[0:00:00] Natalie Jennings: Hi.

[0:00:01] Audrey Nicole: Hi.

[0:00:02] Natalie Jennings: How are you doing?

[0:00:03] Audrey Nicole: Pretty swell and dandy today. How are you?

[0:00:07] Natalie Jennings: Good. I'm also feeling I'm feeling pretty good. I always look forward to this. And I mean, it's January, so there isn't a whole lot going on, but what kind of sessions have you been doing lately?

[0:00:18] Audrey Nicole: I just did a maternity mini session for a client that I did their engagement photos and their wedding photos photos. Now they're having a baby. That's like my favorite thing ever, just to do all the things for them. They're kind of last minute. She's due on Monday, and I did their photos on Thursday last week, so like seven days. She's being induced on Monday.

[0:00:39] Natalie Jennings: Okay.

[0:00:39] Audrey Nicole: It's like ten days before I did their maternity photos. I think we should do these. I'm like, sure. So it was an indoor session, which was so fun. I don't think I've done an indoor mini session at someone's home for our maternity session. It was really cool.

[0:00:54] Natalie Jennings: That's super cool. I love that. I love maternity sessions because I think you can get really artsy with them.

[0:01:02] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, it was really cool. And it was fun to do something a little bit different. But what was even more fun, I was so proud of myself for this. Afterwards, I went home because it was just a mini session. It was short, but I went home, I called and I edited it all in the same day. And it was so nice.

[0:01:22] Natalie Jennings: You know how much I love this. Yeah, it's so nice because you kind.

[0:01:26] Audrey Nicole: Of have you ever done that?

[0:01:28] Natalie Jennings: Have I ever done that? I used to always talk about how much I love calling the same day that I shoot, and people thought I was crazy for that. But even if it's a chunk of mini sessions where I have to go through like, six or seven sessions, if I can kind of cull as I'm ingesting them into the software, I have everything so fresh in my head. And sometimes if I don't edit them right away, I'll come back and see different things that I didn't see before and maybe get rid of or keep other images. But for the most part, I find that getting to the point where all I have to do is sit down and edit is I don't know, for whatever reason, calling is my least favorite thing. So I love getting it out of the way when everything's fresh because I feel like I know. I can't wait to see how that one turned out. Kind of yes, totally.

[0:02:15] Audrey Nicole: Because it's all fresh in your mind. You're like, oh, that one area that we took the photos, and I want to see what those look like. And it felt less chore. It just was easy.

[0:02:27] Natalie Jennings: That's awesome.

[0:02:28] Audrey Nicole: And then I just edited them because I had the time, and I didn't deliver them the same day because I felt I felt weird about that. So I waited like two days. Is this weird?

[0:02:39] Natalie Jennings: I do the same thing if I get ahead of myself, I don't deliver them right away because then I'm putting expectations out there that this is how it should work all the time. And I don't want to put that pressure on myself. But I think one of the things I used to do for all of my shoes and I still do this, not for my minis, but for my family shoots is I try to do that. I try to come home and call and get as far as I can, but because people have to prove for my bigger sessions, I have to wait for them so I can't edit. But if I have one mini session and then I come home, I'll just finish it. Because if you block off on your calendar, like 4 hours, if you're like, I'm going to drive there, I'm going to shoot. Or 3 hours or 2 hours or whatever your time frame is. If you can plan for continuing your quote unquote job after the shoot is over, you get so much farther ahead of yourself, especially when things start to get busy.

[0:03:32] Audrey Nicole: Yeah. So instead of just booking the time for shooting the session, you clear your calendar to have a few hours afterwards to do all the extra stuff. Yeah, I'm going to try and do that more. That's new year, new me.

[0:03:46] Natalie Jennings: It's great.

[0:03:47] Audrey Nicole: That's the kind of audrey I want to do.

[0:03:48] Natalie Jennings: Well, if you enjoyed it, then I would say keep doing it because I feel like it's a really good time management thing.

[0:03:53] Audrey Nicole: Yeah.

[0:03:53] Natalie Jennings: Okay. That shoot is done. I did it that day.

[0:03:58] Audrey Nicole: At least the calling. I feel like for a lot of people that's like the hardest part, but.

[0:04:02] Natalie Jennings: I think it is too. Yeah, I think it can be really hard too. I agree with you. That's awesome. I'm glad that you enjoyed it because I have definitely suggested that to students too. Like try and get as much done all at once.

[0:04:13] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, there's something about it, for sure.

[0:04:16] Natalie Jennings: So I love today's question and I love it for a number of reasons. I'll just share this because it interfaces directly with this question. I'm on a journey with my partner right now to hopefully become parents, and I'm not going to share any more than that. But I'll tell you why I brought that up. Because I'm 41 years old. This is a big thing. And so I'm constantly googling who else is in my boat kind of thing. Right. And I think that there's huge value if you're willing to share things with people that they might commiserate with or need to hear if you can send them there voluntarily. So like today's question, I'll read it and then I'll finish my thought. But it says, how much of myself should I share as a creative business? Is there a point where I should hold back on personal things or just let it all out. I've been thinking about sharing more deeply parts of this journey, like blogging about it or doing a little mini podcast about it, just all the deeper things that go on. But I don't know if this process is going to be a, interesting b, triggering, C, whatever. Fill in the blank for my audience.

[0:05:24] Natalie Jennings: So, like, I think as I've been going over this in my head about this journey, I'm like, well, I'd love to let people know that this is going on with me, and if I choose to go deeper with it, they can choose to go deeper with me over here. Everybody on my social feed and everybody that reads my blog or whatever is there for a similar purpose. Once you start kind of stratifying that in a different little lanes, I think it might trigger or turn people off if you go too deep. But I don't think there's anything wrong with going deep. I think if people want to continue to follow that thread with you. Does that make sense?

[0:06:05] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, I don't know.

[0:06:06] Natalie Jennings: That's what I came up with. That's my own opinion on kind of how I'm feeling going through this exact thing right now.

[0:06:13] Audrey Nicole: Yeah. And are you saying you could share just a tiny bit on your business areas, but then say, if you want to learn more, come over here? Is that kind of what you're thinking?

[0:06:25] Natalie Jennings: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm thinking, is, hey, this is something that I'm going through but like, having gone through. And I was really open about the fact that I've miscarried before or I've been through divorce before, but I've never gone super deep about it without inviting people to read the whole thing. I think I wrote a blog post about that years and years ago, and I mentioned it, which, according to this question, I mean, that can be a very personal thing if it's like, I'm going through X, Y and Z, I'm going through a divorce, I'm going through depression, I'm going through trying to get pregnant, whatever it is. I don't think there's anything wrong if you want to mention that in your business. But I think there's certain platforms if someone's following you, and then all of a sudden you start talking about that every day, it might turn some people off. So I guess all I'm saying is, for example, on this platform, I can mention that this is like a journey I'm starting on, but if I decide to go real deep on the whole process, I don't feel comfortable sharing that here. It's not that I don't feel comfortable sharing it. I just don't want to put people that come here for certain things in a position where they have to listen to me ramble about something else that could be very triggering for them.

[0:07:37] Audrey Nicole: That's a really good point. And also well, first and foremost, you should always think about how it makes you feel and if you're comfortable with people knowing this information about yourself. And I just say that because I think unlike social media, there's a lot of people that are talking about sharing their personal stories and it's so helpful to hear people's personal stories if you've gone through something like that before, et cetera. I sometimes think there's also pressure then for other people to feel like, well, I should use my voice and share my story. And that may not be exactly what is best for you. I just want you to never feel like pressured. You have to share their personal stuff. renee Brown said something about vulnerability without boundaries is not vulnerability and being vulnerable. Just check in with yourself first. Is it okay that potentially everybody I know will know this? For me, there's a lot of things that I do share, but there are certain things that I don't because I have a daughter that's eleven and there's things that I want her to hear from me first when she's old enough to hear it. Before I ever put it on the Internet. Yes. Because I want to respect her. I don't know, she doesn't need to learn those things about me and my life, my experiences on the Internet before I tell her.

[0:08:52] Natalie Jennings: Yeah, the vulnerability without Brown dre's is really, I think, a great way to address this question. And I think also that brings up the point that I answered this question from the perspective of having photo business help and jennings photo from a photographer's perspective. And I'm assuming that's where this is coming from since this audience is photographer. So how personal do you want to be in your photo business? But if you have a different business altogether, it might be super appropriate for you to just be totally yourself and people might expect for you. I mean, there's a lot of podcast hosts I can think of. There's a lot of places in the internet world that I would expect to hear all about the person because their whole vibe is just to do that, I guess, for lack of a better explanation, if that makes sense. So maybe your business model requires you to be way more personal and way more open and way more vulnerable. But as a photographer, if I start just inundating my photography audience with what I'm going through, if I want to do that, great. But my gut is telling me that I would rather invite them to follow along in a different way, whether it's visit the blog or subscribe to this newsletter or whatever. So like announcing it on social but not digging deep on social and I'm just using social as an example, like maybe a platform like substack or a platform like your newsletter or a blog. Like I said, I feel like there's different places that are maybe more appropriate if you're choosing to go deeper that don't alienate your audience.

[0:10:28] Audrey Nicole: That's a good point. And I've always been super vulnerable and open about things on my photography business and that was kind of like my vibe and I think people knew that. Yeah, but this last year or so I've definitely shifted and have been questioning if that's what I still want to do and I think I am going to split it up to like, okay, I'll still share personal stuff but maybe not like what you're saying. Don't go all the way there on my photography page, but be like if you want to know more about me and my journey and my story, you can follow me over here.

[0:11:04] Natalie Jennings: Sure.

[0:11:05] Audrey Nicole: I like having the outlet. Social media can be a way to express yourself and share things and connect with people and I like that a lot. But I've definitely been thinking I should shift to not have that necessarily tied into my photography page.

[0:11:19] Natalie Jennings: I also think what I remember, I remember you did this awesome story about the house is messy today or something and you showed a video and a bunch of people responded and they're like, me too. This made me feel so good.

[0:11:29] Audrey Nicole: Oh yeah.

[0:11:30] Natalie Jennings: I think it's also worth mentioning again, we're not therapists. This is just my instinct to mention this, that vulnerability can mean a ton of different things to different people. So what I'm talking about is extreme vulnerability and personal information. If I were to share my journey right now, that's something that some people would never ever want to talk about. I don't know yet if I'm going to talk about it. I'm just letting people know I'm trying to be a mom. That's as much as I'm sharing. Yeah, I mean, having gone through miscarriage myself, if I was following someone and they just started going deep on this journey, I might just feel really poopy seeing that all the time. I brought up your house thing because it's like that's one type of vulnerability that's different than if someone's talking about their attempted suicide or something. There's like way a huge spectrum here and I think that that's important. So this person who wrote this question, I think asking yourself what kind of vulnerability it is if it's just you saying, oh, I'm scared to put this photo out there because I'm sharing my creativity. I don't think that's going to really trigger a lot of folks and I don't think that that's unrelated to your business. Does that make sense?

[0:12:49] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, no, totally. And I think that lighter end of vulnerability, like the day that I shared the video of how does my house get this messy, I just want you to know that this is what's behind the curated Instagram feed. It was a way for me to connect with my audience. My audience is a lot of moms, a lot of people that have kids because I do a lot of family photography. So them being like it's kind of like I'm not perfect and a lot of women, too, and we always think everybody has it better together than we do. So I just wanted to, in that moment, be like, look at, yeah, I'm.

[0:13:25] Natalie Jennings: A human, I'm right there with you.

[0:13:27] Audrey Nicole: And it really helps to bring some connection. So I do think sharing a little bit about yourself in those ways can be really helpful. Yes, because I connect with photographers when they share stuff like that too. When it's just strictly business, I don't connect as much, and maybe I like their photos. But there's another level, I think, when you're able to share a little bit more about yourself that people really especially nowadays. Yes, people are really seeking connection and not feeling alone in the world.

[0:14:02] Natalie Jennings: Showing the human behind the business, I think is huge. And I totally agree with you because if you're a service provider, it's just you. So people want to know a little bit. I share a lot about my dog, but I mean, people love it. I get so many comments about, like, how's ila doing? It's great. And it shows that I have, like, this other that I'm not just a photographer. I think that's really important and I gravitate towards that stuff too. And I think that's why I mentioned I think assessing bernet's quote is really important because it's like, is this something that might be better for people to optionally dive into or is this just me showing that, like, oh my gosh, I just spilled all of my coffee over my camera today. Holy crap, you guys, what am I going to do that would be interesting, you know what I mean? I don't know, but it's a totally different category. So showing behind the scenes of messy life is one category. But I think also, for example, having shared I might have mentioned it maybe, but like, having for the first time ever, just flat out said in public that I am trying to be a mom. I've not given any other information on that. And I've learned from doing that today that that's as far as I want to go, or at least on this platform, because I don't want to have to follow up with that or feel responsible to follow up with that with people.

[0:15:28] Natalie Jennings: I'm cool with people knowing that. But this is a great learning moment for whoever wrote this question because it's like, do you want to follow up with that? Do you want to say, like, I am feeling deeply depressed to your whole audience, and do you have the energy for them to come at you and say, what can I do? Are you okay? Do you have the energy for that? If you do, great. But I don't have the bandwidth or energy to answer everyone's questions on what's going on with this journey. I don't even want to share anything about it because I don't know how I'm just starting it. Should I choose to? I kind of want them to be able to opt into that.

[0:16:09] Audrey Nicole: I guess that's a really good point of like, you think about the moment of being vulnerable, but then think about the afterwards. Do you have the capacity for the follow up of you sharing something? Yeah, that's a really good point.

[0:16:23] Natalie Jennings: Yeah, I think this is such a great question because another really interesting thing to note here is that this audience is very different from jennings photo from my photography business, and I'm not saying anything on that platform about this. So already this container, this podcast, is already more intimate. People are drawn to these conversations you and I have because we're sharing personal stories and we're sharing sometimes vulnerable things, but people already know that. Does that make sense? Whereas I don't know what's going to happen in the next few months. I don't know how this is going to go, but I don't really feel the need to tell my photo audience that. That doesn't mean that you can't. But this is like a great this question couldn't have come at a better time because I'm in real time, like, parsing this out. I'm like, well, I don't really think my family clients need to know about this. I certainly will announce it. If things go well, there'll be a point where I have to tell people because it's going to affect my business and it'll be exciting. Right, but already this conversation isn't something that my photo clients would expect. This conversation is something that you all expect because you're here listening to this deeper dive into behind the scenes business.

[0:17:48] Audrey Nicole: Going through therapy with us over here.

[0:17:51] Natalie Jennings: Yeah. So, I mean, that's also something to consider. What does your audience generally expect from you? Like, if they've already been following you because you've been kind of vulnerable? I imagine, audrey, if you posted something like, whatever, vulnerable, we'll just say semi vulnerable. Not like, I spilled coffee on my camera, but whatever, that your audience might be more primed and receptive to that than mine because I don't ever do that on my photo account. Does that? Yeah, but if I were to share it on a different account like this one, people might be like, oh, okay.

[0:18:25] Audrey Nicole: Yep. That's a good point, too. That's a good question. I like this.

[0:18:29] Natalie Jennings: Yeah. Ultimately it comes down to how you feel and what kind of audience you're speaking to.

[0:18:36] Audrey Nicole: I think too, one last thing to consider is consider your business and we're what role it plays in your life. And understand that if you're vulnerable or voice opinions about certain things, you will deter some people and ask yourself if that is your goal and if that is okay.

[0:18:59] Natalie Jennings: That's awesome. Yeah.

[0:19:01] Audrey Nicole: In life, like, outside of business, well, I'm at a place in my business where it is okay for me to do that. But if I was relying on this, I feel okay being a little more niche in who is in my audience. But if you aren't there yet, then maybe consider that, too, because it's the Internet. It's the wild, wild west out here. You say something one way and you lose a friend forever. It's just silly. Yeah, but it's just the reality. So just consider that, too.

[0:19:31] Natalie Jennings: Attracting and repelling is such a great business exercise. I mean, if you are comfortable repelling people, that is ultimately going to build a stronger audience for you of people that you attract. So trying to be neutral so everyone likes you isn't necessarily going to attract the best people for you. No, but being comfortable, it is a business. So if you're like, I just want to run this business. I just want to take nice photos for people. I don't care people's, backgrounds, religions, whatever, I don't care what you are all about. I just want to take your photo. And that's me, too. All are welcome. But I also think that's why I'm pretty neutral on that account, because I want everyone to feel welcome and I'm not necessarily trying to repel people. Bring it over to photo business help. And I'm like, I'm reading tarot, and there are definitely people that are like, what is going on? I do not want this is not for me. Or there are people that are like, oh, my gosh, this is great.

[0:20:36] Natalie Jennings: I'm a photographer and I am totally interested in this. So that attract repel thing is a super personal choice, too, based on your audience, based on what you're trying to do.

[0:20:48] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, totally.

[0:20:51] Natalie Jennings: Hopefully that helps.

[0:20:52] Audrey Nicole: Lots to think about, but I love that.

[0:20:55] Natalie Jennings: Yeah, well, thank you for that question because I think it's a really confusing thing to ponder in this new, like you said, the Wild West. And I think having, like, I kind of started this, I probably should have read the question and then told you my thing, but something I'm thinking about, and it's also just everyone that listens to this knows knows this about me, too, but I'm really just feeling into my body on this one. Does that feel good to share that? It felt scary to share even what I shared today, but I'm fine with it. But does it feel good to go further? No, I don't need to. You know what I mean? Right now, that's how I feel, and maybe tomorrow I'll feel differently.

[0:21:36] Audrey Nicole: Yes, that's a good point, too. You can change your mind. You can adjust, refine all the things yeah.

[0:21:45] Natalie Jennings: That attract repel thing, too. One more thought on that. I think we already covered this, but be prepared. Be prepared that if you do go all in and just start talking about everything, that some of the people that right now really love you and what you're doing might not stick around for that. So that's about all you have to really consider.

[0:22:04] Audrey Nicole: Yeah.

[0:22:05] Natalie Jennings: Well, thanks, audrey.

[0:22:06] Audrey Nicole: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:22:08] Natalie Jennings: And if you'd like to send us a question for an upcoming episode. Send it to helpdesk at Photobiz help.com and we'll get to it. Okay, I'll talk to you soon.

[0:22:22] Audrey Nicole: bye.