Spring Update + Chicago Booking for May!

Happy Tuesday to you!

How is the Spring season treating you? 🌸

Mine is going fairly well! Especially compared to about this time last year. I have been working with some amazing clients (as always, honestly lol) and managing my mental illness much better than I have been in quite some time. That’s huge for me, so I’m pretty happy about that :)

My last Truthy Tuesday at the beginning of the year was a not great one… Since then, I’ve been incorporating a number of things in an effort to craft some semblance of wellness and… although the bad days aren’t gone completely, I can say that I have been doing a bit better these past few weeks and I am super grateful for that. If you’re interested, I can go more into detail on that in another post :)

Before I get on to the availability updates and whatnot, I have a new book recommendation:

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day.

This book has been really helpful in regards to changing how I view my personal priorities vs what’s important to others and combined with the principles from the previous books I shared, I think I may be onto something! As soon as I can successfully apply these things to my life lol. But having the tools is a great first step :)

Onto the availability updates!

I do hope you’ll forgive me for the late notice BUT-

Chicago, I’ll be in your city at the beginning of May!

You guys didn’t get as much notice as Atlanta unfortunately because quite a few spots were booked ahead of time, but I have 3 spaces left available on May 2 and 5.

You can check out the details and secure your session here!

On the home front, weekends are going F A S T.

I updated my calendar this week, and… there are only 3 weekends left available for May and June! Plenty of weekdays available, so if you’d like to get on the calendar sooner than later, that may be your best bet.

Also, you may have noticed that I typically have early appointment times listed. Why is that? 3 reasons:

1. Less people which means less car and pedestrian traffic, 2. Cooler temperatures. As the weather heats up, this means that we’re able to shoot comfortably without being super hot, and 3. Although good light can be found at any time, I tend to enjoy morning light. So even though I’m not a morning person, I don’t mind sacrificing for the sake of art, and I do hope you’re open to creating in the morning hours with me as well :)

Want to get on the Spring Calendar? Check out the available dates and if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email! I’d love to photograph you this Spring for your headshots, brand, graduation, or family photos!

That’s it for today! I hope your week is treating you well and I look forward to creating beautiful art with you this Spring season!

ATLANTA | April 2019

Happy Monday to you!

Towards the end of last month, I shared that I was coming back to Atlanta in April! Booking opened up last week to the mailing list, and now? Just 3 spots are left! 😲 I even added an extra one just so I’d have the opportunity to work with at least one more person while I’m in town :)

Check out the info below if you’d like to grab one of the last few spots!

The following sessions are available for booking in Atlanta from Friday, April 5 to Sunday, April 7:

Please note: If no dates are shown as available, the time has been booked. You’re welcome to inquire if you’re interested in a time that’s not shown as available, but I cannot guarantee calendar availability.

This session is perfect if you're just looking for a updated photos for your career. You'll for sure walk away with a few great headshots, but full body photos are included as well.

This session is perfect to celebrate a milestone for yourself or your family. Or if you're feeling cute and just want to shoot :)

This session is for the entrepreneur in need of full brand imagery. You'll walk away with a versatile final gallery with images that you can use across your online platforms and for print marketing.

This session is specifically designed for photographers looking to improve their natural light portrait photography. Please view the full course description here. This is an all day (roughly 7 hour) session.

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Ready to secure your spot?
Just click on the button above for the service that you'd like, and you can book right away!

Have any questions?
Click over to the FAQ page! You can also shoot me an email if you don’t see your question there, and I'd be happy to answer it for you!

I look forward to creating with you in Atlanta!

2019 Headshot Special | Specials

Following up on the last post about brand photos… I have something that you'll definitely be interested in if you're looking to update your headshots this year:

The 2019 Headshot Special!

Last year was the first year the Mini Headshot Special was held and it received such great feedback that I decided to bring it back for year two!

Just a quick note: Booking was first available to the mailing list, and now it’s open to the general public, so if you're thinking about booking, you might want to move on it. There WERE 6 spots available. Now? Only 2 are left. Check out the full details below!

Here are the details:

The Mini Headshot Special will be booked in 60 minute increments- with makeup taking place first, photo session to follow.

This special is $425 and includes the following: 
• Professional makeup application for 1 
• 20 minute headshot session for 1* 
• One outfit 
• Your choice of 3 retouched high-resolution images (w/ option to purchase additional)

*Full body photos will be included, for a diverse final gallery to choose from!

To take advantage of this: You must be located in (or willing to travel to) Washington, DC. Your session must be booked no later than February 1, to be photographed on February 23. All headshot sessions will be photographed at an awesome indoor location in Washington, DC! (So we'll be good to go no matter what the weather is doing outside :)

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Not so sure? Maybe you'd enjoy hearing from someone who participated in last year's Mini Headshot Special:

"I have been following DFinney's work for years! I've always loved her vivid coloring and ability to capture real moments in ways that still look polished. When I worked with her for my headshots, she exceeded my expectations 20x over! I never felt like I was able to capture who I am in photos, but Danni gave me great direction and made me feel so comfortable- and my pictures showed it! I LOVED working with her (loved the process and her organization), and I hope to work with her again soon!" 
-Tara Carter

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Looking for a bit more than headshots? Check out the regular business session packages to see if one of those would be a better fit for you!

Additional questions? View the FAQs and feel free to shoot me an email if you have a question that's not answered there!

I look forward to hearing from you soon and creating awesome business imagery with you next month!

2019 Business [Photo] Goals + Ideas

This week I've been talking about my difficulty with goals and shared a couple books that have been helpful to me... but I want to expand on that a little.

Along the lines of making steps towards your goals, but not being quite sure how to execute, I want to share a resource to help when it comes to business photos! After all I am a photographer, right? Sidenote: I do want to thank you for allowing me the space to share more than just photos with you :)

One year ago today, I released my FREE GUIDE to Better Brand Photos and it has since taken on a life of its own, with almost 500 downloads! I can't tell you how happy I am that’s been such a helpful resource to those looking to make the most out of their business photos!

But that’s just one piece of what I have for you today- I’m really pumped about today’s post- where you get to see brand photos IN ACTION! I’m talking about websites, podcast graphics, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram profiles, about pages, media features, you name it.

This post is chock full of links to please click away! Each photo is linked to where you can see the images in use online.

Websites

I can’t tell you how happy it makes me when I visit a website that has beautiful imagery. It immediately makes me want to learn more about the person, service, or product I’m researching! It’s an honor to provide my clients with custom photography to present their brand in a warm and personable manner. Here are just a few of my lovely clients who put their photos to excellent use on their websites!

Jenée Padmore

jeneepadmore.com

Tamika Felder

tamikafelder.com

Amber Wright

talktoamber.com

Naché Snow

nachesnow.com

Media Features

The perfect accompaniment to your media feature is a great photo!

Danielle Torain
Baltimore Children & Youth Fund

Dr. Joy Bradford
Forbes

Arsha & Charles Jones (Capital City Co.)
Black Enterprise

Bio/About PageS

Not every brand’s website lends itself well to using their photos throughout. This is especially the case when it comes to fellow creatives. Their website is to showcase THEIR work, not mine :) But a great photo is always welcome on the about page!

Janelle Jaqueline

janellejaqueline.com

Andrea Pippins

andreapippins.com

Podcasts

Just like an album cover, a great podcast cover can MAKE you want to listen! It’s a true honor to be the photographer for these amazing women entrepreneurs.

Social Media

Of COURSE social media is one of the top things people think about for the use of their photos, but I included it last because there are just way too many to share so I’ll only do a few (each social profile is linked below their name).

Dr. Joy Bradford

Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. LinkedIn.

Nicole Walters

Facebook. Instagram. Twitter.

Stacy Pierce

Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn.

Alison Hector

LinkedIn. Instagram. Facebook.

That was cool, right!

This was a lot of fun compiling, yet it’s only a very small fraction of the brand photos currently in use!

I wanted to share this because sometimes you can make strides towards a goal you have, but making those last few steps can be daunting when they’re not clear. So... if one of your goals for the new year is to take (or update) your business photos, I got you! Download the brand guide and save this post as a reference for ideas on how you can best use your images once you have them :)

And because I’m in such a sharing mood, I’m going to tell you a secret- if you’ve been thinking about updating your headshots, save the date of February 23, 2019 and sign up for the mailing list ASAP! I’ll be sharing something exclusively with them on Monday :)

Thanks for rocking with me this week, I hope you have a great weekend!

The (not so) Little Things

“We’ll get there by making small adjustments, little by little and taking it one moment at a time.“

In last week’s post, I mentioned that I am working on making adjustments to get a healthier mode of operating going and today I wanted to share some of the “little things” that have been helping me along in that process!

Before I get to that though, I want to talk briefly about goals.

Ya’ll.

Goals are hard! At least for me they are.

Trying to identify and differentiate between what I want, what I need, what’s best for me… vs. societal influence, expectations others may have, and my own negative/limiting thoughts… THAT’S what’s hard.

Then attempting to visualize and break down said goals into actions while depressive thoughts attempt to suffocate them? Man.

When I tell you it’s a daily struggle, it is just that.

BUT I have found that shrinking my goals down to verrry small steps has been helpful in tricking my brain to have a bit less resistance to the changes.

How am I doing that?

Well, that leads me to what I want to share today- two books that I’ve found quite beneficial:

Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day and Mini Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results.

These books have easily been some of the most helpful books I’ve read in quite some time. They take the “baby steps” concept and break it all the way down, showing you just HOW to do so.

For me, baby steps have always been hard because I want to do all of the things! Now! And sometimes I can! But… most times I can’t. And to be honest, not only is that not sustainable, but that’s not how lasting change happens. It happens gradually, and these books do a wonderful job at showing you how to harness that power.

This is the shorter of the two books and gives you a new way of thinking about not only time management, but life management. And how much you can really get done during the course of each day- when your goals are clear, and you set aside time (even a little time) for what’s important to you.

This book goes a little more in depth on the science behind why this method works (which I always find intriguing because I love learning more about how our brains work), and guides you through a few different ways that you can successfully implement mini habits into your daily routine.

What makes these so different from other habit books? In short, the fact that it encourages you to break down your goals so that they’re so stupidly small, you feel silly avoiding it. Not only that, but the fact that you’re making such small commitments, they bypass the brain’s natural inclination to resist change.

I know everyone’s journey is different, but whether you’re looking to make progress with your personal or professional development, daily habits are key. If you’ve struggled with trying to implement changes (which, I feel like we all have in some form or fashion), I highly suggest giving these a read, or a listen- they’re both on audible as well.

I’d love to hear what you think after you have a chance to check them out!

What are some “little things” (books or otherwise) that have been helpful to you in your efforts to make changes?