What a way to kick off 2016!
This year started fairly normal this year. It was the New Year of course and that made me really excited to get going. Every year anyone who owns a small business hopes to have a phenomenal year. The goal of course – get a bunch of awesome new customers and also make ends meet. Everyone wants to succeed in business and do the best they can – which every year I have been fortunate to be about as busy as I can be to balance the other side of my life – my family.
Hacked
A week or so into 2016 I started getting messages from some of my customers that they had been charged hundreds of dollars by my old company First Blush Photography for products that they had not purchased. I came to understand that my Stripe account had been hacked and the criminals that had made their way into my business life had stolen from my customers. Thankfully, Stripe was a great company to work with and helped me get my customers money back to them as quick as possible – and to be honest, nothing like that is a quick process. I still thank the customers that stuck by me even when the banks and Stripe couldn’t seem to communicate very well and left me in the middle during the holiday season.
At the end of February in 2016, I was notified that I was no longer the owner of my domain by a fake profile on Facebook. They ripped images from my website and then made a fake profile page from it and messaged me to check the WHOIS directory on the internet. The WHOIS is the information that tells you who owns a domain for a website – much like a telephone book used to tell you the name of the owner of the phone number. When I looked I saw that it had been transferred and locked to another domain company and that was that.
I used all of my knowledge to try and get it back. The people who did this DID try to extort me and when I didn’t pay them, listed my old domain on Bitcoin sites for $250.00USD. If I had thought that is where it would have ended I would have been happy to pay to avoid the hassle this became, but I did not. I took the opportunity to rebrand and start fresh as Suzanne Taylor Photography and to be honest, it was time to do so. I just wish it wouldn’t have come about how it did and forced to make the decision out of desperation rather than choice. After all of this had come to be, I lost my domain temporarily, as well as my iCloud account that was hacked and stolen from me with all of my personal information, kids images, passwords and iTunes data. Thousands of memories and dollars gone at the hands of a criminal who likely did this for fun – with very little gain.
A month or so later, I was fully rebranded and was ready to put the first quarter of 2016 to bed. I lost so much in a matter of 3 months and had to work my tail off to get back to life to start April 2016.
The Good
Like any good economist will tell you, where there are downs there will be ups and there are cycles to just about all experiences in the human world. After a run of bad luck, often we are pleasantly surprised by a run of good luck, or at the very least not as negative luck.
In the Fall of 2016 I made a personal business decision to cease shooting weddings any longer due to mostly time commitments. This was a huge decision that I made and while I am not in the position at the moment to shoot weddings, I may look to return to shooting them in the future. If you were hoping to have me capture your wedding for you, please send me a note and we can discuss your needs. I am very happy to refer to any of my extremely talented peers within the Alberta area.
Considering the terrible beginning to 2016, it proved to be one of the best years I had on the books thanks to a fantastic Autumn season where I had multiple full sessions booked – I was bursting at the seams. My Fine Art Newborn Sessions have really picked up momentum as well this year I have some Fine Art sessions already booked for Spring/Summer 2017.
The end of 2016 also brought the news of a two more photographic awards that I had been awarded. In November 2016, I found out that I had placed 1st in the NAPCP (National Association of Professional Child Photographers) in the Family Category with an image that I captured in the early summer of last year. It was an amazing honor to come first place in this very prestigious international competition.
The planning has already begun in my mind for the Fine Art personal projects I have in mind this year. My oldest will turn 7 this summer with my triplets being 4.5, so this year I have a few more ‘demanding’ style shoots in mind – as well I have a project which I will be doing model calls for – so please watch your emails for these opportunities. I will be looking for younger children who can follow direction and are not camera shy – both boys and girls as the summer progresses.
I also am open for bookings for Fine Art Ballet & other dance disciplines, Family Connection sessions, Family Fine Art Sessions, Newborn, Baby Plan and Child Creative Portraiture sessions. If you are interested in booking a session, please do not hesitate to contact me and we can discuss your vision for your session.
Suzie
XO
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