Hello, readers of the Cez Photos blog! I was surprised to see there were actually quite a few readers when I looked into my analytics. Why else would I be motivated to write another if there were not interested little minds reading this content? This post will mostly be about how the business is doing and my experiences this year.
So business wise, things went REALLY well in 2019! A majority of my work came in the first half of the year. I felt the burn out big time! And while taking most of the remaining year off, it still turned out to be the best financially.
2020 was looking great at the start of the year. I had a couple of weddings looking to book me, and I was looking forward to my regulars booking some spring sessions. I also had the opportunity to take myself to Barcelona for a week just to travel out of the country and see how people do things in other cities.
Spain will probably be another blog post in itself! The food, the adventure, getting lost and stumbling on beautiful architecture, joining an online meet up group there, meeting someone off of Instagram and having a drink with them and making a life long friend. I never quantified all that I did out there but wow! Even more amazing to think of it now.
But after I came back, everything began to shut down. Close friend's got sick. I was furloughed from my 9-5. Unemployment was there as backup but it was unreliable and the stress of uncertainty was starting to wear me out slowly. But I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I took a lot of time for myself to reflect, relax, and readjust things I needed to work on.
After getting into the grove of working out every day and learning some new tricks to help out with my business, I got the call to go back to the office. It was bitter sweet. I had closed the site down and I was beyond excited to earn a stable source of income again.
While it's nice to know my expertise was valued and needed again, I still wonder how far I could've gone while forced to maintain myself without an employer. I already had a set schedule to work out and to learn new things while making time for hobbies as well. Hobbies such as, drawing, learning how to play the piano, writing calligraphy, ect.
Being able to pursue hobbies is what helped transition my business from only doing photos to also doing drawn portraits of people! Without even announcing I wanted to do this, I had people lined up once I showed my work to the world of social media.
So while this has been a crazy year for all 7 billion plus humans on the planet, I'm happy that I'm able to transition into something that makes me happy to do and can keep the bills for this business paid as well. There are also a few other things I've researched and have taken action on that has me feeling pretty optimistic for the future. If anyone else reading this feels like they need help coming up with new ways to transition their business, or would just like to bounce ideas off of me, please feel free to do so. If you're reading this and made it this far it means you care enough about what I think and if there's anything I can do to help anyone, I would gladly do so.
Much love,
Cesar
Cez Photo Design