Portfolio Reviews, Photo Feedback & Creative Coaching
Personalized coaching with an experienced mentor can be a transformational experience, especially in a creative field like nature photography. Through supportive feedback, you can benefit from an external perspective and insights that can be clarifying, time-saving, and confidence-building. Working with a coach can help you identify priorities, improve your skills, or work through creative challenges more effectively than you might be able to do on your own.
A coach can also help you see themes in your work, refine your personal style, and work towards developing a stronger creative voice. While all sorts of educational resources are available for nature photographers, most are not tailored to your specific needs and goals. Coaching can bridge that gap by focusing entirely on you and your creative goals. Each 1.5 hour session with Sarah is $150. (Discounts are available if you would like to sign up for multiple sessions. Get in touch for details.)
WHY WORK WITH SARAH?
Prior to becoming a full-time nature photographer, Sarah worked as a management and leadership consultant with nonprofit organizations and foundations. A major part of her practice included working with leaders and staff on setting and achieving personal and organizational goals. Sarah brings many years of experience in mentoring and informal coaching to her photography business.
Sarah also has extensive experience in leading professional development sessions and is known for her practical, accessible teaching style. All of this is in addition to her extensive experience as a nature photographer, photography educator, and writer. Sarah’s coaching starts with your goals in mind and is offered with the intention of being kind, helpful, encouraging, and practical.
You can learn more about Sarah’s background and photography experience here.
Portfolio Reviews, Photo Feedback, and Personalized Coaching
Through this service, Sarah offers personalized, in-depth coaching in 1.5 hour blocks on all topics related to nature photography, including:
Detailed photo and portfolio reviews, including discussions about personal expression, storytelling, composition, light, technique, and photo processing
Working through creative challenges, like burnout, building confidence, building a portfolio of personal work, or making progress on big personal goals
Composition, including feedback on current photos and coaching on improving your compositions in the future
Personal expression, including exploring what you want to express through your photos and exercises to develop your personal style
Improving your field practices, especially around seeing opportunities, improving your observational skills, and taking advantage of all conditions
Black and white photography, including seeing opportunities in the field, experimenting with files you have on hand, and photo processing
Start-to-finish photo processing using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop (both color and black and white)
Improving your ability to see and photograph nature’s small scenes
Small business development including strategy, goal-setting, audience development, financial planning, and evaluation
How do these sessions work?
Generally, these sessions happen online through Zoom. Since we all learn in different ways and this kind of session can feel intimidating, we can also mix up the format so it works best for you. For example, I can also provide a recorded video of my feedback on your photos or we can work through written correspondence. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss one of these alternative formats, including timing and cost.
The coaching process starts with a brief written interview so Sarah can get a sense of your personal photography goals and gain an understanding of what you hope to get out of the session. You will then have the opportunity to submit photo files related to your goals for the discussion, which Sarah will review in advance to make the most of our time together. Photo review sessions typically include an in-depth discussion about 5 to 10 finished photographs. During the session itself, we will have the opportunity to discuss your intentions for each photo and specific areas of feedback you wish to receive. Sarah will also provide feedback about composition, technique, use of light, photo processing, things that work best, and things that could be improved. The session will wrap up with some general observations and recommendations for areas of study or practice that could help you improve your photography moving forward.
For other types of sessions, we can discuss the format that will work best for you in advance of our time together. Expect to do a short written interview as a first step.
This service is available to photographers of all skill levels. Unless we are traveling in an area without internet, sessions are usually scheduled within two weeks of receiving payment. Sarah’s feedback starts with your goals in mind and is offered with the intention of being kind, helpful, encouraging, and practical.