Lessons learned from a hard week

 It has been bit of a rough couple of days in the Old Photography business. But I guess that education is always expensive, either at school or in the world.  It has created some “interesting dynamics” around the house, but we will work through it. Persistence has value, but only when times get rough.  We really do learn more from our failures than from our successes – if we are paying attention. Some of the mistakes I have made in business will not be made again – at least not by me.  What I have learned:

·         Deal with the primary person. In a wedding deal with the bride, or at least make sure the bride is in all the dealings, so everyone is playing on the perverble same sheet of music.

·         Written contracts save money, time, tears and a lot of issues.  If it isn’t in writing, it is open for debate and miss-communication.

·         Sometimes if God is not the judge, there will be no justice.  So we sometimes have to treat others as though they are His children, and let Him handle the justice stuff.

·         See the second lesson

I did have the pleasure of photographing my grand-daughter this morning.  She is so beautiful that one could not blame me for taking too many photographs and photographing her as long as she would let me.  At a little over two months, her energy left before mine did.

Now, do you want to see the most beautiful baby?

International Portraits

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours in an apartment complex in Clarkston, GA that has international new arrivals in the USA.  Some of these people had absolutely wonderful faces. Many of the kids had no idea how to smile, and most were very serious.  We had an interesting set up, I took the photographs while Stacian and John printed them and handed them out on the spot.  I wonder if this was the first time many of these people had been photographed by a professional.  I kept wondering about their stories and what they have lived through, but they did not speak good English – and there were way too many countries represented for me to dream of speaking all of their languages. Once again, I realized how much joy I received just taking photographs.

In the evening, Nancy and I went to see the play “Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis.  There were lots of interesting things to think and consider. It made me want to read the book again and find what I had forgotten.  One of the jewels was how holy it is just to enjoy simple, natural pleasures like taking a walk in nature or reading a good book.  I feel the need to have more of these pleasures in my life.

Dependable

Computers are such wonderful instruments – when they work right. And they firmly believe in going down at the worst possible moment.

Saturday I have scheduled to photograph an outreach to an immigrant community and to photograph them, print the photographs so they would have their portraits before they leave.  I procured the paper, ink, and all I needed. Then, of course, Friday night the computer that was to be involved decided to throw a tantrum. Fortunately my computer-wizard son, Josh was here to help with the diagnosis and repair. So after six hours of work on the computer and less hours of sleep than that, I think it is ready and able to do the job.

Everybody goes through that.  I wonder how often I let people down when they are counting on me? I am certainly not as versatile as a computer, but I hope I am more dependable. I would rather have something less powerful, but more dependable.

Lord, help me “to be a friend that a friend would like to have”.

Slow down and love each other

Seeing beauty requires one to stop and look with anticipation.  We dash through our lives  to get one more thing done, to accomplish one more thing.  Stop. Look with anticipation and enjoy the beauty that God has put around all of us. Take a deep breath and relish in the today that is given you.

You know all of that. We all do. I just forget sometimes – and I thought maybe you did also.

I get a blog every day that is sometimes wonderful, and sometimes just full of wonder.  I thought I would share it with you today to see what you thought of it.

Seth Godin’s Blog May 27,2011

Caring

No organization cares about you. Organizations aren't capable of this.

Your bank, certainly, doesn't care. Neither does your HMO or even your car dealer. It's amazing to me that people are surprised to discover this fact.

People, on the other hand, are perfectly capable of caring. It's part of being a human. It's only when organizational demands and regulations get in the way that the caring fades.

If you want to build a caring organization, you need to fill it with caring people and then get out of their way. When your organization punishes people for caring, don't be surprised when people stop caring.

When you free your employees to act like people (as opposed to cogs in a profit-maximizing efficient machine) then the caring can't help but happen.