1/10: December Learnings
I moved to DC in November of 2025 with the intention of starting my freelance photography business. Here’s everything I learned:
Opportunities will never present themselves if you don’t chase for them.
In December I had this goal to start outreach and I wanted to achieve that through two means:
social media
cold outreach
In college, I didn’t have too much trouble finding work. In fact, I’ve actually had to turn down gigs in the film industry cause my calendar filled up quick in previous peak seasons. So, I approached outreach the same way. A few DMs, a couple of emails with a link to the front of my website and waited…
I kept posting, and then I got insanely sick with the flu around Christmas before I realized that it was almost new Year’s eve and I hadn’t gartered as much response that I had wanted.
My problem was moreso, while doing outreach, i wasn’t posting or creating. When I was creating, I lacked outreach. I needed to garter a better system.
So in January, I broke my day down into 3rds.
Personal. Make meals, do laundry, exercise, and work my day job.
Outreach. Minimum 10 DMs/Emails per day. Right now I’ve been averaging around 11-12 but that 10 is the bottom line.
Inbound. Doing work for current clients, and working on being present on social media.
This helps me keep an INSANELY focused balance. I’m still keeping myself alive, and healthy, i’m still making clients happy, and I get to develop my business further.
2. Having content on “standby” will save you when life gets crazy.
Yeah. This one I’ll be using way more often in the future.
When I used to sit down and make my videos, I would really only make enough for the week to post maybe two times a week plus the blog. At first it wasn’t a bad system, but then I got the worst functional cold in the universe T W I C E in December about two weeks apart. I wanted to do nothing more than stay in bed and rest, but that led to leaving my work behind. After getting over the cold, and getting over myself I realized I needed a little bit extra after every time I recorded, or sat down to make some carousels.
Even if I made one extra video from the batch I make and just put it on the side, It would help recover for an extra day or even two if life get’s a little crazy. If I record even 3 vides of b-roll of me going about my day, that can be turned into something that I can post from my couch weeks later. It avoids a cycle of being overwhelmed, and puts a system in place where I don’t have to panic if I’m traveling and can’t make anything. The content already exists.
3. Making art, and building a business are just like muscles.
Long answer made short: it takes time and practice. It sucks to know you made a mistake, but it’s better to recognize a mistake and create space where you build systems to promote success in the future. It was a little shaky to find my rhythm, but now we’re here and we’re striving for the future in 2026.