Tax Day
“Tax Day” – Billy Newman Photo Podcast
Produced by Billy Newman and Marina Hansen
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128 TAX DAY.txt
Hey, what’s going on? This is Billy Newman, and you’re listening to the Billy Newman photo podcast for Monday. What is it April 16, 2018. I guess it’s tax day tomorrow, right? The 17th. This year, normally, it’s the 15th. But I fell on a Sunday. So then I guess they move it a couple days, I guess, Tuesday, they make it easier on you, if you’ve forgotten Monday. I fortunately for the first year and a few years have finished my taxes and have filed it, which is great. And kind of cool. And I finally did enough work this year to kind of file some deductions and sort of have stuff worked out for me, but man, like everybody’s always talked about taxes are interesting to get used to. But it’s really not a huge burden for me a lot of the time, because I don’t make any money. A lot of the time, I guess that’s a stipulation to pay taxes. So I got them there at least. But as it goes, taxes are due, I think I just got that finished, like I submitted my tax paperwork, it’s a lot of stuff when you kind of run in a small business, or when you when you get started with an LLC, and I still don’t know anything about personal finance, or accounting as it goes for working with a small business or what you’re able to deduct, or what you’re able to file or just how you’re able to operate as a business. And I don’t really get to do that. Because, you know, it’s like, hardly, it’s, you know, it’s what I’m interested in. And it’s what I’m working on. But it’s not really something that’s that lucrative to where I have a lot of incoming, or, you know, expenses, and purchase orders. You know, like a real business might have, you know, like, there’s not so much ingoing and outgoing money, it’s really have to worry about the tax stuff like that. But as it goes, I guess 2018 is my year of looking up. And maybe I’ll make so much money this year from shooting weddings that I’ll have to have to really double down and get a bookkeeper and an accountant to try and straighten out all the tax liability I’ll have but that’s a blessing and a curse, I guess. Right? So, so tax day, good luck with everybody getting their taxes in on time. What I’m going through right now, though, outside of taxes, because that’s boring, right. What I’m going through right now is I’m trying to, to do like a social networking rebuild. I talked about it a bit on the last podcast, and some of its some of its sort of loosely based on like the Facebook, like Mark Zuckerberg testifying in front of Congress. And it’s also part of just sort of the general idea that the really I’ve been working at, it’s hardly that data collection stuff from Facebook. But that’s sort of an impetus to try and get interested about what’s happening with my data. Where’s it go? What am I doing with it? Does it work for me? And that’s really the biggest question is like, does this thing I’m doing work for me to a way that really organizes some benefit that I notice. And really, a lot of the time for me as it goes, right now, it does not? optimally, it works well. And there’s a lot of services that are good, but I think it’s reasonable, like every 10 years to go through and kind of audit some of these free services that we use to see if there wasn’t something better or different, or just kind of, to, I don’t know, just something else to try and use for a little while. But as it goes like Twitter, really what I’m talking about better a different, it’s like, Who am I following on these social networks, and you look at it really, a lot of these people, you’ve kind of like been around for a long time. And really like as it gets, there’s like friends and family. And that’s all really cool, you want to keep that around. But there’s a lot of these dead accounts. That’s the biggest thing that I’m noticing as I go through Instagram, or as I go through Facebook, or Twitter, but but any of these liked pages, or any of these kind of novelty pages about facts from history, or travel information about this, or some kind of like update sort of feature system or accompany a lot of those who’ve gone out, they’ve they’ve just kind of gone could put when whenever I followed them, let’s say eight years ago, when Twitter was just getting hot in 2009, they didn’t really they didn’t stick around, my guy did it right. There’s not real people anymore, that they’re just sort of abandoned accounts. And I see that with a lot of stuff, there’s a lot of things that are that are kind of there. That’s you know, that’s my own fault for, for sort of what is curated in my my network, I guess that’s like what I would do, but that’s what I’m saying is over all these years, there’s just been things that have gone overlooked, and they still kind of remained like what I was going through earlier was all of the liked pages on my Facebook page. And there’s a huge number like more than 100 or so that are just sort of silly nonsense things that that were kind of brought in over the, their, you know, their photographs, or their photographers or some kind of outdoor thing or media thing, but it was just sort of
just to try and participate for a moment 10 years ago, and they abandon the page. There’s no content there. So it’s really just about like, Alright, who’s driving content, who do I want to participate and want to follow and that’s really like an efficiency of my time. So there’s all the friends and family and you want to kind of participate with them and as much as many ways as you can and Facebook is a great tool to do that. You really don’t have to be over sensitive of you know, not allowing people you You know, in real life to communicate with you, it’s for that it’s for connecting with the goofballs you went to high school with I understand that. But it’s also maybe a way where you can sort that a little bit, or you can kind of clean it up in a way that that kind of works for you if you you know, need to. And, and on top of that there’s sort of the current layer where I want to participate with them, I want to have like, the the network effect that comes along with, with some of the social networking that you get into as the social media, like content development that you go through, but I want to try and, like get a network of people that I’m interested in together, but I kind of want to push some of the old group of people out to the side a little bit, I want to try and focus my attention a little bit more on just sort of like the important things, I can think of the things that really occupy my time daily, the people that occupy my time daily. And I want to try and see a little bit more of that. But I’m also trying to find new authors that I like, you know, that’s that’s the thing that hasn’t really come around for a few years now is, is kind of that that new period of time where you’re finding like you’re finding new music artists, you’re finding new writers or new photographers, that that are interesting to you that are kind of like earlier on, or, I don’t know, just people you haven’t seen the content before. And I get so exhausted from kind of trying to follow and keep up with 1700 people that that are all professionals that are all kind of putting out the same sort of great, but boring, mediocre. Well, I won’t say mediocre art, but it’s a medium. It’s it’s a, it’s a weak communication, I guess is what I would say fantastic photograph, but a weak communication because it doesn’t make me feel anything or doesn’t really attach, it’s just it’s just always the same. And maybe that’s me, or maybe it’s just the oversaturation of images in general, but, but it’s definitely part of it, where I’m really trying to find people that I’m actually more attached to. So it’s not just some generic wedding photographer that’s having a great shoot and beautiful light, and everything’s perfect with a great camera. And it’s a beautiful couple that looks amazing. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of communications like that, that are a little bit more, I guess they they land on the side of platitude. And it’s not really that earnest sort of genuine honesty that you want to see in art creation. And so, so for myself, trying to get a little more genuine this season, I want to try and sort of strip out a lot of the marketing content that I’ve seen a lot of the stuff where it’s, you know, it’s just some company trying to produce viral photographs, whatever that means. I want to cut those people out. And I want to really focus in on the people that I think are genuine and trying to do some stuff. And I don’t know how to do that. That’s really the next part of it is how do you make a modern Rolodex, like back in the day Do you remember? I mean, maybe I never did. When I was in school, I never put a Rolodex together. I came around once there was phones and contact lists. And I guess I got an address book. Maybe you have that. But I never had an office Rolodex. But I was trying to think about that a little bit. When you’re trying to think about a professional network, or just you know that the address book people that you know, how do you handle that? How do you manage that. And as I was going through my addresses, even just the phone numbers and addresses that I have in my phone, I hardly really have any, I really hardly have any kind of established connections with the people that I know of time. So I have more, at least as it was a day ago before I unfriended everyone soon to be refriended. But and so I unfriended everyone on Twitter and Facebook, I had more connections, more phone numbers, more email addresses sort of associated through my contact list on Facebook, versus the address book, a phone numbers and addresses in my phone. And so I’m kind of going through now and thinking well, who do I want to be in contact with? Who do I want to have the information of so I’m trying to go through a little bit and be a little bit more specific kind of reach out and say, Hey, I’m interested in what you’re doing, or I’m following your stuff. And it’s cool, but I’m on I want to try to like select people that I’d want to have the the information from I want to try and reach out to and kind of participate with in some more personable way other than just sort of considering it like a voiceless faceless social account. So yeah, that’s a that’s kind of a brief rundown of some of the social rebound, rebuild stuff, but I’m going through Facebook, right now I’m gonna try and pull up friends and family stuff again. And then I kind of reach out again, dropping like companies and brands and marketing stuff. And I’m really trying to go through it for the more authentic creators and artists in it’s a creative studio, or whatever it is, it can be still a business or something. But I’m trying to get into that a little bit more. And I guess trying to move on a little bit from just sort of the weight of the past that sort of accumulates,
it’s like a messy room. It’s like trinkets that build up in a messy room or like some of these dead weight relationships or not even relationships, but dead weight connections that aren’t even really associated with you. It’s just something you know, you’re trying to network for business six years ago, and you’ve kind of grown that whole idea now. So drop it get move on from it, you know, it’s not really a personal thing. Drop it move on. So I’m kind of trying to follow that advice a little bit. And to do that. It’s also interesting, I’m trying to get more cash like I was talking about at the beginning with the wedding work right or the I’m sorry, the taxes, it’s tax day. So with that, like I was saying, I want to try and book more weddings this year, under the name of my business so that I can have something to file for income for taxes for the tax year 2018. And to do that, I’m trying to look up and get connected with people who need photographers. And so I’m trying to reach out right now for to try and like get leads for wedding photographers, or, you know, for people that need a wedding photographer for a day coming up during the summer months of 2018. And trying to figure out a way to get booked for some stuff like that, but it’s kind of interesting going through the system and like looking for where these leads exist. And I don’t know, I guess everybody sort of has their systems for a lot of people go with word of mouth, I, I kind of understand that. But I also don’t understand that kind of not really being associated with wedding photography already, or not being associated with a specific market. Like I’m, I’m in Eugene, and it’s not really the wedding market that I’m working in here in Eugene, it’s probably you know, like, up in a more metropolitan area that there’s going to be whatever I’d be doing. So I’m going through and I’m trying to find some of those things. Now I’m trying to look at, I don’t know, like elopements that’s really like the all the all that is listed a lot of the time is sort of silly stuff that people are trying to put together but no kind of scan through there and trying to find a good way to manage leads, forgetting some photo jobs. And really, I’m trying to find some other stuff too. Like you know, you think outside of the market for wedding photography, but there’s a lot of stuff in freelance work, or in I don’t know, just in you know, contract work or production work, whatever that is for for content creation, it’s weird, you know, like, with so much content going up online now, in so many companies needing to be involved in the creation of communications and content media, you think that would be just a more active market and more active set of voices that are that are trying to need that kind of work. But really around here, when you scan around, it’s just it’s kind of goofy people looking for free photos of them to put up on their Instagram, I’m looking at that a lot. It’s kind of fun. You know, I’ll talk about this trend for a second as I’m going through looking at listings, trying to find some leads that are associated for photography really just didn’t kind of the the mindset of looking good, you know, like a one off job that would pay a bid out that, yeah, I can, I can participate and meet somebody could get some experience. But, but when I look through there, there’s a lot of these that offer no pay, and are from someone new in the area looking to have a photoshoot. Or sorry, looking looking to create content, that’s what they say they don’t really talk about photos or modeling. They want content of them participating in the world so that they can put that up on social media and I don’t know, be away more fly entrepreneur or something, whatever they think their game is. I don’t think it’s really gonna work for him. But that’s what they’re listing and it’s kind of funny to see that Oh, photo job for no pay to hang out with some D bag who thinks he’s an entrepreneur hustler. Maybe I won’t do that photo job. So that’s the fun lucrative world booking photo gigs. And I guess that’s, that’s where I’m at right now. So along with that, and trying to figure out how to get my email working on my phone. That’s about everything I’ve been up to for this weekend. At least I’m trying to figure out some stuff for the wooden shoe tulip farm right now. I got a photoshoot coming up there soon. And that’s, I guess now state famous and made world famous wooden shoe tulip farm. It’s like that five acre field of multicolored tulips that’s up in northern Oregon near Woodburn, and it’s a beautiful this time of year. It’s it’s just really beautiful, colorful. Unlike or it’s really surreal. It’s unlike a lot of places that you would see, you know, around anywhere else in the world. But a big tourist attraction for folks in the Portland area. But I’m going up there to do a commercial shoot next week, which I’m pretty excited about. I think it’s kind of cool. But I’m trying to figure out some stuff to prep for that. And I always get nervous about these things like how’s it going to come together and stuff gonna come out? Right? It’s been pretty cloudy and rainy. All of April. So maybe that’ll throw the other way. And we’ll get lucky with some warmer weather or, you know, some clear weather some colorful weather. Colorful weather right is blue skies and sunshine in the evening so I can get these tulips to pop on a gray day with clouds. It’s just gonna look sort of flat. Right. So, yeah, that’s some of the stuff that I’m trying to put together. Yeah, it’s so fun. But yeah, doing well this week, and I probably have another one of these podcasts coming up. I guess sometime later this week. I’m trying to do about two or so of these a week but I got a handful of projects I’m working on. I’m off to a cemetery, headstone shop. I don’t even know what the rest of that sentence would be. I’m off to this place that makes cemetery headstones to talk to them about a great great great, great grandfather I have who’s buried at grave in the Eugene area I think he’s like the first relative to come to Oregon. So that’s the area and I’m off to to run and do now and get an update to that. headstamp pretty fun. So, once again, you’ve been listening to the billion human photo podcast. You can check my stuff out at Billy Newman photo calm or
at
Billy Newman on Instagram. And I still put stuff out but I’m not following anybody right now. I guess that will soon change. Thanks a lot for listening to this episode of the podcast. Have a good day.