Looking at Photography Through a New Lens

About a year ago, we started a Facebook page called Williams & Williams. I was learning a lot about photography and thought it might be possible to start making a little extra money on the side by taking photos of family and friends. It started slow, which was good for us because we are clearly not professionals and were just learning the ropes. Our friend Joa designed some pretty sweet branding for us, and with a little bit of thought and time, we had a part-time small business up and running.

It was a fun project for us to work on together, but as time went on, and as soon as Rooney was born, we had a different perspective. It seemed to be taking a lot of time, effort and energy, as most start-up businesses do. It wasn't that we were afraid of the work, it was that the work itself wasn't what we wanted to spend our time on. Family time became increasingly more important, and it's pretty difficult to be flexible with your time when you have a baby and already feel that you don't get to spend enough time together as a family.

We discovered a few things through the process. We don't really want to be professional photographers. We want to be bloggers. And while we could do both, we simply don't have the capacity to put effort into both hobbies. It was a little hard to accept and admit defeat, but in the end we feel confident that our time is better spent blogging while keeping photography as a hobby that helps us document life.

What We've Learned Along the Way

• Respect: We have a great appreciation for great photographers. Especially after learning so much about it and dipping our toes in the business side, it's given us a great awareness of the amount of effort, energy and creativity that goes into being a great photographer. Until now, we've taken all of Rooney's milestone photos, but going forward we're considering having a professional photographer take them so we can all be in the photos.

• Passion: We have more passion for writing than photography. While photos are a part of blogging, we know that content is king. And we strive to provide great content to our readers in hopes of inspiring you all in some way.

• Focus: Writing can take every ounce of creativity we have, and by putting our efforts into photography it left little creativity for writing. Writing just comes easier for us than photography.

• Fun: This probably sounds weird, but I enjoy photography more when I don't have the pressure of having to do it for someone else.

• Failure: Sometimes it's OK to admit that you've failed or, rather, need to change directions. We could have dabbled in this arena for years, but once we were able to talk through the pros and cons, it became clear that we needed to move in a new direction.

Marching On

We've taken down our pricing and information from the Facebook page. We'll keep the page up with the photos we've already posted, but probably won't be updating it too often. We do have a wedding booked that we agreed to shoot this summer with our friend Joa. It will be a fun event, I'm sure, but it's just not something we want to do a lot of.

So, I guess this is our official, "we're not accepting new photography gigs" post. We do still love photography and intend to pursue it as a hobby for our personal use and occasionally for close family and friends.

Have you ever had to change your intentions after jumping into something?