My Photography Must-Haves: The Tools That Inspire, Assist and Improve My Photography
There’s a great myth that photography is essentially just a person with a good camera and the good camera does all the work. It’s just not true. The hours before and after a photo session are filled with communicating, assisting, editing, delivering and just general creating in a workspace. These are the items that make the many steps and many behind-the-scenes moments easier and better for me and my clients.
Client Workflows & Organization
One of the greatest additions to my business has been using HoneyBook to organize my inquiries, send my communications, create proposals and contracts and organize payments. It does it all — plus a lot of things I haven’t even used to its fullest potential yet. I love HoneyBook for my client workflow process. (And you can save 50% on your HoneyBook signup by using my referral link).
Virtual Assistant
I’ve shared before about using Kristina of Dot the I’s Outsourcing to help me with certain tasks behind the scenes.. She focuses mostly on organizing my pre-written blogs and improving my website SEO (search engine optimization) and helps me with social media scheduling and my monthly newsletters. The amount of time I save not having to do the least-favorite parts of running a business can be spent taking better care of my clients.
Equipment
I honestly have shelves and bags filled with gear and equipment but here are some of my most commonly-used items (stay tuned for a more extensive list in a future blog post):
Nikon D850 & Nikon D700 camera bodies
Nikon 24-70 2.8 lensFilters for my camera lenses
Collapsible lens hood
Memory Cards – XQD & SD & CFMemory Card Reader
Books & Magazines
Anything by Annie Liebovitz — she’s one of my greatest inspirations
Click magazine — once gifted to me by a second shooter & friend
Outdoor Photographer magazine — always inspires me and gives me great ideas for outdoor shoots
Humans of New York — love the idea and messages behind this
There’s so much more, but this is a great start and some of the most important items! I hope this inspires you, too!
All headshots thanks to VJ Photography!