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A Night To Remember

The Mission-Focused team joined forces with Eastlake Church this past Friday to help document “A Night to Remember” which is a prom for students with special needs. I have been at a crossroads in terms of ministry photography lately with a desire to truly make sure the photographs being taken are making an impact and not being buried. I’m excited to continue to work with the team at Mission-Focused as well as serve with the team at Eastlake. The prom was very well covered, there were so many volunteers serving the event that at first it seemed to be too much. What I later realized was that with the abundance of help I truly got to experience the event. The faces on all the students is not something that I’ll forget. The night truly was one to be remembered.

To view all my photographs please visit: http://www.firstkiss.smugmug.com

To view all the images from the event please visit: http://eastlakechurch.smugmug.com/

May 9, 2011 | Categories: Trevor Stolebarger | Leave a comment

BRANDING VS. REPUTATION

The first thing I find myself doing every morning as soon as I wake up is I check my email, then go onto facebook. I read past all the complaints going on and look for someone who posts something funny or creative, maybe just my desire to be inspired. I then check the few comments on my usual smart ass postings and then check the photos of Hayden to see how many people decided to comment on how cute he is. I then ask myself, am I using facebook to it’s full potential? Am I missing out on an opportunity to be “liked” and reach a broader audience and show them my work? People have become professional facebookers in the photography world, and we can no longer deny the fact that it works! People are wiping out their advertising budgets and are generating new clients through social media, so why am I just sitting back and watching it take place?

As a new photographer establishing a business my first thought was to work on my brand. After having a class on branding I was asked to think about what is more important to focus on, branding, or your reputation? My initial thoughts were that branding and reputation are synonymous. What I realized is making that the case is the goal.

To me branding is projecting who you are and what you want your business to be. Your reputation is who you really are, you can’t fake a reputation. We are at a crossroads between the old and new, brought mainly about by social media. I’ve come to recognize that the brand I build and project online will mean nothing without the reputation that must be the foundation. Foundation means everything to a business, do I want to rush mine and build on sand?

Reputation is built differently then branding. I can’t go online and post something funny that get’s a big response and stop there and have a reputation built. Anyone can post 1 great photograph out of 100 taken, but realize your client will see the rest, and it’s those remaining 99 that will establish your reputation.

I realized that I have made a lot of groundwork already in building a reputation. From the start I’ve treated every customer like they we’re my best despite what package price they ordered, something I will continue to do. I’ve been blessed to serve and donate my time and talents with free military family portraits as well as working with the team at Mission-Focused to document God’s work being done. Again, the fact that there was not a penny paid does not reflect in what I provide them. I am blessed with some great testimonials from my clients stating that I went above and beyond their expectations. I have a good foundation to work with, now I need my brand to represent that.

So my bottomline is this. I absolutely believe photographers need to build their personal brand. I believe that like it or not people will book a photographer based upon your image, your personality. They are booking YOU. If you ignore that then you will get passed by. However, don’t let building that be your end result, succeeding at your craft and exceeding expectations should be. If you achieve that then your clients will have lasting memories, and you will have repeat business. Make sure your brand and reputation do become synonymous. Have better use of time management – could the time you and I spend on facebook / twitter / linkedin be used to provide an even better product and experience for our clients? Lastly: Be Original – it’s very tempting to copy someone’s branding tactics that work. To be honest people are getting rich off of encouraging others to mimic them, truth is they know they will fail because it’s not authentic. People can tell when you’re being you and when you’re trying to be someone else. Find yourself.

– Trevor Stolebarger
First Kiss

April 1, 2011 | Categories: Trevor Stolebarger | Leave a comment

Last Frame

While shooting an event last week I had a philosophical photography talk with Brother Joe. The topic was complicated but really came down to what do you want to shoot, if you had 1 shot left to take, what would you want it to be that would represent your photography? I’ve stayed awake at night thinking this through and I don’t think it’s a coincidence this came up at the same time I am re branding myself and my business.

Digital photography has changed photography, in my opinion for both good and bad. I will be negative and dive into the bad. I really feel that digital photography has led photographers to no longer really concentrate before taking a shot because digital allows us to fire off a bunch of shots and find a few that work. For me it takes the thinking out of photography. For me it went so far as to take out the thinking about what I was shooting. This led to a lot of meaningless photographs that are now stored on my computer that I don’t see any value in. There hasn’t been a whole lot that I’ve shot in the past 2 years that I’m really proud to attach my name to. Not that the photos are bad or anything, it’s just they don’t really serve a purpose in representing me.

I used to photograph a lot of models. Aside from coming up with a unique concept there wasn’t a whole lot to it. Pretty much anyone can take a decent photograph of a person who knows how to pose. During that time in my career I wanted to show beauty in my photography. I was lucky to shoot celebrities at events which just pushed me more towards that side of photography. But what I recently realized is that I was taking photographs of people who are considered “beautiful” but I didn’t see beauty in the shots, and the reason was the shots didn’t mean anything to me.

I found beauty in shooting photographs that really meant something to the person I was shooting for. I found beauty in shooting love. There doesn’t need to be a pre-conceived idea, there doesn’t need to be a professional pose or expression because love doesn’t need to be posed. Shooting photographs for someone to just add to a portfolio is now meaningless (to me). Shooting family portraits for military families who never had time to get photos means a lot. Dedicating time to shoot a wedding for people who can’t afford to pay normal rates and seeing them cherish their images is what I want to continue to shoot. Those are the photographs I want to start putting on my website and blog. Those are the shots I want to represent me. If I had one frame left, I would want to make sure I captured love, because isn’t that really where true beauty lies.

My goal in 2011 is to revamp my entire portfolio. I look forward to transferring a lot of my work onto an external hard drive and freeing up space on my computer so that the frames I shoot have meaning. One of my camera’s is nearing it’s end, in shutter years the camera is quite old. I let that camera down by not making sure each click of the shutter had been thought through. I won’t make that mistake with my next camera!

– Trevor Stolebarger
First Kiss

March 15, 2011 | Categories: Trevor Stolebarger | 1 Comment