Hired at first 121 job!
- Thread starter sbe
- Start date
Holding Short
Well-Known Member
DeltaAlphaNovember
Well-Known Member
Congrats on the 121 gig! Oh and you picked a perfect day to start in STL.
jon wilson
Pilot4Life
Congrats.
RedBaron2000
Well-Known Member
Do you know if TSA does all their ATP-CTP at DFW? How long is the course? Just curious because I'm also looking at TSA to live and be based at RDU.
sbe
Well-Known Member
Why's that? Do tell!
@RedBaron2000, yes, I believe TSA sends everyone to CAE in Dallas for ATP-CTP. The course runs Monday-Sunday. Then I fly to STL at the crack of dawn on 5/2 to go straight to class! My husband is going to fly over and get me at the end of that first week in STL so I can bring my car back. I just live 3.5 hours away in KC.
DeltaAlphaNovember
Well-Known Member
Well it's my birthday of course. 
RedBaron2000
Well-Known Member
OK, thanks for the info. I'd love to continue to hear how things go for you since I'm kind of in the same boat. Ironically, I've also shot lots of family & engagement portraits in my past and several weddings as well, although never full time. I guess everyone's a photographer these days though (I got started at my college newspaper way back in the 90's when they used this stuff called film that we developed and printed ourselves).
sbe
Well-Known Member
@DeltaAlphaNovember well, happy birthday then! 
@RedBaron2000, I can certainly update you on the ATP-CTP and training process. You are correct on the "everyone's a photographer" comment - I've been full time since the beginning of 2010, and was part time for two years prior to that - my business did well but the last 4 years I photographed, I wasn't able to raise my rates at all in order to book the volume I needed. There were so many new people entering into the market, and, I don't want to sound bad, but so many really young people who just didn't know how much of your gross profit/income goes to living expenses, taxes, various costs of doing business and cost of goods sold, insurance, etc etc. There were way too many photographers not giving themselves credit for their talent and charging what they deserved to make. I see a lot of my friends struggling to book weddings (friends who are very talented and run good businesses) and it makes me sad. I just got sick of working that hard, *all* the time! That being said, I left the field as a full-timer still loving photography, so that's a good thing. The time was just right to pursue flying after all these years. I'll continue to shoot portraits for the families I've photographed year after year, and perhaps finally have time to start exploring more personal projects!
Of course, now that I'm just under a month until I leave, I'm getting email after email wanting to book spring portraits
I am working on the announcement on my website right now...I've tried to keep general announcements about my career change on the down low, as I really wanted to make it well into training first. Call me superstitious.
@RedBaron2000, I can certainly update you on the ATP-CTP and training process. You are correct on the "everyone's a photographer" comment - I've been full time since the beginning of 2010, and was part time for two years prior to that - my business did well but the last 4 years I photographed, I wasn't able to raise my rates at all in order to book the volume I needed. There were so many new people entering into the market, and, I don't want to sound bad, but so many really young people who just didn't know how much of your gross profit/income goes to living expenses, taxes, various costs of doing business and cost of goods sold, insurance, etc etc. There were way too many photographers not giving themselves credit for their talent and charging what they deserved to make. I see a lot of my friends struggling to book weddings (friends who are very talented and run good businesses) and it makes me sad. I just got sick of working that hard, *all* the time! That being said, I left the field as a full-timer still loving photography, so that's a good thing. The time was just right to pursue flying after all these years. I'll continue to shoot portraits for the families I've photographed year after year, and perhaps finally have time to start exploring more personal projects!
Of course, now that I'm just under a month until I leave, I'm getting email after email wanting to book spring portraits
I am working on the announcement on my website right now...I've tried to keep general announcements about my career change on the down low, as I really wanted to make it well into training first. Call me superstitious.