One of the most influential photgraphers of today, and someone I’m a big fan of, Chase Jarvis, has recently opened up a new project with a bunch of friends.  Creative LIVE! is a FREE online training site for creative individuals.  Well, mostly free.  Initial classes are run for free but if you miss them you can buy downloadable copies after the fact.  It’s a very cool idea and I’ve already signed up for a couple of the classes.

Have a look here : http://www.creativelive.com/

So, I did one of my first blog posts using Word press for the iPhone yesterday.   The post looked goofy from the phone but I figured it was just displaying that way on the phone only!  Turns out, nope, it was messed up in general.  And oddly I coudln’t edited it either because it had different editing options from what I know how to use.  So I just deleted the post.  SorryKelly!!

Anyway, just finished the edits tonight from a shoot with the kitties of a bride we’re photographing in May.  Izzy was a blast but Bella was moody!  Guess who’s who!  Oh wait, one of them is tagged!  hehehe

I rather enjoy doing pet portraits so if anyone want’s their pet’s portrait done, feel free to book us!  Here’s some of the shots chosen by Alana of her kitties Izzy and Bella. 

And don’t forget to enter our Mother’s Day contest! http://secondsightstudio.com/dwblog/?p=280

Izzy fishing!

Izzy

Bella

Bella chillaxes

Hey all!  Well, here it is!  I mentioned it was coming and here we go.

Your Mom is the most amazing woman you’ve ever known.  She’s been there for you through good times.  Through bad times.  But what makes her the Best Mom in the World!?  Click the comments link up in the right of this post,  tell us why your Mom is so awesome and she could win a FREE portrait session worth $180!  Here’s what you do,

- Click the comment link in the upper right hand of this post, tell us why your Mom is the Best Mom in the World.  These stories will be visible to everyone who visits here.
- We will collect the stories until May 1st.
- On May 1st we’ll go through all the submissions and which ever one touches us the most will be declared the winner.
- If, as in my case, your mother is no longer with us, the session can be used for anyone of your choosing.
- The session will be about 1 hour long and will result in up to 5 images being fully edited, printable at 8 x 10, and burned onto a CD.
- The session will take place in the subject’s home or at a favorite location anywhere in Edmonton.

And with that, please start submitting!  Cheers!

My Mom.

Okay, here I am with this month’s installation!  I know, last month I said I wanted to change things so that I post more often.  Well, I do want to!  And in an effort to do so, we are opening up a contest starting March 20th!  Details will be posted here so check back tomorrow.

Also, I’d like to comment on my thoughts of what this blog should be.

One, it shall become a presentation field for our shoots with our beloved clients.  Here is where you will see the first completed images from our shoots.   Clients will be able to collect their first few edits here without having to wait for us to drop off a CD or set up another download option.

Two, it shall be an announcements page, commenting on upcoming weddings and other shoots and featuring engagement photos, baby photos, birth announcements and more!

So, with 2010 filling up fast, we shouldn’t have much trouble finding awesome stuff to post here…So keep your eyes peeled, and bookmark this page!

Cheers!

From recent shoot with Suzan

Wow.  Things are getting busy!  Several new shoots coming up soon.  Looking forward to those!  Plus trying to redo main website isn’t going as planned so it’s taking much longer than expected.  And trying to catch up on things I’m behind on isn’t going so smooth either.  But I’m getting there!

I’m a big advocate of personal projects but they can be daunting.  You want to explore new horizins and sometimes it’s for your own sanity and release, but sometimes you hope to potentially find a market for your experiments.  I’m currently falling in to the second group.  I love photography.  But my day job alone can’t cover my costs while having a part time AND full time job make it extremely difficult to properly start up a full business.  And they also can’t help me keep up with the changing technology.  For that I need extra funds and the only place I can see to get those funds is through the sale of my images.  The trick is finding the outlets to do it that will actually work for me.  I will begin that search soon.  If anyone has suggestions, please forward them along.

Clouds Below

Inspiring photographer Scott Bourne gave Tasra Dawson a challenge in order to help her improve her photography. 

http://www.tasra365.com/

She accepted the challenge and started the above web site to chronicle her adventure.  Many others are taking the challenge as well.  I showed the site to my good friend Ralna who is also inspired to take up the challenge AND has challenged me to do the same.  I have in fact attempted a 365 project 8 times in the past.  Failure came mainly because I would miss my start date of sunrise, January 1st.  Miss that and the project is dead.

So Ralna suggested, start tomorrow, Sept 3rd, and use the next few months as a lead up to get my head in the game and get a routine going so that I’ll be ready when the time comes and will have the motivation and momentum to keep going.  Why the heck not! Maybe adding the slight competetive element of who will succeeed more often than the other is just what we both need to get out and shoot more.  We’ll see how it goes.

I will post my efforts to my blog on it’s own tab above.  Once Ralna has determined the path she’ll take for posting I will provide a link there as well.

Wish us all luck!

NOT my first entry.

Yellow Lillies

In my attempts to become more involved in photography as part of my effort in getting my business up and running I’ve taken part in many of the new social media experiments.  I’ve joined Twitter, Flickr, started this blog, and have enhanced my presence on Facebook with a Facebook Page for business.  Next up is fine tuning everything and getting some of that mystical Google Search results holy grail of being on the first page of a search for Edmonton Photographers or Edmonton Wedding Photographers.

While playing around with these new tools and hangingout at other photographers blogs and listening to podcasts aplenty I’ve had the odd sensation several times now of referring to some of these people as friends.  Many of them of them likely saw my name for a moment when I first started following them on Twitter or from a comment I may have made on their blogs but really, they probably have NO idea who I am, so why am I calling them friend?  After spending a good chunk of time following the lives of others you get to know them almost like a friend.  But without that one on one interaction, can you really call them a friend?  Why not!? As far as I’m concerned we are ALL friends.  Some of us just haven’t been properly introduced.

And that’s a core thing for me in business and was a major point of conflict between me and an ex-girlfriend (she fiercly disagreed with me).  When I’m dealing with a client I don’t really want a client/business-owner relationship, to me that’s just a cold thing.  It says “I’m here to take your money and don’t really care that much about you as a person”.  No, I’d much rather have a friendship  that says “yes, I’m performing a service for you for which I must be fairly compensated but I care about how you feel about the results of the service I provide and eally want you to be happy with what you receive.”  I’m not looking to be your Photographer for this event.  I’m looking to be YOUR photographer.  For life!  Let us photograph your wedding in July and then 24 years from now, let us photograph your daughter’s wedding!  And during that 24 year journey allow us to photograph all your most memorable events.  We’re here for YOU.  Payment is just a neccessary evil.

I was thinking the other day, I work mainly in the IT industry and it’s common practice among my peers that whenever new software is available it’s a sign that it’s time to whine and complain about how much it’s going to suck and to wait at least six months for the developers to work out the bugs.  I must be broken because when I learn of new software I can’t wait to get my hands on it and try out the new features.  I realized a while ago that they’re complaining and fears are not very well placed or thought out.  What I realized is that NO software is EVER complete.  Regardless of peoples beliefs, software will always be in beta, especially as it gets more and more complex.  (For those that don’t know, the Beta phase of software development is one of the last stages of testing before a final release of that software.  It often includes having members of a specific industry or even the general public involved in the testing.)

Then tonight I was thinking again, discussing with Mel through the last few days and then talking with a possible client this evening I realized that almost nothing is ever final.  I’ve spent much of the last two months stressing over pricing structures and package pricing.  We finally came to a decision a couple weeks ago and now while talking again we’ve decided that some more changes are in order not only to our pricing but to our web site as well.  I then realized that it doesn’t matter what we set our prices to, we are free to change our prices as we see fit to better appeal to our customers while still being fair to ourselves.  We may have settled on one pricing structure for now, but guaranteed, we will change it.  Everyone does.

So it seems that while some people feel that some crazy ads are let through on Facebook that shouldn’t be, perfectly legitimate ads are denied for equally absent reasons.  Finally got an e-mail today that said my ad was mistakenly denied and that it has been approved.  Awesome!

I’d like to just say how awesome Twitter is.  I have found so much useful information through the people I’m following on Twitter it isn’t even funny.  Seriously.  Not funny!!  I’m getting too much info now and some info that I want to check, I may not be readily able to so by the time I”m in a position to look at the info I’ve completely forgotten about it, or I’ve forgotten who posted it, or whatever.  And I’m only following 27 people!  I can’t imagine the ordeals that some folk go through when they have more than 500!!!

Anyway, tonight shall be a night of fun and excitement as we have our weekly business meeting and have much to discuss about exactly how to deal with the new ad and advertising in general.

Tonight I set up our first ever Facebook Ad.   I figured it was a good place to start.  It was a bit scary and confusing, but I think it will work out great!

Next step might need to be new business cards and other marketing materials.  I really want to do something different and eye catching.  Just trying to get that spark to ignite in my brain.  Of course ideas offered by others are always welcomed!

We will also be getting our sample books from Pictage in a couple weeks so that’s pretty exciting too!  Pictage is the lab we’re going to try out for a while and they seem great so far!!!  Lot’s of products to choose from and everyone places their order right online!  Great options and timesaver for everyone.

Mel also got to playing around with some self portraits we did of each other.  I’m hoping to sit down with a few soon myself.  She’s so freaking funny!