1. Book the truck for longer than you’ll think you need it

Working with old cars always adds a little more risk and that’s something I didn’t really think about when I scheduled my time. I didn’t want to book my truck for longer than I needed to decorate and use it for, but in retrospect, I should have played it safe and booked it earlier. We ran into a problem with the truck that made it late to our session which meant that I had to reschedule a whole block of sessions. Fortunately, mostly everyone could reschedule and they were cool about it but I won’t be making that mistake again.

2. Prep Your Clients

A lot of people ask me, “what do you do if someone’s late?” Because these sessions are back to back, and they’re only 15 minutes, I over prepare my clients for their session. I prep my clients with all the info they will need to make it to their session with time to spare. I want my clients to feel like they know exactly what they can expect so that they feel confident coming up to their session. So my answer to this question is always, “They’re not late.”

3. Hire someone to help you!

I could not have pulled off this day without the help of my friend Meaghan. Someone to help sanitize all the props we used, someone to help rearrange the setting when I moved clients to different locations, and of course, someone to help get you behind the scenes images to help your future clients see what it’s really like to be at one of your sessions.

4. Come prepared with a shot list

I had scoped out the location I was using at the time I was going to be shooting the week of my mini session. I wanted to make sure I’d have everything I needed and that I knew which shots I was going to get beforehand so that I gave myself the best chance possible to get as many great images as I possibly could. Having a shot list definitely made me more calm during the session and gave me the confidence to take charge of the session to get my client’s the end result they would want.

5. Don’t sweat the small stuff

Here’s the deal, nothing in life is ever going to go perfectly. Sometimes the kiddos don’t want to be there, sometimes the weather isn’t cooperating, and sometimes your main prop is running late. The most important thing is for you to just roll with the punches because your clients feed off of your good energy and if you want to get them a great end result, then you’ve got to be positive.