I tried to contain myself this year and not loose my mind with the business credit card on Black Friday. Dallas is a major distribution hub for a number of large companies such as Amazon and Chewy, so it's easy and fast to get just about anything you want! Maybe a little "too" easy.
About a month ago, I started making a list of things that I wanted for my photography business, both specific to pets, and generically to support it. The list had five things on it and those were the only five things I allowed myself to look at last Friday. Four had sales and one did not, so I saved myself a little bit of money and was happy in the end that I stuck to my list. What was number four? I purchased some digital products to add a creative flair in my editing process, but below are the other three purchases I made.
Professional Pet Photos Help Rescue Kittens and Puppies Get Adopted
What do bowties have to do with rescue cats, kittens and puppies? Everything! Unfortunately it's a crowded marketplace for shelter and rescue animals so professional photos can help them stand out among the crowd. Scroll through PetFinder or PetTango for even twenty minutes and you'll glaze over from seeing so many pets available for adoption, a professional photograph will help you notice them.
A colorful polkadot bowtie will help you remember them! A bowtie, ribbon or other accessory is a memory device to help would-be adopters remember a specific animal. As the saying goes "seen equals saved", so anything I can do to help an animal in need to be seen is important that's why I decided to add another eight bowties to my already growing collection pictured below.
Men's bowties are great for big dogs. Boy's bowties are perfect for medium sized dogs, but until I found Sweet Pickle Designs, I was at a loss for just the right size tie for cats, kittens and puppies. Their ties are extremely well-made and come in a vast variety of colors and patterns. They also have adorable holiday-themed ties for Valentine's Day, Halloween, Christmas and more. Check them on Etsy or their website. An added bonus is that I'm supporting another small business like myself!
Decorate Your Home With Pictures Of Your Own Pet
Pictures are meant to be printed, displayed and enjoyed every day. That's why I'm a photographer. To watch as someone opens their custom album or wall art and is speechless over the beauty of holding an amazing portrait of their own dog, or cat, or horse in their hands is a wonderful thing. Sometimes clients don't know how they want to enjoy their images and that's ok, I can help you figure that out.
I get that not every home has a lot of wall space, so perhaps an album is the best choice for you. That being said, once a client starts really looking at their walls, they'll often find a piece of generic decoration that they could live without. Something that was hung just to fill an empty space. Why not fill that space with a beautiful portrait, or story print, from your pet's portrait session?
This is where using stock images of various rooms can come in handy. Once you see what a photograph will look like hanging on the wall, then we can take the next step and take a photograph of YOUR WALL and show the portrait to perfect scale in your own home. These are the tools that as a professional pet photographer, I bring to your experience and guarantee your satisfaction. One of my 2021 Black Friday purchases was more rooms! I now have a greater library of home designs and styles to help clients visualize their photographs on display.
A Robust Backup System Is A Must For Every Photographer
It's not sexy, but boy is it important. After having suffered a hard drive loss about twenty years ago, and the painful waiting to see if the (expensive) data recovery service would work, "back up" has become my middle name. This is especially critical as a professional photographer.
Every part of my work flow is backed up at least twice with the second copy "off site", meaning not in my office. This is a version of "geo redundancy" and gives you the safety net of a second physical copy of your data should - God forbid - your primary location suffer a catastrophic loss. Ok, touch wood, just needed to say that after typing that last sentence.
I currently have a physical copy of all client work on a twenty four terabyte raid array in my office that's also backed up to the cloud. This direct access server (DAS) is made up of eight individual drives that share the data among them. It's configured to be able to handle two drive failures without any data loss (again, touch wood that I'd never have the fluke of simultaneous drive failures, crikey this is stressful to write about!).
Part of the beauty of this system is that you can upgrade an individual drive at any time to increase capacity. You just pop out the old drive and insert a new one. The system goes into data protection mode until the data is redistributed across the new drive, then you're back in business. I'm currently running about 60% capacity so I decided to take advantage of Black Friday deals to upgrade three of the four terabyte drives to ten terabyte drives, thereby almost doubling my capacity. Not sexy, but it does make me feel warm inside.