Great Escape Publishing

Posted April 17th, 2010 by Bonnie Caton & filed under Travel Photography.

When you go to work, do your clients pee on you? Do they roll around in dog poop when you break for lunch? Do they grab you by the arm and literally drag you wherever they want to go? Doesn’t sound like the ideal work environment, does it? It is for Adrian Hitt. Adrian took the stage this morning on the first day of our Ultimate Money-Making Photo Workshop in Nashville, Tennessee, to give us a very realistic — and funny — idea of what it’s like to be a “dogographer.” “You have to think like a dog to get their attention,” she said. “People say cheese. With dogs, you have to say ‘treat!’ And you really have to love dogs to do this well.” Dog photography isn’t always the cleanest activity… but to Adrian, who feels more creative with dogs than with people, it’s well worth it. Every day, she gets to wake up in the morning and feel excited about the day to come. And no two days are the same. Each one is an adventure in creativity, photography, and one of Adrian’s favorite things in the world — dogs. And that’s really what this conference is all about — following your passion (in Adrian’s case, dog photography) and earning a living (sometimes a very lucrative one) doing what you love. Each photographer presenting here has a passion and a story like Adrian’s. Food photographer and self-proclaimed “prolific dessert eater,” Kyle Dreier, is turning a nice income mixing photography with his love of food. Holger Mette, a lawyer from Australia, decided he wanted to take off and travel the world… so that’s what he does full-time, and he pays for it by selling his travel photos online. Shelly Perry hated her high-stress job working in social services. Now she spends her time hunting for intriguing stories to capture in her lens. If you couldn’t be with us here in Nashville this week at The Ultimate Money-Making Photography Workshop, keep checking your inbox over the next few days for our on-the-ground reports. We planted freelance writer and photographer David Morgan in the back of the room to “leak” out the best tidbits from our pros each day. Whatever your passion is in life — travel, dogs, cooking, botany, knitting, boating — it’s likely you can combine it with photography to make a living doing that thing that you love. “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” — H. Thurman Follow you passion and success will follow. That’s what we’re all about. Turning fun into paychecks. We want everyone to know that there’s more to life than a nine-to-five job… and that it’s not hard to break free and have more fun. Check in tomorrow for David’s first workshop report… — Bonnie Bonnie Caton Great Escape Publishing [Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can turn your pictures into cash in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Selling Photos for Cash: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]