Shaping a Business That Grows and Evolves With You with Meg Mosher

Colie: Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Business First Creatives. Today I am talking with one of my long-term clients, Meg Moser. She is an amazing lifestyle family photographer out of New York. And today we are gonna be talking about her love of both lifestyle photography and documentary photography.

And then we’re basically just gonna see where this conversation takes us. ’cause you know, guys, I never come here with a script, but this is what we’ve decided we’re gonna start with. Hello, Meg. Welcome to my podcast

Meg: Hello.

Colie: guys. She’s a little shy. It’s okay. She’s gonna warm up. She’s actually quite loud when you get to know her. So Meg, why don’t you tell the listening audience a little bit about how you started your photography business and how long you have been doing this.

Meg: Okay. I’ve been a professional photographer for, it was 10 years in May of this year, and I kind of take my beginning date as like the first time a stranger paid me, , to meet them at a location and photograph their family. So that was 10 years ago. of May 4th, I started or I got the idea, almost 13 years ago.

We were living down in DC at the time I had just had my first child, Lucy, and we hired a newborn photographer who came to our house and proceeded to set up a beanbag and then for about an hour changed the hat that was on my daughter, who slept through the entire thing, literally changed the hat like 20 different times, and I remember thinking like I could do a much better job than this at the time. I already had A-D-S-L-R camera, and I was working as an engineer, in Virginia. And so I convinced my husband that I should be a stay at home mom and start practicing with my camera and. Like a year and a half later, we moved to Albany and I was like, okay, I don’t know anybody, so I’m just gonna stick this website out there and pay for a Google ad and see if someone hires me.

And I got two clients that way, and it just kind of took off from there

Colie: It just snowballed from there. Meg, do you know that I did not know that your degree is in engineering. I need to ask my clients more fucking questions, guys. So your degree is in engineering? No, I didn’t know that.

Meg: Yeah, engineering and actually statistics.

Colie: Oh,

Meg: a master’s degree in statistics. I know you’re big in statistics, so,

Colie: I am a statistician. Meg. I, I don’t know how we’ve never had this conversation. Okay, we’re gonna talk about this on our next Coach New Hall, but to continue with this thread of. So you hired someone you thought you could do a better job than them. You already had A-D-S-L-R. I mean, you were already 50% of the way there.

And can I just say, I mean, I’m proud of you for throwing up a website, but did you not have a website for the entire first year and a half? Okay.

Meg: Well, I wasn’t, um, I wasn’t like taking paid clients at that point. Um, I had, I was doing a couple of sessions. For, um, family and friends that like I had met, but like I wasn’t charging. And then I took a class back then 10 years ago, there was not anywhere near the amount of education online that there is today. Um, the only thing that I found was Click and Moms, which was, was that what it was called? It’s not

Colie: Yep. It

Meg: Moms anymore.

Colie: right, it’s, it’s just click now, but it was click and Moms 10 years ago.

Meg: Yes. And I took a class through that that helped me put together this like awful website. mean, at the time it was probably fine, but um, and like, thank God for the class.

’cause I didn’t, I mean there was no Squarespace back then. There was no show it like you actually had to. Put together a real website, so I took a class so that, someone like instructed me on what to do and then I, yeah, I just kind of like took out a Google ad. Oh my God.

And the funniest part is, oh, I took a Facebook ad out too, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so I actually took it out across the entire country and no, but somebody actually found me this way. I had this woman from New Jersey contact me and tell me that her daughter-in-law lived in Albany and she wanted to gift them a photo session.

Colie: Okay.

Meg: And that’s how I found out that my ad was seen across the country.

Colie: Well, and I know from being in your business and being your coach, that you are currently running Google ads just in the background constantly. You’re not dumping a lot of money in them, but you are running them. And so now I realize. That you’ve been doing it since the very beginning and there are so many people that run Google Ads, you know, in the background of their business just to get traffic and to get potential leads that way.

And you know, I’ve always found it to be a little hit or miss. But that is because of the kind of photography that I do. I have always been like a firm believer that I would never run family photography ads here in Colorado. Why? Because everyone who’s looking for a family photographer here wants somebody to go take pictures in front of the mountains.

And I’m not doing that. Like there aren’t people that are searching for documentary family photographers and Google ads maybe now. Maybe that’s a thing now, but it definitely wasn’t a thing when I opened my business, you know, 13 years ago and 10 years ago, or even nine, seven years ago. That’s not what people were looking for.

So in the very limited number of ads that I ran, I always did newborns. Because I felt like there was a good amount of people that wanted the pose newborns, which I have never done, will never know. But also the lifestyle where you want me to come to your house and do those things. So the only ads that I ever ran were newborns, but you do both and you do them very well.

And we have, you know, looked at your landing pages and done all of those kinds of things. Okay, so Albany, you move, you start a website, you’re running ads, you get going. I’m curious, Meg, do you remember what you were charging way back then?

Meg: Yeah. $200.

Colie: $200. Okay. Wow. So you’re like at six times that now? Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s excellent.

Meg: And then I did these, oh my God, these ridiculous lemonade stands that I advertised on like a Facebook moms group, which is like any real photographer knows, like that’s not how you advertise on Facebook moms groups because everybody on there is just looking for like the cheapest photographer ever. And um, I charged $75 for those.

Colie: But what did you include? Tell me that it wasn’t 40 images.

Meg: it was like, I don’t know, 15 or 20 or

Colie: Oh no, that’s way too many for 75. Okay. I mean, you know, lessons learned, Meg, I mean, you are a completely different business owner now, a completely different photographer. And you know, that’s just what happens. We start, we figure it out, and then eventually, if you’re in the business long enough. You become more profitable.

You improve your skills. You start worrying more about the business than you do your creativity, and that’s how you get to where you are today.

Meg: Yes,

Colie: So I wanna just talk a little bit, because when you came to me, you weren’t really doing documentary, which a lot of people would be like, oh, but like she came to you because you’re a documentary family photographer.

Nope. Meg originally came to me for Dubsado help and then at the same time she realized that I would also set up her pick time. So basically. Meg came to me and was like, Colie, I need an entire systems makeover. Can you do this for me? To which I of course responded yes. And we have been working, you know, in some capacity for the last few years.

But let’s start to talk about your, I would say newfound love, but you and I both know what’s not new, but you do have a. A renewed focus towards offering actual sessions for documentaries. So let’s talk about your backyard sessions. How did those come to mind and what made you structure them as like this limited time offer over the summer?

Mm-hmm.

Meg: Yeah, so I think that just in general documentary photography has, become more popular. And so I’ve started to follow other photographers across the country who do documentary, and somebody, was advertising Backyard Sessions.

I, I can’t remember who it was right at the moment, but I was like, that is such a great idea. And typically my summers are pretty slow. People travel, it’s like, it can, it gets up to the like high nineties in Albany. So like, it’s not the greatest time to. You know, put on khakis and a button down and go out into a field and take photos. I was like, this would be, you know, like a great idea. I could market them like, as a little bit of a discounted price. So maybe a family that, hasn’t been able to afford working with me, previously, maybe they would like be interested in this. And you know, I have four children. So I photograph them a lot, and when I photograph them, it’s all documentary, style photography.

And I just, I’ve loved it. Like I’ve fallen in love with it, especially, uh, my youngest, last year I did a project where I was photographing her. Like one photo a day and, like I created a separate Instagram account so that I could just, like hold myself accountable and put them up there. And like my favorite photo that came out of that is this picture of her like pulling off her pajamas. She’s like two and a half, so she gets the pajamas, like stuck all over her head and she’s standing there in her underwear and they, you know, like you could look in, you could also see like the bathroom. On the side, and you could see that like the training potty is like sitting on top of the toilet and then there’s like bath toys on the ground. And like that’s, I love that because it tells that story, you know, like it’s only been about a year since I took that photo and already everything is so different. You know, like she doesn’t use that training potty anymore and she’s much better at pulling her clothes off of her head. like that. So I was just like, I’m gonna, you know, throw up these photos of like documentary style photos that I’ve taken of my children and see if. Anybody bites and wants to take advantage of it. And so I, I booked four initially, and then I had a family contact me two days ago that said that they had seen some of my documentary work on Instagram and that they were interested in doing a backyard session.

So,

Colie: Yeah, I mean, see I’ve never photographed anything else. It has been very rare. I mean it, it was literally like a handful of people that I photographed in the beginning of my career outside, and I decided that was not for me. I don’t like watching the weather. I don’t like trying to make everybody look at my camera and smile.

It’s just not me. And I, like you, am literally obsessed with the details of people’s lives. Like I love seeing what toys are on the floor in the kids’ rooms. I love seeing what pictures you have on the wall. It wasn’t really until, my first client moved from like one house to another that I realized the value of taking those kind of pictures in someone’s home because often.

Some kids are never gonna remember living in their first house. They’re never gonna remember, you know, the things that used to happen because at some point people move, and I’m someone who moved quite a few times when I was young. And I don’t really have pictures from inside my houses. ’cause you know, photography wasn’t really, it wasn’t as accessible.

It wasn’t as popular as it is now. My mom was one of those people who took us to Oland Mills. Every few months, like clockwork, to get photos. And I would say it’s like JC Penny, but like Olin Mills was way more Highend charged you a lot more money than you know JC Penny would. But I mean, I have a lot of photographs.

Of when I was little compared to like other people my age, but they’re all, my mother dressed me in a dress. My hair is in, you know, two braids and, you know, my, my family were all sitting in front of the camera, definitely smiling. Well, there’s some pictures where my dad is not smiling. That’s a story for another day, but.

Those are the photographs that I have of my childhood, which are completely different than the photographs that I have of Chloe as a child. I mean, people always comment on the photos behind the wall, and I will also say there comes a point where your kids don’t want you to take pictures of them anymore, because I actually can’t remember the last time that I took a picture of Chloe.

With a real camera. That wasn’t like my iPhone. I, I literally, I mean, it’s, it’s been years. It’s been years. Um, yeah,

Meg: only take, I only really take photos of my, my youngest right now. ’cause the other three are all like preteens and.

Colie: they just have no interest.

Meg: And even when I do like pull out a camera or something, it’s like, you’re not gonna post that online, are you? I’m like, no.

Colie: Now, see, you just need yourself a talker. Chloe’s always like, uh, are you famous mom? Are you gonna post that on Instagram? I mean, she’s lit. She’s so obsessed right now with. Like my follower account, which she constantly asks me how many followers I have and I don’t tell her because she really is going to think that I am like famous when we all know that having, you know, four or 5,000 people following you is not a lot, but it’s a lot to my kid.

And so I just purposely don’t tell her.

Meg: yeah,

Colie: So these four sessions, how many of your backyard sessions have you done so far?

Meg: So I’ve only done two. I have my third one this Sunday, and then I have two at the end of August.

Colie: So one of the things that you and I discussed in great detail is the importance of getting to know your clients and planning activities, which. Hey, if there are any like true documentary people in the audience, don’t come for me. I will come for you. Don’t DM me and tell me that if you plan activities, it’s not real documentary family photography.

I am not the one. I just feel like I have to say that out loud. But you and I went in depth to make sure that you found out about your clients and you planned an activity because even when you’re planning things can naturally happen. So what are the kind of activities that your clients said they were interested in documenting during their session?

Meg: So what I, my focus is, you know, like documenting the like childhood summer. So we have done, actually both families that I’ve done so far, we did smores and then the mom. Surprise the kids with sparklers as well. The first family, we also like played on the swing set and actually, like, I think my favorite photo from the whole session was of them on the swing set. Um. They had a creek that like was down at the bottom of their driveway that we walked down to, and they played in the creek. And then, there was also a garden, so there were a couple photos of them in the garden. The second family did have a pool, so that was kind of fun that we got to take photos of them, jumping into the pool and swimming and stuff like that. But as far as like other things. I’m looking forward to. In August, we’re gonna be doing a sprinkler, which I actually think might even be more fun than a pool.

Colie: It is.

Meg: you know, once you’re in the pool, it’s like, okay, well you’re in the pool, but with a sprinkler, you never know where that thing is aimed at.

So.

Colie: Yes.

Meg: I’m looking forward to that. You know, I’m the little boy that I’m photographing on Sunday. He’s only about two and a half I think. He’s, his mom says he’s really big into riding his bike and chalk. So those are the kinds of activities that I’m, focusing on.

Colie: I mean, those do sound like amazing childhood memories to document truly. I have a question for you, Meg. Did you get in the pool or did you just stand on the side?

Meg: I didn’t, I don’t know. I

Colie: It’s okay to admit that you were afraid you were gonna drop your camera. It’s okay.

Meg: well, didn’t have, like, I didn’t come in a bathing suit, so I don’t know. I mean, I might consider doing that in a future session. Um, but I guess I would have to like think it. And you know, and I also advertise these as pretty short

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Meg: I was giving them a, I was making them discounted. so with 45 minutes, and you know, we already started with like the swing set and we had to finish up with the s’mores and the sparklers. So there just wasn’t like a lot of time either.

Colie: No, no, I totally get it. I don’t know that I’ve told you this, but I have a semi broken camera, which is the one that I take in the pool. I also have a GoPro, in case you haven’t figured this out, Meg, I have done many a session in a pool, but number one, I always bring a bathing suit. And in fact, we actually, with one of my clients in Pennsylvania, uh, we went to a public pool.

I’ve actually gone to public pools a few times, and so not only are you trying to document your client. And, you know, try to avoid getting everybody else’s faces in your photographs. You never know who’s gonna splash you. I’m just saying now the camera that I get in the pool with is one that got dropped at a session.

And so the back screen, um, it’s not broken, but it doesn’t flip up anymore. So that’s just the camera that has designated the pool camera. And I get in anybody’s pool with it. I don’t even wrap it in like, ’cause like I’ve seen some people put it in like, you know, a Ziploc bag or No, I don’t bother to do any of that because if it falls, it falls.

It’s already, you know, not a pristine camera. Uh, but I still have never dropped a camera in the pool. I’ve actually never been like super, super splashed either. But I just think I have good luck. Eventually my luck, my luck was gonna run out, but it’s okay. So you’ve got all these activities. The one thing that I wanna say is even as I was assuring you that when the clients start doing the activities, you have nothing to worry about.

You were a little worried about, okay. But like. What if nothing good happens? What if I’m taking photos and none of them work out? You know, maybe I’ll have to end up posing them in some way. So how do you feel now that you’ve got a couple of these, you know, under your belt? Are you still worried about ending up with a family or an activity that just doesn’t go well?

Meg: Um, not really. I, you know, the great thing about kids is that. They’re not, they’re not worried about like, things being perfect, so they’re just, you know, like off having fun. And both of the families I’ve photographed so far had multiple children. So if somebody was not doing anything interesting, I just kind of focused on somebody else. I know it’s very anti documentary to ask people to do things, but like once or twice I like ask the kids to, you know, like, why don’t you guys. That like they were brothers. So I was like, why don’t you guys jump in together? And a couple of times like that. So, we also just had so much stuff to do that it made the session kind of move pretty quickly.

Um, you know, maybe if I were spending like hours upon hours with them, it might be a little bit different,

Colie: Nope, it’s not coming from someone who used to photograph families for 14 hours. It’s not.

Meg: 14 hours. I can’t even imagine that

Colie: You could, you know what, Meg, I, I would love to see you in action in a full day in the life. They used to just bring me so much joy and, you know, it’s very different photographing a family first thing in the morning when they wake up versus when they’re putting their kids to bed at night.

Like, you really do get like the entire spectrum of all of the activities that parents do with their kids in a single day. And honestly, I feel like. When you do day in the life photography for a full day, you’re not really worried about nailing every single moment because there are gonna be more moments in the day.

Like I felt like there was never any pressure to like get one thing documented because I’m gonna be able to give them a lot more. And like just a technical question that people always used to ask me was, okay, but how do you deal with like all that light, all that difference? And I would be like. When I hop in your bed with you at 6:00 AM and there’s barely any light, and if there is any, it’s definitely artificial and yellow and disgusting.

And my, you know, my camera is set to like 12,800 ISO. I’m really just trying to get you moments. I’m not anticipating that I am gonna get like some 100% worthy image that you’re gonna print and put on your wall as a 20 by 24. That just, I mean, it doesn’t happen. The quality of the actual technical elements of the picture are not as good as 2:00 PM when the light is flooding through your windows and you know, you get crisp, you don’t have noise, all of those things.

But I do feel like the longer the session, the less pressure because you don’t feel like you have to cram it all in, or you don’t feel like you have to really nail every time you click your shutter.

Meg: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I also started both of my sessions with. Like one lifestyle prompt that I do for all my families, um, during my lifestyle sessions, just so that I could make sure that I got each of the families, like one

Colie: Mm-hmm.

Meg: photos of, I wouldn’t say everybody is always looking at the camera for them, but just like one photo that they

Colie: All in the frame. Yeah.

Meg: in the frame and they can hang it up on a wall and stuff, so,

Colie: Yeah. Or give it to grandma because, you know, I, I think grandmas understand when you send them, you know, the, the documentary images, but a lot of people don’t appreciate the details like you and I do like that picture of your daughter taking her pajamas off. I loved it. But you and I both know, I was immediately looking in the bathroom at all those toys on the floor and the training potty and I, me, I mentioned several of those when we were looking at that photograph.

So.

Meg: funny ’cause I won a click choice award for that photo and I went to tell my husband, who like works with computers and in it, I’m like, Brian, Brian, I, you know, I won this award. This is so exciting. And he is like, okay, let me see the picture. And I show it to him and he’s like, you won an award for this.

Colie: Oh.

Meg: You can’t even see Maisie’s face.

Colie: Uh, those husbands, you gotta love ’em, Meg, but they don’t really understand what we do. I mean, I, I feel like James was never really good at explaining. I mean, you know, my line, when people ask me what I do as a photographer or what I did, I would always say, oh, I come to your house and I hang out with you, and I take photographs of you doing everyday.

Things like making pancakes. Eventually my husband just stole that line and that’s what he told everybody. So every time someone asked him at work, well, what does your wife do? My husband would be like, oh, she’s a photographer, but she doesn’t take portraits. She goes in your house and documents you making pancakes.

And you know, I heard him say it a few times and I would laugh because I’m like, you know, I’m not always photographing people eating right. Like there are other things that we do. And he’s like, yeah, but like. That’s what you say over and over again. So that’s what I tell people and I’m like, what’s fine, as long as you’re clear that none of these people can hire me to go over to like the flat irons and get like beautiful mountain photos.

’cause like, no, you have to hire me so many times before I’m willing to even step outside with you for 20 minutes and take those kind of photos. Like I just, I just can’t.

Meg: Yeah, well that’s something that I’m gonna have to figure out and balance because I do still love the outdoor lifestyle sessions. I, I, I’m just so inspired by light and, you know, like capturing that gorgeous golden hour light, and that’s not gonna go away. So I’m gonna have to figure out how I can do both of these 

Colie: I think it’s totally possible, and you and I have had this discussion, so I’m just gonna put it on the podcast. I also think that it’s totally, it’s totally possible that you are gonna have a certain set of clients that will only do portraits and will never hire you for documentary. It’s also totally possible that you’re gonna get an entire set of clients that want nothing to do with the pose, want nothing to do with, you know, buying matching outfits and smiling at the camera and only want documentary.

And then you’re probably gonna end up with some clients who want both. Like they wanna be able to do that in-home, capture their child’s childhood, you know, get those images. And then every once in a while they are gonna wanna go outside and get like one of those nice. All in the frame. Everybody look at Miss Meghan’s smile kind of photos so that they can just have that for a memory because I don’t think portraits are bad.

I know a lot of people think, I think portraits are bad. I really don’t. I just don’t like taking them. I feel so much pressure. I take portraits, which is the opposite of what most people feel. Most people feel like portraits are the easy part, but capturing like kids doing their natural thing and being able to capture it and not have, you know, blurred subjects, not missing the moments, like all those things, but like, that’s what brings me joy.

I mean, it’s really rare that I miss a moment and when I do, I usually, like, I get in my head about it and I’m like, oh my goodness. And then I just usually sit around and just wait. ’cause. Especially if it’s a kid. What do we know about kids? Kids do the same shit over and over again. Yeah. So if you just wait 20 minutes, they’re probably gonna do it for you again.

And guess what? If they don’t, if I see my, if I see my opening, to tell them to jump in the pool together or slap your sister with that pillow one more time, oh, I’m gonna do it. I don’t care about people telling me that that’s not documentary. I just don’t care. So let’s talk about what you’re gonna do when you’re gonna bring both of these into your business.

’cause we were kind of talking about that. Yeah, it’s okay though. We were talking about this before we hit record and so you and I are gonna have a coaching call to talk about your website. But what you said was, you know, I wanna show more of my documentary sessions, but I wanna do it in January. And I’m not trying to put you on the spot, Meg, but I thought that was like a really good teaching moment.

So. What did I tell you? We’re not gonna wait till January because if you wanna book that in January, you can’t change your website in January. You gotta do it before then. But I do think that you are going to be able to find the balance between your beautiful golden light photographs and the documentary.

It’s just all about. Timing and then the seasons in which you are going to market each of those kinds of sessions. Because one thing that I’ve told you multiple times, and I know Sabrina’s told you this multiple times, but if you wanna book those kinds of sessions for winter, you actually have to start talking about them in October.

And it feels very weird because you are in, you know. Your high fall season, you’re going out every day, you’re photographing families outside. You’re getting these golden light photos and you just really want to share them. But we’re like, if that’s all people, see, when are they ever gonna know that they can do this other option where you come to their house in winter and you do these kind of photos.

So it’s just really about balance and timing.

Meg: Yes, yes. No, that’s something, um, that yes, Sabrina has drilled into my head is that whole marketing three months in advance type thing. Which, with fall photography, I’ve definitely gotten better at, like, I opened my calendar

Colie: Guess

Meg: in. the beginning of

Colie: may. Mm-hmm.

Meg: Yeah, at the beginning May, end of May, beginning of June.

And you know, like, I’m like probably a third of the way booked right now for fall, which is awesome. Yeah, so I definitely have to work on that. Because by October I’ll probably be burned out and not wanting to advertise for January. I’ll be.

Colie: And do you know what’s gonna happen? Do, do you know what’s gonna happen? Then? Meg Coley’s gonna be in your ear. Hey, Meg, have you scheduled a call yet? Do we have a coaching call on the ca? Like, when are we gonna start putting these documentaries? Yeah, don’t, don’t you worry about that. I, I’m gonna be there to tell you when you should be doing it, and I am really looking forward to, and hey, I’m gonna tell you this on the podcast instead of telling you tomorrow, because maybe the listening audience can learn about this too.

One of the things about the sessions that you did during the summer, they were documentary. I think that the activities that you captured are gonna be amazing, and I’m gonna tell you to start sharing those again in February and March so that you can get more people on your calendar for summer next year.

But. I also want you to think of how you’re gonna convince these people to book these sessions in winter. And so one of my favorite sessions that I ever did, and it was completely like happenstance, it was not planned. One of my full day in the Life clients in Pennsylvania, I don’t know if I’ve told this story on the podcast, but I went to their house for a full day in the life I came home.

I ended up sending their gallery to Image Salon, which was who was editing the images at that time. And I didn’t really think about their film for a few more weeks. Right. And then when I sat down to make their film, I realized I was missing the first three hours of video. I still have no idea what happened to that footage.

I don’t know if I accidentally. Erased a ca a card. I don’t know if I lost a card somewhere. I just, I don’t know. So I told my client, yeah, I mean, I love your afternoon film. I love your evening film, but guess what? I have no morning coverage. And she was like, that’s fine. And I’m like, yeah, no, it’s not fine.

So what I’m gonna do. Because you know, they’re all the way in the Pennsylvania. I said, I’m coming to Raleigh in January. I would love to come back to your house and I’m only gonna do a morning session for you so that I can give you a morning film from this year. Because they were only doing Day in the Lifes with me at that point every two years.

So, I mean, if they were gonna wait another two years, all the kids were gonna be different. Their morning routine was definitely gonna be different than it was now. So she’s like, it’s not necessary, but if you’re gonna do it, yeah. Come on. I’m like, the only thing that I need you to do is I need you to emphasize to the children that Ms.

Colie is not staying for the whole day. Because I just knew the kids were gonna be like, I don’t understand. Why are you leaving early? So, drove over to Penn, you know, to their house, spent the night with them, woke up the next morning to have the session, and it has snowed. I was like, oh my gosh. So I got the best snow session that I’ve ever done.

I’ve done a handful of them, but like, this was so awesome. They went sledding down a hill in their backyard. They had snowball fights. All of it was awesome. But then that’s what I showed my local clients we could do in winter. And so I know you’re like, but how do you time snow? So what I did here was, a couple of my clients who knew that they wanted snow sessions, I would be like, okay, so.

When it snows or when we are expecting snow, I’m gonna reach out to you and I’m gonna be like, we’re expecting snow on Saturday. Are you available? That was how I handled it, and I didn’t have very many people that wanted to do sessions like that off the cuff, but I do want you to give it some thought of what it is that you’re gonna do to capture non-summer, non sunny activities so that you have something to market for winter besides your own kids.

Meg: Yeah. No, that, I mean, that’s a good idea, but yeah, I’ll have to think about it.

Colie: Did y’all hear her? Did she just say she had to think about it? Mm. Well, Meg, is there anything else that comes to mind when it comes to like. Bringing documentary family photography into your business. Do you have any other things that are like giving you a concern or anything that you feel like you would tell somebody else who was thinking about branching out from lifestyle portraits into lifestyle documentary sessions in home, or really outside with activities?

Meg: I don’t know. I definitely think that the backyard sessions are a great way to get started. And one thing that I’ve learned from you is that if I, I’m going to lower my price, I have to like lower the package that is included. So I did that for the, uh, documentary backyard sessions. I don’t know.

I mean, it’s still kind of work in progress with me. If you go to my website, you, there is a page for like, in-home documentary photography, but a lot of that, has come from like newborn sessions or, like people having to. Reschedule their session as an in-home session ’cause it got too cold. That sort of thing. So, I don’t know, I’m still kind of in that like middle phase where I’m switching over and trying to figure out how to encompass both So.

Colie: Yeah. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna kick in with like my coachy terms for what you just said. Number one, I think what Meg’s telling us is. You need to decide what it is that you want to photograph, what kinds of things you would want to show on your website, and put it out there so that you can photograph exactly what you want.

Now, in Me’s case, she decided that she wanted to do these as like limited time offers. She wanted to lower the price to make it like a lower entry for people to come in. But what I don’t want anybody to do is take your normal base session, and just. Cut the price. Like we don’t do that around here.

If you’re gonna cut the price, the new price has to represent what it is that you’re giving them. So maybe what that means is going from an hour and a half session to a 45 minute session and then giving that discount. Number two, I think that you want to intentionally build your portfolio and so you know, you wanna make sure this is a rule for everyone.

You wanna make sure that you are showing. What you want to book. And so if you want to book kids outside during summer doing activities because it’s too hot for a portrait session, you have to start thinking about that now. Usually you have to like photograph it one year and then you’ll have it to market for the next year.

It’s really rare that you’re gonna be able to photograph something and then immediately turn it around and start using it for marketing, unless you live places where it’s warm all the time, which, Meg and I do not. We definitely have seasons where we live.

Meg: yeah. No, I found that as kind of a problem with marketing. The backyard sessions this year. It was like my kids. Over and I do have four. So there was variety, but, it, you know, like I have a couple of different years where I have good documentary photos of them, so it wasn’t like they, they were all the same age in all the photos.

But, yeah, I’m looking forward to, advertising these for next year when I actually have paying clients that I can use to market them.

Colie: Yes, absolutely. All right, Meg, I think that this is a good place for us to stop, but if people wanna find out more about your photography or if you happen to be near Albany, New York, y’all, her photography is amazing. I’m telling you, you need a family session where. Or can they find your work?

Meg: Um, so I am, my website is meg moser.com and I am on Instagram at Meg Moser photo.

Colie: Meg, thank you so much for joining me. I know that you were really nervous, but you did great, and I really do like the topic that we ended up discussing because I do think that some of the things that you and I have discussed that you’ve brought to, you know, root to rise and Sabrina and all these things, I think that these are things that people think about and it’s certainly things that I have coached people on over the years in terms of, hey, co, like I really love your work, but the thing that I hear all the time is no one around me wants that.

And I’m like. I live in the most beautiful state in the United States. I would probably say like bar none. I, I live where outdoors is definitely the thing, and I don’t do any photography outdoors. And so if I can have people who would seemingly only want to go outside, let me come into their homes and photograph them for hours, you can too.

All right, so thank you for tuning in everyone. That’s it for this episode. See you next time.