Where does the time go?

Where does the time go? March 23rd I did some senior shots, of course this job happened to be the weekend before our big Texas trip leaving no time to edit before we left, here we are nearly three weeks later and I have finally completed the task. Really? Three weeks? WOW! Thats the expectation of a very slow wedding photographer or one with a gigantic team of editors, but not of a senior photo session (as I type this i'm smacking my own hand saying "bad photog, bad, bad, bad"). Why the sudden influx of items to take up all my time? I pondering this question and when coming up with nothing I realize... there isn't a sudden influx... there is just the same old stuff taking my time and making me unavailable. Sure I work a 40 hour weekly traditional job, a secondary twice a month job, and am taking 6 credits via online and in class school, but that never stopped me before. In considering all my frustrations and deciding how to better manage my time a light bulb enters the brain, learn how to improve your daily tasks, your daily workflow. Yes, of course! I preached to know your photography equipment better in my last blog post, now I just need to be more efficient in the equipment I use on a daily basis! Today's topic, learn your equipment and developing a more effective working process, which can be applied to anything however I will be relating it to photography processes.

1. Learn your equipment (again)! this time, learn the things that make you more (or in my case less) effective. In the photographic process this starts with the camera (see previous blog post), and it also includes your computer/workstation. While I feel I am a master with my computer, it has been giving me grief lately! It thinks when it should be processing and doing things, and it loads programs when I should already be up and running. This is unacceptable! Resolution? I installed more RAM memory. Simple, cost effective, and self installed (yea, I'm a little techie!). I went from 5mb RAM to 12mb RAM for $70! This is the equivalent of dropping a V8 into a Corolla, lots of bang for your buck and guess what? Computer efficiency is up 240%. SUCCESS!! This thought and suggestion can be applied towards anything, make yourself more efficient by learning how to better use your equipment, and if its not efficient enough fix it.

2. Workflow reorganization. Now, photography workflow can be quite specific a task, however a good workflow is necessary to be effective with any task. I have realized my workflow is all over the place, I start one place, see something shiny and flock to it, lose three hours with said shiny thing, then have to start all over again trying to figure out where I left off. You can imagine my adventures with trying to gain control over my clearly hyperactive brain, I begin to get frustrated in trying to figure out where I left off... the frustration grows into anger... and anger leads me to just throw out all my work and begin again. True story, this happened just last week. Start with your most basic process first, and move your way down to the more specific detailed tasks sticking with the original item/chore/project until you are 100% complete. For us photog's this process should look something like this (and its nearly midnight, I might be forgetting a step):
1. Uploading photos from the camera, and reformatting card immediately (in camera) after ensuring upload is complete. This eliminates in field stress of "Shoot, have I uploaded these photos yet? Can I use this card or not??" Which also happened to me, during the senior photo shoot and again during our Texas trip. DUH moment!!
2. Rename the folder holding the photos to reflect the job
3. Tag the photos with people and subjects for easier future reference and search-ability
4. Creating a "100% Edited" folder within the project folder
5. Culling, the process of going through and deleting the hideously wrong photos
6. RAW processing, if you dont shoot in RAW we need to talk
7. Begin photo edits, first in folder to last. I promise you, this is something that I had to force myself to   do!! I always want to edit and process my favorites first then I forget which ones I have already edited and then end up editing them all over again jumping all over the place! Oh the hours I have lost!! If you are like me save yourself the trouble and edit in order!!!
8. Save edited photos to the 100% Edited folder. Yes I'm a victim of an itchy clicker finger... I get excited when a photo is done and my itchy clicker finger clicks "Save" instead of "Save As" and then I proceed to overwrite my "digital negatives" which is never a good thing. UGG!
9. Once all photos are edited post them online to your site, only do this when they are ALL completed. I learned this the hard way this week, you lose interest in the secondary and third set of uploads which means you lose sales. Make your clients wait til you are 100% done. If you want to give a teaser photo to entice interest that is A-OK, but just one!

Like I said, its nearly midnight and I just finished with an Anthropology paper so I might have missed a few steps in the workflow but you get the idea.

In the last week I have had one photo really grab my attention, its one from the senior photo session mentioned earlier. This girl is gorgeous, which helps my photography look amazing:) Have a great week, and keep on shooting!