How to best prepare for a session.

You found me on Instagram or Google, got in touch with me, we now have a session on the calendar and the question arises ‘What am I going to wear?’

For the human(s):
Don’t sweat it. Most importantly, I want you to feel comfortable in whatever you are wearing. Another plus is if it is an outfit without a super busy pattern or oversized logos.

For your dog(s):
The dogs usually look their best the less they have on them. So, only if possible, I’d love for them to not wear large harnesses or multiple collars around their necks.

Try and get there 15 minutes early to get your dog(s) acclimated to the surroundings, let them sniff a little, work them a little in order to set all of you up for success. Some leash drills can help take the edge off and get your pup in sync with you. Need help with that? MIK9 has some great resources (and trainers) for you and your dog.

These are suggestions I’m making because your pup’s and therefore your behavior and overall mood can make or break a session. People get frustrated quickly when Frodo is not listening because he is too distracted by new smells, moving branches, and squirrels. Getting there just a few minutes early and working through some of the nerves, yours and your pup’s, can make a helluva difference. Your dog will feed off of the energy you give off. So make sure it’s a good one ;).

I’m so looking forward to meeting you and your dog.

Young woman and pit bull standing under green tree during dog photo session.
Couple sitting in grass with dogs during dog photo session.
Dog owners and dog laying on blanket during dog photo session.

Partnering with MIK9

2023 was an incredible year, not just because I got married to my forever man, but also because I started a business partnership with two amazing ladies who have been successfully running a dog training facility called Mirror Image K9 in Dallas, GA. Over the last eight-ish months I have fulfilled all of their photography needs and have also been able to build a client foundation for my photography business. Thank you ladies, for trusting me and I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings.

Check out their Instagram and their podcast about all things DOGS.

MIK9 in Dallas Ga dog trainers and spouses

Pudge + Puka

With the news of Pudge having a very aggressive form of cancer, Tori got in touch and we scheduled a Rainbow Bridge Session four days out. Meeting Pudge, he certainly was not ready to cross that bridge and the good news was that a leg amputation was an option to keep him around for a few more years. He was still spunky and so ready to be the center of attention :D as well as his brother Puka, who is a handsome, funny block head <3.

Small gallery of family pics below.

Brenda + Joe + Lana

It is such a privilege to be invited into peoples’ homes to capture the incredible bond they share with their furry companion. Brenda and Joe were so sweet and chatty and told me all about their beautiful older lady Lana. Lana was an amazing sport and loved the camera.

Kali + Mochi

Two beauties on a Thursday morning! Mochi is a rescue pup who could not have found a better mom than Kali.

More pictures from this shoot can be found here.

Source: https://www.elenamaas.com/new-blog/kali-mo...

Mirror Image K9 Anniversary

When I heard about the news of a doggy daycare near me, I got excited but was hesitant at first. I have never been a fan of daycares where it’s just a free for all for the dogs. My dog can be timid and shy and I do not want to ever put her in a situation where I cannot be her protector. MIK9 is so much more than just a doggy daycare. They have some amazing people who interact with the dogs, teach them important skills, and hone in on the already existing ones. Not only do they encourage some play but also down time. Well, this place has now been around for over a year and I’m so, so happy to see how successful they have been. Cheers to many more anniversaries!

More pictures from the event and others can be seen here.

Group of Mirror Image K9 dog trainers on green field

Starting the year with a grateful heart and beautiful people

The year not only started with a new job (or old job, because I went back to this amazing agency I left in 2021) but also with a weekend filled with beach walks, bloody marys, and lots of laughter. Eight ladies organized an unbelievably fun trip to Florida for a long weekend for my bachelorette.

Out of my comfort zone

Totally out of my comfort zone, did I agree to photographing a family session. Actually liking most of the photos we got out of this session, I think 2023 will be a year I will be dipping my toes a bit more into the waters of discomfort when in comes to photography. Cheers to some fear!

A Weekend Getaway

Sometimes all you need is a girlfriend, her two munchkins, some beers and then beach. Everybody needs the girlfriends you laugh with until your stomach hurts, you can cry with until the mascara runs, you can confide in whenever you are going through a rough time. Thankfully, I can say that I have a great tribe of those women around me. And this one is one of the best!!!!


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Hi there

I think it's finally time that I introduce myself to the people who are following me. My name is Elena and I have been designing and taking pictures since 2011. Born and raised in Germany, I came to the states as an Au Pair. Going to school while taking care of 3 kids, I found what I was passionate about pretty quickly! DESIGN.

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Attending the Art Institute in Philadelphia, I realized I did not want to graduate with a lot of student loan debt. I went back to the Community College I had gone to before and graduated in December of 2010. By January of 2011 I had a job as a graphic artist in an in-house team which was one of the best jobs I have ever had. I found mentors and life-long friends.

In 2013, my husband and I decided to move south and we’ve been calling Atlanta our home since then. It came with lots of challenges, having to find new jobs, a new place to live, new friends, and starting all over again. Through training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at Borges BJJ we instantly found a new family and a new network of people from all sorts or backgrounds. Over the last few years, we have been lucky enough to be able to buy a beautiful house, adopt a dog, buy a new car, and I have travelled back to Germany fairly often to see my family.

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Work wise life has been great. I'm working full-time for a small agency and love my job as well as the people I work for and with.

Doing photography on the side is something that brings me a lot of joy. Whether it is horses, dogs, clients' headshots, or snapping away while people are doing what they love doing, it is all exciting to me. I love the process, I love the editing, and the sending off to make clients happy.

In 2020, I would like to spend a little more time on promoting my business and connect with new people for some fun photoshoots.

Come & Follow @maas_creative

Since I’ve been working with @reinaandco on how to find my dream client, there have been a lot of ‘Oh’ and ‘Ah’ moments when it clicked and I had to dig in and find my answer in regards to my own business. It has been quite an interesting learning experience since she makes you think about your business and the clients you’d like to attract with multiple different exercises. Those exercises open some spaces that, without this program, I would have never thought about. But one thing she made me think about was my handle on Instagram. Since I changed my business name late last year from ‘Designed & Shot by Elena’ (rolls easily off the tongue, doesn’t it *eye roll*) to just MAAS, I now also had to think about what to call myself on my social media channels which was just shot_by_elena. 

I started my accounts a while back when I was gung ho on leaving my designer career behind and solely focusing on photography. As life would have it though, an amazing design opportunity knocked on my door and as much as that opportunity scared the living hell out of me, I said YES. I love what I do and since then the ball has been rolling and more and more clients have been added to my roster. 

So, I now also had to think about a new IG handle. Let’s move away from the whole ‘shot by’ thing and move into a more professional direction. The result is

@maas_creative

New IG handle!!!

New IG handle!!!

I’ve been known to be a bit of a click bait whore and I have looked and googled a bunch of different programs that will help you with your own business, mentor you, support you, provide the right help for you, but none of those programs have been as intense as Reina’s. So, even though I have fallen just a tad off the wagon over the past few weeks since I’m transitioning to a new job while also working on my little side hustle, I will take time this weekend to catch up and dig in. It has started to make me think about my own business in a completely different way. But the name change for some reason was a biggie and it feels good to have something less cutesy and a little more adult-y. 

So, for that little kick in the butt, thank you Reina. And the one or two of you who might be reading this, please come and follow me @maas_creative

Showing face?

So, never really having thought about not showing faces in photos but rather take pictures from different angles to where you can’t see a face has only become more of a thing for me since I have a little niece. I started taking pictures of her when she was first born and I remember thinking ‘Do I really want to show her face or would I rather keep it hidden and not reveal what she looks like?’ (she is the cutest and most perfect little thing, but that’s beside the point). I then proceeded to think ‘Oh what’s the big deal, everyone is doing it’, but then thankfully my sister mentioned that she would like to not show her little girl’s face all over the web. I respect that  and I think that’s how I might be with my own children as well (but I can’t really say that for certain just yet). I have also been noticing more and more that some of my friends who are new parents do not show their children’s faces online. 

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Now I’m guessing this is for all of my photographer friends out there. Have you had families ask you to not post pictures of their kids’ faces? If so, how do you go about it? I, personally, am a huge fan of detail shots such as the little fingers, feet, or just the fresh, golden locks of a little one. 

But I’d love to hear from you and also from parents who have decided to keep their child’s identity private. Have you tried to keep it private and in a weak moment posted a picture of your cute, funny kid which opened the flood gates?

Source: showing-face

Can you grieve a person that has not died? 

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I say yes. I have experienced it and it’s been now 2 years that I ‘lost’ the person I’m still sometimes grieving today. March 19, 2017 is the day my sister left the United States after living here for almost 20 years. The last almost 3 of those years we lived in the same city, had regular wine, sushi, and  movie nights. When my husband and I bought a house, she moved in for her last months in this country before heading home with a one-way ticket and her American adventure packed up in 5 big suitcases. The following months (there were many and there are still some to this day) were incredibly hard. I noticed changes in me and those were changes I did not like. I was not interested in the hobbies I had been so passionate about for most of my life. I thought I’d get over it and it would all pass since we live in a world where a person across a huge pond is just a FaceTime call away. But it was not the same and being the wife of a firemen who had gotten to know her new house and home with her sister in it, I was now sitting by myself on the couch every third night, grieving. 

At first I told myself to not be so pathetic. She isn’t dead. What am I doing? Why am I feeling this way? I felt a little ridiculous and kept reminding myself of people who have REAL problems. The months kept going by and when I was still not feeling alright after about 8 months and my passion for riding horses had still not returned (I still forced myself to take lessons though just to pretend everything was okay) I started looking for help. This is something not a lot of people know and I contemplated whether I wanted to write this or not but why the hell not? Researching counselors and therapists, I stumbled upon the Atlanta International Counseling group and made an appointment. For a few months I went pretty regularly and it was an immense help. Viviane was a god sent helper and supporter. After many months of feeling completely heart-broken, or more heart-shattered, I finally started feeling a little better. There are still weak times but I keep reminding myself that I work hard in order to go home more often to spend time with my family.

I think this is the most vulnerable blog post I’ve written so far but for some reason it just spilled out of me this morning and keeping it all bottled up will not help me in any way. I can breathe now without feeling like I’m about to cry. But know, for the 1, maybe 2 people reading this, I do believe that you can grieve a person even if he/she has not died. 

A little recap and grateful heart post

First of, I’m grateful for Erin @sweetfresno who checked in with me this morning to make sure I’m on track with all of my to-dos and especially writing this post. And second of, I’ve been part of an awesome online community for the past 2 weeks with Reina and company @reinaandcompany who will be teaching me how I will be able to pick out my dream client in order to grow this nice little business of mine. 

 
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These past 2 weeks have been extremely busy. Busy in a very good way thought. My own business is as busy as it has ever been and everything at my 9-5 is going pretty swimmingly. 

I started with the aforementioned program that is helping me to find my dream client. Noodling about who I have worked with in the past and who I would love to keep working with in the future is difficult. But what I can say is that I have, over the years, worked very successfully with other women. Often it was women who were about to start or had just started their own business and through word of mouth they heard about me and what I do. I love meeting and consulting with my clients. Seeing the spark in someones’ eyes when they passionately talk about their business and then being able to help them be successful in said business is an unbelievable feeling and accomplishment. Seeing that I helped someone get their business off the ground and be as successful as they can be is amazing. Walking into a store and seeing the logo on the wall that you came up with next to marketing materials and bottle tags you designed is what I think almost every designer lives for. Check out what I did a few years back for my lady bosses at Art of Wax

This week had more ups than downs and the one down I had was from a client who was not happy about my pricing. For some reason I start doubting myself and start rethinking whether I’m charging people too much, but at the end of the day, I have had many clients and also many RETURNING clients which makes me very proud of what I have created within the last few years. The one client that made me doubt my prices juuuuuuuust a tiny bit, was a man… He is, NO DOUBT, not my dream client and will probably not be coming back to me, unless he has issues with his files. That’s okay.

I will keep thinking about who else my dream client would be but for now, if you are an eager and hard-working lady boss out there and you need a beautiful and well-thought out identity for your business, but you don’t want to download a $5 logo from Fiverr, shoot me a message

Aren’t headshots awkward?

When photography first became an interest of mine, I had absolutely no desire to ever take pictures of people. Telling people what to do in front of the camera, where to put their hands, how to hold their head (in order for the double chin wouldn’t show; it’s a bit of an awkward head tilt), and not to stand so awkwardly, was simply not for me. 

Fast forward a few years, which I spent sitting in pastures, driving to horse shows, snapping away whenever I saw dogs or cats, I was finally hired as a photographer for a daughter and her horse. Or so I thought… Date and time set for a beautiful Saturday afternoon, I park in front of the barn and a big SUV rolls up. All four doors open and I’m all of the sudden faced with having to do a family shoot that I had not at all prepared for. Mom, Dad, three daughters with three horses, and the family dog.

Holy moly… I better get very comfortable very quickly with telling people what to do in front of the camera. It ended up being an okay shoot but it could have gone so much better if I had asked for more information, expectations, etc. BUT this shoot also taught me to just go with the flow and I was forced to gain a new experience by telling people where to stand, what to do with their arms and hands and where to look.

In 2015 I made an awful move into a new job which I thought would catapult me further ahead in my career but it ended up being a complete downfall… Towards the end of the life of that company, all employees (including me) were faced with having to find new jobs. Some people had been at that place for 10+ years and had never updated their LinkedIn profile nor resumes. So, I decided to offer my services and take peoples’ headshots. I fell in love with it which lead me to start some research about what to tell people and how to nicely tell them ‘don’t do this, do that instead’ kind of thing. Annie Leibovitz said to start at home where you can nag people who already like you to be in front of your camera. That’s what I did. 

A position at the American Cancer Society opened up for a Graphic Designer and in order to negotiate salary, I simply threw in that I do photography as well. BOOM… Landed another job. Today I’m the person who gets an email when someone needs an updated headshot and I remember being on cloud 9 after a 15-minute session with two of the researchers. Two beautiful and smart women who told me for articles they will need a smiling and an additional more serious shot. I was on cloud 9… The pictures came out beautifully and I added them to my website. If I could just take head shots of people today, all day long, I would do so. 

Participating in a workshop about how to work towards becoming your own boss, I met Charlene. Charlene teaches these types of workshops and she was interested in adding some photography to it. She asked me what I thought about it and I mentioned that when you first start your own business and you have to sell yourself to potential new clients, you need a good headshot. She was on board. That Wednesday night, I packed my gear and headed to Charlene’s workshop where i was able to capture a large group of smart, ambitious, and beautiful women.

You can find some of the headshots I took at the workshop right here.

So, if you need an updated headshot or are just in the mood for a little shoot, just click right here and let me know how many family members will be part of it ;). 

Networking

Over the past few weeks I’ve attended some networking events that could not have been any more different (in a good way). The first one was a dribbble meet up that I only heard about by accident from an old coworker who offered to get me and my art director/friend Nikki into the already at capacity event. The setting of this event could not have been any better. A new building called the Willoughby with a rooftop terrace, cold drinks, and hot pizza. Talking and exchanging information with a lot of designers in all different fields and from various backgrounds was very interesting. We talked graphic design, UX/UI, photography, furniture design, etc. Rhyme & Reason put on an excellent event!

The Mavens from Mavenly.co (@mavenlyco) had their conference a few weekends ago and very much to my taste they organized a happy hour for people who had not signed up for their workshop. Nikki and I went and had a great time mingling with other professional ladies who are looking to become their own bosses. It was a great night for a bunch of women coming together, drinking wine, eating appetizers. 

Sometimes I wish I would have started networking way earlier in my life. I’ve met some very interesting people and if there is one advice I can give a new designer, it is ‘go out and network’. In the beginning, Atlanta gave me a hard time getting acclimated and meeting people but in regards to networking, getting to know new people, starting conversations about doing business together, it has opened doors, and by doors I mean the biggest doors you can imagine. 

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One of the so far most successful networking sessions was the ‘Women, Work & Worth’ workshop where I met Charlene (@ceocharlene) who quickly got in touch with me and hired me to take headshots for people who had signed up at General Assembly for one of her workshops. 

Social media plays a huge part as well, and if you really want to you can find some great social groups who plan happy hours and outings on a regular basis. When I first moved to Atlanta I learned about Six Degree Society. It was a bunch of women who came together, some with their own businesses already, others still moping around in their 9-5 (I was one of them and still am). Simply exchanging experiences, getting to know how people went about starting their own business, involving business coaches and what not, was very interesting and valuable input for me. Since then I’ve attended outings like that pretty often and have formed some great business relationships and friendships with some of these ladies.

So, young people, entrepreneurs, designers, and photographers, all I can say is ‘network, network, network’.

My Second Blog Post: The Learning Stage (one of many)

Starting as a graphic design student at a community college in New Jersey, I very quickly found that stock photography can get very expensive. ‘Well,’ I thought,’ it can’t be THAT hard to take some pictures and use them for projects’. I invested in a digital camera and soon found my passion for photography. Animals were the easiest (and also the most beautiful) models and since I was a very active equestrian at the time, I took advantage of the beautiful and magnificent creatures at the barn.

Just sitting in the pasture for hours was not even that terrible. Out came some nice and some not so nice shots, but you don’t learn unless you do. So I kept on going and after about two years, I invested, after a lot of convincing from my now husband, in my first DSLR camera. Now, I had to figure out shutter speed, ISO, aperture, different lenses, and whatnot. It was a little overwhelming at first but, as often, the internet makes everything easy. I googled, read blogs, found tutorials, watched videos, etc. Through my old job, I was able to go to Scott Kelby’s Photoshop World workshop (thanks to one of my best friends @bigjoeski) and it just catapulted my passion for photography to new heights. If you ever get a chance to go to one of those workshops, DO IT!!!!

Always wanting to get better at photographing people, I would bring my camera to random events, birthdays, and farms. I slowly became more and more comfortable taking pictures of people. Pinterest was great for inspiration and I was also able to find some advice on how to tell people what to do and how to awkwardly hold their head in front of the camera in order to show their best side (in German, we say it’s our chocolate side ;) ). 

Today, I love taking head shots of people. If I could just do that all day, that would be great. Hopefully, I’ll get there one day. Until then, let’s just keep on blogging. :)

My First Blog Post: The Awkward Stage

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So… having been at a stage in my life where I feel I have to decide whether to keep rolling with corporate America or just dive in and really focus on my own business, I have submitted my email to so many different business advice sites, I can’t even count it anymore. 

But there is this one that I stumbled upon in my email account. Having had not such a great day, I thought I’d give it a try. Her name is Jenni Maroney (hey  @jennimaroney, here the first post I promised to tag you in ;) ) and she had some great input regarding websites. How bots scan websites and how you can get to be the #1 on the Google list when people are searching for photographers. My web knowledge is limited, but I do know how to figure a few things out here and there. I followed some of her steps while listening to her, and edited some of the meta data and whatnot on my website. One of the first things though, Jenni talked about, was BLOGGING… oh gggaaawwwddddd. I gave blogging a chance a few years back, but did not think or expect people to be interested in reading what I have to say. 

Now, feeling that I have reached this aforementioned weird phase in my life, I have to decide to go left or right. Since I don’t want to always be in the situation where I have to ask an employer for permission to take time off in order to spend a few days with my family in Germany, I have made the decision to give this blogging thing another chance, give those bots something to scan, and boost my website which will hopefully help in bringing in a little more business on the side. 

Be prepared to see and read a little more right here and hopefully you’ll enjoy it. If you have been where I’m at right now, please share some advice. Thank you kindly in advance. :)