I’ve been doing a fair bit of mentoring lately and am always transparent on my intake Zooms. I tell potential mentees, “Don’t choose to mentor with me because you want to fast-track your business or make six figures. Choose me because you want to shoot with heart and intention.” I know my lane and I’m staying in it. 😉 Below are a few of my thoughts on doing just that: shooting with heart and intention.

Love, Don’t Just Look

“A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.” — Annie Leibovitz

Many of us are in love with photography but not necessarily our clients. The path to lasting fulfillment in this biz is falling in love with each client’s unique story. In that openness, we’re able to heart-meld with our clients and see their families as they do.

Show, Don’t Tell

“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” — Don McCullin

Don’t tell me how a parent looks or how much they love their family. Make me feel it. Make me see straight into their soul and see my own love for my children reflected back. I won’t be able to look away.

Frolic, Don’t Fear

“When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.” — Alfred Eisenstaedt

There’s a playfulness we risk losing when we go into business. In the grind, we forget to nurture the inner child who once delighted in the smallest things and took the biggest risks. Treat each photo like there’s only that moment, and experiment like mom isn’t looking.

Listen, Don’t Leap

“The eye should learn to listen before it looks.” — Robert Frank

Deep empathy is unlocked when we understand the stories, passions, and motivations of our clients—but it requires whole-body listening. Your camera can be a barrier to that understanding when it isn’t wielded carefully and is rarely lowered to listen.

Wonder, Don’t Wander

“A camera is a tool for learning how to see without a camera.” — Dorothea Lange

When we turn a hobby into a business, it’s easy to forget the parts of ourselves that existed before the hobby. It’s so important we woo our wonder by investing in our other talents and training our hearts and eyes to receive beauty outside of our sessions.

Receive, Don’t Take

“You don’t take a photograph. You ask quietly to borrow it.” — Unknown

There’s an unhealthy ownership we sometimes feel in our work with families. The photos/videos we take may come from a deep place inside us, but they aren’t ours. They belong to the subject matter. We just borrowed their moment and splashed around in it for a while. It’s enough that they paid us to do what we love.