Why Did It Take Two Years?

Since my big announcement yesterday, many people have asked me why the heck it took me two years to create my new course:

Secrets of Successful Event Photography

Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question. Because I don’t want to ever spend two years on a photography course again! That’s ridiculous.

First of all, to be clear, I wasn’t working on it full-time for the entire two years. But I did work on it steadily during that whole time, and for the past six months I worked on it full-time. Every. Damn. Day.

So what happened? Why did this beast grow into a two-year marathon?

There are several reasons:

1. I wanted to make the course useful to you, whether you (a) want to make extra money with your camera by shooting professionally, or you (b) just want to take better photos at the events we all shoot in daily life. It took a lot of planning, and revising, to make a course that would be useful to both kinds of photographers.

2. I took on a partner—best decision I ever made. When I started this course it was just a little thing called “Better Event Photography with Flash.” Just me teaching some flash techniques for events.

But then I joined forced with long-time pro event photographer Julie Kremen. Her vast experience shooting weddings, parties, and corporate events made a perfect complement to my experience in public events, sports, festivals, and nightlife. Suddenly we had it ALL covered.

3. So, the course grew. After joining forces with Julie, we had a lot more material to teach, so the course expanded, from just a handful of videos to 25 videos.

4. It took time to get a variety of real-world events for you. We wanted to take you with us in the field, but interesting event jobs don’t come along every day. So we patiently waited to get a variety of events, including:

• A high-paying corporate event
• A conference held on a cruise ship
• A TEDx talk in Germany
• A fancy evening gala with the mayor of our city
• A parade
• A big fashion show at the House of Blues

And of course we also show you hundreds of photos from past events we’ve shot including weddings, parties, corporate events, concerts, nightlife, and we use these photos to illustrate the lessons.

5. The course expanded again when I surveyed my subscribers (yes, you) about halfway through the creation and asked for your biggest event photography problems. I heard from over 1000 of you! And your questions and problems shaped the development of the course, because we wanted to make it as useful to you as possible. We even added a whole Q&A session just to answer questions that were not answered elsewhere.

6. Finally, everything I create seems to take a long time. At least three or four times as long as I expect it to. ( Even when I take that fact into account!)

That’s because I care. Because I don’t want to waste your time. If you’ve watched my videos, you know how much info I pack into a short span of time. Unlike some teachers who just turn on the camera and start rambling, I spend weeks or months carefully scripting and revising every word before I ever start shooting video. Then I edit very tightly to keep the information density high.

All that takes time. But my philosophy is to spend more of MY time in the creation to save YOU time in the consumption.

Because your time is valuable.

And I figure if I can give you useful information while saving you time, then I’m adding value to your life. And that’s the goal.

So, that’s why it took two years to create this course.

Now I need a vacation.

And while I’m on vacation, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Event Photography (and probably more), right here:

Secrets of Successful Event Photography

And don’t forget, right now during the launch you can save 33%, so get it before the price goes up.

Enjoy it.  I made it for you.  — Phil

Be Sociable, Share!

•