Happy Saturday! If you’re reading this blog post, chances are you’re a newer photographer who somehow stumbled upon information about the Hunter and Sarah Photography Apprenticeship. Welcome! We’re so glad you’re here. Sarah and I started this program in early 2019 as a way to come alongside new photographers in the early days of their photography businesses to help them grow. In the early days of our own photography business, we discovered that finding a wedding photography internship isn’t like finding an internship in banking or marketing or scientific research, and we felt like there really wasn’t anything like it in our area. So we started our own!

 

Since we began this program, it’s been one of the most fulfilling and exciting parts of our wedding photography business. Yes, we absolutely LOVE photographing couples during their surprise proposals, engagement sessions, and on their wedding days! But to see our Apprentices grow from “a person with a camera that I kinda know how to use” to successful photographic businesswomen and businessmen has been a unique and fulfilling joy.

 

Ahead of a crazy-packed 2021 season (assuming things improve with COVID-19, which we’re ALL hoping and praying for), we’re looking to bring on one or maybe even two additional apprentices to bolster our team and join our community. So today, we’re taking some time on the HSP Blog to share about what the program looks like for our Apprentices! It really comes down to 5 things…

 

 

1. Wedding Days with Hunter and Sarah

We know that the #1 best way for our Apprentices to learn whether or not a career in wedding photography is for them is to actually experience a wedding day from start to finish! That’s why we bring one of our Apprentices with us to almost every single wedding we photograph! A few times a year, we reach out to the entire team and get everyone’s availability for the next few months. Then, we assign each Apprentice to each of our wedding days.

 

On the day of the wedding, they act as our third-shooter, building their own early wedding portfolio, while observing first hand how two award-winning wedding photographers run a wedding day. Since Sarah and I can confidently capture every angle of the wedding day without them, there’s no pressure to capture perfect images. If some of their photos turn out great, then our clients will get them next to our own images. But if not, no worries – it was a learning experience for the Apprentice!

 

Of course, at times the Apprentice acts more as our assistant, running to grab that lens from our camera bags when the flow of the day unexpectedly changes, or grabbing water for our bride during a hot summer portrait session. But the goal is that they spend the entire time learning and observing, and shooting as much as they’re able!

 

Although our Apprentices shouldn’t expect us to pause in the middle of our bride and groom’s golden hour portrait session to give them some pointers, during the slower moments on the wedding day, we love to pull them aside and give them a pointer here and there, or talk through why and how we’re doing what we’re doing. We find this especially helpful for our Apprentices during the reception, as it’s the least familiar piece to our Apprentices who have only shot portrait sessions before!

 

 

2. Learning and Practicing Post-Production

After the wedding day, our Apprentices will receive the entire gallery of wedding images shared via the cloud. We’ll teach them step-by-step how we handle our own post-production workflow, then they can get to work culling the wedding day on their own time and their own computer over the few days following the wedding! Sarah and I typically shoot between 25 and 35 weddings (and over 100 portrait sessions) each year, so over time we’ve developed super effective and uber-efficient post-production methods!

 

Our Apprentices not only learn those exact methods, but also get to view the wedding day that they were a part of through our own imagery, right next to theirs. They can think back to the conversations we were having while I captured flat-lay details, while they look at the exact images I was capturing. Or they can remember the instructions Sarah gave them during the reception, and look at their own images right next to hers. Although we know that post-production is time-consuming, it’s still a massively important part of the learning process!

 

 

3. Quarterly Apprentice Gatherings

As a thank-you for all their help with the wedding days, four times each year, we host a “Quarterly Apprentice Gathering.” While we look forward to the day when we can meet in-person for these gatherings again, recently they’ve all been virtual! In the past, we’ve taught on business fundamentals, posing couples for portraits, and we do an annual group portfolio review each winter. We hope future gatherings will include a Styled Shoot where we teach on shooting techniques, an editing workshop, or whatever else our Apprentices would find helpful!

 

We’ve found that these times are not only super valuable for each Apprentice individually, but are also the one time each quarter when all of them are in the (sometimes virtual) room together! One of our favorite parts of the program is the community we’ve seen develop among the current Apprentices, and our Apprentices GroupMe is active almost daily. They’ve captured each other’s website photos, done practice shoots together, and promoted each others’ businesses on social media. We have no doubt that when they begin to shoot their first weddings as lead photographers in 2021, they’ll be using each other as their second shooters!

 

 

4. Monthly Two-on-One Coaching with Hunter and Sarah

It didn’t take us long to realize that each of our Apprentices, although in similar places in their businesses, had certain unique challenges and opportunities in their fledgling businesses. So each month, Sarah and I hop on video chat for a one-hour coaching call with each of them individually. This is one of the reasons we need to keep the program very small and very selective – we can only do SO many coaching calls each month while hosting the quarterly gatherings AND running our own six-figure business!

 

We know from their feedback that these times have been invaluable for our Apprentices. And just as helpful as the time together is the “homework” we assign at the end of each coaching call. We know that even just the subtle expectation that they knock out these tasks before our next meeting can be a powerful incentive to make an impact in their business that month!

 

 

5. Beyond the Apprenticeship

This is — as of right now — the least-defined area of the program, but also the one that excites us the most. When we interview each of our applicants, we let them know that — if they are accepted into the program — there are three ways that the program ends for them.

 

First, we always reserve the right to ask them to leave the program. Although we’ve only had to do this once, we know that every time we push for new applicants, we get 8-10 applications for one or maybe two spots. If we turned people away so that we could take you into our family, we expect you to fulfill the role that you’ve asked for. If Apprentices show up late or bail on wedding days, or show up and act in a way that doesn’t represent our brand well or shows us that they’re in it for themselves, or they don’t participate in our quarterly gatherings on multiple occasions, we may be forced to ask them to give up their spot so someone more dedicated can take their place. Of course, we have plenty of grace for family emergencies and the like, but we know that the program is only effective after a certain level of commitment!

 

The second (and far and more likely scenario) is that our Apprentices eventually “graduate out” of the program. We know that going along on wedding days is absolutely invaluable for newer photographers who have never shot a wedding before. But as their businesses grow and they begin to book their own weddings, we know (and hope!) that they won’t stay our Apprentices forever. The good news is that there’s no set time-table for this. We hope that our Apprentices join the program, commit to it fully, and stay as long as they find the program valuable. Then, they’re welcome to move on when they’ve got their own wings to fly!

 

The third option is to level up within Hunter and Sarah Photography. For the Apprentices who prove themselves dependable and committed, as well as talented photographers and businesspeople, there may be opportunities for growth within our business, as well as in their own. Maybe that means taking on paid post-production beyond the handful of wedding days they come along on. Maybe it means joining a referral program with us where we send them leads from brides who love our brand, but can’t afford us. Or maybe one day it’ll mean becoming Associate Photographers who shoot their own weddings under our brand. Many of these ideas are still theoretical, but who knows what the future holds?!

 

 

Thanks for reading more about the Hunter and Sarah Photography Apprenticeship! If you aren’t able to join the program, but still want to learn from us click here to check out the “For Photographers” section of our Blog! We’ve been writing content aimed at newer photography businesses since 2018!

 

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