Comments on: Digging for Gold: Steps to Branding Your Business! (It’s a long one! :))

By: Lindsey Brunkhardt

Lindsey Brunkhardt — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:51:33 +0000

Glorious, majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. – Psalms 111:3

By: Our Photography Workshop for Women is Coming to DC! Check it out! | Me Ra Koh Photography Blog

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:13:47 +0000

[...] to all the women and men who bravely commented on yesterday’s post “Digging for Gold: Steps to Branding Your Business”–thank you. Your vulnerability and true expression of where life has you–was incredibly [...]

By: Sara C

Sara C — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:27:38 +0000

Dear MeRa,
I finally waded through this post. I was too timid to finish it when you first posted it. My mining time began back when I was around 5. I begged my mother every chance she’d give me to take a picture with her old 110 film with flash bulb box and burned my finger more than once for not listening to her to wait before I removed it. Over the next several years I had 2 or 3 110s of my own that I used as often as my parents would buy my film. Even then I got in close down on my subjects’ level — usually my poor kitties.

About 9 years ago I was having fun taking pictures of the baby I nannied for and when they were developed her mother was adamant about my photography skill. I thought she was crazy, but it felt really good to be told how much she loved the pictures.

After using my sister and brother-in-law’s film SLR in Boston one afternoon I set out to buy my own. I couldn’t believe how much more I could “see” with an SLR than my 35mm. A few months into my new “baby” I had several friends complimenting me and asking me to take pictures of their children. The clerks at Ritz Camera were asking me if I was really just a hobbyist. Looking back at this time now, I believe it was God working through them as my images really weren’t that great. But WAS there was the emotion. In seeking to better my skills I was able to be an intern at a local studio and learned so much, especially about Photoshop. But I was also TERRIBLY intimidated. While my images began to have more technical merit the emotion was so hard to find anymore.

I pushed forward and continued to take clients and try to edit and display them. Despite my 8x10s being only $12 and my most popular package costing $70 my average order total was $325. My clients were seeing something in me, but I wasn’t feeling it. I was drowning. Through prayer I decided to take at least a year off. I wasn’t actually positive I’d ever go back to photographing professionally/for pay. About 3 weeks later I found out I was pregnant with our daughter (who turns one in less than two weeks!) and was glad to have the time to focus on our son while I grew our daughter through an always-busy traveling-husband spring.

Afterward I began struggling and had some very close friends point out I may be dealing with depression. After seeing my physician I started on medication as I wanted counseling but just could not bring myself to tackling making appointments, finding sitters, finding the money to pay for the appts, etc. etc. Eight weeks later I was a “new” woman again. I was the me that my husband and I knew from about 5 years previous!! THERE SHE WAS!!! The me who dared to feel through my lens. The me who saw the tenderness through my lens.

So, now, I am beginning to fight again to mine and present. I’m finding the courage to believe in myself as best as I can. In the past week I’ve made steps to get a new website, procure a couple new newborn clients to get those waters tested again, photographed and proofed a good friend’s little girl, and printed out brand spankin’ new wall art of my children for our home. My 3yr old LOVES the “HUGE picture of me, Mommy!” He’s so excited to put it on the wall by his bed. He’s dressed in a cape his grandma made him with the goofiest expression on his face… I FELT that childhood glee when I snapped it. It’s blurred in his arms and hands, it’s blurred in his cape, but you can FEEL what it’s like to be 3 years old and a boy.

So, now I’m trying to set out and figure out what makes me different, what makes me, ME and find a way to have someone put that into a logo (that I can afford) =)

Thank you so much for continuing to push us. Thank you for continuing to see the best in women you’ve never laid eyes on.
Sara Cosby

By: Erick @ Photocrati Photography Blog

Erick @ Photocrati Photography Blog — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:17:42 +0000

Hi Me Ra, Thanks for this unique bit of insight / inspiration / thought provocation / spurring. A wonderful post. First time commenter as well. Keep up the good work. Erick

By: shannon leith

shannon leith — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:02:03 +0000

me ra,
that ending that asked readers to comment GOT ME! …..that was me! so here i am.

i’ve been mining for the past 3 years,

before that i never knew that i COULD mine…. i never had been empowered to look inward and trust what was there.

i just graduated from Biola University with my degree in fine art, have had a wedding photography business for 2 years, and am sitting here in my apartment wondering how to move forward while being true to myself as an artist but also incorporating enough business sense to bring in enough income to be profitable. a tension i’m sure i will hold for the rest of my life.

i am reading the artists way, am obsessed with writing pages, and am thankful for your authenticity and vulnerability.

thank you,
so much,
shannon

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:50:05 +0000

wow! it has been a little while since I have checked your blog and to check it today and read this— i am there, exactly. I am in the mine right now trying desperately to sort it all out. i have to keep reminding myself that it is a process and the process is just as important as the result most of the time.

By: Jaime

Jaime — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:16:44 +0000

Wow. It feels awesome to have a “mentor”, even if she’s far away and I’ve never met her. I loved the comparison to mining. Reaching, heck, acknowledging! your dreams takes a lot of digging. My struggle lately…purchasing a new lens. How can I drop $500 on MYSELF for MY dream? How can I be so selfish?! But then I remind myself that I’m worth it and that I want my children to see that dreams are important and should be nurtured. So, I’m saving my pennies and practicing with what I do have and hopefully soon I’ll be able to really embrace MY dream. Thanks so much.

By: Feuza

Feuza — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:17:38 +0000

Wow- I so needed this post right now. My digging started a year ago when photography found me and I say it robbed me of my comfort fearful sappy zone and I am so thankful for it. I had always been passionate about branding but identity crisis did arise so I asked for help and in the asking, got great advice such as you are being a tapper and not a listner where there was a study done where they took people who had to tap popular songs such as happy birthday for others to hear and guess and most people did not guess and the tappers could not figure out how could they not guess such common songs, and this is how I was about naming my business, I had all these ideas, fusion of cultures but I was the only one getting it, people did not get it just by looking at the name or hearing it, it was in my head, tapping to myself. Thanks Griffith for that advice, So I started digging and Marantz said to do a brand box, anything you found that remined of what you wanted your brand to be, cut it, tear it and put it in the box, they said we needed to discover our brand and I thought it was brillant than Griffith said, no no its not discovering it, it is undiscovering it cause its already there, its you. I was so afraid to commit to a logo and brand cause I wanted to nail it. I am so inlove with my logo and am building my brand, baby steps, everything even stationary needs to breath it, baby steps. I am a mother of two little boys, trying to break into the wedding industry and make a living of my passion which I found at the ripe age of 29. I am digging, digging so hard cause I dont want to go back to that corporate desk and its calling me and I look around and logic says you must go back to help your family, times are rough, you need to bring more bacon home and then I look at my minning clothes and the shine of that gold inside, that passion that drives me, and drives me, baby steps, I guess its a life journey more than anything and what makes me so happy is people like you that give and give and inspire so much.

By: Lana

Lana — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:09:51 +0000

I know this is late, but I just want to say “Thank You”. I just happened on your blog a short time ago and have been interested in what you have to say ever since. I just have to keep reminding myself that the gold I’ve found is real and not “fools gold”. I guess I need to get busy and start digging.

Again, Thank You.

By: Ashley J

Ashley J — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:24:00 +0000

Oh.My.Gosh. I’ve been in a heck of a place lately. I started a little experimental-on-the-side photo business about 3 yrs ago. I only had 2 kids then. Now I have 4 kids, a recent move, opened and closed a restaurant in the last 5 months, and a MOUNTAIN of debt. I have tried to give up on the photography business. I’ve tried to be angry and bitter and say to heck with it all but it just won’t die. I have a bad habit of not following through. But…The passion to capture images for other people just won’t go away. I’ve taken my camera and crappy little lens as far as it can go. My struggle right now is to hang in there until I can get the proper tools to let me be as creative as I’m capable of being. I HAVE to find a way to make it work. NOW. My time is now, I just know it is. This little fighter has risen up inside me and said,”You can do this! Don’t give up!”
So here I am with my gold, srambling to find the right tools to get it out. I found my gold though! I feel blessed to have at least found it! Now to dig it out and figure how in the world my gold is unique from everyone else’s.