What is my job to you? Do you truly understand what it means to be a photographer? Or any business owner really.

It would be truly wonderful if all I had to worry about was taking pretty pictures. I can only dream. Behind the rainbow and sunshine curated screens of Instagram, you’d see me spending my time editing until 3am consistently in an office I can barely walk through because I would rather spend my time working than cleaning. It’s so late because I took the afternoon to play with my two year old and my evening was spent trying to catch up with my husband for maybe an hour. You’d watch me format cards for an hour and still think that 33 memory cards isn’t enough to keep things “safe”. You’d understand how I sat staring at my screen watching a three hour video on how to be a better marketer for this industry. You’d see me sit and worry that I’m not blogging enough, or the right way, or too much because I fear I’d lose my audience. I’ll spend two hours designing the perfect wedding album, and then another hour to make changes that the client requested. You’d see me driving for hours every week to rent my dream lens for every wedding because I can stomach the bill to buy it outright. You would go with me to countless meetings with other amazing business owners so that together we can learn and grow our businesses to our fullest potential. It’s not all tea and crumpets and selfies people. I would love for someone to spend two hours a day answering emails, Facebook messages, Instagram direct messages, snapchat chats, and whatever else clients may use to communicate with me. Let’s not even start on taxes and bookkeeping! Oh, and then my hard drive fails and I’m set back three days because I’ve been on the phone troubleshooting with some man in California trying to talk me through the process to recover everything. On any given day you’d witness a breakdown or two because I realized I made a mistake and have to start all over again. Or maybe it’s because I can hear my daughter playing in the next room with her nanny and wish I could be in there but instead, I have to write another blog post that I can’t find the words for.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, being a business owner can be the most rewarding career and the biggest burden in one fell swoop, and I know I’m not alone. So for all of you business owners, no matter what you do, I see you. I want you to know that I understand that in order to make your dreams come true, you can’t sit on the couch binge watching Gilmore Girls, and that you’ve got no one else in the office picking up if you slack off for a day or two. We wear many hats, you and I, and they may not all be glamorous, but you know what?

We’re gonna rock them.