My biggest takeaways as a Sandra Coan Certified Photographer

In May 2023, I took a leap of faith on myself and joined the Sandra Coan Certification Program. I have been a photographer since I was 15 years old and started my business officially in 2020, but I never felt like I was good enough to call myself a photographer. I would have crippling anxiety before every session. During the session all I could think about was what a hack I was charging people for photos they could probably take better on their phone. After the session, I would hold my breath uploading my photos to my computer, just praying I would have enough usable images to deliver to the family. Were all of these thoughts true? Absolutely not. I have struggled with low self esteem and imposter syndrome for as long as I can remember, but I wasn’t doing anything to give myself confidence to battle the lies in my brain. Could I improve my technical skills? Absolutely. Would that be the game changer for my confidence? Absolutely.

Enter Sandra Coan.

I first ran across Sandra when I was learning from another photography educator. Sandra was advertising her Missing Link course where she teaches you her way to create natural looking light using strobes and flash. It seemed awesome, but I was a natural light photographer and I didn’t need that, or so I told myself. I liked Sandra though, so started following her on Instagram.

When I was trying to expand my business into school photography after one too many cringe worthy school photos of my own kids, I knew I would need to use artificial light, so I ran back to the one person who I knew would be able to teach me what I needed to know.

I often say I was History major in college because it’s the most straight forward of the social sciences and I’m a photographer because it’s the most scientific creative pursuit I can think of. I like control and learning how to use a strobe gave me that control of light that I was desperate for in my photography. I gobbled up the Missing Link and immediately started using it in my schools.

But I still felt like such an imposter.

Starting Certification

Then in the spring of 2023, Sandra started talking about that very feeling on her social media. She was advertising a new approach to photography education in her brand new Sandra Coan Certification program. She was going to teach lighting, posing, and business all in one cohesive program and give you real time feedback. As soon as I could, I applied.

I was shocked when I got an email saying that Sandra wanted to chat about the certification with me. I got on a zoom call with her and she was absolutely lovely. She explained the certification program and little more and to my surprise, she had looked at my work and felt like she could help me get where I wanted to go. In that short meeting, she helped me envision my goals for my art and my business.

It was a big investment. Thanks to the few schools I had done, I knew I had enough in my business account to cover about half of the cost of the certification. I have an amazingly supportive partner and we decided to make a leap of faith on me and I went for it.

What you learn

Learning all about light helped me see it all around me. I went in thinking that I knew what I wanted to do, but quickly discovered patterns of light that make my heart sing and started implementing them in my work. All the things that I learned about light in the Missing Link were a starting place to what I would learn in these lighting modules. As I grew more comfortable using my strobe indoors, I started practicing the things I had learned from Sandra in my own way outdoors. This opened up the world of sports portraits, which I absolutely love doing.

Learning Sandra’s methods on posing has freed my brain to be more creative at every session than I could have imagined. She is an educator by nature and knows that we all thrive on routine. She has simple ways of making things that at first seem overwhelming very manageable.

Her wild success in business gave me so much information on how to improve the marketing of my business from website to social media to email. I have clear plans in place at the beginning of each year now to thrive in my business.

Biggest Benefits

I think the three most valuable parts of the Certification process are the real time feed back from Sandra via check-ins, the incredibly active, kind, and knowledgeable Facebook community, and the in person gathering.

After you go through each of the sections, you gather your photos that showcase what you’ve learned and you get feedback directly from Sandra. She’s been doing this for 25 years and she knows what she is doing. She is also incredibly kind. She gives your tangible things to improve upon when you are struggling and encouragement to keep going. She really does believe in the people she brings into the Certification Community.

And that Community is the absolute best there is! There is an incredibly active Facebook group where people post photos and questions and others really take the time to answer thoroughly. There is no gate keeping in this group.

Part of what makes that group amazing, is that we gather once a year for the Certification Summit. We learn from Sandra and others about various techniques, go on photo walks, talk through the joys and struggles of being small business owners, and laugh so much. By meeting your internet friends in real life, it allows you to trust their judgement on your work in the virtual space that we mostly live in due to us living all over the world. At the last summit, two other certified photographers gave my portfolio a huge review so I could submit it to Sandra for final review at the retreat. Getting to do that review in person was so good. We could read each others body language and there was no misinterpretation of any critiques. They gave me confidence to select my very best images and cheered me on as I hit submit on my certification application. They cheered the loudest when Sandra announced that I was a certified photographer the next day!

So now what?

What does it mean that I am a Sandra Coan Certified Photographer? First and foremost, I know that I am good at what I do. I know that I can go into any situation and find or bring the light that I want to use to create beautiful images. I love getting to help other photographers in the group as they grow in their journey. I am working on a course to teach other photographers how to use their strobes and flash outdoors to create timeless photos. I have a group of photographers that I can turn to when that imposter syndrome cycle starts to rear its ugly head and but a stop to it. From a financial standpoint, the certification program paid for itself in the first year that I was in it. By having a clear and consistent portfolio, I was able to book more clients and my business began to spread among our community.

I am part of Sandra’s network of certified photographers and have my website linked on her page. She has 25 years of SEO data out there, so Google likes her. If my page is on her page, then my page gets more traffic. (Did I mention learning more about SEO has helped gain exposure as well? All done without hiring a company to do it for me?)

I am so glad that I took a leap of faith on myself, my business, and my art in May 2023. It has made all of the difference for me and I encourage you to bet on yourself. I am happy to chat more in depth at any time. Send me a message and we can hop on a call. Or if you are ready to apply right now, you can go straight to Sandra’s site to do so. Please tell her I sent you!