Every one of the professional wedding photographers that I have researched have all talked about the importance of doing a blog.  These folks have also mentioned that for months, they were convinced that only their parents or spouses were the only ones reading their blogs.  Now they are well-known, charging a gazillion dollars to shoot weddings and every blog has plus 20 responses telling them how cute and clever and wonderful said photographer is.  And trust me, I am not mocking their success, I aspire to that level!

But for right now, writing a blog is kind of like writing a diary, or journaling.  I am basically writing for my own amusement and satisfaction, but with the understanding that at anytime someone might glance a quick peak at my musings.  And so far it has been great fun.  The few people who have read my blog, I think I am still counting how many on one hand, have all responded positively, which is very encouraging, and trust me, I don’t need much encouraging to blather on about myself.

I have also been working on my post editing of pictures.  Pretty much every picture seen on this blog is minimally edited, limited mainly to cropping and some minor color adjustment using the software that came with my Canon.  After having attended a mini-workshop on Lightroom I decided it was time to  make the purchase.  I had done a 30 day trial when it first came out, but it was not very intuitive about how to use it, so I never did.  The workshop answered enough of my questions for me to decide to give it a go.  The first picture I wanted to re-edit was a picture of Van and Duc cutting their wedding cake.  I had posted this picture on my Facebook Poole Photography page and my website.  But it was poorly cropped and the white wall reflected the flash from my camera.  I went into Lightroom, re-cropped and got rid of the glaring white spot and came up with a decent picture.  My next step was to replace the clunky one with the newer version on all my sites.  Got Facebook and the website done, time for the blog.

On Wednesday, July 18, I opened my blog, went to my login, typed in my email, and…I couldn’t login.  I thought maybe I forgot my password, so I entered my email to recover my password, and WordPress told me that they had no blog site  registered to that email.  What?  I had just gotten emails from WordPress as late as Tuesday.  After trying to unsuccessfully login about 20 more times, and figuring out that nothing is changing, I  attempt to get into WordPress support.  The problem is, I can’t get into WordPress support unless I login.

I finally hit on an idea to try one of my other email addresses.  Success, sort of.  My other address got me into my first blog I had tried with WordPress, but had cancelled out.  And I still could not get into my current, much beloved blog.  But I could get into support.  Now I am used to companies that some type of direct access like an email address, or a toll-free number.  No such luck with WordPress.  I have to submit a question to the Forum, and wait for other WordPress users to give me an answer.  Well, that is the WordPress business practice, and that is their right, and I’ll play along.  However, it doesn’t work fast enough for my taste.  So after 7 hours or so of no answers, I asked my question again.  And again.  And then I finally get answers, the last answer being that I had already asked this question twice before and the thread was closed to anymore comments.  The only post I was getting answers on was now closed.  By now it is Friday.  I am not enjoying blogging anymore, and I am not impressed with the fact that answers to my problems are being handled by anonymous people who may or may not be interested in helping me or even have an answer for me.  Undaunted, I ask my question again.

The next answer I got from someone was that I had asked this question 4 times and that I was confusing people by posting so much and that they were flagging my question for the “staff”, and to be patient because it was Friday.  I thanked this person, even though I felt there was an underlying tone of snarkiness in the reply, for their help and for referring me to staff, which is all I wanted to happen in the first place.  I made up my mind to let it rest for the weekend.

SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012.  I SOLVE THE PROBLEM MYSELF!

In your face, staff!

Back to Monday, July 16th I went to an Arizona Photography Group meetup about owning a photography business.  One of the suggestions was to make the business email reflect the business domain name.  This sounded like a great idea.  On Wednesday, July, 18, I went to GoDaddy and set up an email account using my domain name, timpoole@poolephotographystudio.com.  On Sunday night I thought I would check in with WordPress to see if anyone had answered  my question.  Then an idea hit me, I mean a serious, draw the lightbulb above my head idea.  When WordPress asked for my email to login, I used the timpoole email.  Shazaam!! I’m an in.  Cue the music and let fly the doves, I am in!

I am not a technology guy, by choice or by laziness, I am not sure.  All I can say for certain is that the changes I made to my email at GoDaddy were also made at WordPress.  And before the 6th reader of my blog comments and tries to explain why that happened, I will tell you now that I don’t care.  I just want to drive the car, I don’t need to know how it works.  But I was impressed, and hurt my arm patting myself on the back, that I eventually logically deduced a solution to my problem.  Yay me!

So with a smile on my face, a diet Coke on my right and the two cats on my left, I happily went to work on my blog uploading the newly edited wedding cake cutting picture.

My WordPress blog site would NOT upload my photographs!

As can be seen, the uploading of pictures is working today.  I have no clue why it is working today and not yesterday.  I did post my problem to the forum and as of this morning, I had not one answer or post regarding the problem of not being able to upload.  Computers are a great thing when they work, but sometimes, just like my back, computers get cranky.  There is an old joke where you put you hand on someone’s head and start squeezing the head and ask “what it this?”  The punchline is “a brain eating alien starving to death.”  This picture reminds me of that joke.  If the brain eating alien needed technology knowledge to stay alive, that sucker is dead.

I am not making it a secret that I need to continue to improve my photographic skills.   I look at my portfolio and at best I would give it a C+, and it only gets the plus because I am teacher’s pet.   I look at the websites of photographers who charge $4,000-$10,000 minimum to shoot a wedding and see the photographs and go “wow!”  I wonder if I will live long enough to get that good.  I sit and think seriously about giving this up, selling my equipment and checking out that Wal-Mart greeter gig.

One of the first lessons I taught my students was the difference between taking a picture and taking a photograph.  I used the clever, in my opinion, analogy of a blind monkey coming in the room and if that monkey found a camera and  pushed the shutter release button, the blind monkey will have taken a picture.  Then I spent the rest of the year trying to get them to take photographs.

This leads me to my personal blind monkey moment.  I had been shooting some self portraits and had the camera timer set to 10 seconds.  A couple of days later, I went on a photowalk attempting to shoot some deep and shallow depth of field photos.  Got my settings, composition, and lighting I wanted and pushed the shutter release and….nothing.  So I start looking the camera over and then I hear the click of the shutter.  Yes, you figured it out.  I had forgotten to change the 10 second delay.  So I looked at my screen to see what I had actually shot.  The blind monkey in be had shot a picture of my Canon camera strap.

I shared the above story and posted the on my Poole Photography Facebook page. (Shameless self-promotion spot www.facebook.com/poolephotography51.  Hey, I spent a lot of time putting it together)

According to the statistics Facebook puts together, that picture has had 200 views.  The next highest photograph on that site has had 50 views.  About 10 people have read this blog and less than that have looked at my website.

So I think about the hours I have spent taking pictures, editing pictures, tying to elevate my results to the place I want them to be, choosing the best ones to post on my sites.  And it all comes down to the most viewed picture being the one the blind monkey took.

The sound you hear is me dusting off the Wal-Mart application.  Just in case.

I will admit that this whole blogging/website activity has me a little vexed.  I spent an hour and a half updating my website, (shameless promotion alert)  www.poolephotographystudio.com tonight.  I have no problem with the uploads, but I did have a bit of an issue with the writing.  I decided I hated what I had written in the “ABOUT” section of the site so I erased it with the intention of writing a witty, clever introduction about myself.

All I got accomplished was staring at my photograph for an hour.  I did decide I need a new photograph.

My problem is threefold.  I hate clichés and I hate sounding like everyone else, and I hate stereotyping or pidgeon-holing myself.  The advice from others in the business is to be yourself, people want to know you, they want to like you and other such sage pieces of wisdom.  All great advice, and it is advice that works for many people.  But if  I really followed that advice, I would write “hey, I’m taking pictures now and would love to do your wedding.  Look at the work I’ve done and see if we are a match.”  In fact, I am going to put that on my “ABOUT” page.  It’s the first spontaneous truth I have come up with tonight!

And as for the blog, do I write everyday?  I could, you know, because I am my favorite subject, and I can ramble on about me for hours.  This might not be a bad thing, because the advice is to be myself on the blog.  This is supposed to be the behind the scene look at me and my business.  So maybe I should try that open and honest and spontaneous deal like I did above.  Ok, how about this:  I want to do something that has the potential for good money, I want it to be fun, and I want it to be something I am semi-good at, and I don’t want to be a Wal-Mart greeter.

So what does “Dreaming the Dream” have to do with any of this.  Stick with me, all will be revealed.

First, I want to share the with the reader the week I had this week.  Thursday I went to the Meet and Greet and Free Open Model Shoot as part of the Arizona Photographers Group headed up by Nick Pappagallo.  It is a great learning opportunity, at least it is for me, because studio lighting and posing are not my strongest areas.  I didn’t teach much of that, and certainly did not have the expensive equipment that was used that night.  They also have professional models there who are volunteering their time in exchange for being able to use your pictures, if they deem them as good enough, in their portfolio.  It is a win-win for everyone.  The meetup also had a seasoned photographer that was giving tips and advice on how to set up lighting and posing situations.  I took my pictures of model Cheryl Denise.  I sent her some of the  images.  Later she posted them, along with several other photos that were taken by other photographers that were there, on her Facebook page.  Let me say this, it was always a thrill to put a white piece of paper into the developer and see the image come out onto the paper.  I get that same feeling anytime someone other than me posts a picture I have taken.  (I just haven’t decided if it is cool to “like” that post or not. Haha)  Thanks, Cheryl, for posting the pics I took of you.  I look forward to us working together again in the near future.

On Tuesday, I met Kimmie.  Kimmie owns a couple of businesses.  One, called Fuzzi Bunnies, has handmade hair ties and bows for babies and kids.  The other does websites and other business type designs.  Kimmie is doing the design for my “Poole Photography” business cards.  One of my friends told me “Don’t do that.  You can design your own and get 1,000 for $10.00.”  Well, I don’t want to design my own business cards.  If I did, I would be a business card designer instead of an event photographer.  Nothing wrong with going first class.

It had a good time meeting with Kimmie.  We met for about an hour and a half, and maybe talked business cards for 20-30 minutes.  We filled up the rest of the time with good conversation.  We talked about our cats, who look remarkably like each other, we talked about a couple of mutual friends we have, how she ended up in Arizona, my teaching career and a whole bunch of other chit-chat.  But Kimmie’s eyes really lit up when she talks about her newest business venture, her newest passion, which is designing her own jewelry.  She shared with me the designs she has so far and some of the details she has in the works for making her dreams a reality.

Kimmie also helped me with some business questions and rocked some great knowledge in that area.  And as of tonight, I am happy to say, she sent me the first and second drafts of the designs she came up with.  There are 4 really great ones that are going to be tough to choose from.  They have all been my favorite at least 5 times tonight.  I look forward to the her final design.  Thanks, Kimmie for the advice and your creativity on my cards.

We are now at the dream part.  And there was much rejoicing.  I never dreamt about school, except the night before school started, either at the beginning of the year or the night before we came back from a break.  And it was usually the same dream; I wasn’t going to school and I had neglected to schedule a substitute.  Since my retirement in May, I HAVE DREAMT ABOUT SCHOOL EVERY GOSH DARN NIGHT! The worse one was my dream that I was trying to decide between going back to work at Apollo, or going to work in a copper mine.  Where did that come from?

But last weekend I knew that things were looking up.  I experienced my first dream about shooting a wedding.  I know I woke up smiling.  I look forward to the day when the school dreams are pushed out entirely and the wedding dreams are rule rather than the exception.  In my dream of Apollo vs the copper mine, I remember I was really leaning toward taking the copper mine job.  If  the dream is between shooting a wedding or the copper mine, I know I will be humming “Here Comes the Bride.”

Links:  www.arizonaphotographersgroup.com  http://www.nicholaspappagallo.com/  www.facebook.com/cheryldenismodel  http://www.fuzzibunni.com

I remember Jack Nicholson saying this line as the Joker, “you can’t get an omelette without breaking some eggs!”  This is actually, according to Wikipedia, an English proverb that means “in order to achieve something, it is inevitable and necessary that something should be destroyed.”  As I continue on this journey from retired gentleman to stunningly successful photographer, I am at the point that I need to “break some eggs.”

One might wonder what one would be destroying in the beautiful, artistic world of photography.  Fear of failure.  laziness.  Procrastination.  Worry about what others think.  And a whole host of other self-imposed obstacles that man puts in front of himself, or herself, that prevents them from pursuing one’s dream and one’s desires.  I don’t know how it is for others, but I struggle with these things.  There are times everyday where I ask myself “Why am I doing this?  I could just spend my time going to the gym, reading, watching NCIS reruns, play computer games.  What am I doing?”  I feel like Hub in “Secondhand Lions.”  I want to throw away the pitch for and tell everyone else they can live to be a hundred.

But I have set my feet on the path I want to go.  While on that path, I daily need to ninja kick all those fears and obstacles right in the ….throat.  A man needs to have value in this life.  If I can deliver to a happy couple few images that they will cherish forever, then that is my value to this world.  And if I can get paid for it, well, that’s a value to me.  Win-win!

But this saying has another, more subtle, less violent, less ninja, and more of a Diner’s, Drive-ins and Dives message to me.  It means it is time to cook.

I just finished a class today called Wedding Crashers taught by Diana Steffen (www.dianaelizabeth.com)  This class filled in the majority of the knowledge gaps that I had about the business of wedding photography.  I now feel like I am a chef.  I have ingredients, I have a recipe, and I want to make an omelette.  But if I don’t pick up the egg and crack them open, the omlette does not get made.  It stays in my head, it stays on the recipe card.  I know I can cook the omelette, I just got to pick up that egg.

What this is all about is that I have my 1st wedding shoot.  Every photographer, from the lowest priced photographer to the $10,000 minimum package photographer, had at one point in time a first shoot.  I wonder how they felt before that shoot, if they felt the same things I am feeling now.  I know the more a person does something, the more they wonder why they were ever apprehensive about doing it in the first place.

So that is where I am at the moment.  I have had some terrific classes taught by Diana.  I have done a ton of research on my own.  I believe I am ready.  And if I believed otherwise, no one in the world is going to know that.

Jasmine Star says posts are always better with pictures.  Here are picture of one of the oddest sights I have ever seen. This photograph was taken at the parking lot of Turf Paradise.  Sixty or so geese were just taking a little rest in the parking lot on their way south.  Guess they thought it was a big cement pond.  I got as close as I could, but something told me that if 60 geese got spooked and flew my direction, I would be in a bit of trouble.

Raquel, who everyone else calls Lita, is a former photography student of mine.  We became friends on Facebook after graduation, managing to keep in touch off and on.  I had told her of my intentions to start my own photography business and was looking for opportunities to shoot events and such.  Raquel invited me to take photographs at her birthday party.  Or maybe I begged and pleaded for the opportunity, I can’t quite remember.  Regardless of which version is true, the date was set and I packed up my camera and aching back and headed to the party.

The party itself was unique in a couple of ways.  One was that 2 other people shared the same birthday, so the party honored all three of them.  Another was that it was a costume party.  Come dressed up as your alter ego.  There were some great costumes that night.  A Franciscan monk, a nun, a lumberjack, a Carmen Miranda, a female ninja warrior, a monk in a luche libre mask are just a few of the alter egos that appeared at the party that night.  The best costume, in my humble opinion, belonged to a young lad from Ireland who is here getting a Masters in Music at ASU.  He was dressed in his Irish soccer uniform.

 I, after much thought and deliberation, came cleverly disguised as a great American photographer.

At this point in my brand new business and career, I hope you appreciate the fact that I am working for the experience and working for the food, the good eats at these gigs.  And let me say I was not disappointed.  My compliments to all the guests that brought food to share.  Fantastic.

A final note on the party.  Raquel and her friends are very spiritual, committed Christians.  She, as well as others at the party, are heavily involved in a downtown youth and neighborhood ministry.  It was nice to see young people having a great time with nothing stronger than lemonade and peach ice tea.  And Jesus rap!

Thank you, Lita, for allowing me the opportunity to photograph your special day, and meeting all those wonderful friends and family of yours.

I was lucky enough to have back to back photo shoots on that last weekend in February.  As a matter of fact, at the wedding reception I was seated with the two people I would be shooting the next day; Hillary Rodriguez and her daughter Emily.  Hillary and Van are former co-workers and friends and I am linked to both of them and friends with both of them because of a botched haircut some 5 odd years ago.

I had let my hair grow long for around 3 years.  I would get a little bit cut off every six months, usually on the last day before Christmas break and the first day of summer break.  So one fine summer day I went to one of the chain store hair cutting places.  I had decided to get my hair cut back to a little longer than shoulder length, figuring it would grow out over the summer.  The cut was a disaster.  I looked like Buster Brown but with one side of my hair longer than the other.  Even my wife laughed at me.  So it was back to the short hair for me.  Eventually my path led me to Floyd’s Barber on the west side.  Hillary worked at that Floyd’s and I ended up getting my haircut and shave from her.  Then one day, it may have been a February day, I get an email from Floyd’s telling me they were out of business.  As Hillary told me later, the stylists found out they didn’t have a job when they showed up for work.  I hadn’t gone to Hillary enough for us to have exchanged contact information, so I went on a search for a new stylist.  I ended up going to Floyd’s in Chandler where Van worked.

Forward to February.  Hillary was out of the hair cutting business entirely and working for a dentist.  She and I connected again through Facebook.  Around February 6th we started messaging about Emma’s upcoming  9th birthday party and agreed that I would come and photograph the event.  As a wedding/event photographer-to-be, I was needless to say ecstatic.  A wedding and an event back to back.  And there would be plenty of smiling, happy children at the birthday party.  Exciting times.

If one read the previous post, one knows the frustrations of the two weeks leading up to the events.  If I was not well enough to make the wedding, probably wasn’t going to be well enough to get to a Saturday children’s birthday party.  Of course the equipment problems were the same for the birthday party as the wedding.  Being well enough to make it to the wedding, I made one concession by leaving the reception around 9 pm.  An aside on this: as a partier I am a bitter-ender.  I stay until last call and the cleaning crew comes in.  It took a lot of self-discipline to leave the reception, but I figured I had got all the pictures I needed and I didn’t want to miss Saturday.

Saturday arrives.  I head to the party ready to shoot, but a bit apprehensive.  I don’t have kids and my only experience with kids has been with teenagers.  Am I going to get along well with a roomful of 9 year olds?

I had a blast.  The children were fantastic.  The party activities were wonderful.  Hillary got some great ideas from Pinterest.  I meet wonderful parents.  I shot, in my opinion, some great shots.  I got two more bookings; a baby shower and another birthday.  God is blessing my efforts.  Life is good.  The only “Debbie Downer” was when people asked me for a business card I had to sheepishly tell them that I wasn’t at that stage of my new business yet.

Forward to today.  During the course of talking to Hillary at the reception and the party she spoke of her unhappiness with her job at the dentist office.  Hillary loves to do hair.  She was one of the hairdressers at the wedding.  It may be a trite cliché, but it is true:  it’s important to work at something a person is passionate about.  I am happy to say that since the birthday party, Hillary has opened her own shop and is working and Floyd’s in Chandler and doing wedding hair.  And she is happy at what she does.  And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Hillary is a great mom.  It was a great site to see the family love that Hillary and Emma have for each other.  It was a fun time for me and a great way to start out my fledging career.  Thanks, Hillary, for the opportunity to shoot Emma’s party and build my portfolio.  And I promise that someday I will take you up on lunch at Pete’s Fish and Chips.

Hillary works at The Nearly Famous Salon Studio and Floyd’s Barber Shop in Chandler.

With apologies to CSN&Y.

One of the people I discussed my career move with is Van Nguyen.  Van cuts my hair.  And because she also does wedding day hair styling, she is well plugged in to the wedding scene. She gave me the name of Diana Elizabeth as a wedding photographer to contact.  She also invited me to her wedding and gave me permission and encouragement to take photographs of the big event.  Needless to say I was a bit surprised and but very happy for the chance to do that.  I can honestly say that at this point on my journey I wasn’t really sure if I would enjoy shooting weddings and events.  Something I believed I would like to do, but in all honesty, I hadn’t been to a wedding in 10 years and I left halfway through that one.  I was enthusiastically excited about this opportunity I was being given.

Preparation was in order.  Since I was not the main or second shooter but the “Uncle Bob” shooter, I had to figure out what kind of shots I was going to go for at the wedding.  I basically decided I couldn’t go wrong if I took pictures of smiling, happy people.  Everybody likes pictures of smiling happy people, right?  The next thing I was planning on doing was upgrading my equipment.  I had a enough money saved up to by a 70-200IS/2.8 lens and a Speedlite 580EXII.  ( I hope that is enough camera jargon to keep the technology fanatics happy)  So as I was happily planning and attempting to put everything together, I forgot one thing:  February.

Since my junior year in high school, bad things always seem to happen in February.  As a matter of fact, back then I dubbed it Black February.  Some are worse than others, but just as Caesar had his Ides of March, I have my February.

The following happened to me within two weeks of the approaching February ceremony.  An old back issue flared up.  So much so that I had trouble walking  without supporting myself.  On top of that, I caught a cold.  I hadn’t had a cold in years.  Between the pain killers and the cold medicine I spent most of the days before the wedding in a stupor.  I really didn’t know until the day of whether I was going to make the wedding or not.

And what about purchasing that grand equipment I was saving up for?  Didn’t happen. First, my POC Ford decided it needed major repairs.  Goodbye Speedlite.  Second, my sewer line broke.  Goodbye 70-200IS lens.  The money saved to buy those wonderful upgrades was now buried in my front yard.

Attempted to put a positive spin on events, I realized that as untimely as the needed repairs were, I did have the money to pay for them, so that was something to be glad about.  I did have working equipment.  I was determined that I would make it to Van and Duc’s wedding.

So fortified with Dayquil, Ibuprofin, a 50mm lens, a 27-90mm lens and a pop-up flash I made my way to the venue and my first set of wedding photos for my portfolio.

Thank you, Van.  You gave me this opportunity out the goodness of your heart, expecting nothing in return.  I will always be grateful.

http://www.vonnwynn.com/        http://vimeo.com/13724153

The first step on this journey of mine began with buying a digital SLR camera and learning how to use it.  I had been using the old student grade Pentax K1000 film camera.   I figured there would be quite a learning curve to this new camera of mine.  Being a practical man, I decided to find a class to take.  I settled on an online class taught by local wedding photographer Diana Elizebeth Steffen.  Having just retired and basically went from doing something, a lot of something as a matter of fact, to doing nothing, I was really looking forward to taking this class in October.

About a week or two before class was to start, I got a notice from Creative Groove, the company that sponsers the class, informing me that the class had been cancelled.  Aw, man!  I felt like Christmas had just been cancelled.  I felt like I was adrift on a raft and Wilson was floating away.  But a week later, Creative Groove let me know that they had reconsidered and that Christmas was on and Wilson was ok and, oh by the way, the class is back on.

I really enjoyed the class.  I was learning new information, so much that I often thought about this statement “the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.”  Basically the process for the class was an online session, then a week to shoot the assignments, upload the best shots and get feedback.  I was happily going about my assigned tasks when Diana posted the following suggestion “go outside and take your pictures.”  Up to that point, I hadn’t left my house.  I was shooting everything inside using window light or the light from the chandelier.  I also pretty much limited my shooting to flowers and cats.  I might have thought I was doing a good job, but it was pretty dull and ordinary.

I knew Diana was right.  I needed to get out and start photographing people.  After all, as a wedding/event photographer, I wouldl be expected to take pictures of people, so I might as well get used to it.  My friend Dave’s son was celebrating his 5th birthday.  The party was being held at a local park.  I asked Dave if I  could come and shoot the party for my class project.  He said yes and my first ever “event photography” session took place.

I found out a few things that day.  Always bring some sort of bubble making device to a kids party.  There is an opportunity for some great pictures using the bubbles. I  also learned  that feeding the ducks at the park is forbidden. I love feeding ducks and was very dissappointed.  But the most important thing I learned from this session is that I have a lot of work to do to get to the level of photography I desire for myself.  The old saying is correct.  Having a fancy camera does not make one a great photographer.

In my first post I talked about the “theys” that are having a positive impact on ny fledgeling career.  Diana Elizabeh Steffen is one of the “theys”.  I enjoyed her class and am taking two more classes from her.  She is knowledgable, engaging, and very passionate about her subject and her profession.  She is above all a great photographer.  Thank you, Diana, for all your help.  I look forward to your next class July 9th.

To see some of her amazing photographs, or perhaps you are planning on getting married, check out her website at  www.dianaelizabeth.com.  If you want to take a class from Diana, or see other class offerings, go to www.creativegroove.com.

You know the “they” I am talking about.  The mythical “they” that always seem to have the right knowledge about whatever the topic may be.   In my case the topic is wedding/event photography.  After retireing from a stellar (in my opinion) 31 year teaching and coaching career, I was ready to find something new and meaningful to do with my life.  Since my last teaching assignment was photography, I decided I was semi-good enough and interested enough to pursue photography as my second career.  So I’ve been doing research and taking classes on wedding/event photography and the one constant that all the “theys” talk about is that a photographer needs a blog.  Another thing “they” tell me is I need to write about myself.  That’s just the right thing to tell me because I am my favorite subject.  So here I go.  I will be sharing with you my journey into this new career of mine.  I will be talking about some of the “theys” in my life, people who are inspiring and mentoring me, and sharing my the best of my photography on this blog.

This is going to be quite different for me.  As a teacher I was the smartest person in the room, at least in my subject matter, and I had a captive audience.  I am no longer the smartest kid in the room and I have to pay attention.  This career is more than just taking “pretty pictures”.  If that’s all I wanted to do I would just take my camera out every day and take pictures of my cats.  It’s about capturing the joy and emotionality of that special day, that special time and preserving those moments.

There is a line from “Blade Runner” that goes like this: “All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in rain.”  I see myself as a vehicle for people to preserve those moments, keep the memories real and alive.