Yesterday, we received our first photographic backdrop. We’re fleshing out the studio and getting serious about taking more pictures. We’ve already done one shoot this month, but it was outside. Now, we can do good portraits inside. We even have another shoot scheduled for this weekend.
So, without further ado, here is a shot of our new backdrop:
Since we had it set up, we took some sample shots of my friend Raffe:
Now, we’re ready for business!
Gardening is hard work – especially when you find some kind of rock under the topsoil. Digging around it, we found that it could be broken into pieces. Not easily, but it could be done. So, for the last hour or so, we’ve been digging through it just to get holes deep enough for some flowers. Of course, we had to borrow a shovel to do this work, so that’s now on the list of stuff we have to buy.
The barbeque is going well – I think I have the temperature down where it needs to be. It takes a lot of work just to check on it during the day. I’m glad I have nowhere else to be!
I’m also working on the new web site, or rather, redirecting the old website to the new domain name. This is the web site for our new photography business name: Phillips Photographik. It’s the same site for now that the old one pointed to, but now I’ve changed some of the language to reflect that it’s Laura and I, and updated the contact emails. I still have to update the banner.
It will take some time for us to finalize a logo, but we’ll get it done. At least this gives us a start!
We’ve been stagnant for so long, but things are going to change soon.
Okay, so I don’t post nearly as regularly as I should, but at least I do post and I try to do it at least once a month.
So the AC is now finally fixed and operating as it’s supposed to.
And I’m sore like I haven’t been since high-school spring football [and not recovering near as fast] due to some increased workout activity. I’ve been doing a little of that P90X workout once per week and it really tears me up. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do it 5 days per week.
So, we went out and got great pictures of cherry blossoms.
Now, all we need to do is post the thousands of remaining pictures…
Tomorrow, we’re going on an outing to hit DC before sunrise and take some pictures of the cherry trees and monuments. This is not a normal “get up” time for us by any means, but we will head out from the house about 4:15AM [ouch!] to get downtown about 5AM.
We’re going to take some low-light pictures first, scout out the area and then take some sunrise pictures of the trees.
So it’s off to bed early so I can get up!
After attending so many sessions at the Imaging USA convention, it has be come clear to us, especially since Laura is so key a part of our photographic endeavor, that the name “Jeff Phillips Photography” is an insufficient and incomplete name and that we should find something more appropriate.
Our dilemma, though, is that we are having trouble putting a label to what we do. We’re having trouble because of several things. First, we are not just “me” now, but “us”. Second, we don’t really have a specific niche, so the name has to be flexible enough to use regardless of the kind of photography we do [for example, to say “Phillips Portraits” may be incomplete if we do more, and we do]. Third, we want the name to be reflective of our style – which we haven’t defined yet. We want our name to be high-end, yet not out of reach; stylish, but not snooty; artistic, but not pretentious [well, not TOO pretentious…] and elegantly simple. We also want it to be something we can grow into. You can see how hard this is. It’s especially hard for us since we are very new to this realm.
If anyone has a suggestion, we’d be glad to hear it.
Okay, so I’m not going to blog about them separately since the days are a week past and they all run together, but I did want to mention some of the great things that I learned.
First of all, we met some great people and learned a lot from them. One of our favorites was actually part of the Microsoft featured speaker booth in the Expo: Angela Carson-Post who owns a studio up near Detroit. Angela was great to listen to and extremely informative on the business of running a studio – which was exactly what we needed to hear. I think I took the most notes of the conference at her sessions. She did three sessions, one each day at the EXPO.
Another favorite, possibly because they were first and from Texas, were the guys of TriCoast Photography. What I came out of that session with was that I needed to learn more about lighting and using the tools that we already have, like both the big lights and the camera strobes. They taught me a few techniques that I’m anxious to try out [I’ll have to wait until the snow stops, though!] for outside lighting. They also raved on the native wireless communications abilities of the Canon flashes and how they use them to create modern lighting for their portraits as well as save lots of room when they travel.
Also on my favorite list is a photographer from Chicago named Bob Davis. Bob was very encouraging, since as a high-end photographer, he has photographed many famous people and has a passion for what he does. He told us to get back to the basics of photography and “practice, practice, practice!” which we certainly need to do.
Overall, there were many sessions which gave us inspiration and motivation and we hope to continue that and bring excellence, consistency, and passion to our work as photographers. It will take time and work, but I feel we can do it.
Wow. Brain melt-down. There was a LOT of good information we gathered today and I’ll be glad if we even retain and use a tenth of that information. I’m having brain overload! In fact, I think I’m going to collapse real soon.
We have to do this again tomorrow – back at the show at 7AM. Ick.
It hasn’t started yet, but we’re here in Phoenix and have done some early reconnaissance to find out where we should go, where to park, and how to get there. It looks like we will have to really push getting up early – the convention starts at 7AM. Luckily for us, that’s 7AM Arizona time – 2 hours earlier than where we come from [that’s actually 9AM “our” time].
We first found some things to eat [which of course is VERY important] and then headed to the downtown convention center. We walked around getting our bearings and then made a few more stops for groceries to keep in the room. We’re going to have to get up so early, that most breakfast places won’t be open, so we had to get our own to keep in our tiny little fridge.
I’ll try to post as the days go on about interesting things that may happen here – or I may collapse with exhaustion and not type a single additional word until we leave. I hope to get some great perspectives on running a photography business as well as some additional technical education on both photography and the tools associated with it.
None of this blogging or email would be possible without the help of my mother-in-law Norma. So, Thank You Norma! for staying up late and obtaining for me the decryption key for my laptop which failed to boot up properly on the first night here. She painstakingly read out the 400 digit code [not really, but it SEEMED like 400 digits] to unlock the machine so that I could boot into Vista. I have since turned off Bitlocker for the duration of the trip. I needed to anyway since I’m going to upgrade to Windows 7 Beta soon. I hear it’s much faster… 🙂
And I have to try out CS4 and Lightroom 2 on the next version of Windows!
Over the years, I’ve collected many thousands of pictures. I’ve spoken in times past of the “photo backlog” and how much work I have left to do. This started in spades after I got my 5D and I’ve been building a backlog ever since.
So, I’m about to go on a trip for training and I wanted to bring some photo projects with me – only I don’t have enough room! I needed about 10GB more space on my hard drive, so now I’m biting the bullet and finally moving some directories off to my archive storage. I guess if they’ve been there for over 18 months it’s likely I’ll never get to them or put them on the web. Sorry – you won’t see these any time soon.
I’m almost there, so I’ll have the space I need. Hopefully, I’ll get my new laptop soon which has over twice as much space on it. Soon…
Having done nothing recently on the photography business at all, Laura and I attended a seminar last night: the “I Shoot People” tour. I have to say it was AWESOME! I was so fired up that I volunteered to be the one to create the albums for our customers. Go figure. Laura was the one who wanted to do that! She says I’m not stepping on her toes, so maybe she’ll feel more free to help me with less of a burden of stress on her shoulders.
We also picked up some great business advice on how to avoid bad things in the business and how to appropriately price our services. All in all, it was the best seminar I’ve attended yet.
Now all we need are some customers!
::: jeffphillips.org ::: 