New Horizons in 2015!

There is something awesome about setting goals and changing things around in your life with the dawn of a new year. Resolutions are made, memories are rekindled, and we set our sights on new accomplishments and horizons. I have done quite a bit of self reflection towards the end of 2014, and was able to uncover a lot.

I took a deep look at my strengths and weaknesses and it wasn't that there were necessarily surprises that I uncovered, but there definitely were items that made me think, "what are you doing about this Josh? You know this to be true and you are letting it sit there." I saw that some of my strengths were working with people and coincidentally one of my weaknesses was taking the time to build up my relationships. One of my strengths was serving people, but one of my weaknesses was going above and beyond to serve someone. As I reflected, I realized the sad depravity of our generation. We have lost our drive. We have become complacent. We have accepted that doing the minimum amount required is satisfactory, and what's worse, we are OK with that.


Why? When did we become OK with mediocrity?

I looked at my own life and noticed that there were definitely areas thatI have settled for mediocrity, no longer pushing and pursuing with passion and purpose the goals that I set out for. That was when I made the decision:

NO MORE.

I want to no longer live under the mediocrity umbrella. I want to be good at what I do and what our company offers. No, I want to be GREAT at what I do and what our company offers. And in order to truly be great, things needed some adjustments.

That is the purpose of this blog post really. I want to update all of our past, present and future clients on the amazing things that our team has been developing for 2015 and beyond.

Feedback

I recently sent out an anonymous survey to all of my past clients from the past 2 years to get honest criticism and feedback on several factors of our client experience to see where we stood. A lot of the feedback was, for the most part, positive. There were some eye openers though that I am extremely grateful for. These are going to help us completely improve and revamp our customer experience.

New Horizons

Most of you know myself or Shed Light Photography for having a primary focus on photography in the areas of weddings and headshots, most likely as a photographer that can produce for you a disc of digital images for your shoot and that is that. As I looked back at what clients really value the most when it comes to photographs, I came to the conclusion that Shed Light was missing out on a large list item: taking the beautiful memories that we create and immortalizing them by creating physical works of art for your wall in your home. Digital photos while nice for purposes of social media, often sit around for years on the disk that they came on. I have countless clients that I have produced digital files on a disc for and they have never once printed the images. This realization for change in this area came about with the recent passing of my Noni. 

As I was putting together the images for the slideshow for her funeral, scanning them into my computer, it hit me. She never had digital negatives for her photos. The photos that have lived on through the years are tangible, physical prints. Why was I allowing my clients to only have access to images that can easily be lost through a computer crash or by misplacing a USB drive? Photos are meant to be immortalized, especially ones that you are investing in with a professional photographer. Time to change that. 

Shed Light in 2015

So now that we have the "why" out of the way, it is time for the what. What is changing? Here are a few items that you can expect to see when working with us in 2015.

• We recently brought on Thomas Smith, my brother, to head up the video division of Shed Light, Shed Light Cinema. We will be focusing on beautiful wedding films, business videos, and short films over the next year. (And for those of you wondering why I keep saying "we" when referring to Shed Light Photography, this is why :)
• We will be adding an additional focus on portraiture this year which will include
• Maternity
• Newborn
• Families
• Senior Personality Portraits
• Fabulous 50's
• We will be offering a variety of print products including:
• Gallery Wraps
• Metallic Prints
• Signature Albums
• All of our wedding packages will include a photo album. That's just how important we think that they are!
• Every session will include a post session in studio proofing session to review the photos from the shoot and decide which ones you would like to order.
• Our session fees and print/digital purchases are separated

We do understand that we are in the age of digital and there are still a number of people that want access to their digital files. To aid with the transition, we will be offering digital files as an order option. Additionally, with every print purchase that you order of size 8x10 or larger, you will receive the digital negative in that same size.

In Summary

We hope that you will continue to use Shed Light for your photo and video needs! If you have any questions or comments about the changes that will be taking place, please don't hesitate to let me know. I am more than happy to answer any and all questions that you have regarding it. If you have been thinking about booking a session, don't hesitate to contact us today!

I hope that you will come to see all of our beautiful new products that we are offering and come to love them as much as we do. We wish you all a happy new year and a successful and prosperous 2015!