This has been one busy week. Actually, it’s been a busy several weeks, hence the lack of blog posts. :) I had an engagement session with Anita and Scott on Sunday, met with a potential client on Monday, finished a ton of photo work, & booked a new client on Thursday, welcome Jess & Chad! 2010 is booking super fast! If you’re getting married next year and are interested in our photography, I suggest calling or emailing me as soon as you can! Plus today is Kate and Logan’s wedding! Congrats guys! :)
On Wednesday I got a new camera. The Nikon D700! This camera rocks all get out! Last year, Ken Rockwell, a guy a lot of us pros look to for reviews, called it the best SLR camera available. I’m not going to bore you with stats, but it’s awesome! I can shoot at 1600 ISO with ZERO grain! That is AMAZING! Sorry, that’s the geek coming out in me. Oh, and it’s full-frame, with the option to shoot in a DX crop format! Plus, it can shoot all the way up to an ISO of 25,600! Yes, 25,600! I can basically shoot in the dark with no flash! Sorry again. The geek thing is hard to keep under control. :)
Wednesday also marked my one year anniversary of being a full-time photographer! I believe I mentioned this in a previous post, but, for me, it’s worth retelling. :) Last year I was working a full-time job at JP Morgan Chase as a program analyst. It was a good job with great benefits. I mainly worked at home running reports for the collection side of the credit card division. Even though I was at home, though, I was working all the time. Some weeks, if not most weeks, 60 hours plus, and then I had my full-time business. In August of last year, I found myself praying: ‘God, one of these things has to go, either my job, or my business, because I don’t have time for both.’ Well, my prayers where answered, and on the morning of Oct 7, 2008 I was asked to come into the HR office. God had chosen the scariest option, and my steady paychecks and awesome benefits were being eliminated. While I was being told my job was ‘terminated’, all I could think was, ‘Wow, I have an awesome opportunity to do what I love for a living. Not everyone gets this change.’ While I was a little nervous about it, I was even more excited. So, on the drive home, I called my wife to tell her the news, and went home to tell her of my plan. She was so awesome and supportive, that she didn’t even question it. The next day I started working for me. I never took a break to regroup, or to have ‘time for myself’. I had a wedding quota to make, and didn’t have time for breaks. I found very quickly, there is no such thing as vacation or break when you work for yourself. It’s amazing how the biggest jerk of a boss you can ever have is yourself. :)
That day changed my life, and while I miss the steady checks, and the awesome health care benefits, I wouldn’t change it for anything. I believe God answered my prayers, and He has been providing ever since. I no longer have a job, and I’ve never been unemployed. I feel this is my calling, and what I am meant to do. Through Aesthetic Life Studio I can provide people with captured memories and, hopefully, bring a little beauty into their lives. Just this past month I was able to help two brides in very unfortunate situations. The first bride had her photographer back out on her at the last minute. I got a call from Liberty Mountain asking if I was available for her day, and by some miracle I was. :) This bride was having a super stressfull week with a death in the grooms family and traveling to Maine for the funeral just a week before their wedding. Because I have been given this gift of my business and photography I was able to help her out, and boy did I help her out. I really hooked her up. :) The second bride’s story really breaks my heart. I shot her wedding in the beginning of September, and last week she contacted me, telling me her father had unexpectedly passed away. I had just uploaded her wedding photos a few days before, and was just about to get her DVD and reference guide out to her. Once again, because of what I do, I was able to provide a little comfort to her and her family with images of her dad that where taken on one of the best days of his life. I didn’t speak to him much that day, but I could tell he loved his daughter and his family. I was able to capture moments of the bride and her dad together. Some of the looks he gave his girl during the father/daughter dance are priceless, and I know the bride and her family will cherish them forever.
This is why I do what I do. This business is more about people than photography to me. I believe in investing in people, and that investing in people has a much larger return than any monetary investment could provide, and that that return not only benefits me, but everyone involved.
Great pictures, Rodney! Looks like it was a beautiful and fun wedding! Can’t wait for the new website! :)