working with your spouse

Working with Your Spouse, Part 6

This is part 6 of a 6 part series on husband and wife photography teams. In this series I highlight many of the struggles Geoff and I faced as husband and wife business partners and how we overcame them.

This goes without saying, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy. It’s a process. Compromise in your business means a number of different things. Sometimes you have to compromise on your ideals.

Working With Your Spouse, Part 5

This is part 5 of a 6 part series on husband and wife photography teams. In this series I highlight many of the struggles Geoff and I faced as husband and wife business partners and how we overcame them. Look for the series posts on Fridays.

Divide and Conquer

One of the biggest challenges in running a wedding photography business is the never ending workload. Your business isn’t just taking wedding photos, in fact that is usually the smallest piece. Once you throw in accounting, legal issues, sales, marketing, production, emails, print orders, networking, etc. things can quickly become overwhelming.

Working with Your Spouse, Part 4

This is part 4 of a 6 part series on husband and wife photography teams. In this series I highlight many of the struggles Geoff and I faced as husband and wife business partners and how we overcame them. Look for the series posts on Fridays.

Separating the Hobby from the Business

One of the biggest pitfalls in professional photography is separating your love of photography from the realities of running a business. It’s a very fine line, and one that many photographers struggle with. The problem is that we all love photography and as creatives, we see the potential art of each and every image. Many photographers get caught at their desk until the wee hours of the night working on one image for hours. If you are being well paid to spend extra time on a certain image-perhaps it’s been ordered as a 20×30 wall portrait, then that is reasonable.

Working with Your Spouse, Part 3

This is part 3 of a 6 part series on husband and wife photography teams. In this series I highlight many of the struggles Geoff and I faced as husband and wife business partners and how we overcame them. Look for the series posts on Fridays.

Determine if the Arrangement is a Partnership or “Helping Out”

When you work with your spouse, it’s important to determine and get agreement on if this is a partnership or if one person is just helping the other person out. Is there a boss or will all decisions be made jointly? This is key to consider and discuss. If one partner begin helping the other out, that can eventually lead to a partnership, but the waters get murky along the way. If your spouse is coming home from their 9-5 to help out on the side, they may feel that they are doing you a favor to help you.