Alex the Photo Blog

Just thought I’d post something from my outdoor office.  I’ve been able to successfully cut back my hours at my day job in real estate and it is helping a ton with the photo business.  There are days like today though where I feel I’m just spending all day catching up on stuff from last week.  I guess it’s part of the business.  The good part is that I can take my new laptop just about anywhere, including the back porch.  I’m all caught up on emails and most of my editing.  I’ve got a wedding this weekend in Athens, GA that I’m really excited about.  Wedding season, here I come!  I hope everyone out there has fun plans for the weekend!

Something that may not be a surprise to you is that I love music.  I’ve been playing in a band for a few years with good friends and I love seeing live shows whenever I can.  When I attend shows around town, I always try [when I remember ahead of time] to work a trade deal with one of the bands playing:  put me on the list, and I’ll shoot and I’ll give you photos for your website.  Though it’s a bit more work for me than it is for them, I love taking photos and seeing shows for free.  :)  Most of all, I know that I’m supporting musicans at a time where it is increasingly hard to live on the income.  I can speak to it first hand that trying to make money on your music is nearly impossible- between producing an album and EP, instrument repair and replacement, and gas money our band is well in the hole… but we love it and we still do it.  Knowing that I can mix my photography passion with my music passion gives me all kinds of warm and fuzzies on the inside.  Here are photos from a recent shoot with Company of Thieves and Girl in a Coma at Vinyl Atlanta.  The lighting was pretty tough in here, so I ended up mostly with singer photos.  The next show I shoot at Vinyl, I plan to try and work out some lighting… or invest in a camera with better ISO performance.

I was approached a couple of months ago to participate in a new Vanderbilt alumni networking event called Headshots and Happy Hour.  The premise is simple.   Send out notice to the alumni association about a networking event where you can come hang out, have a few beers, and mingle.  The neat part is that for a small fee, people can have a professional photographer (me!) snap a couple of pix of them before they get too many beers deep.  That way they can update their Linkedin or Facebook profiles without the crappiness of mall photo studios or paying a few hundred bucks for a full session fee.  All in all I really enjoyed.  I got to meet a lot of new people, give out business cards and tell them about Alex the Photo Guy and take a few pix along the way!  Here are some of the shots we got with a simple white background and 3 lights.

Here are some of the other highlights piggybacking on the Part 1 post from Alex and Ryan’s wedding!  Can you tell by this photo that Alex is super excited to be married?

This is a shot the girls wanted.  It’s a recreation of the of a photo taken after Micah (top middle) won the Showcase Showdown on the Price is Right on July 4th, 2011.

In January, I started wedding photography season a bit early with Alex Boyce and Ryan McCollister’s nuptuals in Woodstock, GA.  I’ve known Alex for years as she played softball in middle and high school with my sister.  She is one of the sunniest people I have ever known and it’s no wonder that she has found a career working for The Make a Wish Foundation helping children with terminal illnesses live out lifelong dreams.  We were all very excited when we learned that she had found a new boyfriend in town and lo and behold, she was engaged within a few months!  Of course, everyone thought it was so soon, but whenever I spoke to her I knew it was for real- and so did they.  The ceremony at the Woodstock Baptist Church was beautiful and the reception was a lot of fun- especially with her group of bridesmaids.  They were all a hoot on the dance floor!  (Yes, I said “hoot”)

I am on my way!  Last week marked my first step in going full time photography.  I was able to work out a deal with my full time employer to have two days off a week with the intentions of cutting back further (or completely) in the next month or two.  It’s a scary and exciting feeling at the same time.  I know I want to do photography, but it’s REALLY tough to give up a steady paycheck working with great people.  Right now I feel kinda like I’m ending a serious relationship for a new love, but still calling the old flame… on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

I have been basically working two full time jobs for the past couple of years between real estate and photography.  I’d love to say my first two workdays dedicated solely to photography were very proactive, but in reality they were spent catching up on a backlog of items.  My to do list for getting the business in order is still a mile long and I’ve barely made a dent in it.  Over last Wednesday and Friday I was able to catch up on some editing of an impromtu executive shoot, get my new laptop, and clean the home office to about 40% organized.  The highlight of my Friday was meeting with a bride-to-be and mother for a wedding I’ll be shooting in Athens in a few weeks.  Keep a watch out on here for the Barnhart wedding, because Megan is going to be a stunning bride.  On the docket for this week:  meet with my CPA about taxes, change over my personal and business insurance, and blog about my headshot sessions.

Now, because this is a photo blog- where would it be without photos?  I didn’t happen to take a single photo of my (still) messy office and my PJs, so I thought I’d include a photo session based around politics given tomorrow is Super Tuesday.  My cousin, Will, attends Southern Wesleyn College in South Carolina.  Growing up he was a quiet, bashful kid that, like me, grew up being more musically inclined than his sports-oriented younger brother.  Since graduating high school and moving off to college, he has come exploding out of his shell.  He actually was one of the highlights of our wedding with his shaggy Mick Jagger haircut and non-stop moves on the dance floor.  He had everyone asking “who is that crazy guy on the dance floor?” and at one point challenged one of Keri’s bridesmaids (a professional dancer) to a dance-off… and won!

He let me know a few weeks ago that he is running for Student Government President and needed some pictures of his cabinet.  They drove down to Atlanta donning suits to show they mean business. Will even cut his hair (somewhat) shorter. I was happy to help out because it gave me the opportunity to get out on the windiest day of the year in downtown Atlanta and shoot… seriously- it was comically windy.  Like lean 45 degrees into it windy. I’m glad I packed light, because there’s no way I could have used any strobes or umbrellas for this shoot because they’d be in Montana by now rolling with the tumbleweeds. Everyone seemed to have a good time despite the weather and I hope that the marketing materials for their campaign pay off!

(Can you tell I was thinking The Colbert Report for this one?)

I’m back from my first photography convention.  I’ll be honest- it was a bit intimidating first seeing over 6,000 wedding and portrait photographers in one place.  I’ve seen extremely discouraging inspiring work by some amazingly talented professionals. The WPPI convention in Vegas has to be the largest assembly of photographers in the world all coming together at the MGM Grand for just a few days.  In addition to the masses and the classes, there were two grand ballrooms full of just about every type of photo vendor you could imagine.

I flew in on Saturday and stayed with an old college friend I haven’t seen since 2005. As it turns out, the best way to adjust to Vegas time is apparently to stay up until 3am on the first night- check!  Though it makes for a long first convention day. Day one of the convention started out with a 9am platform class with Zack and Jody Gray.  I would say out of all of the classes I attended, this class had the most tips for how I should be running my business. Their topic was outlining their above-and-beyond customer service- something I need to get better at. They always stay in touch with their brides throughout the booking process so that on the wedding day, the bride is super excited to see them and she has already informed all of her bridesmaids about their awesome photographers. They also went into a little bit about their social networking and pointed out that the only way to effectively utilize facebook is through immediacy- getting a few photos up the night OF the wedding, friending the entrire bridal party, and tagging everyone. I guess I just need to suck it up and instead of exhaustedly crashing after a wedding, get a couple of photos up from now on.

Later in the day I took a class from Kevin Kubota on lighting. Very informative, but probably boringly technical for the blog. Day two began with an 8am class given by Jerry Ghionis. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t sold on him for the first 30 minutes of the class. He spent a lot of time talking about himself and not teaching much. However, when he got into showing his photos, along with behind the scenes videos- it was incredible what he could do with a very blah setting. Not that he didn’t also shoot in amazing locations, but those are relatively easy to make beautiful. So much of his talent (in my opinion) was taking a small, boring bridal room at a church or a 2 star hotel room and making it into a portrait fit for the cover of a magazine. He utilized all kinds of natural backdrops and lighting from sources that normally scare off other photographers (like dappled or direct sunlight). For me, his work was inspiring and discouraging at the same time because it was so incredible.

Day two also included a trip out to Red Rocks National Park just outside of Vegas with my old college friend, Phil.  He was nice enough to drive me out there and hike around for about 4 hours with me while I snapped some photos. As far as photography goes, I think I have the furthest to go in the arena of landscape and nature photos, so I was glad to take the time to get some shots out there- even though I accidentally wore my dress shoes instead of sneakers… a very bad idea when climbing rocks.  I came very close to falling a few times (don’t tell Keri).

And here, you must note the length of spring and fall in Nevada:

Later that evening was a surprise for me when I landed a ticket from the WPPI facebook group to a private concert by Ingrid Michaelson. You may remember her song “Take me the Way I Am” from Keri and my save-the-date video last year.

Day three was essentially the trade show… all day. It was overwhelming to see and speak to all of the different vendors that I had even the slightest interest in. I spoke to album-printers, web designers, camera and accessory manufacturers, printing companies, and just about everything else under the sun. They had live demonstrations all day at numerous booths. There were multiple models at each of these shoots dressed in tuxes and wedding dresses (and I always wanted to yell “congratulations!” but never did).

Proof that even models eat McDonald’s fries:

To top off the day of being on my feet from 9am to 5pm, I decided to take it easy… and got out with Chelsea Patricia, Tamee Renee, and Kelly Lane for four hours of dancing at the VIP party at Tabu in the MGM.  This is after hanging out the night before with these girls and Tiffany Wayne.  We ended up making friends with Bradley Paul and Larry Reeves. It really was an incredible feeling to be surrounded by that many fellow photographers in one place- everyone I talked to was refreshing and genuinely excited to be there as well. Everyone loved shooting- whether it was their full time job for 20 years or part time for the past 2.

It was an incredible few days, needless to say. What I need to do now is go home, gather my notes and figure out how sculpt a plan for my business and passion going forward. With the knowledge I have from just these few days, I have plenty to keep me busy. First and foremost, I need to get out there and shoot with what I’ve learned! Who needs photos?!?

Bonus- me making a very cool thumbs up in front of Sigfreid and Roy’s house in North Las Vegas.  According to my friend Phil who grew up around the corner, before they kept the animals off site, you could hear tigers roaring at feeding time every night.