Hi, Welcome to my new, improved blog. If you followed me from my old, less-improved blog thanks for sticking with me. If you are new to my blog then I'm glad you are here and I encourage you to leave a comment or two. I will be writing about the wonderful people that I meet and photograph and will show you some of their pictures. I will keep you informed of new products that I am offering and special opportunities for savings on your photography.
As my past clients know, it is very important to me that we get to know each other before I take even one picture of you. Many people are not comfortable having their picture taken, especially by a stranger. It's my feeling that if we get to know each other first you will be relaxed and it will definitely show in your pictures. Additionally, getting to know you helps me to understand what you like and your style. So to give you a head start in getting to know me I will also write about what's going on with Jeff other than photography.
Thanks for visiting. Please visit my portfolio by clicking the "Website" link above. If you are interested in contacting me about photographing your wedding, your high school senior, your family, or just you, click the "Contact" link above or see the "Contact Me" section on my website. If you prefer, call me at 813-240-7597. I look forward to hearing from you.
Hmm, seems as though Decrmber may not have been the best month to attempt a blog-a-day. My extended family went on a cruise the day after Thanksgiving and I didn’t get back to my computer until the 3rd. There were 3 days gone right from the start. I will have some fun pictures from the trip posted soon.
Now I’m sitting at the airport waiting to catch a flight from Tampa to Seattle. Nothing like flying from one corner of the country to the opposite corner. I don’t mind flying but this trip is pretty draining. I get back on Friday and the leave again on Sunday for 9 days in South Carolina. Back a couple of days before Christmas. So anyway, this is my excuse for choosing a bad month to keep up with daily blogs.
January will be fun. 1/3-1/7 I will be attending a seniors photography conference at Red Rocks Resort in Vegas sponsored by Spa Artists. I’m really looking forward to this to get a lot of good ideas for marketing and products to offer seniors. I really enjoy photographing the kids and plan on really enhancing this area of my business in 2009.
There have been a lot of inquiries from brides getting married in 2009 and even some in 2010. I have not posted my 2009 pricing on my website yet so in you are interested in this information contact me through this blog (see Conact), through my website or call me at 813-240-7597.
Saturday was my last wedding for 2008 and it was a good one to end with. Kimberly and David were married and had their reception at the Hard Rock Casino in Tampa and rockin’ they did! They hired Bella Pictures to handle the photography. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I am a Bella photographer when I have open dates. I’m glad that Nov. 22 was open because Kimberly, David, the bridal party, and both families were wonderful to work with.
I shot a handful of weddings in 2008 for Bella and so far it has been a good experience. I would much rather have my own weddings fill 2-3 weekends every month but when I don’t it gives me an opportunity to stay behind the camera and to meet wonderful people. Their wedding was no different.
Kimberly and David, I wish a happy and healthy life together. Enjoy Aruba and then the cruise with your family. Stay in touch. Here is a video and pictures of some of my favorite images.
I always seem to be able to find some “supposed” reason why I can’t take a few minutes to update my blog. In December I’m going to do another Blog-a-Day for the entire month. I did this a few months ago. I wasn’t perfect, I missed a few days, but it was fun and kept things rolling.
At the moment I’m flying back to Tampa from Boston. I had some business there with a client for my consulting business. Boston was COLD this week but then I understand Tampa was too.
I have one wedding remaining this year. I shot 18 weddings this year. These were either my own or shooting second for friends. I also shot a couple of weddings for Bella Pictures. I’m hoping to have about as many weddings in 2009 but I really don’t want any more than that. A goal for ‘09 is to greatly increase the number of high school seniors photographed.
I am in the process of developing my wedding pricing for next year. Instead of focusing on Collections I am going to give brides more options to build photography packages a la carte. I’ll be adding fun new products so check my website in the Info area under Weddings in the coming weeks.
This weekend my wife Nancy and I went to a birthday party for the son of one of her Chi Omega sorority sister’s. Garrett turned 13 and had a really fun party at the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club in Deerfield Beach. Garrett’s mom and dad, Stacy and Ron, have had several of his past parties at the yacht club but this was to be the last big bday/halloween bash. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or parents. Nancy has stayed close to Stacy and several of her other sisters that live near each other. It’s always a fun time getting together with Stacy, Kristin, Lisa and their husbands and families. They went to school together at Mercer University in Macon, GA.
Garrett’s dad dressed as Beetlejuice and put on a real show dancing to the “Shake, Shake, Shake, Senora” song. It was a great party and we look forward to seeing all of them again. Happy Birthday, Garrett. Here are a few pictures from the night.
On Saturday Elisa and Anthony were married. They have to be the two most easy going people I think I’ve ever met. Here it was Elisa’s wedding day and she was as calm as could be. The day started out with some photographs of Elisa and the girls getting ready at her mom’s house. Janie Coey helped me photograph the wedding and she started out at Anthony’s getting pictures of the guys clowning around getting ready. Janie is a fantastic photographer and I am so glad she was available to be there.
The wedding was beautiful. Around 200 family and friends attended and the reception was a blast! A particularly memorable moment was the mother and son dance. I’ve seen quite a few but Anthony and his mom had the most emotional dance I’ve ever seen.
Occasionally I photography weddings for Bella Pictures…like Kristen and Mark’s this past weekend. I started talking to Kristen on the phone a little over a month ago. I could tell right away that we were going to get along great and that it was going to be a fun wedding. When I shoot for Bella I don’t get to personally meet the brides ahead of time so I try to get to know as much as I can about the bride and groom during our phone conversations.
Kristen and Mark met several years back while they were on a house boating trip with several other friends, in fact there were two large house boats. They didn’t really meet each other until the last day. Mark dropped all of his CDs and as Kristen helped him pick them up they realized that they had the same taste in music. Well, it was a good start but it wasn’t until several years and a couple of states later that friends again brought them together. This time it was for good. Their wedding was on Clearwater Beach at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort.
It was great to meet you and your families. Have an awesome time in Jamaica, mon. Let me hear how it was when you get back.
Here is a fun little slideshow…see the images in more detail below.
I really like the look of the black and white Film Noir Portraiture and Hollywood Glamour Photography that came out during the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. The high contrast of light and shadows convey such emotion. Photographers like George Hurrell, who was the master, in my opinion, were so incredibly talented and adept at painting and shaping with light. Today Jim Ferreira continues to shoot in this style for portraits and promotions.
The photojournalistic style that is pervasive in wedding photography today is cool and now but classic portraiture will never die. I attended one of the last seminars by the legend Monte Zucker and he said something that stuck with me. He said, “Everyone is taking pictures of the bride’s shoes, dress and the wedding party jumping in the air, what is that?. No one is taking classic portraits anymore.” He told this room full of photographers, “Bridal portraits are what you should be doing. It will set your businesses apart BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS DOING THEM!”
Today my wife and I went to Cypress Gardens. The last time we visited I was pretty disappointed, the park was run down. We were extremely pleased with what we found this time.
The park has has a rich history that started more than 72 years ago and it has been billed as Florida’s first theme park paving the way for the likes of Disney and Universal. Julie and Dick Pope founded the park and the botanical gardens in 1936. The gardens became a backdrop for beautiful southern belles and many movies and advertising campaigns. Familiar Starlets who have walked our paths include: Betty Davis, Johnny Carson, Carol Burnett, Esther Williams and Elvis to name just a few. Proclaimed the Water Ski Capitol of the World, Cypress Gardens became the birthplace of performance water skiing in 1941.
Over the years the park ownership has changed hands a couple of times. With competition from the larger parks attendance dwindled and a decision to close the park came in April 2003 after the severe blow to the tourism industry on September 11, 2001.
In 2004 Kent Buescher, owner of Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, GA became interested in purchasing the park. In the spirit of the Pope family who initially built the park, Buescher signed a historic deal in 2004 with state and local governments to save the attraction. Now there are rides, Splash Island water park, a concert venue, historic gardens, animals, the famed Southern Belles and world-famous water ski show.
Here are a few pictures of the ski show and few sights from the garden. Also, one of Nancy taking a picture of me photographing the ski show. It would have been good to have my zoom lens but I wanted to travel light.
This is one of the coolest decorating things I’ve seen in a while. I would love to have one of these in a studio. You could put one in a reception area and also have one in the camera room. Options as a background are huge!
I’m back in Washington this week doing work for HUD. With the current environment of the housing market HUD is expecting their business volume to explode. The problems with Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac is driving business to HUD. This, combined with recent legislation to assist homeowners with troubled mortgages, has raised concerns within the agency that their current business processes will not be able to effectively service the increased volume. The consulting company that I work for, along with our partner, have been hired to re-engineer some of their critical internal processes. I am supporting a lady who is facilitating these business changes and a giant in the industry of Lean Business Process. Lean follows the principals laid down by Toyota and Henry Ford. It’s purpose is to eliminate waste in the form of unnecessary and/or non-value added process steps and focuses on only the essential steps. As an example, one of the processes that was being re-engineered required 23 review/approval signatures. After the team analyzed and re-engineered the process only 3 signatures were required!
For 15 years I have been a consultant implementing finance software systems. One of the most frustrating things about going into a new client’s business to implement a system has been seeing all of the broken BUSINESS processes and not being able to make the smart changes. We would point out that, “Well, if you changed x or y in the way you do business not only would it benefit the implementation of this $2 million software that you just purchased but guess what, you probably wouldn’t need the software.” Of course we couldn’t say that exactly but when we did elude to it we were met with, “Oh, we can’t change that, you are here to implement the software, not change the way we do things.” The Lean process is different. With Lean we facilitate meetings that help the business process owners see their broken business processes and re-engineer to processes that eliminate wasted, non-value added activities in day to day operations.
This experience has also helped me with my photography business. Lean focuses on the customer. By making my own business streamlined and not wasting energy on inefficient tasks I have been able to free time to devote to taking care of my customers.
It was a little grey in D.C. today but after leaving the office I walked by the White House to snap a few pictures. Here’s one from the front lawn.
Randall - Its funny, now that I see this shot of the White House. It dosent look that big. I've seen and been in larger homes on and around the San Francisco Peninsula!randall
Being in D.C. last week didn’t give me a chance to get Elisa and Anthony’s engagement pictures posted. Thanks for being so patient. I think you will be happy with the results. I’m really looking forward to your wedding in October. Check out the slideshow here.
by Jeff
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