Gratitude During the Holiday Season | Columbus Ohio Photographer - Erika Venci Photography

I have a pumpkin cheesecake in the oven, a dog that needs a bath, and packing to do for our Thanksgiving trip! During the busy holiday season, sometimes it is hard to pause and practice gratitude. In this case, I am thankful my son gave me enough peace to bake, thankful Leo is such a good dog, thankful for all of the endless little boy clothes I need to pack, and thankful to have family to be visiting for the holidays.

You may have heard before that I need tv shows or music playing while I am working late at night to help me focus. Lately, this has included many YouTube videos of interviews with Maya Angelou by Oprah and others. If you are looking for inspiration, look these videos up and start there. 

When you practice gratitude every day, it is amazing how much everything changes. A dear friend of mine, who is also a photographer also started on this journey with me a few weeks ago. Drowning in busy season and trying to figure out how we can improve our businesses for next year, we set goals for ourselves and talked about how important it is to have a positive state of mind and practice gratitude. 

Within days of consciously changing our mindsets, we were amazed at all of the amazing things that started happening for ourselves and our businesses.. the power of your state of mind is truly amazing. I realized that along with my hard work and dedication, changing my frame of mind to see the positives and be thankful in all situations, good and bad, was helping me to be successful in my business and in my personal life. 

So this holiday season, I challenge you.. to see the glass half full. Be thankful for what you have been blessed with.. even if it does not seem like you can find anything in that moment to be thankful for, there is always something. 

Love, 

Erika

Photos by Tara Heinl of Sweet Rose Elise Photography, edit by Erika Venci

Why I do What I do | Lifestyle Photographer Columbus Ohio - Erika Venci Photography

(It isn't summer without watermelon!)

Current situation in my house: 

There is a teething toddler taking what I can only hope to be a long nap, about 7 loads of laundry calling my name, 64 crayola crayons scattered on the first floor of our house (amongst other toys that I picked up last night), and 3 sessions waiting to be edited on my computer. 

Running a business from home while taking care of a toddler and trying to keep up with the housework is not for the faint of heart. Am I crazy to love it? Maybe. When you are passionate about something, I guess nothing can stop you or slow you down.

Blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this business of mine. And I don't know if anyone outside of my business will ever fully understand that. It is hard to explain the extent to which I care about my families and capturing beautiful moments for them. The hours I spend editing photos until skin tones or colors look just right, staying up until 1am working on my website, sending contracts to my families, uploading galleries, studying and learning, the list goes on.. I do it all because I love it and I want to give my families the best. 

Sometimes we don't realize all of the "behind the scenes" work that goes into running a photography business or any business for that matter. What you see is usually the tip of the iceberg of a business owner wearing many hats. When your sunset photo session in that beautiful field is over, it is time for me to really get to work and the 2 hours we spent together usually turns into more than 4 hours of editing for me behind my computer.

I'm telling you all of this because I want to share a little piece of my story with you and what it's like to be on this side of the camera. I pour my heart and soul into my images of your beautiful families. I feel so blessed to be doing many things that I love, including creating art for wonderful people.

As a way to keep in touch with my current and past clients, I would love for you to join me on my private Facebook group just for EVP clients. I will open up session dates and special offers here first and it will be a little oasis for my clients to ask questions or get in touch with me. Invitations will be sent soon and I hope you will join us! 

Love and Light,

Erika

And a special shout out (again) to my amazing husband, Carmichael.. thank you for believing in me and my crazy passion to follow my heart and do what I love. I love you.