If you’ve been following along with this series, I’m rounding up my time at The Signature Atelier with this post!

DAY 5 – WORKFLOWS, VERSAILLES, AND WEBSITE WOES

Day five was our last full day together. We began the day with a class on efficient workflows. This is one of those subjects that any business owner needs to constantly be analyzing and adjusting. I know I do it. There are too many moving parts to ignore this aspect, not to mention the fact that ignoring it causes a major breakdown in organization and efficiency. It was helpful for me to see how Abby utilizes checklists and workflow pipelines. For me, I am presently working on an actual manual for my business…a Standard Operating Procedure, if you will, to keep all of my workflows, templates and checklists organized in one central location.

After class we rounded up our camera bags and walked over to Versailles. It’s crazy that our house was so close we could walk there. We’re so spoiled.

Now, before I get too far, I just have to say, there are so many words I could use to describe Versailles, but unreal and overwhelming are the ones that come to mind right off the bat. I didn’t go into the Palace (the main building you think of when you think of Versailles) because the line is a perpetual three hour wait and there is so much else to see on the grounds. I spent most of the time in and around the Grand Trianon figuring I’d save the chateau for my next trip. I did walk around the chateau though, to get that vantage point of the vast property with my own eyes, and all I could think was…what a greedy bunch of entitled expletives! No wonder the French citizens rebelled, took King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette hostage, and invented a new way to put them to death, a la the guillotine.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled blog post. We entered the property at the Neptune Gate and walked to the Grand Trainon. This is where I spent most of the day, exchanging head shots with some of my fellow workshop attendees. No where as large as the chateau, but still over the top gorgeous and extravagant, this mini palace was quite a site to see. It was also insanely busy so I kept my photo taking to a minimum inside, but couldn’t help myself in The Mirror Room and The Empress’ Bedroom.

The Grand Trianon is constructed with pink marble (so french) and porphyry, which is a rock that usually has a reddish tint and a bit of sparkle to it. There is a peristyle (essentially a covered walkway) between the two wings of the palace, that looks to a courtyard on one side and a garden on the other. It’s all gorgeous, but what grabbed me was the black and white checkered flooring. I didn’t expect it and we spent a good bit of time here taking photos of each other.

Before the day was up I took the long walk to the Palace so I could see the building up close and walk through the gardens directly adjacent to it. This is where you encounter the panoramic view of The Grand Canal and this is the view that sparked that feeling I discussed earlier. The walk from the back of the Palace to the edge of The Grand Canal would probably take 15 minutes if you walked without distraction. Really, all I can say is that pictures don’t do any of it justice. You can’t imagine how vast the whole property is until you’re standing in it. When I look at my photos it actually exhausts me remembering how much walking we did. I know I made the right decision not trying to see everything in one trip. This is a multi visit destination.

After our adventures at Versailles, we returned to the house for a final evening of food, drink and conversation. We spent the remaining hours of daylight chatting in the garden about Versailles and everything we had learned that week. I was even able to capture a fun photo on my Samsung Gear 360 of all of us sitting around the table for our last dinner together.

As the evening wound down, it was my group’s turn for website reviews. It’s the only thing I was fretting about the workshop. Before Abby even typed in my URL, I told her my site was old, I hated it and it no longer represented me. She agreed I needed an upgrade, but still looked everything over and gave me some ideas for when I meet with a designer. One of the main things she encouraged me to do was share my why and what the compass in my logo actually represents…basically the story of my business. It’s been a thing I’ve shared with wedding clients, but she thought it needed to be front and center, shared with the world. That actually gave me a boost of confidence that it could be one of the keys to connecting with clients that need me specifically. As we speak I am researching website designers for an overhaul in 2018!

DAY 6 – GOODBYES, FRATERNITY AND FIREWORKS

Our final breakfast together brought some sadness, but excitement about the future. We had all made new friends, tried new things and spent a week working ON our businesses rather than IN them.

After some teary goodbyes, Katie McGihon and I parted for an Airbnb a short walk from Trocadéro which overlooks the Eiffel Tower. After dropping our luggage off, we headed back to the Latin Quarter for some shopping and lunch. We sat at a cafe table and people watched over a drink. It was a gorgeous day and we took in the bustle over a slow and thoroughly enjoyed, two hour meal.

The city was busy with the celebration of Le Quatorze Juillet. Outside of France, this day is commonly called Bastille Day, but NEVER in France. In France it is formally called la Fête nationale. (I’ll post a link below to some vocab pointers regarding this day). Put simply, it is their independence day. It commemorates the storming of the Bastille by French citizens on July 14, 1789, a major turning point in the French Revolution. It also celebrates the unity of the French during the revolution which would come to bore the motto Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

We wandered past Notre Dame to catch the metro to the Arc de Triomphe. At 6:30pm we watched the daily ritual of the laying of flowers at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which lies beneath the soaring arch. Some of my family members had served in France during WW2 so it was important to me to see this.

For dinner we dined at an Italian cafe before before dropping our camera bags off at our Airbnb and heading over to try Trocadero to try to claim a spot to watch the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. It was a mad house, but the crowd was electric! Parisians dressed head to toe in blue, white and red, wrapped in French flags, several blocks full of people breaking out into song…Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!…from La Marseillaise, France’s National Anthem. At 11pm, fireworks lit up the sky and the crowd erupted! We didn’t have the best vantage point, but it didn’t matter because we could see enough and we absorbed right into the crowd.

It was fitting that on day five I saw the materialized reason for the French Revolution and the very next day would take in how the French celebrate what they accomplished when they took matters into their own hands. It is no wonder that France would have a major influence on the United States for centuries.

The next morning Katie was headed back stateside while I stayed an extra day to explore Disneyland Paris, which I’ll be sharing about in a future post!

If you made it through all three posts and have questions, please drop them in the comments below, or email me directly at dawn@degreesnorthimages.com. It may seem strange that I shared about the workshop to the extant that I did, but I think there is real value in sharing how I’m working on my business with my clients and followers. I also want to be the kind of photographer and creative that elevates the industries I’m a part of and the best way I can think of to do that, is to write about my experiences.

Also check out:
Days 1 and 2 of The Signature Atelier
Days 3 and 4 of The Signature Atelier
Le Quatorze Juillet vocabulary

Thank you to Marie Rood and Alicia Yarrish for my portraits at Versailles!