June 6, 2008: This is photography?


I've had a busy week for the photography business, and I haven't taken a single picture. I've barely spent any time editing pictures. For better or worse, it seems that a lot of the time spent doing photography as a business is devoted to the business instead of the photography. And I haven't even opened my (new) doors yet! I'm getting ready to send out brochures to local businesses and other poetential clients. Rather than your usual boring trifold brochure, I went with a novel design. Unfortunately, it requires four VERY accurate folds per brochure. So... 1,000 brochures, 4,000 folds... I'm a little more than halfway done with the folding and I've spent about 12 hours so far. I'm getting faster, though, so I suspect I have somewhere around 8 hours more of that. Then there's sealing envelopes, stamping, putting on address and return address labels, etc. This is photography?

I've also been working on tracking down things like business insurance, licensing and taxes so I have a good handle on my expenses before I get too deeply embroiled. I'm also working on the legalese for the contracts I'll be using. I'm hoping to keep them as simple as possible (but no simpler — thank you Mr. Einstein!) and very flexible, while still protecting both my rights and my clients'. I've also been designing some things for the studio, like shooting table that will be big enough for most items, yet still stow and set up quickly and easily. And of course there's all the usual distractions like the grass that keeps growing at about two inches per day (at least it seems that way!). More important stuff, but again, this is photography?

Some of you know that I'm also a tuba player, playing with the ShowMe Brass Band. We'll be performing for free on Thursday evening, June 12 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM as part of Columbia's Twilight Festival. If you're in Columbia, please stop up around 8th and Walnut and give us a listen, and say hello! We play a wide range of music, from classical to jazz. We're not pros, but we have a lot of fun, and I think our audiences do, too! The following week we'll be taking a whirlwind trip to Delaware. My son is starting at the University of Delaware (alma mater of both my wife and myself) in the fall, so this is the first of many such trips in our future, I imagine. None of this stuff is photography at all, of course, but I've got to have a life to keep my (tenuous?) grip on sanity!

I'm going to have security cameras set up in the studio, and they'll be webcams so I can check on what's going on even if I'm not there. I've been thinking about making them available on the website, too. I think they'd be focused on the photographer (me, or whoever is renting the studio at the time), not the subject, for the most part. Of course if the photographer, client or model prefers otherwise I'll respect that, but I thought this might be fun and maybe even instructional. Is this something you'd be interested in? Drop me a line and let me know!

Well, I better get back to folding brochures. I'll just keep telling myself "This is photography!"

Happy shooting!
-Art

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