This months article The Gift of Choice is an excerpt from my new book How to Succeed In Commercial Photography; Insights From a Leading Consultant. The book, due out in September 2007 (Allworth Press) is a book of essays, practical and spiritual teachings on how you can develop a successful photography business.

Our business is changing at lightning speed. Photographers must look at their business with a holistic perspective. While being financially successful is critical to any business, your level of creative, personal and professional satisfaction is critical to your overall success. In my book, I suggest that the way you develop a successful business is by paying attention to five key concepts; Vision, Value, Team, Tools, Persistence and Faith. I have interviewed many photographers, clients, consultants and agents who graciously share their thoughts on these topics as they apply to a successful photography business. Industry contacts are quoted throughout the book, as it is my wish to share many points of view with you. Watch for future issues of One View as I will be previewing more essays from the book and giving away free copies in a contest that you can enter later this fall!

Check out the Port Authority site as we have added a new portfolio and web site that I helped to build for still life photographer Karineh Gurjian Angelo. Karineh has been shooting for a few years and recently opened a studio in New York City. Her work is stunning, colorful, energetic, alive... and her book is already garnering assignments!

Enjoy the rest of your winter and read on to discover the Gift of Choice that awaits you...

In Grace
With Gratitude,

The Gift of Choice
© 2007 Selina Maitreya


One of the greatest gifts that you have been given as a freelance visual professional is the gift of choice. Using this gift actively and consciously can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. The gift of choice is always present and is evidenced by the fact that you decided to own your business rather than be an employee of a company. You chose not to punch in a clock, or have your salary dependent on a quarterly report written by a superior. You are not handed assignments that call more for your technical expertise, leaving creativity to the post producers. Assignments are not chosen for you, you get to choose which to accept and which clients to let go of, if the road seems to be taking you in different directions.

In addition, this choice to "go freelance" has enabled you to make the decision as to when to start your day and when it should end. You choose when to take vacations, and how much salary to pay yourself.

But choice goes beyond, way beyond these daily occurrences. Your choices will affect the totality of your world. With this in mind, consider the following questions, as the answers to them begin to shape your business and your life.

What space in your life will your business take up? Will you work an eight-hour day? More? Less?

Is your work woven into the fabric of your life, holding a significant spot but not becoming the totality? Will you choose to accept your role as a visionary? What would that look like? How will you facilitate that? What type of relationship do you seek with your clients? What does excellent service look like to you? Will you have a team? What will relationships between you and your suppliers and you and your clients look like? Feel like? What would a perfect business day look like to you? What would the perfect client look like? What type of attitudes must the people who work with you have? What type of atmosphere will you create in your business? Will you choose to have a positive approach on life?

These are the deeper decisions that you will make and all the choices that you take, each step of the way will create your reality. For these reasons, choice, conscious choice should be your mantra.

Is it? How often do you consciously use this gift? Do you access the power of choice consciously? Are you grateful for the many options that face you daily? Do you examine each area and make choices based on your higher good and the higher good of your company? Are you excited about the decisions you have to make? Do you proactively guide your business?

John Myers is a successful lifestyle shooter located in Rochester NY. John has national client base and proactively guides his company. He is supremely aware of the effect that his choices have on his business. A positive man he embraces the freedom that conscious choice provides.

"I've always found it important to have goals. Goal are choices that I set for myself for my business. My choices guide me. I know I don't have total control over what happens in my life but I have control of how I react to the situations that present themselves to me. I'm in charge of how I respond to everything. For example I like being surrounded by people so I chose to hire a full time support staff. I choose to only go after projects that are a good fit for me. Most importantly, I choose to have a positive attitude toward life."

As you read this essay how are you feeling? Do you connect with the truth within or are you shaking your head, finding yourself saying, "Look Selina, I don't get to choose my assignments, my clients choose me. My business stinks. I cant help it if the assignment market is slipping, I can't fight the stock photography option, and I certainly can't compete with the assignment shooters who low bid, and are willing to give their services away. Life is not a choice, stuff just happens and I struggle every day."

If you find yourself feeling as if you have few choices, or it seems as if the options in front of you are not options at all, I would invite you to examine your perceptions and look at your general attitude. No matter what your current circumstance, seeing yourself helpless is giving up your power. Feeling as if you have no power creates that reality. Ironically, giving up your power to outside circumstances is indeed a choice that you are making, an unconscious choice most likely but a choice all the same.

Seeing the world as a place that happens around you, one that you just react to rather than actively create is continuing the belief that you have no control.

In reality you hold all the control. Your thoughts create the idea that you have no power. In reality you are not a passive individual floating in a world that is happening around you. You can choose to stop those thoughts now. They do not serve you!

Instead, I would invite you to open your heart up for a bit and begin to entertain the belief that your view of the world, your perceptions of how things are, really might be limiting your options. I would ask you to suspend your beliefs for bit and read on. You will see how you are indeed in control of what happens to you. You will see that you do have the power to create your life the way you would like. You will see that your choices, conscious choices do truly affect your entire existence. They can't, not.

Choices make up your reality. Choices are our actions based on thoughts. Teacher Deepak Chopra in his Creating Abundance book: has said, "You are your thoughts. Your thoughts become your actions and your actions become your reality."

With this truth in mind, every time you choose a thought it will turn into an action and through these actions you are indeed creating your reality.

Lets look at how this might work in your business world.

Lets suppose that you have been booked for an assignment that you are very excited about. It's the type of job that will provide you an opportunity to work on a prestigious account, and in addition, it offers an opportunity for you to creatively stretch. You are excited as you realize that the fees you invoice will buy you the new digital system that you have been dreaming of. The job is two weeks away and as it is a substantial shoot you have begun preproduction meetings with your team and everyone is ready to roll. Then the phone call comes in and the project is shelved. You're not told exactly why but you are told to invoice for all kill fees.

You are immediately thrown. Your thoughts turn to the money you feel you lost, and the equipment that you had "mentally purchased." You get further into despair as you remind yourself that this job offered you an opportunity to be a creative partner and that's lost too. Your thoughts generate feelings and you begin to experience disappointment, anger, and frustration. You start to experience a loss of power and you feel that none of what happened was in your control.

While you are right that you could not control the fact that the shoot was cancelled, the reality is that the "outcome "is not the cancellation of the shoot, rather the outcome, the final piece of the puzzle is how you choose to respond. It is here that you have total choice.

You can begin to take your power back, simply by redirecting your thoughts. You can choose to react to the news continuing to attach to your negative feelings, or you can choose to see your thoughts and experience your feelings but not attach to them, choosing instead to say "It would have been nice if this job had come through as planned but clearly that was not to be." Then immediately move on to another activity. If you do this, you are then creating closer on your terms.

The words "Wouldn't it be nice if" truly shift the energy toward peace and away from anger and fear.

They have a special power that can be clearly experienced. It may take a few times for you to go through this exercise before you see and feel the effects, and life as we know it, will certainly provide plenty of opportunity for practice.

While you are practiicng how to observe your thoughts and recognize your feelings. do not attach to them. Remember that it is the attachment to negative thoughts and feelings that adds to the processes of giving up your power. Choosing to invest in negative feelings has very clear ramifications and none of them are helpful. So simply just observe.

Many studies have been performed that show that consistent negative thoughts affect physical and mental health. I would take it one step further and without hesitation state that negative thoughts totally affect your business. In my 28 years of working with photographers, I have occasionally encountered photographers who have negativity deeply embedded into their personality. These are folks who I could not help no matter how talented they were, or how much I tried, Their negative attitudes and the energy they created was ultimately toxic enough to override all of their talent and our efforts. They lost clients due to their attitudes, and they did not replace lost accounts because of a number of excuses that they continued to heap upon themselves and anyone who would listen.

You however will hopefully make a different choice. As you continue to choose to not attach to negative outcomes, you will begin to experience yourself and your world differently. You will see yourself taking more responsibility for your thoughts, your actions and your life. Once you accept that you are in control of your circumstances and you begin to consciously choose your thoughts and actions, great possibilities occur!

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One View - March 2007, Issue 10

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