The other day I was sitting back reflecting on how I had made a huge change in my life. I was recently dumped by a girl that I had been nothing but faithful and loyal to.
I realized that I had been denying myself the very dreams that made me who I was, in exchange for salvaging an already sour relationship.
I realize that this doesn't much have to do with the subject at hand, but it needed to be said for you to get a little background on me.
A while back I started taking pictures for online businesses. It was a pretty solid plan and I made about $250 bucks a day doing it. They were simple photos to take and being as though I was being fed business it was a pretty great deal. All I had to do was show up on time, look half way presentable, and take documentary style photos (as in no artistic stuff) for insurance companies and such to document their assets.
I got involved by using a system developed by John Carroll and it was pretty nice. (if you're interested the link is: here)
After a while though, I needed a little interaction with people and I wanted to start improving my photography skills. I was pretty clueless on how to get business so I just started doing free shoots for people. My thought process was to build a portfolio and then people would start paying me for my work. Well, that didn't really work out as planned.
My original intention was to take fine art nudes and fashion style photos. I wanted to experiment with my skills, and the lighting techniques that I had learned throughout my hobby. Then, I stumbled upon a course that promised to teach me how to take nude pictures for profit.... blah blah blah. Yeah right (probably how you feel right now). Or so I thought!
I was surfing the site to run it by my buddy Brad and he immediately thought it was awesome (go figure). Since he had more money than God, he bought it just as a joke. I didn't even buy the thing... but I did take a quick glance through it. Since we were on my computer, it stayed at my house..... for a long time.... completely unused.
For a while, it went unnoticed, until I was cleaning off my desktop one day and remembered we had downloaded it. This time I went back through it and read it.
I was fed up with all of the gimmicks online about how you can make a bunch of money with photography and felt like surely this had to be the same thing. I will admit, though, that it had a nice spin on it. Supposedly I'd be able to take naked pictures of women AND pay my bills! I couldn't really ask for much more than that, haha.
To my surprise, what I found was legit! I started following the advice in the book and holy shit (pardon my language) it was so much easier than I thought it would be.
I posted my first ad looking for models and got 47 women that were interested....
My jaw dropped.
Ever since then, I haven't looked back. It truly changed my life. I was doing something that was completely gratifying to me, and I also met my now girlfriend (who is in the industry, so she's not insecure and threatened by this! go me.).
Kind of hokey, I know... but it's legit.
If you're still reading and you're interested in seeing what it's all about, check it out here.