Two beauties on a Thursday morning! Mochi is a rescue pup who could not have found a better mom than Kali.
More pictures from this shoot can be found here.
Small Business
Mirror Image K9 Anniversary
When I heard about the news of a doggy daycare near me, I got excited but was hesitant at first. I have never been a fan of daycares where it’s just a free for all for the dogs. My dog can be timid and shy and I do not want to ever put her in a situation where I cannot be her protector. MIK9 is so much more than just a doggy daycare. They have some amazing people who interact with the dogs, teach them important skills, and hone in on the already existing ones. Not only do they encourage some play but also down time. Well, this place has now been around for over a year and I’m so, so happy to see how successful they have been. Cheers to many more anniversaries!
More pictures from the event and others can be seen here.
Hi there
I think it's finally time that I introduce myself to the people who are following me. My name is Elena and I have been designing and taking pictures since 2011. Born and raised in Germany, I came to the states as an Au Pair. Going to school while taking care of 3 kids, I found what I was passionate about pretty quickly! DESIGN.
Attending the Art Institute in Philadelphia, I realized I did not want to graduate with a lot of student loan debt. I went back to the Community College I had gone to before and graduated in December of 2010. By January of 2011 I had a job as a graphic artist in an in-house team which was one of the best jobs I have ever had. I found mentors and life-long friends.
In 2013, my husband and I decided to move south and we’ve been calling Atlanta our home since then. It came with lots of challenges, having to find new jobs, a new place to live, new friends, and starting all over again. Through training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at Borges BJJ we instantly found a new family and a new network of people from all sorts or backgrounds. Over the last few years, we have been lucky enough to be able to buy a beautiful house, adopt a dog, buy a new car, and I have travelled back to Germany fairly often to see my family.
Work wise life has been great. I'm working full-time for a small agency and love my job as well as the people I work for and with.
Doing photography on the side is something that brings me a lot of joy. Whether it is horses, dogs, clients' headshots, or snapping away while people are doing what they love doing, it is all exciting to me. I love the process, I love the editing, and the sending off to make clients happy.
In 2020, I would like to spend a little more time on promoting my business and connect with new people for some fun photoshoots.
Come & Follow @maas_creative
Since I’ve been working with @reinaandco on how to find my dream client, there have been a lot of ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ moments when it clicked and I had to dig in and find my answer in regards to my own business. It has been quite an interesting learning experience since she makes you think about your business and the clients you’d like to attract with multiple different exercises. Those exercises open some spaces that, without this program, I would have never thought about. But one thing she made me think about was my handle on Instagram. Since I changed my business name late last year from ‘Designed & Shot by Elena’ (rolls easily off the tongue, doesn’t it *eye roll*) to just MAAS, I now also had to think about what to call myself on my social media channels which was just shot_by_elena.
I started my accounts a while back when I was gung ho on leaving my designer career behind and solely focusing on photography. As life would have it though, an amazing design opportunity knocked on my door and as much as that opportunity scared the living hell out of me, I said YES. I love what I do and since then the ball has been rolling and more and more clients have been added to my roster.
So, I now also had to think about a new IG handle. Let’s move away from the whole ‘shot by’ thing and move into a more professional direction. The result is
@maas_creative
New IG handle!!!
I’ve been known to be a bit of a click bait whore and I have looked and googled a bunch of different programs that will help you with your own business, mentor you, support you, provide the right help for you, but none of those programs have been as intense as Reina’s. So, even though I have fallen just a tad off the wagon over the past few weeks since I’m transitioning to a new job while also working on my little side hustle, I will take time this weekend to catch up and dig in. It has started to make me think about my own business in a completely different way. But the name change for some reason was a biggie and it feels good to have something less cutesy and a little more adult-y.
So, for that little kick in the butt, thank you Reina. And the one or two of you who might be reading this, please come and follow me @maas_creative.
Showing face?
in Blog, Business, Photography, Small Business, Life
So, never really having thought about not showing faces in photos but rather take pictures from different angles to where you can’t see a face has only become more of a thing for me since I have a little niece. I started taking pictures of her when she was first born and I remember thinking ‘Do I really want to show her face or would I rather keep it hidden and not reveal what she looks like?’ (she is the cutest and most perfect little thing, but that’s beside the point). I then proceeded to think ‘Oh what’s the big deal, everyone is doing it’, but then thankfully my sister mentioned that she would like to not show her little girl’s face all over the web. I respect that and I think that’s how I might be with my own children as well (but I can’t really say that for certain just yet). I have also been noticing more and more that some of my friends who are new parents do not show their children’s faces online.
Now I’m guessing this is for all of my photographer friends out there. Have you had families ask you to not post pictures of their kids’ faces? If so, how do you go about it? I, personally, am a huge fan of detail shots such as the little fingers, feet, or just the fresh, golden locks of a little one.
But I’d love to hear from you and also from parents who have decided to keep their child’s identity private. Have you tried to keep it private and in a weak moment posted a picture of your cute, funny kid which opened the flood gates?
Source: showing-face
A little recap and grateful heart post
First of, I’m grateful for Erin @sweetfresno who checked in with me this morning to make sure I’m on track with all of my to-dos and especially writing this post. And second of, I’ve been part of an awesome online community for the past 2 weeks with Reina and company @reinaandcompany who will be teaching me how I will be able to pick out my dream client in order to grow this nice little business of mine.
These past 2 weeks have been extremely busy. Busy in a very good way thought. My own business is as busy as it has ever been and everything at my 9-5 is going pretty swimmingly.
I started with the aforementioned program that is helping me to find my dream client. Noodling about who I have worked with in the past and who I would love to keep working with in the future is difficult. But what I can say is that I have, over the years, worked very successfully with other women. Often it was women who were about to start or had just started their own business and through word of mouth they heard about me and what I do. I love meeting and consulting with my clients. Seeing the spark in someones’ eyes when they passionately talk about their business and then being able to help them be successful in said business is an unbelievable feeling and accomplishment. Seeing that I helped someone get their business off the ground and be as successful as they can be is amazing. Walking into a store and seeing the logo on the wall that you came up with next to marketing materials and bottle tags you designed is what I think almost every designer lives for. Check out what I did a few years back for my lady bosses at Art of Wax
This week had more ups than downs and the one down I had was from a client who was not happy about my pricing. For some reason I start doubting myself and start rethinking whether I’m charging people too much, but at the end of the day, I have had many clients and also many RETURNING clients which makes me very proud of what I have created within the last few years. The one client that made me doubt my prices juuuuuuuust a tiny bit, was a man… He is, NO DOUBT, not my dream client and will probably not be coming back to me, unless he has issues with his files. That’s okay.
I will keep thinking about who else my dream client would be but for now, if you are an eager and hard-working lady boss out there and you need a beautiful and well-thought out identity for your business, but you don’t want to download a $5 logo from Fiverr, shoot me a message!