What To Expect From A Senior Photography Conference
Well, they are all different, especially these days with a lot of them being done virtually. Let me start with that. Some conferences are more about lighting, some are all about portfolio building and some are more about business education. I tend to enjoy the ones more focused on business.
Here’s why: Portfolio building is fun. Really it can be a blast getting to shoot with other passionate senior photographers! Photographing new subjects styled just right can get the creativity flowing, but those images do not always fit the style of your typical clients. And hopefully this doesn’t sound too harsh, but they tend to stick out like a sore thumb on websites and social media if they aren’t the way you normally shoot. It’s easy to see in a body of work which images are your own and which ones were created someplace else and styled by somebody else.
This next part is said in love . . . Our clients are hiring us for what we can offer them on a daily basis. So just be careful with building a portfolio of images that you cannot deliver on to the clients in your own area. I’m not saying don’t go to those conferences or to not participate in styled shoots. Please hear me loud and clear on that! This is just some tiny advice to be careful about what you are posting vs what you can deliver.
Ok, back to it! My all time favorite senior photography conference is SYNC. And this year I just happen to be speaking at it. WHAT?!! Yep. I sure am and I couldn’t be more excited! It’s March 5th - 8th, 2021 in Destin, Florida.
You can find out more about it here and how you can either attend in person or choose the virtual option for this year.
I’ve been every single year but one (and that was only because I was on bedrest with a rough pregnancy). Dang kids. Kidding!!! SYNC is family. It is all inclusive so you don’t have to pick and choose which classes to attend. It is 3 solid days of learning and EVERYONE is so hands on and helpful. While it is not a portfolio building conference you can still find groups shooting every day all over the resort. Those are fun to pop in and out of. And lots of people travel in early and stay late because it is in Destin, FL! Who doesn’t love a little extra vacation time at the beach doing what we love?!
Buying the plane tickets and booking the hotel rooms aren’t the only investments we are making in our education when we decide to go to a photography conference. Besides the money we are actually investing our time - our life really. It takes several days away from our families and business as usual, so we want to make sure we are investing wisely and getting something back that’s worth that investment. So let’s talk about that!
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Photography Conference:
First things first . . .
If you bought virtual tickets to a conference PLEASE treat that investment the same way you would an in person conference. Block off your calendar, grab some snacks, caffeine & your notebook. Don’t put it off because you won’t come back to it. Buddy up with a few photographers online and make it a watch party! Maybe you could even create a group text to share ideas or ask questions back and forth. The worst thing you could do is say you’ll get to it soon. If you’re anything like me, you won’t.
Prepare Beforehand
Take a look at the agenda, the speakers and their topics. Jot down some questions ahead of time about the things you are interested in so that you will specifically listen for those topics to come up. This has been a really big help for me instead of going into a class blind.
Set Conference Goals
Understand why you are going and get intentional with your learning. Make a list of the things you want to get out of the conference. Go ahead and have some questions written down. You will be more intentional about who you connect with, who you sit by, who you go to lunch with, the conversations you have, whether you spend your time in small groups discussing a particular aspect of your business or going out to watch a lead photographer work with a model.
Filter out the ideas that don’t matter as much right now in your business and life so that you can focus on the ones that do matter and will make a difference for you.
If you go into a conference with intention you are more likely to feel that it was a success afterwards and that it was worth your investment - in time and in dollars.
Creating A Note Taking System:
This is a game changer. I use to be the crazy person frantically writing down every word and not really comprehending them. I wasn’t present with the speakers or fully soaking their message in because I was too focused on not missing anything. When I realized how much of a problem this was and that I was actually hindering my learning I created a note taking system for conferences.
I like to use symbols in my notes to make it easy and memorable. This can be done digitally with emojis on your phone or you can hand write them. I still tend to be a paper and pen kind of girl.
Using symbols in your notes will jog your memory when you go back over them later.
Let me make sure you understood this from earlier and don’t make the same mistakes I made . . .
Do NOT write down everything. Do NOT take pictures of every slide.
You won’t go back to those and those images will just be taking up space on your phone. Focus on the meat of the message instead of trying to capture every word and slide.
Again, you want to be intentional here. If you know why you are at the conference and what you and your business most needs right now, then you will not be overwhelmed with mountains of notes when you get back home.
Here are the symbols I use in my conference note taking and what they mean:
Question Mark - These are questions I need to spend some time on later. Sometimes there are deep questions that a speaker will ask that you really need to think about but don’t have time in the middle of a conference to do that. Those questions can be powerful, and you don’t want to forget them.
ASAP - These are First Priority Tasks when I get back home. These are things that I absolutely need to do RIGHT AWAY that could potentially be BIG THINGS for my business. I want these to stand out and not get lost in all of the notes.
Lightbulb - These are great ideas that I want to do at some point. You could use a star or asterisk too - whatever you want really. They’re your notes!
Book - Speakers usually mention great books that they have read. I am a big reader so I absolutely love when they do. I will either jot down the title and author in my notes or go ahead and add it to my Amazon cart for later. Yep. I totally do that.
SM - Oh my goodness, the social media ideas that come up when you’re around a bunch of creative people, right?! If I hear something from the stage that makes me think of a great story or something I could share I will jot it down with “SM” beside it for later.
Brackets - If I have time right away I will write down a quick summary to share with my team members when I get home. This isn’t always possible right after a class, but I try while it’s fresh on my mind.
What To Do After A Photography Conference:
You’re on top of the world when you leave the conference. You are full of ideas and feel like you can take on the world! And then you get back home to the chaos of everyone missing and needing you. This is great, right?! Yes it is! You are LOVED! But if you don’t organize what you’ve learned immediately IT WON’T HAPPEN.
You’ll find that notebook 4 months later and feel like a complete failure. I know. I’ve done it.
So here’s what I do. If at all possible I will stay an extra day after the conference is over to decompress and really focus on organizing my notes. Generally that doesn’t happen though because . . . kids. Taking advantage of the car ride or flight home has helped here though. Whatever you do, just try really hard to find a little bit of time to organize your notes BEFORE you walk in the door at home.
Blocking a full day off from work when you get back home instead of heading right back into it is vital too. I know this is tough to do because voicemails, emails and client work has backed up while you were away. But it is so worth it to set that time aside to create an action plan.
Organizing & Summarizing Your Notes:
First, take pictures of your notes and store them in a notebook in Evernote (or whatever digital file system you like). This is great for referencing later. You may not need something right now, but in 6 months you just might. I like to save these by date / conference name / speaker (ex: 030521_SYNC_SpeakerName).
Ok, now that they are saved you can dive in to create an action plan for all the things you learned!
Here’s a downloadable Conference Notes Summary Worksheet to help with that and how I use it :)
