Renovation Status

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Our downstairs is all torn up and gutted. I sit here in my office with dust swirling around me. Evenings after the kids goto bed is about the only time I have some piece and quiet to be able to work. I’ve been trying to keep things going but I’m constantly interrupted by one contractor or another with a question. I will be so glad when this project is done.

We just realize that original floorplan for the basement had several problems. Most notably were the pipes in the wall that would prevent us from combining the bath room and laundry room into a master bathroom. So we had to stop work while we tried to figure things out. It looks like we have a plan. The entertainment kitchen is out, my office will be moved, the bathroom, becomes a powder room, the shower becomes a closet, the laundry room remains a laundry room and my old office, well it becomes the new master bathroom. Amazing that everything will work out.

At Magical Moments, I shared Kristen and Brad’s wedding. I’ve been so busy with the renovations that I’ve not had time to post photos from their wedding. I’ll see if I can get a minute or two in the next couple of days to post some.

Bride’s Guide to Wedding Photography

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In the midst of all of the renovations going on about me, I’ve been busy working on a project to complete a new media piece to give away at bridal shows, provide to venues for thier clients and anybody who may ask. Rather than create more paper for somebody to lug around with them, I wanted to create something unique and provided value to you, my potential client. With that in mind, I was able to negotiate a usage license to distribute on disk an excerpt from “The Bride’s Guide to Wedding Photography” by Kathleen Hawkins. Since I was able to pick the chapter, I decided the most relevant portion of the book was Chapter 2, “The Selection”. In addition, the publisher was nice enough to provide a $5.00 discount to anybody who purchases the book via the disk!

It turned out getting the book rights was the easy part. Creating the disk took me several days. Every step of the way had a challenge or two which needed to be overcome. But finally the content was ready. But wait, the disk needed artwork. That took another day to create. The hardest part was finding just the right photo to put on the cover of the disk. Anyway, here it is:

To complicate matters, while I was working on the disk, work on the house came to a standstill. We thought we had a design that would work. We were wrong! After a nerve racking weekend, we met with Bill, our designer on Monday and ended up totally reconfiguring the design. The kitchen is out, my office is moving, my old office becomes the bathroom, closets are moved…. I can’t keep track of it all! Anyway we have a design we really like and think it will be a vast improvement! All of this means that in a week or two when the new office is finished, I get to move offices!

Certification Matters

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Recently on one of the professional forums I follow, another photographer wanted to know what certification was and does it help the photographer. I responded that yes, certification matters and then went onto explain why it matters. To make a long story short, the Commission on Photographic Certification saw my response and asked to use my response as a testimonial.

More and more photographers are realizing how much certification does matter. It protects you, the consumer from somebody who goes into a camera store, buys a camera and then decides to call themselves a professional photographer. Rather than read my words, see what Jen says..

Almost Packed

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I’m so sore and achy my aches have pains. We’ve spent the last three days furiously packing the basement to get ready for the demolition and renovation project to begin. Well all of that starts this week. It amazes me how much junk we’ve accumulated over the last ten years. We have a big dumpster sitting in our driveway that is more than half filled with our useless junk. There is still some more to go but right now I just can’t move another box! So for the next several months we’re going to be living in half the space we’ve become accustomed to.

Another milestone was reached over the last week. My birthday. Let’s just say that while I’m not quite old enough to remember when the Dead Sea was only sick, I’m getting old enough to remember when people were still mourning. We had a fairly low key celebration for my birthday. We thought we would try to go out for dinner but the kids did not cooperate. So instead we brought Pizzaria Uno in for a treat. Sheryl went to the store and bought a small cake. All in all a pretty quiet day.

Over that weekend, I shot Laura and Brian’s wedding. I’m still working on the photos so when I have a moment, I’ll post a few. In the meantime, I did finish the first draft of Jennifer and John’s wedding album. As always, you can view current and past albums on my website. Jennifer and John’s album can be viewed by clicking the link.

Testimonial

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I’ve just received a request from Professional Photographers of America to provide a testimonial regarding how being a Certified Professional Wedding Photographer has assisted me when consulting with prospective clients. I know from talking to a couple of my clients, that they’ve booked me rather than another photographer because I was a CPP Weddings and they were not. While the client did not know exactly what being certified meant or involved, they did know it meant something. So stay tuned to see where my testimonial will appear.

When talking to wedding photographers, one of the hardest tasks we have is to stay creative. That is finding new and different ways to photograph the different wedding items. Every so often, a topic will appear on a forum saying “show me your dodad photos” The intent is to get new ideas. Well at Jennifer and Johns wedding, a week or so ago, we were at the church. Upon the altar was a crown of thorns put there fore the season of Lent. Inspiration hit:
Photo of wedding bands on a thorn
During the wedding ceremony, the Monsenior talked about the rings, the crown of thorns and marriage.

Meanwhile, back at the studio, I’ve been furiously working to catch up on my album back log. Here is one of the spreads from Courtney and Jim’s wedding album.
Collage of wedding photos as seen in the album
As a reminder, most of the albums under construction and many of the previously completed wedding albums can be viewed via my website.

Packing Up

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Sorry I have not been a little more prolific keeping the blog updated. If our life was crazy before, it will be even worse for the next 4-5 months as we renovate our house. We signed the contract with DaVinci and have started on the design specifications. Last week we visited a kitchen and bath store to pick out our kitchen cabinets and talk about the design. Late last week we received the design and now we are working on the small details.

DaVinci wants to start demolition of the basement this week. That means everything has to be removed from the basement and packed up. A longbed dumpster was left in our driveway last Thursday. It is amazing how much junk we’ve accumulated over the last nine years since we moved in. There is a lot of broken things that I’ve just never gotten around to fixing. Lots of stuff I put away because, I’m going to use it again and stuff that is just obsolete. All of that is going in the dumpster.

Meanwhile, the rest of our stuff is being packed up and put in the garage. It is a good thing I worked at the Disney Store off site storage location and learned how to fill up a garage with lots of stuff. It will be a tight fit but I’ll get a lot of it in there. The kids have some tough choices to make as to what to trash, store and keep accessible. But once all of this is done…. we hope it will be worth it. Well back to the packing….

Project Status

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The last week or so has been quite busy. There have been some exciting developments and projects moving along. First, I think we have found the contractor for our home renovation. We’ve interviewed several companies and are in final negotiations with DaVinci Construction & Design. Our project manager is taking us to visit a couple of project sites on Monday night. Should we like what we see, we’re prepared to sign the paper work. Then it will be 4 months of torture.

As I go through the selection process, I can’t help but see the parallels between the renovation industry and the wedding photography business. Being on the other side from attending a home show, to interviewing, and selecting a contractor has been a real eye opening experience. There was one contractor who had a really nice display at the home show, we met with them and then discovered they were disreputable. Another contractor did not offer everything we wanted. Still others were not able to complete the whole project. Does this sound familiar to any of you who have recently looked for a wedding photographer?

On another front, we are getting closer to unveiling my new promotional piece. Over the last week it has really begun to take form. There are still a couple of unanswered questions as to the final content but progress is being made. The most exciting part is my partnership with an book publisher who is providing me with a chapter of a book (the one about selecting a photographer) on disk.

I am also working on another exciting service for my wedding clients. I am trying to setup a way to display some of the images from earlier in the day at the wedding reception. I’ve heard nothing but positive feedback from some other photographers who do this. I have a PC, Monitor and I think the software to pull this off. Now I just have to see if I can do it and how much time it takes. I would hate to be playing with this and miss an important image at the reception. I will attempt to try this service at Jennifer and John’s wedding this upcoming Friday.

Renovations to the House

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With the arrival of Michah last year, our bedroom situation became a little lopsided and unfair. We could move our daughter into the boys room and give the boys her room but some how that seemed to create more problems. No matter how we looked at it, we have three upstairs bedrooms which were all different sizes. Kind of like the three bears, A big room, a medium sized room and a baby sized room. When the kids get bigger, we foresee problems.

Next, our kitchen cabinets are falling apart. The previous owners must have known they were planning to sell the house so all they did was reface the cabinets to make them look nice. But, the shelves were still falling apart. There are other concerns through out the house which we wanted fixed and some things we just didn’t like.

As a result over the last couple of weeks we’ve been interviewing contractors. It seems that we have finally found one who will undertake the project(s) we want done. Part of what we like about these folks is they have already said there is no reason to build over the garage. We can solve our space problems with what we already have. Already they’ve saved us nearly $60,000!

We just have some terms in the contract to fix and make sure the statement of work is what we want. Then once we sign the agreement, we hope to be finished with phase 1 in four months.

Refurbished Website

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The web site www.mmpix.com, has been refurbished for your future enjoyment. This was kind of like a small home improvement project that just kept growning until the whole house was involved. The web site project started with just a quick change to my sample galleries. Next thing I new, I was completely refurbishing the site.

You’ll notice a new an improved look to the site. The pink background has been replace by a black on. New navigation along the top of the web page will assure that every page is just a click or two away from any other page. Information has been more logically organized. There have also been some new pages added to the site. Most specifically, the Ala Carte Menu, the Bio and what people are saying. There is still some more work to do but the site is functional and ready for visitors!

Broken Nails or Poor Dog

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Late this morning, I was just settling down at the computer to start the day’s work. I heard a dog barking from upstairs. I realized I had left Baloo outside and he wanted to come in. He sure is not the typical Labrador Retriever — he does not like the cold, rain or snow. I knew that if I did not bring him in, he would continue to bark until I did bring him in. I stop organizing myself for the day to come and went to the back door to let Baloo in the house.

When I arrived at the back door, there he was just waiting for me. Suddenly, I noticed the red stains in the fresh white snow. At first I thought Baloo had found an apple from the apple tree. Then I noticed the second stain. I took a closer look at the stains and relized they were blood. Alright, did Baloo catch a small animal? No, it was coming from his front paw. When I inspected it, I discovered he had broken one of his toe nails. So it was off to the vet to have Baloo patched up. Here’s our poor pitiful dog with has bandaged paw.

Photo of poor Baloo with his broken nail all bandaged
Photo of poor Baloo with his broken nail all bandaged