Your Kind Words.

In this industry, you have to have really tough skin.  Like a lizard.  You hear things like…

No. No. and more No.

We’ve decided to go with someone else.

Your prices are way too high.

So & So Photo says they will give me the same thing for $ less than you.

I don’t like your style.

My blahblah’s photographer was So & So Photo.  Can you shoot like them?

I originally wanted to book So & So Photo but they are just out of my budget.  (No one wants to know they came in 2nd)

and lots of other not so nice things….

I don’t care who you are – at one time or another, you have felt like you weren’t good enough.  Us photographers feel like this a lot.  We are really good at pretending like it doesn’t happen though.  I mean, who wants to hire a sap?  Ultimately, crappy stuff like this is just part of life.  Everybody goes through it, everybody has the bad days & everybody works like hell to make tomorrow better.

The other day, I got an email from Wedding Wire.  You know – the site where you can go look up/write reviews for wedding vendors & gain tons of wedding inspiration.  I had a new review!  Wooo!  I think that for every photographer, when you receive the ‘You have a new review!’ email, you get kind of nervous.  My palms get sweaty – Gross, I know.   You think, ‘What if it’s bad?’  Well, that would suck.  No one wants a bad review.  We all try to do our best.  I know I do at every single wedding I shoot.

So, with sweaty fingers, I click the message to open it up. I read.  I smiled & I remembered why I do this.  Why I face all of this rejection everyday.  Why I worry all the time about being good enough.  It’s all worth it when I read words like this:

From Melissa:

“Amanda and her assistant did an incredible job capturing our wedding. Her photos are beautiful! But what I think makes Amanda stand out from the crowd is her eye for the significant, natural, intimate little moments that occur througout the entire evening. Anyone can stand there and get a shot of the you-may-kiss-the-bride moment, but it’s an art to capture those subtle exchanges between people while remaining completely unobtrusive. For example, we got our photos back about a week ago and I’m amazed by how many photos capture a loving look between guests or a playful glance or a sincere heartfelt laugh. There are candid photos of my cousin holding her 3 month old son in her arms and gazing at him adoringly, and photos of my 3-year-old second cousin twirling on the dance floor with an intensity like you wouldn’t believe. THESE are the kinds of photos I was hoping for when I was hunting for a photographer, and I was overjoyed when I saw Amanda’s proofs.”

Of equal importance was Amanda’s eagerness to listen to us and blend our hopes for how the day would unfold with her ample experience working at weddings. She helped me hammer out a schedule for the day (which was incredibly helpful!), and when I said that having lots of staged photos wasn’t a high priority for us she was more than happy to help me tweak the schedule accordingly. For the record, the staged photos are wonderful too! I’m painfully unphotogenic, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at these photos.’

 

Thank you, Melissa, for these words.  They mean so much to me.  They remind me why I love to do this and renew my passion for weddings.  And if you are reading this and you had a wonderful experience with your photographer (or any other vendor), please tell them!  You have no idea what words like these can do for someone!

xoxo,

Amanda