What a ride that last two days have been! Calgary was host to Becker thanks to the efforts of Patrick Kornak, (and Svetlana, and crew) and the Saturday presentation was a blast. And so was Friday night group meet. And so was Saturday night post-event… and I’m sure that the Sunday gang is going to be just as jazzed as we were to connect with fellow photographers, hang out, and ‘get it’.

I still haven’t distilled all the info and made ...read more

I like to have some ‘think’ time every day, and lately that’s been during my lunch hour. Today I was thinking about how I process, or more accurately, DON’T process my GTD lists as regularly as I should.

One thing that came to me today is that my internal mental future-vision lists don’t match my Real Life lists and don’t match my GTD lists. If GTD is supposed to reduce stress imagine what happens when the lists don’t match… TOTAL STRESS.

I’m ...read more

Well, it’s renewal season around the ranch, and I had the most interesting experience with GoDaddy.

I renewed my domain name (afterexposure.com) with them; the price was right, and I had no prior complaints about their dns or registration process.

After I paid, I noticed I had a ‘web hosting credit’. Huh. Neat, I guess I could use it to pay for the web hosting with them, which was also up for renewal.

So I selected my domain, and applied the credit. It ...read more

Finally, time to look at the business plan again. My timing for these posts is a bit off, but that’s more to do with trying to pace my progress here in an inverse way with what’s going on at work. A few months ago all indications were that we would wrap our projects up and be gone by now. Today, it’s more likely we’ll at least get to complete the projects, which satisfies my techno-geek self. Will I still be ...read more

I mentioned yesterday that if you visualize something, it will happen.

Today I’m the proud owner of a darkroom.

Yup, just like that …. *poof* and it appeared.

Well, actually I was Googling around for a developing tank, and found a classified on kijiji … a guy about a mile away from me was selling a complete darkroom setup. A phone call later and I was on my way.

It was like this weird light surrounded me and a voice said “This one’s for ...read more

Ok, quick recap: There are only three steps in my world domination startup plan to transition to full-time photographer:

The first step, the Business Plan, might be the most overlooked from what I’ve read online. All the administrivia of starting a business is in step 2, so it’s just plain boring (I know – I’ve already written the draft for it, and it needs serious help). Number 3 is a cakewalk, because apparently everyone is selling ...read more

Ok, quick recap: There are only three steps in my world domination startup plan to transition to full-time photographer:

The first step, the Business Plan, might be the most overlooked from what I’ve read online. All the administrivia of starting a business is in step #2, so it’s just plain boring (I know – I’ve already written the draft for it, and it needs serious help). #3 is a cakewalk, because apparently everyone is ...read more

If you’ve strung together some of the posts here, or from my twitter ‘tweets’, you’ll know I’m working through the planning, opening, and marketing steps of my photography business. It’s a fun process; certainly challenging, sometimes confusing, and potentially overwhelming.

To cope with that I’m treating like any project I do (I’m a project manager in ‘real life’) which means it has the usual boundaries; a scope, a schedule, and a budget. In plain english this means I have a deadline ...read more

In a prior post I wrote a bit about possible changes that might take hold in the photographic imaging business, specifically in the world of content creation, and the effects of microstock image warehouses and photographers and models that shoot ‘for free’.

Some would argue that the availability of high quality equipment has made this possible; the rise of the inexpensive dSLR and the enthusiast shooter. Some might point to sites like Model Mayhem as the root of all evil for ...read more

Back in June I shot a wedding, and at the same time photobookcanada.com was having a promotion, so I thought … ‘What the heck, let’s try printing their wedding as a book!’. I’m glad I did… one of things I need to do is build better estimates of the actual amount of time it takes to perform all the post work, and assembling a whole book was an unknown to me. Short answer: it took more time than I thought… ...read more