The Power of Community: Uniting Cowgirls with Cameras

Foreign.

Laugh, learn and take your photography to the next level with your favorite cowgirls with cameras.

Kara, Kim and Phyllis.

Welcome to the Cowgirls with Cameras podcast.

I'm Kim with Be More Business and Kim Beer Photography.

I'm Cara with fasthorse Photography.

And I'm Phyllis with Phyllis Burchette Photo.

Hello.

How are you guys?

Hi.

I'm enjoying a beautiful day in Missouri.

The sun is like shining in my window and it's so nice because it was rainy for a bunch of days and now it's all sunny and pretty and it's fall and it's cool outside and I have flower bulbs that are needing to be planted and I am definitely in the fall, spring kind of mood.

Nice.

That's my update too, along with it.

Well, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to carry through with that theme that you started and that's what I did this weekend.

It is.

Fall has definitely hit here.

It is, I would even say maybe past sweater weather just a little bit.

We haven't made it there yet.

We're supposed to get our first freeze next Monday, so.

Oh, we've already had our first freeze.

That just.

This is Georgia.

This isn't new Missouri.

And I planted pansies and fall stuff all weekend and I just worked in this like you said.

And gosh, we went biking and we went long term hiking this weekend.

So yeah, it's been a good week.

I wormed goats.

Well, we're recording this right after Halloween.

Oh, God, you deworms goats.

I wormed goats.

That's what I did with my outdoor time other than planting was worming goats.

I'm thinking Phyllis is off doing bike rides and Nick and I are out here wrestling 200 pound goats to the ground to shove wormer down their throat.

Sorry.

I'm looking at my weather forecast right now and it's still showing highs of 81 degrees and lows of 55.

So it's not horrible, but it's not amazing yet in terms of temperature.

Is that sweater weather for a Floridian?

I'm literally in a sweater right now, so.

Yeah, and it is, it is like 78 degrees or something like that, so.

Oh, good grief.

But we just had Halloween here and it was a beautiful, like night to be out like doing the Halloween trick or treating stuff.

And Easton is 12 and he does still enjoy trick or treating, although I had a moment where we were walking around and we were kind of trailing him and I was like, this is probably going to be the last year like he's gotten to be where he's kind of too cool for us and he is going to be wanting to go with his friends and do all of that.

So it was kind of sad.

Like, where did that come from?

It snuck up on me.

Yeah, it's like, how does that happen?

Yeah, I mean, I remember the first time I saw Easton, I'm like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, that's like night and day.

Yeah.

Now his voice has changed and he's over 5 foot 7 and.

I remember taking pictures of him over at that farm with the pony.

And I remember I was on this.

I was on the ground with my wide angle shooting up at how tall it made him look.

But he really wasn't that tall.

No, he was just a little.

I was like, oh my gosh.

And now look at him.

I know I'll always cherish those pictures.

And now he's that tall.

Yeah, I will always cherish those.

They're still my favorites to look back.

On, so there's some of my favorites too.

That was a cool, cool day.

Yeah, that was a cool day.

One of the few times we got Easton get around a four legged.

Yeah, he really doesn't care about animals or horses anymore.

He loves his dogs.

Dogs.

Yeah, but he's not a.

He's not a horse kid anymore, so.

Which is okay.

It's all good.

Yeah, it's okay.

He'll come back.

It'll come back.

I don't know.

I figure when he starts figuring out girls like horses, your horse, he might.

Come back over importance.

That happened to my neighbor.

He didn't.

He didn't like the horses too well until he found out girls really like horses.

And then all of the sudden he was at the barn all of the time, so.

Yeah, well, we'll see.

We'll see.

Yeah, you never know what might happen.

So anyway, well, our topic for today is a fun one actually.

We're into our theme and even though we are just now talking about Halloween, chances are you're listening to this after Thanksgiving.

So you have done celebrated the turkey, which now I feel bad because we're going to completely leave out.

And then you are also going to probably be looking forward to Christmas.

And we wanted to devote an episode to.

To kind of journal our document, I guess would be a better word document.

Our first year of operating a community for equine photographers.

An online community.

What did you say, Carol?

An online community.

An online community for cowgirls with cameras.

And it has been a fun, fun adventure.

So I'll Start out with kind of how we got into this.

Well, first of all, me being nosy about how things.

Things are going to look in the future, I. I love to live like three years down the line or five years down the line.

And it really became apparent to me that having a community was going to be really important in the future with how social media is going.

And I feel like my angels and guides were definitely on the right track with that.

Well, and I had been moaning about how, like, we had Facebook groups and we had these things, but, like, I wasn't seeing any of it and nobody was participating.

And it just felt like it was a platform that we had zero control over, that we didn't even know if it was what was going to happen or if groups were even going to be there much longer.

And here introduce you with your idea of the community.

Yes.

And I remember we were driving home from Cottonwood.

We were driving from Cottonwood to the airport, and I remember purchasing the Mighty Network software right then and there in the car while we were driving from point to point.

And we all put part of our proceeds from Cottonwood into seeding the community to get it started.

And then it proceeded to be a journey, probably more for me than Karen Phillipson and how the heck to set this thing up.

And I will tell you, it was the original community I had designed.

You all would have been totally overwhelmed in it because it was crazy overwhelming.

And.

And then I did a lot of education and I backed it up a lot.

And it feels more like what we have now.

I also feel like over the years you've learned, like, I have to have some control over this, and it needs to look manageable, because if you start throwing something to Phyllis and I, Phyllis is going to be like, we can't do that.

And I'm going to panic over all the work that I think's involved in it.

And so I really feel like you've learned a lot over the years about that.

So when you came to us with it, you had done some work.

Yes, I had done some free work.

She'd already put all the research, all the research into what was the best way to do this.

Yeah.

And I believe, if I remember correctly, there was a PowerPoint presentation of some kind or something involved in that.

Well, there was a whole marketing plan involved in this.

It was a piece of a larger marketing plan.

And actually, I'm going to back it up further because not into the formation of what it looks like today, but Community was built into our nine focus points before we decided to build an online community because I think Phyllis and I, when we did that very first Art of the Cowgirl event with kind of I, what I'm going to call the new girls, like it wasn't just the same old girls that travel together.

Not that we don't love those girls.

We do.

But it was this idea of bringing new people into that same community and introducing them to each other.

Equine photography at a different level.

So it was already kind of baked into the plan to begin with.

And so the PowerPoint that you're remembering dealt with the entire overall marketing plan and how we could appeal across all of our target markets.

So it was, it's actually one of the best marketing plans I have ever done and I've done quite a few, so I'm very proud of that one.

But yeah, so then it took several months for us to get it ready and then we launched officially, we launched our beta community.

I think it was right around this time last year.

So that's our year long experiment.

And then we launched officially to the public at Art of the Cowgirl in February.

That's where things started to get interesting.

Well, I'm just gonna, I'm, I'm just gonna give a big shout out and all the kudos to Kim for that marketing plan and for all the hard work you that went into researching and, and figuring out what.

I think this is more your idea.

I mean, maybe it was.

You did come up with it too, Kara.

I don't know.

But talking about Facebook groups, because I do remember the Facebook groups and thinking, well, if we participated more, you know, then maybe we would get more participation.

But I think when you came out with this plan, it just seemed like it fit better.

It was like their own private network, you know, And I don't know, I just.

Good job.

Yeah, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's just social media and I think this is true for anybody who's doing any kind of marketing right now.

I think you understand kind of in depth that social media has a lot of noise in it that really obscures your message.

It's.

It's like trying to hear somebody in a really crowded room with a lot of people shouting things that you don't want to hear or don't care about.

And when you can isolate that community over, it's like tuning into a very specific channel.

And I think for creatives and for photographers, as part of the creative community, I think having that channel to be able to tune into gives you this dedicated space to be able to Tune all of that other noise out and really tune into the frequency of beautiful images of the western way of life, of all of those things that attract us.

Horses, primarily horses in this beautiful environment where you, you can walk away or you can spend time in there feeling inspired and then you can carry that, walk away out from the community and carry that inspiration with you out in the world.

And it also gives you a chance to learn from other people, to interact with other people who have a similar interest than you in a way that it's not like you have to try to tune everything else out because it's already tuned out for you.

And that's, I think the beauty of some of these networks, community software, pieces of, of.

Yeah, well, yeah, and I think that plus all the, the capabilities that are inside of that that we can do because of that.

The, like, the lives and the, the challenges and just everything, just all the, the educational components you've got that everybody has added into it.

You know, I just think that's something that we couldn't.

Yeah, you couldn't have done on Facebook, you know.

No, no, no, no.

It's just not a platform that is designed for that.

And also that communication from the members of the community to us and then also within the community back and forth.

And I don't think social media allows for as fluid of an experience in those ways.

And I did do a ton of research into the software that we chose.

I looked at all of the different options that were available at the time.

New ones have come on board, but I chose the one that I chose, which is Mighty Networks is the, the platform we're built on.

And I chose that one because it's designed more to be like how women approach relationships than.

It's not a top down kind of structure.

It's more of a let's sit in a circle kind of a structure in how you show up to it.

And I thought that was really important because we are cowgirls with cameras.

It's not that we exclude men, but 90 plus percent of our followers are the people that are in our lives are women.

And part of our mission is to promote women in photography.

So we make up a good chunk of photographers out in the world and yet we aren't as represented as women in the world, the community, the photography world at large.

And this gives us an opportunity to have a space where we are the dominant voice in that space.

And that I think also resonates out into the world.

Well, I know we had, when we were putting this together, we had that conversation around, like, you know, some of the, some of our favorite, like photography, big conferences and educational spaces were predominantly the leaders at those events were men.

And it was like, we know from the people that we interact with all the time that there are amazing women photographers out there that just need a space to be part of the spotlight.

And that's been our kind of thought process behind all of this as well.

Yes, ideally, yes.

And part of the way that we want to bring that out into the world is through a couple of different things that I think our community offers the members at large.

One of those being a way to access a database or pool of information that I think we all need as photographers.

Because I don't know about you guys, but there's a lot of times.

Well, most of, first of all, let's say this, most of us are solopreneurs.

There's very few of us that have a bunch of people in our office.

And most of us were, we didn't go to school to be an equine photographer.

Right.

There's, there's a whole industry.

You have to learn how to navigate our industry as photographers.

There's the equine industry, there's the west Western industry.

There's all of these little subtle layers that there's nowhere to grab.

There's not a book you can pick up and read one book and get it all.

So to create a database of knowledge, a resource barn is what we call it, because where would you go to find that information?

You want to go to a barn, you want to go sit with the knowledgeable horsewoman who has bred horses her entire life and talk about what are you looking at when you're looking at a horse and how it moves across a field.

And in what would be a pleasing image for that horse, you want to sit with the photographer who does in person sales so that they can answer the questions about what happens when there's boots on the ground.

And that's what we wanted to create.

Inside the resource barn is this really wonderful, rich, fluid, constantly ever growing resource that is very specific to equine photography and cowgirls with cameras.

I'm going to talk a little bit about what I've devoted or what I've put into the resource barn.

But let's have, let's share a little bit about what we each have brought to that resource barn.

So I brought in some information and education around Photoshop and Lightroom in particular, and also some business background.

Like I did a class on creating a functional business plan and then I also did another one around actually achieving your goals, like setting a goal and getting it, which is I kind of a canvas.

I'm a very visual oriented person.

So I taught people how to do a canvas to reach a goal.

What are some things that you guys have put into the resource barn?

One of the things that was really important to me, that was important to me as an early, in the early days of photography was just little things around like working with clients better.

So I've spent some time putting together like scripts and phrases that you can use in working with, with your clients, learning how to say no confidently, different words that you can use and all everywhere to just kind of elevate your client experience, how to enhance your client experience.

I spent a lot of time thinking about that aspect of it and I also did.

I don't know if this was my idea or if one of our members like planted the seed in my brain, but I was big on putting in the vendors and suppliers section, which is I'm adding to all the time when I come across something new.

So, like you don't know where to rent camera gear.

Boom.

Here's a list of places you can rent camera gear or how to get your cameras repaired.

Here's a list things like data recovery.

And I think that might have been what spurred it is someone had a.

Had something go bad and they needed to know who do I contact.

And I was like, you know what?

That information is out there and it needs to be centralized.

And so I take recommendations all the time from the community and then add that to our resource list area.

So our vendors and suppliers list well.

And also I do want to point this out.

Kara is working behind the scenes not just to provide vendor resources in there, but also to utilize the power of the fact that we've all come together to get us better deals on things.

Like there was Karen negotiated for a discount coupon with Lens Rentals.

Yeah.

Which I, by the way, took advantage of.

A lot of our photographers have.

Yeah.

And so there's an opportunity there within those resources to say, hey, here's a pool of people that will utilize you as a vendor to those vendors.

And is there something that as a group that you can give us that will help us make a better decision to choose your company?

Not that we play favorites.

I don't want to say that I have my favorite rental companies too, but.

Or all across the board as vendors and suppliers.

But there's also that opportunity when we all come together and create community.

I don't know.

I would Pick a favorite if they were willing to give us a discount code.

Oh, you are too funny.

Oh, goodness.

All right, Phyllis, what have you added in there?

Well, it's funny because Kara was able to just rattle these off.

Everything that she's done.

I have the community open.

I'm looking at it.

Well, I have it open too, but I'm like, like, okay, what did I do?

Because I'm like thinking you two did so much.

I feel like I'm just kind of the, the lost one over here.

But I'm looking at my Learn with Phyllis stuff.

Capturing the correct moment of stride, how to process high key black and white images, how to fix blown out skies in Photoshop, working with textures.

I know I've done more than this, but I can't find it near.

Well, just a lot of really important educational pieces, you know.

Yeah, I think I have, even though I can't really find them right off the bat.

But a lot of stuff about equine photography that I don't.

I think this was probably mostly Kim that did this, but I thought that I had done something, but I can't find it.

You did.

You did.

No, hold on, hold on.

So let's talk about that for a moment because we did, did create a standalone course called Equine Photography for Beginners.

And truthfully, I did a lot of the work in this.

I.

Because I love to talk about this.

Kind of stuff and sometimes I would say like 97%.

That's what I was thinking.

Maybe more like 98%.

I also adore it.

I'll give her that.

I adore doing it.

So it's, it's not, it's not a contest.

It really is me sharing my passion.

But if it was, you would win.

Well, that's the important part, Kara.

No, seriously, it's not a contest.

Because what I wanted to do is I get asked so many times at events or I find somebody who doesn't completely understand like a very basic principle.

And I'm going to be the first to admit I was a very well paid as Marvin.

I was thinking of this the other day.

I was a well paid photographer before I could explain the exposure triangle to anybody.

There are people that are listening out there right now that are like being, you know, ditto.

Yeah.

You know, they're being paid well, but they don't understand the exposure triangle.

Okay.

So let's just be honest.

It's not the easiest thing to wrap your head around.

Right.

And it takes time and practice and it also takes to hear it different ways.

Right.

So I wanted to present my method of understanding it and hopefully that made sense.

It opened the window for some people.

But I also wanted to give a place that people who are coming to our workshops.

You get more out of going to a workshop if you have kind of your basic skills fresh in your mind.

So you're able to get more out of those workshops.

And I think it's an across the board goal for the three of us that the people who come to our workshops get a lot out of that workshop.

Like, we try.

We.

We don't try.

We pack a lot into it for opportunity.

Yeah.

But if you are struggling with something or want to go back and refresh a skill before you come.

We do have a lot of people who come to our workshops that maybe haven't drugged their camera out in six months and that's their first opportunity to do so.

So it's a way to.

You can go back and do some skills and drills in order to increase your understanding or to review it.

So we did create a standalone course that is equine photography for beginners.

And Phyllis provided a module in that course that helps you understand moment of stride and how to photograph your horse.

And then Kira also provided another module.

I can't remember what you provided.

It has to do with posing, prosing.

Yes.

Yeah.

I just found that mindset also says essential considerations for equine photography.

Yes.

So tips on photographing horses.

And this is the part that I love, which I mentioned earlier.

It's an opportunity for you to learn from somebody who's shown and bred the western horse.

And that's a different perspective than reading about it in a book from a photographer about how to photograph a horse.

Yeah.

This is the thing that I love about our community is it has such rich resources of horse people in it and ranch girls and people who know the ins and outs of this industry.

It's not just us.

Well, that's the next thing.

Community based.

What are our members bringing?

You know, what are the participants in the community?

A lot?

Yeah, yeah.

Because they'll.

Someone will come in and ask a question and they're not asking it to a general photography group, they're asking it to a group of other people who photograph horses or either professionally or as a hobby.

And so I think you get some really pointed feedback that way from people that you wouldn't find in other places.

Well, and.

Absolutely.

And you may get three different or four different ways of looking at it, but I think.

I think that's good because that way you get to choose which one fits your situation the best.

Yeah, absolutely.

So in addition to that, that's one way to learn is through the courses.

There's advanced courses, there's the beginners course, there's courses in the resource barn, information in the resource barn.

But then we also do lives, at least one a month, sometimes multiple lives in a month.

All three of us are participating and providing the lives around certain topics.

And it's an opportunity to have sistership time with other people in the community who are experiencing the same thing you're experiencing.

And then also an opportunity to kind of guide the path of learning and to learn more in depth things than you possibly would have learned other places.

And I, I just want to bring this up.

I know that Phyllis sent us, it was yesterday, I think a email saying that Creative Live is ending business at the end of December.

And I think that that is so sad.

I, I have enjoyed Creative Live over years.

I've learned a lot from them.

But here's another opportunity to have, have a similar experience.

Maybe not an entire day workshop yet, but here's, here's an opportunity to learn directly from an artist in a very one to a small group method which gives you that opportunity to, to get information that you probably wouldn't have gotten any other time.

So it's kind of like a master class with the masters.

And I think it's an important piece of things.

So let's give some details about exactly what the community is and what you can expect.

So we right now have two levels of membership.

We have a free level of membership and we have a founding herd member level of membership.

So at the free level, you have access to one community space where you can kind of introduce yourself.

You can find announcements about what we're up to with cowgirls with cameras, and we do some live events that are accessible to the entire community, including the folks that are in there on the free plan.

So the free plan folks are called herd member initiates because we hope that you eventually want to come into the founding herd members.

But I also understand it's really nice.

There's a lot of these communities popping up all over the place.

And so it's nice to know if this one is going to fit what you really are looking for.

Yeah, so it gives you an opportunity to kind of dip your toe in the water and see what is up with our community and if it is a good fit for you.

And you can also get access to the other free members.

And then we do have a, a free class or a Free learning community area.

If you only want access to the beginner's equine photography course, you can reach out to one of us.

We do have a separate plan where you can get that totally separate from the membership.

However, the founding herd member membership includes everything I've mentioned plus all of the access to the resource barn, advanced education and all of the recordings of the lives.

So if you can't make it to an event live, you can come and watch the replay.

You can see the Memorex version of that particular class and those are archived for you to have access to over time.

So if you joined that part of our, if you joined as a founding herd member today I am sitting here looking at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 7 live courses that we have taught and you would have access to those immediately right off the bat.

So you would be able to go watch them and learn from those as well.

So you get all of that.

And then if you are someone who has been to our events, we have special set aside designated areas for each event alumni group.

So we have some of those that are super active and some of them that hardly anything goes on in.

But we love the ones that the folks are still like meeting with each other and it gives them a space to be able to keep in touch, to share images back and forth.

Because editing workshop images is not something that is completed within 30 days of the event.

Sometimes we're doing that five years later.

And so you have an opportunity to go back and and put that stuff in.

So the founding Herd member is $149 for the year.

You can pay that monthly if you would like to.

There is also a seven day free trial where you can get in, nose around, look at things, watch some of the courses, all of that kind of stuff.

So you can get that seven day free trial.

Now I do believe we would like to invite you to say, hey, you know what, if you have an equipment equestrian photographer in your life, including yourself, it's totally okay to buy it for yourself as well.

This makes an excellent Christmas gift.

It's right at the end of the year.

You would have somebody have a full year of membership for that $149.

What do you guys think about that?

I think that this would be a nice thing to find in your stocking on Christmas morning.

I love it.

And you can go to cowgirls with cameras.community for more information on all of that.

So I guess let's do this, let's do a couple rounds.

What's your favorite Thing about the community.

Phyllis, you look like you're smiling.

I'm trying to always smile because I'm on camera now.

Well, I. I just.

I like the community and people and, you know, it's funny because I know you kind of drugged me kicking and screaming into the live thing last month.

I feel like it's always like that.

I am.

Yes.

Yes, it is.

What is that thing?

You know, you're supposed to do one.

Thing every day that scares you.

Well, Kim makes me do that one thing or Kara.

She's either one responsible for.

Between the two of them, they make me do that one thing every day that.

That scares me.

But I really actually enjoyed the live.

I was surprised that I enjoyed it as much, but it was nice because, well, I. I pretty much knew everybody but a couple, so I felt at home.

But my challenge for this month, which I haven't even posted the date I'm doing one this month, is a little bit more difficult.

That's why I haven't.

I haven't posted one this month, so.

But yes, I'm doing one every month.

Edit with Phyllis.

Yes, edit with Phyllis.

And it's like sitting with your friends and editing an image.

And I love that.

That's what I love about this is it's sit with your buddies and edit an image.

Kara, what about you?

I like the things that are kind of community driven, so I like that people can ask questions.

I like that they can make recommendations.

I love the monthly editing challenge option.

So, like being able to, like, drop an image and then everybody plays with the same image and gets to be creative.

I don't know.

I like the community building pieces that we've wrapped up in there.

Oh, and badges.

I like badges.

Everybody loves a good badge.

I like to award badges to our participants when they come to events.

And I would say those are my favorite pieces of it.

That and the centralized, like everything is centralized.

This is where you can find our podcast.

If you can't find it anywhere else, you can find us, you know, here.

If you can't find us anywhere else, you can find us here.

And you can ask.

Ask any question you want.

I mean, it doesn't matter if it's regarding a portrait shoot or a commercial shoot or.

Or just plain how to get motivated.

It's anything, you know?

Yeah, I love being.

I. I was badge fairy to start off with, and then Kara accepted the wand.

Now she dubs the badges out to people.

I just started badging people.

I just started badge.

Badge fairy.

Yeah.

Because I got busy.

I'm going to complain because I've brought more people in than I have reflected in my badge accrual.

Oh, so the badge fairy has not granted you the big badge for.

It's because you only get badges by the actual length that you, you know, if I put my link up, well, all I do is tell somebody.community because I can remember that.

So.

So we acknowledge you the bad.

We acknowledge you dubbed.

But okay.

So my favorite part of it is the conversations that go on between the members in the community.

I love to watch when people hit it off with each other and say, oh, I'm from there.

Or hey, I shot at this thing.

Or wow, look at that image that you created.

I love that circular effect in the community.

So round two, if you were to give somebody one reason to join the community, what would that number one reason to join our community be?

For me, it would just be that it's equine photography focused.

Like, you want a place to come where the people that are here, like, live and breathe what you're trying to live and breathe every single day.

Like, this is the spot.

I'm going to have to agree with that because it's.

This is the people that we eat, live and breathe with and that we.

And we breed that same common bond of equine the horse and whether.

And I don't care.

I mean, I know we're western based, but.

And a horse is a good horse to me.

I don't care what sadly wears.

He's a.

If he's a good horse, he's a good horse.

And so, yeah, it's just that we're based, you know, we do mostly western, but that doesn't mean that we won't accept other people as well.

Well, the challenge this month is a sidesaddle rider.

So is it on the beach?

Is it.

Is it a western side saddle or a.

Because she had a western side saddle, didn't she?

I could not tell you if it was.

She was wearing a side saddle habit and top hat.

There you go.

Thinking she had a western side saddle.

But I don't know the difference.

I don't.

I'm not up on my side saddles.

Yeah, there's a difference.

There's a difference.

I don't know the difference.

So somebody is going to have to tell me which one is which.

The only way I know a difference is because we had a client that showed side saddle and she had an English side saddle and a western side saddle.

Well, there you go.

And she would dress appropriately for each one she was riding in.

Well, maybe someone in our community can let us know.

No kidding.

Well, not.

Well, I. Phyllis can let us know.

I'd have to go look at it.

Phyllis will have to go look at it.

But here's the thing.

Where else in the world would you find somebody that knows the difference between an English and a Western side saddle, other than the cowgirl community?

So there's great.

Okay, this is in English.

I just looked.

It's in English.

Okay, so it's an English side saddle.

Debate is settled.

So now when you go look at the photo later, you'll know.

By the way, our editing challenge is available to everyone in the community, including those that are in the free level.

I would say my reason that I would encourage people to join is they'll make a friend.

As you all know from listening to me ramble in this podcast, I don't.

Just to stay in the equine photography world.

I spend a lot of time with, networking with people in business and, and gestalt and hypnosis and like I'm.

I'm out there moving and grooving all over the place.

And when I've been having conversations over the last six or seven months with people about, like, what is missing from your life?

Like, what is it that you really wish that you could find?

Almost to a person it has been meaningful relationships.

Like, we're not talking about, like finding somebody to marry here.

We're talking about meaningful friendships with other people who share common interests.

And this is that place.

It.

This is a platform where you can have that without that crazy cacophony of social media constantly screaming in your ear.

You can go here where it's nice and quiet and you can actually build those kind of one to one relationships as well as meet totally new people who, chances are, may even live near you or you might meet at a workshop or that you might go somewhere with so you can build those kind of friendships inside of this community.

So, yeah, I was just going to say that.

Also, another great benefit to joining the community is that you get to hear about our new events first.

Oh yeah.

You do.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the people that have been messaging me, how was Arizona already filled?

Because there are people that have an in because they're in the community and they get information first.

And it.

That's just.

That's just a perk.

That's a perk.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Well, let's wrap this up.

So I know I have plans for the future.

So what is something you always do I know I live in this future, Phyllis.

It can be what you're planning right now.

What is something you're planning on doing within the community in the near future?

I want to continue fleshing out the vendors and suppliers list because there's so much there that I've barely touched, like, so I'm.

Let me look into the community for some more ideas there.

The other thing that we're going to talk about in a future episode, but so people hear about it more.

But I really, I really want to get myself better at like putting more video education stuff in the community.

So, like, I have a ton of ideas on like little short doable things for our community that I really want to record and put out there and just be better about putting my face on camera.

So that's what I'm hoping to see in our community soon for people.

And then the third thing is like, I just want to see more people in there, like asking questions, helping each other, answering questions.

Yep, yep.

Phyllis, what's your plans?

Well, I have to wait till y' all tell me what my plans are.

But yeah, they're whatever we tell her she has to do.

So.

Hit.

Hit.

Those of you in the community, you need to talk to Kara and I.

But this month is going to be on my live.

I do.

That's my next goal is to get my live up and.

And I don't know the day yet.

So of course this will be after that.

That's already happened.

So yeah, it'll.

You'll be working on the next on December.

Yeah.

So this is.

We're talking about November right now.

But this month we'll be working on images without using any of my plugins or actions that I'm accustomed to using.

So that's gonna be interesting.

Oh, I can.

I can do it.

You can do it.

I. I know on my live the other day everyone was so impressed because I drew light rays in by hand.

That was.

It was fun to watch them all go.

Wow, you can do that.

And see there's just some things that are just way more work that I want to deal with.

It took me all of five seconds.

That's because you're Kim.

So what I'm planning on doing.

Well, first of all, I would like to see like Kira, I want to see more inter membership communication.

And one of the things that we mentioned in just a previous episode that has not aired as we're recording this, but will air.

But by the time we do is a do hard things group where we get together on a somewhat regular basis and talk about the hard things that we need to accomplish in our business and our photography.

So I definitely would like to have more of those small group aspects where we can get to know each other better.

And then I do plan on continuing my lives.

One of the unique things that I have to offer is my graphic design background that I have not really done a lot of education around.

So this month being November, I do have a live coming up, like next week, which will have already happened by the time you guys listen to this.

But if you join the community, you can catch the replay that is about, you know, basic graphic design in Photoshop because I've used Photoshop as my graphics design tool of choice for, well, since Photoshop 1, because I'm old.

So, yeah, so that's one of my plans for the future.

All right.

I think that wraps us up.

Kira, do you want to take us out?

Yes.

So we'll, we'll.

First of all, I'll start by saying if you've enjoyed this episode and you're like, I want to check out the community.

It's cowgirls with cameras.com backslash community.

So no, no, no.

Cowgirls with cameras.com community.

Let me figure it out with cameras.community.

so if you want to check out the community, head over there.

You can also find us online.

We're@cowgirlswithcameras.com that's where, honestly, you can find out about all of our upcoming events.

You'll find out about them in the community first, but they will eventually make their way onto social media, which we are on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at Cowgirls with Cameras.

So just come hang out with us in all of the places because you're going to like it there.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Cowgirls with Cameras.

Don't let the laughter and learning stop here.

Join our community on social media and.

Be sure to visit our website for.

More opportunities to fulfill your photography goals.

Head to cowgirlswithcameras.com that's cowgirlswithcameras dot com See you next time.