Since getting back from Tasmania it has been busy, though not in the ways I thought it would be. I have started realising that while writing is good, I need to promote myself more, so I’ve been looking into ways to do that. So today I thought we might go through some things that I want to promote.
Mentoring
I have just finished being a mentor to a new client. It has been a rewarding experience for me and I think it has been for Jimmy as well. I asked him to write me a testimonial and this is what he wrote:
“Friends and family had many nice things to say about my photography, but none of them really know much about photography. I knew that if I wanted to improve, I had to hear from someone who knew about photography; ideally, someone who sold their photographs.
I came across one of Leanne’s photos on Instagram and was immediately impressed. I decided to contact Leanne to see if she offered private classes, and shortly thereafter, I joined one of her mentoring programs. I’m glad that I did.
Up until that point, I was largely distracted with getting my camera settings right, because I was shooting in manual mode. While I had a fairly good understanding of my camera’s controls and features, I wasn’t giving much consideration to composition. Through our conversations, Leanne helped me understand how I could grow as a photographer, with the solution being to think more about composition.
It’s fair to say that I’m now a completely different photographer, and I’d argue a much better one. I’m still an amateur, but my latest work shows greater skill and depth.
Interestingly, my friends and family have had less to say about my photography since I started working with Leanne, but I can tell that it has improved enormously.
If you want to improve as a photographer, you truly owe it to yourself to work with Leanne. She will help you in a way that your friends and family probably can’t.”
It was wonderful to get that feedback. Nice to know that I was able to help him. It was also good to see the difference in his images from the start to the finish.
Mentoring is all about conversation. It is about me looking at your images and helping you to improve what you are doing and suggest ways to make you grow. It is about you asking questions and me answering them. The conversations can be great for both sides.
I offer quite a few options and you can find them here, Mentoring.
There is going to be a new option as well. You can now get a half hour Skype session with me where we can discuss what you might need and if your images can be taken to the next level. These sessions will cost $50, however, if you take up one of the other options, the $50 will be deducted from the price. Let me know if you want to do this.
Long Exposure Workshops
I am keeping up with the Long Exposure Workshops and have a list of new ones for people to do.
They are for people who would like to try long exposure photography, but don’t want the expense of buying the gear first. We go through how to use ND filters and then how to do long exposures. There is also a lot of talking as we discuss lots of things around photography.
If you would like to join me on one of my workshops, click the following link, Long Exposure Workshops.
I have been doing an online course to learn how to improve my presence on Facebook. It has been really good.
I’ve been working very hard to increase what I post and trying different things. I’ve heard from a couple of people that they have noticed stuff from me a lot more.
I’m trying to use my Facebook page as a resource for people to learn about photography and it is turning out to be a good place to do that. I can share information from other people, show my photos, start conversations, and lots of other things. I even did my first live video yesterday and I showed those watching some tricks you can do to improve a sunrise or sunset in Lightroom. I am going to use the videos to help me practice so I can eventually do my own video processing course for people.
It is taking up quite a bit of time, but I hope it will be worth it in the end. If you want to see what I’m doing, here is my link, Leanne Cole Photography.
Photos
I have three sunrises for you here. I was very fortunate in Tasmania and was able to get a few of these. I was certainly lucky, and it was wonderful to get them. I seem to be having a sunrise week, so I thought the photos would be appropriate to show you. They are from three different place and I will put a caption with each one so you know where they were taken.
Great photo Leanne especially with detail in the dark foreground but I do know that you are an experienced photographer
Thank you Diana, I hope I am.
Very nice to hear that you are getting positive feedback for your mentoring lessons and workshops. I think you have a groove for that, and it’s amazing how many different kinds of these you have organised and hosted over the years. Hope the Facebook and promotion thing is going well for you. It seems trickier than it looks – anyone can publish a post and promote their work, but to do it well lies in the delivery on it and that varies depending on who you are trying to reach. These days social media is the last thing on my mind given that I am so busy with work and other parts of life, but at least I can still keep writing going 😀
Good luck with it all.
Thank you Mabel, I just need more people want to do it now. It is something I really enjoy doing. I love helping people with photography, and I want to do it more. Facebook is a bit slow and it is not working well at the moment, but hopefully they will get themselves sorted.There does seem to be quite a few tricks involved in getting it to work for you, still trying things and seeing what can work for me.Sounds like you are very busy, but so glad to hear you are still finding time to write.
I am absolutely sure you could have a school and it would be amazing. It’s just hard to get enough people signed up to make it profitable, but if you do it both in person and online, you might make it work. It’s not like needing a major publisher or 1000 advertisers. Even if you start small, you can build from there. If you put together stuff for online course work, I will happily publish it for you.
Yes, getting people to sign up is my next hurdle really. I do the mentoring online, so anyone can do that. The course I do would be a series of videos, which would be good. How would you publish it Marilyn?