I entered the Johnstown business world wearing a grey, pinstriped, unlined Wal-Mart suit that cost me about $35.
I remember the suit because I wore it to have my picture taken for an employee directory. I had just started my insurance career back in 2000. During my second day on the job, my employer scheduled me for a session at a photography studio almost directly across the street from their office. The walls of the studio were lined with portraits of the Johnstown crème de la crème – the well-known evening anchor from the local NBC affiliate, prominent businesspeople, etc. The 30-ish-looking, uptight photographer said as he posed me, “Now that you have this new job, you will learn how to dress better.”

You might wonder why I wore a $35 Wal-Mart suit during my first week at a job. Well, I bought the suit a year earlier when I still worked at Wal-Mart but was trying to leave before I became a lifer there. At that time, I thought that it was pretty cool that I could buy a three-piece suit, including a jacket, trousers, and skirt, all for under $40! After that stint ended, my income from doing proofreading and participating in Americorps had pretty much amounted to Wal-Mart earnings. This new gig paid better and I was thankful to have it, but the salary was still not very healthy. Thus, I had no intention of investing a lot of money into buying a wardrobe. (I just wanted to pay off my student loans as quickly as possible.) I had already worn my one good interview suit to my first day at the new office. Finally, I was naïve enough to believe that nobody would care.

Now I am married to a man who has decided that he wants to go into the photography business himself. I have been taking photography lessons from him and doing my own reading on the business so that I am in a position to act as his assistant and business partner somebody.

One of the books that I am currently reading is “Digital Portrait Photography” by Steve Sint. According to the author's bio on the cover of this book, his "photographs have appeared in many major magazines and websites, including the covers of "Life" and "Omni.'" His book and his bio reference the significant number of executive portraits and expensive New York City weddings that he has photographed during his years in the business. Yet in the first chapter of his book, on page 17, his advice is to "have compassion." Sint goes on to explain, "You'll never get the perfect portrait from a subject who's been made to feel bad about the way they look, or anything else. In the business world, this might be referred to as professionalism . . . "

I hope that my husband and I learn to emanate the professionalism of a real pro like Mr. Sint.