Being In Love With Your Job – The Wedding Photographer’s Confessions
How much do I love being a wedding photographer?
So much I can’t really describe it. It is kind of newly-in-love-excitement or I-have-just-won-the-lottery-happiness or i-can’t-wait-for-this-exciting-challenge-just-put-a-camera-in-my-hands-right-now. I know many photographers shy away from shooting weddings and I can understand why for a number of reasons (the stress, working in ANY kind of weather, the hundreds of people on your workplace, the pressure of things only happening once…) and I know that particularly in the fashion industry, wedding photographers doesn’t really have the status or respect I feel they should have.
I started photographing fashion, that was my main goal and my main ambition. To be a very successful fashion photographer. And though I am completely in love with shooting editorial fashion, somewhere along the way I felt I needed something more from the experience and my work. It is wonderful taking pictures, creating art and get paid for it, but I also wanted my photographs to mean something to people and I wanted to know I made a difference.
I started shooting weddings for friends and quite quickly fell in love with how I felt when delivering images to a couple after their big day had passed. I loved the moments, the challenge, the bright images, the happy people and the meaning a simple photograph could have for someone.
It was really difficult setting up a business. To get accepted and to know how to talk to clients, build a website, start blogging (I really took my time with this, but now it’s my main source of clients). What is my brand and what do I want to be to people? What will Cecelina Photography be? The past three years I have read numerous books, articles and essays, seen lectures and gone to seminars, stayed up through the nights watching Youtube tutorials on a myriad of topics. Branding, social media, lighting techniques, retouching, marketing, organisation, web design, workflow. And I have done all this because it was my dream to do what I adore, be a photographer. And also because I love learning new things. You can’t just copy what everyone else is doing, ultimately you are selling yourself and your art, your time, talent and experience. Your business needs to be YOU. My business needed to be happy, caring, emotional, hard working, slightly shy, loving and new. Just like me.
The wedding photography industry is tough and I have been through a lot of hard times, but it is incredibly rewarding in the end. Every time I book a wedding, meet a couple or get a lovely testimonial sent to me, I do a little happy dance (Yes, I actually have a happy-dance) and my stomach flutters. Like being in love. It’s just SO GREAT to do what I do!
Does that in any way translate how I feel about my job? Today I booked another wedding for next year, got a brand new enquiry, finished editing last weekends engagement shoot, planned this weekends engagement shoot and have done the last bit of tweaking to my new website. Happy, happy, happy!
Do you know what could make me even more happy? If you go to Facebook and share my page to your friends. Spreading my business keeps me being able to do what I love. Thank you to everyone who is and has been supporting me throughout my adventure!
Cecelina Photography 
Oh to be a working woman in love. You wear it well Cecelina! Great piece.
I love how you the describe it! 😉
xx Louise