A Day In The Life Of Your Photographer (ME!!)
It's a session day at the studio!
Sometime between 5am-6:30am - Wake up. Shove dog out of the way. Shower. Dress. Feed pets. Feed me.
7:30AM - Arrive at the studio. Wonder if the Crossfit gym is running outside today. Sigh at the dying plants because I have no green thumb.
8:00AM - Tracy arrives. Shoot the shit. Go over client details and prep studio.
8:45AM - Turn on all the lights and MUSIC for the studio! Turn on the heat/ac and fans. Chug caffeine!
8:50AM - Hair and Makeup Artist arrives, we share a quick hello, and she starts getting set up.
8:58AM - Client rings doorbell (just come in!) so I rush over to greet her. I take her coat, have her take off her shoes by the door, and I bring all of her bags into the wardrobe room while the Hair and Makeup Artist comes out to offer her the restroom and then bring her into the makeup room.
9:00AM - Client and I do a before picture. Sit down and chat. Fill out consent forms and ask any important questions.
9:10AM - Client sits in makeup room for the next 90 minutes, so I head into my office to finish eating my breakfast and start in on my lunch. The Hair and Makeup Artist chats her up, so I dive into early morning emails and then review the clients pre session questionnaire.
10:00AM - I go check on our client while she is in hair & makeup to see how things are coming along. I ask her a few questions about her pre session questionnaire and then a few more about lingerie as she is planning to use our Client Closet today. We chat a bit more, and then I head into the Client Closet to begin selecting pieces for her to try on if we did not do a fitting already.
10:15AM - I still have a few minutes before they are done, so I switch over to our high energy session playlist, take some behind the scenes pictures and videos on my phone for our instagram, and refill my water.
10:30AM - Client just finished hair and makeup, she loves her look (obviously), so we move on to the Client Closet and I run through the different outfits I picked for her. The Hair and Makeup Artist packs up and heads out for the day after she comes to say bye!
11:00AM - Client has finished trying on all of the items I pulled for her, and we decided on a few favorites to use today. She actually decided she wanted to go up to the next Collection, so she got to use more outfits and extra sets at the studio because, why not? So we head into the studio in Outfit #1, I have her take a seat on the bed and I run her through the layout of the rest of the day and start to give her some posing tips before we get started.
11:15AM - We are ready to go, so I start showing the client the first few poses we are going to do. I like to do a "copy me" posing flow, and then help finalize the details after the client tries her best to mimic what I was doing.
11:25AM - Change into next outfit, do more poses. Repeat for the next 45-ish minutes.
11:40AM - Krista and Tracy have hairbrained idea in terms of posing or random quip. Take pause to make TikTok. Client laughs at us.
12:30PM - The session is OVER! Yay client! You did it! Now she gets to change into our normal people clothing and then head to lunch.
2:00PM - Client returns from lunch (hopefully she also had some caffeine because we aren't done yet!). We chat for a bit longer before we dig into the hard part of the day.
2:15PM - The first pass (color or black & white!) is over, and she is in TEARS. Happy tears! We pull up the pricing sheet one more time to review what she selected today for her Collection and I show her what that comes with. Now that she is here in person, she gets to actually touch and feel and ooh and aaahhh over the products. This part is so fun!
2:20PM - Now that she has seen her images and we have gone over the pricing sheet, all that is left is image selection and album design. So we do that, she loves it all, ba-da-bing!
3:30PM - Album design and image selection is done, so I just go over with her the final details (editing notes, shipping address, etc). We finished early! Client is so excited, but she's going to have to wait 8 weeks to receive everything (perfection takes TIME!). So we say our goodbyes and she leaves. Sad face :(
3:40PM - I am EXHAUSTED but we aren't done yet. I have to go clean up for tomorrows session! So I head back into the studio and then the Client Closet to put everything back where it goes, disinfect what needs cleaning, change the sheets, and toss all the dirty wardrobe into the bucket. A good vacuuming, lights and fans off, heat/ac off.
5:00PM - Somehow time vanished. Tracy drags me out of the studio. I lock the doors and go to my car. Now there is no space on either side because the restaurant is popular, so I have to climb in through the trunk! I drive home, and sleep for 253 hours.
That's a day in the life! I wouldn't trade it for a thing.
Ok, some events may be slightly exaggerated. But I promise, much fun was had by all!