here we go! it has been officially one year since I uploaded my first
tutorial here on YouTube which is crazy so I figured it'd be fun to do something
a little bit different today and answer your questions so I'm going to be
answering your questions questions that I asked over on the photo boss Facebook
group and I have a list of questions here some of them are personal
some of them are business-related and photography related and I just think
it's gonna be a fun and get to know me type of video let's do this Yolanda
asked what is your spirit animal and how does that relate to being a photographer
this is such an interesting question I'm not sure what my spirit animal is I want
to say Leslie Knope but I don't think that's an answer her husband says like
if I was gonna be an animal I would be a deer I don't really know why I think
it's like the coloring it would need to be an animal that sleeps a lot
drinks bubble tea and likes to create art maybe you guys need to tell me what
what is my spirit animal I don't know what is one of your current obsession
I'm legitimately obsessed with bubble tea right now like I think I said we're
not even going to talk about it I went let's just say I wanted to get bubble
tea every day for a week and I got all of my friends really into vocal TV and
now I'm like cold turkey off bubble tea because it's too expensive so if
somebody knows how to make bubble tea at home that would change the game Jen
asked were you always planning on being a photographer what was your path like
to become a wedding photographer this is a really good question I was not always
planning on becoming a photographer I didn't really know what I wanted to be
for sure I was one of those kids in high school that everybody would ask what I
wanted to be and I didn't really know and I took lots of those like aptitude
tests and tried to figure out like what I would be good at and I scored super
highly and like advertising arts like leadership roles and psychology and I
looked into a track to pursue psychology and I just like wasn't a fan of like
everything that women do it honestly so I started leaning a little more
towards the artsy side of things I do have some like old like journals or
scraps of paper where I was really into photography and I wanted to own my own
studio but it wasn't something I pursued as I was like getting older and closer
to college and then when I went to school and university I actually majored
in graphic design so at first I thought maybe I would do like illustration for
short stints I was interested in doing children's books illustrating children's
books and drawing and stuff like that and I was always in like the artsy field
but photography was definitely not on my radar until about my sophomore junior
year of college and that is when I got engaged and hired my wedding
photographer and kinda was introduced to this whole world of wedding photography
and not just when in photography but like the business of it that people did
it full-time and lived off of it and it was a big like moment for me because I
before that moment didn't realize that you could do that for a living I kind of
thought if you were going to be a professional photographer you had to
like work for a studio or work for National Geographic or something like I
don't know I just I had never thought about it really so it that's what
sparked my interest in photography and the rest is literally just like its
history I immediately like shifted in my graphic design degree like I would be in
a graphic design class doing research and reading blogs about photography so
like I had completely checked out of graphic design and I finished that
degree and I use it all the time on my website and my personal branding in my
so it's fantastic to know but I didn't pursue graphic design in like a
professional sense I immediately shift it into wedding photography Alda asked
why did you decide to work from home and how do you keep business and personal
realities separated I decided to work from home because I didn't like working
in an office I did not like keeping regular business hours so like driving
to work during rush hour dealing with like assignments and things I just
didn't feel like emotionally attached to I wasn't feeling fulfilled in my work
and I knew I wanted to work for myself and so by very nature of working for
yourself that often times means working from home so for me personally that
seemed like the dream to work from home like this is my ideal life it's not for
everyone to work from home because you're alone like all the time but I
absolutely love it and I love creating my own schedule so that's what made me
want to work from home just like the freedom of it and the autonomy to just
kind of do what I wanted when I wanted was just so desirable to me so that's
why I decided to work for myself and work from home now you asked how do I
keep my business and personal realities separated I think that the pursuit of
balance and separation between business and personal is sort of the wrong
question you can't separate them fully because I am my business it's hard to
answer because you can't really separate them fully I work from home which means
like I am in my personal space of doing business so I think that you can have
boundaries I think there are plenty of ways that you can create healthy
boundaries with your clients with your work hours and with like your family and
your business but at the end of the day don't try to keep those two things
completely separate because it's a little bit of an impossible task because
I work nights and weekends I photograph weddings I photograph portrait sessions
and couples and anniversaries and I mentor other photographers so I do my
best to make sure that I'm giving the best of myself to my family to my
friends that they still get to see me but I'm not gonna try to pretend that
I'm able to 100% keep them separate because when you work for yourself and
you have your own business they they mesh together and balance it's kind of a
it's a seesaw it's a work in progress it will never
you'll never reach perfect balance that sometimes the business is gonna get way
more my intention and that's okay sometimes my personal life is gonna get
all of my attention and that's okay I don't think there's such a thing as a
perfect balance like if you're on a seesaw but I think the point is that
you're seeking like good relationships and you're communicating with your your
spouse or your significant other about it so I think that's a hard one to
answer I actually asked do you and have you
travel to an exotic location to shoot a wedding if so where was it if you
haven't what is one place you would like to travel to shoot a wedding I haven't
really I work mostly in the DC Maryland Virginia Delaware Pennsylvania that kind
of area so nowhere super super far sometimes I have to travel a few hours
get a hotel that kind of thing so I haven't really done a lot of destination
work if I was going to I would say my bucket list would be maybe Cartagena
Colombia I would love to photograph a wedding in
Scotland or Italy honestly I'm I'm up for wherever but I guess Europe is at
the top of my list Naomi asked do you listen to music Wyatt
well do you listen to music while editing if so what kind and this is a
funny question because I go back and forth between either
listening to music or watching a Netflix show we're kind of listening to a
Netflix show or not listening or watching anything at all so sometimes I
just need to like focus on what's happening if I'm writing if I'm reading
I can't listen to music a lot of times especially if it has lyrics I'm just
super weird about it so a lot of times I'm working in complete silence and then
other times I'm listening to reruns of like friends or the office or something
like that I don't need to watch like I can just edit and listen and it
entertains me kind of like a book on tape so yeah I like half the time I'm
listening to music if I am listening to music right now I'm listening to
Christmas music but other than that I listen to a lot of like Frank Sinatra
Michael Buble and John Foreman angel asked what is one lesson you wish you
knew before you had to learn the hard way oh my gosh okay I would say one
lesson that I learned this year through this YouTube channel was to start things
simply start and stop thinking so much and I definitely learned that the hard
way because I did not start this YouTube channel until a year after I wanted to
like I originally started thinking about starting this YouTube channel and just
stopped there I was in this like thinking phase for like a year and I
lost a year I mean when I think about what my channel and my life could look
like if I had two years of YouTube under my belt it kind of sucks like I guess
it's just a lesson of like procrastination and fear and really just
not being somebody that talks about things and rather someone that
things so if you're on the fence about something if you're thinking about
something or you're talking about starting something stop and just do it
just do it because in a year you'll be so glad you started what is your
favorite candle scent um either vanilla that's what I have
burning back here right now or leaves by Bath & Body Works how many countries
have you been to oh my gosh okay let's see you guys at least ten have you read
any of the Harry Potter Hunger Games or Twilight series
no two all three would you rather have an American accent or British accent
British obviously how many siblings do you have I have four siblings I have
three brothers and one sister I am the middle child of five in fact you can
actually check out my little brother's YouTube channel he's here on YouTube and
he is a big reason as to why I even have a YouTube channel he's the one who like
really encouraged me to start on YouTube so I'll link his channel below
but yeah four siblings why did you start a YouTube channel um okay so I started a
YouTube channel because I wanted to teach and I wanted to reach more people
and impact the photography industry for the better and really help people that
work for themselves do better at working for themselves I also started because my
little brother is a youtuber here and he was telling me that I should and that I
would do really well at it and he told me you do was gonna be like the coolest
thing I ever did and that I was gonna meet so many amazing people about the
community was just crazy and he originally told me and encouraged me to
start a YouTube channel so between wanting to teach and connect with more
photographers and my brother's encouragement that's sort of how this
all began alright what was the last book that you read I think
I actually have it here some blood like a boss by amy schmittauer um incredible
read it cover-to-cover which is rare kind of hard to finish books sometimes
for me at least and I thought it was amazing it's pretty much about YouTube
and growing your business or your brand with video and I thought it was pretty
incredible so if you are a business owner or you want to increase your brand
awareness I highly recommend this book it was incredible I know she also has it
on audiobook and I'm probably going to get that and read listen to it because
it was that good what book are you currently reading I'm
reading content Inc I can't think of the author off the top of my head right now
but content Inc how did you book your first wedding this is an amazing
question this is like one of those like chicken and the egg things like when
you're a photographer you want to book weddings but you don't have weddings
like how do you book them so the first official wedding I ever booked I booked
it was a friend from college and she had seen that I was like getting into
photography I had put up a website and a Facebook page and I put up a lot of
really mediocre work and I was doing styled shoots and I was second shooting
for another photographer and just putting it out there that I wanted to do
weddings and she inquired and we is that's how she became my very first
client and that was 2014 I believe I think so what is your favorite social
media network and why um gosh it's so hard I would say it's probably a tie
between YouTube and Instagram no it's are tight YouTube YouTube is
literally my favorite thing in the world right now only because the algorithm on
Instagram is just the worst but stories are really fun I'm on
stories a lot I like that you can tag people and people can send you
messages and I just think it's a really fun way to update so if you're not
following me go follow me Instagram I also like snapchat it's like the dress
down version of Instagram so it's all good but I think YouTube it's probably
like I don't know if it's a social media platform I don't even know if it counts
but I love it I think that the interactiveness and the community here
is like on real do you use ETTL or manual I am assuming meaning flash and I
use both it depends when I'm using off-camera flash I do everything
manually Sondra asked what part of your business do you outsource and thinking
about sourcing the album design process to give myself more time for other
things right now I gosh I used to outsource editing and it was taking too
long from the editor that I had chosen just for me to call everything get it to
them them to get it back and it often wasn't right so I'm actually back to not
outsourcing that okay things that I outsource in my business I outsource my
taxes accounting bookkeeping plant gifting I send a company takes care of
that for me it's really wholly outsourced right now I'm looking for a
new editing company that will have a really quick turnaround time just
because I can't sit on the images and make my clients wait like weeks and
weeks and weeks and then have it come back and it not look quite right so
right now I'm in that like awkward phase where and know exactly what I want and
I'm really picky so I need a company that can like be up to the challenge the
next question how long have you been in business I have been in business
officially since like 2013 I say like because there's this like awkward point
where you say you're in business but you don't actually have business so things
really started rolling in 2014 and 2015 so like 2014 I had my own clients 2015 I
had like 20 or so of my own clients so like things really escalated but
officially join Michelle Photography came to be a thing
in 2013 will you ever do a hands-on workshop live yes I hope so that's one
of my 2018 goals is to host a super small kind of mastermind type event
where we would have a stolid shoot and talk about the business and branding and
bring in experts and it would be a multi-day event that's my goal
for 2018 so we'll see get on the mailing list make sure that you're a part of the
Facebook group photo boss and you'll be the first to hear when my workshops
become live how long in advance before a wedding do you create the timeline I
don't really create the timeline my couple creates it incentive Jimmy and I
tweak it or provide feedback so I do this around six weeks out from the
wedding I send them a little full flesh questionnaire about everything that I
need to know about their wedding day and then I also request the timeline at that
point so if they don't have a timeline I refer them to a planner or a day of
coordinator someone that can help craft the timeline then from there when they
send it to me I can let them know we need you know a little more time for
portraits don't forget to let me in to the reception room before your guests
are allowed in I want to make sure I get those pictures I can give them that
feedback and give them tweaks what kind of website do you have I have a
WordPress website so I used to be on show it and I moved to WordPress and I'm
kind of up in the air now like if I want to move back to show it I feel like no
platform is perfect no host is perfect I am NOT like super technically savvy how
tall are you I am five five I think how old are you I am 26 how did you and
Felipe meet we met in high school well look we didn't go to the same high
school I was actually homeschooled um but he went to a real high school and we
met through like a youth group like a church group and I was Friends of some
of his friends we have friends in common and I went to like a Wednesday night you
group event and he was there and they were sending off one of their pastors or
giving someone like a goodbye party or something and there was cake and he
tripped which is funny because he trips a lot now that I know him more and he
dropped some cake on my shin and that's how we met
he dropped cake on me what country do you plan on visiting next I am hoping to
be in Greece next what is one of your five-year or ten-year life and business
goals this is such a good question and super hard to answer I think in business
and in photography I see education and connecting with you a huge part of my
five-year plan I hope to have more in person workshops a few online courses
that can be accessible from around the world and at an affordable price point
and maybe a book we'll see personally I hope to be able
to have traveled more I don't know that's so hard where do I see myself in
10 years I just want to travel to all the places and photograph all the people
and honestly meet you all if you have more questions or you want maybe like
another part 2 of this in another video series go ahead just throw your
questions in the comment section and I'll keep making these videos