When I think about all the people I’ve met and worked with over my career who are the leaders, the movers and the shakers in our industry, Dane Sanders comes to the top of the list.  What’s ironic is that I’ve really only known him for a few years.  Dane is one of those people you just feel like you’ve known your whole life and can’t imagine a time when they weren’t in it!

I remember having a long discussion with Dane about the time slot for his program at the convention last year.  He was concerned over the time and size of the room and worried that enough people might not come to fill it.  Well, they not only came, but it was standing room only and he had to do an encore presentation the next day.

What makes Dane a success and a leader as a professional photographer?  It’s very simple – he puts more weight on focusing on his family, friends and giving back to the industry and community than he does on focusing his camera.   As simplistic as that sounds, pick up a copy of Fast Track Photographer and you’ll see what I mean after the first twenty pages.  

 The very last line of Dane’s book says it all and couldn’t be more sincere, ” I am excited about what you will become!”

From Fast Track Photographer, with Dane’s permission:

When a bride is looking for a photographer, she will commonly say something like, “photography is really important to me.”  For the vast majority of brides, what that means is remembering the day well is important to them and they see photography as the vehicle for making that happen.

Remembering the day well through photographs means they want those images to elicit feelings they want to have experienced or actually did experience on their wedding day.  If the images are bad, of course, this will get in the way of the bride experiencing those feelings.  But this is important to remember: the images do not have to be museum pieces either.  The important thing is that they fulfill the function for which they are designed.  That is, they work for the bride, not for you.

Think of it like a song that brings back a flood of feelings.  A ten thousand dollar sound system isn’t required to bring those feelings back.  The sound just needs to be good enough.  And, since most people don’t have a trained ear, even if it were on a great stereo, the experience wouldn’t be much richer.

Brides (and most people, really) know the difference between good photography and bad photography.  But very few know the difference between good photography and great photography.  So if your focus is more on being a brilliant photo artist than being a vehicle for feelings, you’ll need to do some refocusing.