Hi! What's goin on? :D

Hello! My name is Dawn Goei, owner of Apple Blossom Photography! I'm not late to the blogging game, I just cannot access my old blog anymore for some reason! You can find it here: OLD BLOG if you want to see some of my really old work (EEK!)! It has been well over a year since I have blogged anything!

For my first post on my new blog, I am just going to post some recent work. Things have been very busy at Apple Blossom Photography and for that, I am thankful. What have I been up to lately you ask? Well...

In February 2019 I decided to take a full time job in a whole different industry, Property Management. I started working as a Leasing Consultant for a local apartment complex (if you have any questions about Property Management, please let me know!). I really loved my job and continued to run Apple Blossom Photography on the side. I knew it would be hard, but I was up for the challenge. Fast forward to spring of 2020...Covid hit. Boom...I was shut down. I was so thankful for my full time job to help me get through the rough 2.5 months of negative income, uncertainty of my future, upset clients who demanded refunds (you guys, I had to give $2.5k in refunds with no income coming in). Basically I was using my job to keep my business afloat. 

What Covid also brought me was the importance of family and me time. I finally was forced to slow down. It was amazing. As I continued to work my Leasing Consultant job through the summer but I found myself just generally unhappy with the lack of freedom, time for family and friends and time for myself. I had to really sit back and look at what the solution was. Quit my business or my job. Ultimately,  I wanted to keep running my business because I really love capturing memories for my clients. Since I couldn't do both any longer, I left my full time job on 10/2/2020. 

Since I left, I have had approximately 10 family shoots, 23 school portrait shoots and 3 newborn/baby shoots. It has only been 9 days, I have been busy! 

I have many goals for ABP. They are: 

1. I plan to push my editing delivery time up at least two weeks. It has been hovering around 3-4 weeks for the past 1.5 years or so. Ideally I want to deliver images within a few days, but realistically I want to put it at 7 days. I am working on getting September shoots delivered and am currently on shoots done after 9/19. I'm getting there! I will also get newer shoots edited too, so I can get to my 7 day turn around. 

2. I am planning more holiday mini sessions. I have opened up more days which is awesome. I now have weekends to schedule these (I used to work every weekend at my Leasing Consultant job). I sold 172 last year and my goals are to sell at least 75 this year. I am not scheduling them as close together as I normally do, so I have more time to clean between shoots, so there will just not be availability to book so many! Example shoots on my backdrop will be coming out next weekend! If you are interested in a holiday session, they are booking here: HOLIDAY SESSIONS

3. Book more newborns! I mean, duh. :P 

4. Better customer service and email reply time. Still working on the emails, I am super behind from when I was working full time and moving. Its been an insane few weeks! 

5. Bring back the 1st year baby plan! I did away with my Blossoming Baby Package when I started working my other job. I am going to be bringing that back with new and exciting options! Speaking of new and exciting, I am going to offer more choices for sessions for your little babies! 

6. Last but not least, continue my education of photography. I can always grow and become a better photographer. It's obvious how much I have grown just from my first blog posts from 2009-2014! 

So at last, I close out this long post with some recent portraits I have taken. Please comment or ask questions about whatever!