“When you started photography, how did you know that it was the right thing to do when you resigned? Has it been worth it?”
When I purchased my first camera, I had no intention of ever leaving my day job. “Why would anyone leave a secure day job?”… I thought. “With 4 weeks paid holiday and 2 weeks paid sick leave, comfortable hours, and a nice salary, who would ever choose to be self employed?” I not only thought that, but that was my default response to anybody who asked “When are you going to do weddings full time?” or “When are you going to make video creation a full time business?”
Every time people would ask me this, including my team manager who sat on my right in the office, I would cringe. “Are they crazy?” was what I always thought.
I always heard about people struggling to find a job, and how hard it was to get a good job, and so of course the last thing I was thinking of would be walking away from that. Of course there are all those statistics that people throw at you, like “90% of small businesses fail in the first year” and so fourth.
My first camera was the Sony FX1 I bought in 2007. I was afraid to touch it for the first few months because it cost just under $5000. I wanted it to be able to pay for itself though, and so I had the idea “if I could just film 10 weddings for $500 then the camera is paid for!” I thought my idea was somewhat genius at the time… Until my first friend approached me and said “My friend is getting married and doesn’t have a videographer!” I’ll come back to that!
I was on the film and television crew at Riverview Church in Perth Australia, which is broadcast in 58 countries around the world. Probably half of the main wedding videography companies in Perth at that time, attended Riverview Church and were a part of the video crew. Each of them said to me ‘You can’t just buy a camera, and start your own business!’ and my response was ‘Well why not? I’m going to!”
I worked in finances for one of Australias largest investment institutions, and every day as I stepped out of the elevator on the 38th floor, I joked and chatted with 200 people on my floor who knew me by name. A lot of people at work had a relative or friend getting married, who didn’t have a videographer, and some of my gym instructors were getting married as well. Since I was doing a 5.30pm aerobics class every night, I knew everybody at the gym, and all the regulars new me.
When I came into the wedding industry, I truely believed that it was full of overpriced people, and that I was going to give brides a real price.
I quickly learned that my thought process was very wrong, and I underestimated just how much work a wedding was! My 7th wedding was $850, and I remember the editing process took me between 50 and 60 hours. I spent about 12 hours with the bride and groom on the wedding day, and then you have to factor the time spent on emails, and planning. That $850 paid me for over 70 hours of work, which works out to a whopping low $12 per hour. That was less than the $13 per hour I made at Java Juice when I was 21! And that isn’t factoring in your taxes, equipment, and expenses!
I started advertising my business online in June 2008. There weren’t all the great free website creation tools that exist nowadays, and so I was creating my website through html coding that I taught myself from a book when I was 17, and my website definitely was not impressive. Somehow, brides liked my videos though, and I began building up bookings, starting at $1,100 for a short package. One of the guys from the church had said that I could come along to some of his weddings to learn from him, and I learnt a very valuable lesson right away! On my first wedding learning from him, my almost $5000 camera which had been used a handful of times broke! It was of course under warranty, but I quickly learned that if I was going to do this, I needed a 2nd camera the same! From that moment on, I never went to a wedding without spare equipment!
I had planned to leave my day job in June 2009, at the end of the financial year. (In Australia) but I was getting such a positive response from all of these brides, that there was no way I could run this business, and hold down my job! It would frustrate me when brides would call me, and I was at work and couldn’t answer my phone. The one thing that was holding me back was fear!
I was afraid of leaving my extremely easy and comfortable salary job. I was afraid of giving up my 4 weeks paid holiday and 2 weeks paid sick leave. But the bookings reached a point where there was simply no way I could keep both. By the end of 2008 I was already charging $1800, and still getting booked out, and so I handed in my resignation. That was in 2008.
What leaving my job did, was enable me to really throw myself into my business, and network. It seemed somebody was holding a wedding supplier dinner every month, and I got to meet other professionals that I’d only read about online. Finally I became friends with a photographer and videographer, who had gone from doing 9 years of solid wedding videography, and was known as one of Perth’s best, to doing photo/video combos, and finally making the decision to drop video all together.
He convinced me ‘Sky you’d be a great photographer! It’s easier than video, and most of the skills transition over!’ I was hesitant at first because that was going to mean that I would have to spend thousands of more dollars on more equipment, and afterall, I had just left my job!
I took his advice, and since I now had spare time, was able to use any spare time that I had into learning photography, and making myself the best possible photographer I could be!
By the end of my 2nd year in business, and my first year full time in the industry, I had developed a reputation, and my income was matching my salary, but I wasn’t spending 6-10 hours commuting to work each week, I didn’t have an upper management micromanaging my lunch breaks, and most of all, my work was fun!
I get to do what I love every day, and it’s amazing 🙂
xoxo Sky Simone
