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.

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.

[Show as slideshow]

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.

Here is a video and a few pictures from their day

[Show as slideshow]

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.

[Show as slideshow]

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!”

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.

[Show as slideshow]

GREEN FORTUNE - PLANTWALL.

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.