the 50 on my camera, and probably 95% of a portrait session with the same lens. I need to break out my 35 more often, but I love the way the 50 renders color and I’m just so comfortable with the zoom length. My next lens purchase will be the 85 1.2, so I imagine that’ll be more of a cause for me to switch things up a bit. Actually just typing this out has made me realize I need to add some variety in my shooting :).

4) Do you give military discounts?
Oh HECK yes. I just started doing this with my recent pricing adjustment and I’m really excited about it. My dad has been with the police department for almost my entire life, my big brother is a Marine, my little brother is in the Army, my soon-to-be sister-in-law is in the Airforce, my grandfather was a Colonel in the Army… the list goes on. I have a special place in my heart for military members and police officers, so I offer a “thanks for being awesome” percentage off of my basic package to couples with one or both parties in the USMC, Army, Airforce, Navy, Coast Guard or police department.

Happy Tuesday!