You’re probably wondering why I haven’t blogged a wedding for a while. After all, I do have 10 weddings to share with you. What gives?
Well, to cut a long story short, 2009 will be remembered as the year my business got too big for me, without me noticing. Even with quitting my day job halfway through the year, I was still taking on more work than I had time for, and my post production backlog wasn’t improving much.
Somehow I remained optimistic that I’d increase my productivity enough to catch up quickly, so I made unrealistic promises about when photos would be ready, failed to keep them, disappointed my clients, got depressed, became less productive, tried to set new deadlines … and so the cycle continued. It sucked. It hurt many of my wonderful clients, it hurt my beautiful wife, and it hurt my health.
Why am I telling you all of this?
Hard as it is to “bare all” and publicly address this dark chapter in my life and my business, I feel compelled to be honest about the past before getting excited about the future. This blog, being the main place I’m telling the story of OFD, seemed an appropriate place to share about some of the growing pains of doing photography for a living.
Also, I’m very aware that not all of this disappointment and pain is in the past … many are still waiting for their photos, and that upsets me. So, I’m posting this by way of explanation, and also to let you know what I’m doing a) to catch up quickly and b) to make sure post production backlogs never happen again.
Most importantly, I’ve accepted that I need to allow other people to do my post production for me. Given how hard I’ve worked to build my own “brand” of post production, and how difficult it is to teach what I “see” in an unprocessed photo, this was hard to accept. But I’ve been working on a workflow that will make it possible for others to replicate my “look” in post production, and I have my first PP person starting tomorrow (yay!). I’m also looking to bring on an additional PP person, this week or next, to help clear out my current backlog. This will basically triple OFD’s post production staff immediately
I’m also working on better processes within OFD, to make sure the day-to-day running of the business is more streamlined, better documented, and less dependent on me.
Meanwhile, I’m not making any more unrealistic promises! If you’re waiting for your photos, please know that I’m aiming to deliver at least 3 weddings per week, which translates to being fully caught up by the end of February. In the near future, I’ll publish a live queue of pending jobs so you can track progress. And if you need a few hi-res photos for thank-you cards or something else, please get in touch; I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.
I’m so very sorry that I’m in this position. I promise I’m doing everything I can to get out of it as quickly as possible, and to stay that way. Thanks so much for your kindness so far.
by luke
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