Photography Workshop

I've just arrived back home from the lovely photography workshop at Briarcliffe College. I left my house at 5:30pm. Disappointed that I left my camera as well as my portfolio at home, I was glad that I was just able to go and listen. When I arrived, I was very pleased with the intimacy of the workshop and slowly throughout that there was a lot of interaction. I took a lot of ideas out of the workshop and received a lot of answers from the speaking photographers. One of the things I have trouble with the most with getting started is pricing. Right now, I'm only 17. I struggle maintaining that business confidence since I feel not many people take working with a 17 year old seriously. I feel as if, if I set $2,000 for the job, charging people who are 5 years older than me who I know personally is unrealistic. Currently, I wouldn't price for "nothing less than $18,000" (although I'd obviously LOVE that). Even $200 is a lot for me at my current stance. I also still deal with the awkwardness of setting a price since most of the people I work with now are mutually related in a personal way. I think I'm fine for now though.
I've concluded that I need more education, basically. I need to learn about business plans and "how to make a real person look good" and I also need more experiences. Many of the speakers talked about how one of the biggest challenged is learning how to problem solve. The only way to LEARN that is to have those problem solving experiences, and actually performing the solution.
I really enjoyed this workshop. I learned from other peoples Q&As and its always amazing to get advice from experienced people who have been in this industry as well as the fact that it was a panel of various photographers who shoot different things. Even the advertising speaker was really beneficial to listen to.
Overall, I think it was a wonderful night. I learned a lot, my boyfriend won me $100 and even he said he really enjoyed the workshop as well. Even though he's not interested in photography, he said he got a lot out of the advice on the business/marketing aspect. THE END!