by NO, I mean YES.

I am plagued by ambitious dreams. There are so many things I love and so many things I wish I could spend time doing… one of my greatest downfalls is that I try to do them all.

I just got off the phone with a local photographer friend of mine who is very busy doing a lot of projects that I WISH I was doing. I started perusing his images… with all due respect to him, my quality of work is absolutely commensurate with his. But he most certainly has an edge on me…

…and then I saw a photo of Geddy Lee. HE SHOT RUSH on this last tour, and I did not.

HE SHOT RUSH.

R – U – S – H……!

That lit an incredible fire under my ass. DAMMIT. GOD DAMMIT. ROB has done one of my dreams shoots, and I don’t think he even gives a shit about RUSH!!!!

That’s all I needed to see in order to drive this point home. I have spread myself too thin, and many of my goals remain unaccomplished.

This is not me giving up – this is me realizing how ACCOMPLISHABLE my goals really are… and realizing that I have been saying yes to too many things, and in doing so, have unwittingly said no to some very important things.

So, here we go.

No. I will not shoot your family portrait.*
No. I will not shoot your senior portrait.*
NO, I will not shoot your paintball team.
No, I will not photograph your baby.**
No, I will not take pictures of ____________.

*Unless, of course, said photo shoot will take place in a very exotic, exciting location, or there are famous people involved, or you are paying me a god awful huge fee to do so, or some other reason that makes it an exceptional case.
** Unless you are my sister.

I am getting laser beam focused on what I want to accomplish. I am going to straight up start asking for work in these 2 or 3 categories. I will make phone calls. I will shoot for free at first. I will do bust my balls to create epic pieces on these gigs. I will say NO to anything that does not fit into one of these groups.

By saying NO, I can now start saying YES to what really matters.