I love that my birthday is in spring – it is just 6 months to Christmas! And because my birthday is so close to Mother’s Day we celebrate the birthday and Mother’s Day together. It is a chance to hang with family.

It’s also a good time to enjoy strawberry short cake! So happy birthday to me – again.

Mother's Day and dav.d's birthday - what better reasons to hang out with family to celebrate?

And who doesn’t like a celebration of one’s birth? It is a chance to celebrate the person. Similar to birthdays would be weddings – a wedding is a bride’s special day- but hopefully that is just a once in a lifetime occasion and not yearly like birthdays… See I can make this blog post somewhat wedding related!

I got my first roll of test film back from Richards Photo Lab. They have a loyal fan base of photographers and I wanted to see what all the hub bub was about. Up till now I have scanned my film myself and I have been learning how to color correct film on my own. I’m learning a ton.

It was nice to see the comparison between my scans and the development and scanning by Richards Photo Lab. I think more testing will be needed. I might shoot off a roll or two at a portrait session or a wedding. I’m always looking for volunteers of my experimentation.

This example is of my niece, Eve. She is obviously attacking the camera in this photograph. I am liking the color and the skin tons.

Although way too young to be a bride, Eve was a perfect test subject for Richards photo lab.

Richards should be sending back the negatives to me soon along with some 4×6″ prints. That will conclude the first round of my testing.

Just so you know, I don’t plan on being left behind – or becoming boring or bland. Everyday I am reading a new book or working on some new techniques in camera or on the computer. All of this learning will hopefully lead me to become a better photographer and a better artist overtime.

I have been experimenting with using Photoshop to add a bride and a groom from one photograph into a different background or location. This kind of thing is done in the commercial world of photography all the time. It isn’t done so much in wedding photograph. And I don’t see it replacing on location photography any time soon.

In these two photographs I added Carissa, a bride I photographed in January, to an orchard I photographed in April. Same with her new husband Joel. I really like the results.

Carissa is shown in an apple orchard full of blossoms - perfect Bridal photography!

The background photograph is the same for Carissa and for Joel. I think I will work on an orchard photograph of the couple together.

Joel goes high fashion in an apple orchard. This is the orchard in Provo, Utah.

And today Adobe announced that the new version of Photoshop will be available this Friday. I have been waiting for almost 2 weeks. I will be upgrading and putting some of the new features to good use. There are some very useful tools that will help make these kinds of edits a lot easier and hopefully faster. Time is money.

Currently I am running my photography business on 2 computers – and one of them is getting a little long in the tooth. It is about 3 years old I believe. There are times when I am sitting and waiting for Photoshop to finishing processing my photographs. So with this year’s tax refund I am planning on buying a new iMac. I think the brides will like that because I can process their photographs even faster.

These are the specs – if you don’t care about numbers just know this thing is fast. I could go out and buy it now. However, I am waiting. And waiting still. Apple should be releasing updates to the iMac in 2 months. I’ll confess – I hate waiting. Patience is a virtue – and I want to punch that philosopher in the face.

My dream iMac - but I am learning patience in waiting

In the meantime I am making due with what I have. If the computer is going rather slow I just have more time to clean the office maybe. Perhaps this is where the concept of multitasking comes from… people waiting for their computers to keep up with their creativity.

Other things I am waiting for? The next version of Photoshop, a new camera, and something items in my wishlist. Maybe Santa will be nice and bring something for my birthday next week.

Hooray for patience and self disciple.

In the meantime I will be dreaming of faster processors and 32gigs of RAM.

I saw a photograph that someone posted of me and I look fat! I know need to lose weight – and I am making it to the gym. However, you see a bad photograph of yourself and you question a whole lot of things in life.

What did I do to console myself? I ordered tiramisu for lunch. Not the best strategy. Now I will need to spend more time at the gym – I have to look presentable in public. I also want to have my own photo shoot where I am the star. So I gotta keep making it to the gym and not letting bad pictures of myself let me down. And maybe, if need be, I’ll just eat a few bites of tiramisu.

Tiramisu makes great comfort food

BTW, I hope you are noticing the small evolution of the website. I am adding more photographs to encourage browsing of my wedding photography. I am still working on evolving my logo – I am not satisfied with it. I wonder if we are ever satisfied with a logo.

I’ll be working on the design again this weekend – and I will try to avoid the tiramisu. I have to be in amazing shape for my next wedding. Carrying cameras and lenses is a lot of work – and a lot more difficult when I am a Fatty McFatterstein.

The marble can be a bit reflective if lighting is being used – thank goodness for digital cameras and instant feedback.

I was also collecting background images for the possibility of using them in Photoshop. I am slowly collecting a library of background images that would be available as part of a photograph.

Much like Hollywood will create a fake reality – I have done this for portraits and even some brides. Check out a bride and groom I added to the Bonneville Salt Flats

The Utah State Capitol building is awesome for bridals and engagements

I have a few personal projects I am working on – one of them is to practice adding brides to different locations. When I find some free time I will be working on that this month. I have a few backgrounds now to choose from. Some of the locations include the capitol building, salt flats, an orchard and more.

This takes a lot more work in Photoshop but it is for those times when place and time can’t cooperate. If we want a spring photograph and it is snowing outside for example. And it creates something really unique.

However, I am totally game to photograph people in the actual State Capitol.

All you need is an iPhone or an iPad and we can swipe your credit card for a certain amount and it is easy as pie. I finally picked up a few more of these card readers so I can have one in each camera bag that I use. Nothing is worse than showing up for an assignment and the credit card reader is sitting on the desk at the office.

Square Credit Card Reader

This work with iPads and iPhones – so if you are also a small business owner – check it out. It saves on some of the merchant fees, black box fees and other things. And I hope that brides will like it a lot.

And of course I still accept PayPal, cash, and check. Contact me for details!

Yesterday I spent the day with a friend who was having a horrible day. She has had some bad luck in the last year and I do my best to be there to help out and be a person she can hang out with and talk. We went to go see American Reunion – the sequel to American Pie. We had a great time. Afterwards I helped her out at the Apple store while she needed a computer fixed. Anyway, at the end – she lost her keys in the trunk of my car! And we couldn’t find them anywhere.

So I spent about an hour cleaning out the trunk – everything came out and all the little things that accumulate were tossed out.

What is left? Just the essentials. I have my tripods, light stands, zip-loc bags, and even my gym bag – in case I make it to the gym. So instead of chaos it is now organized chaos. And I am prepared for any emergency that will arise.

Trunk of my Car is Organized - can you tell?

Not to get too excited – but maybe next I organized the office space. I might even find that there is carpet in the office.

And after the office, maybe I will organize my life – at least a little bit more. Is it possible for artists to be organized? We will find out.

I just wrapped up a children photo shoot at the Provo Apple Orchard that is located in front of the Utah State Hospital. The shoot was a lot of fun and the photos turned out great. Before leaving the location I took a few photographs of just the orchard itself and some of the apple blossoms. I don’t know how much longer the blossoms will stay around. However, now is the perfect time to hit the orchard.

The location will often have deer roaming the orchard as well. Occasionally you can spot them – although I doubt they’d hang around for a photo shoot.

Apple blossoms are covering the orchard in Provo

If I haven’t mentioned it before, Spring is my favorite season. It signals the end of winter and the beginning of warm weather, flowers, green grass and all the fun of summer. And things do get busier now a days. I am hoping that I can stop by Thanksgiving Point and photograph their tulip festival. That goes through April 28th.

So maybe I should wrap up this blog post – and you folks can put the computer down and go outside! It is beautiful out. And I will be scouting some more locations for photography.

I never know what I am going to find when I go photographing without a plan. All I knew I wanted were some photographs of tulips. Among a patch of yellow tulips there was one that dared to be different – and different enough to stand out from the crowd. So I focused all of my attention on that one flower. It was streaked with red and was very beautiful. I also had the flower framed by all the other yellow flowers. In comparison they were now rather unremarkable – they were so uniform.

After I edited and published the photograph it had me thinking about photographers today. We have the same lenses, cameras, lights, even the same software. In some cases you can’t tell the difference between some photographer’s work and the rest of the community. I like to think that I am unique with a vision and an art that is my own. Although I am inspired by many photographers I like to do things in my own way.

In many ways I want to be like this one flower that chose to be different.

One tulip stands out from the rest

The difficulty I have had to date is how to explain my difference. In marketing there is the “30 second elevator pitch.” Can I describe in 30 seconds why I am different than other photographers? Can I in 30 seconds explain my style, my culture, my skills? Right now I am afraid to say I can’t. However, I continue each day to develop my talents and to try to create my unique vision. Someday i hope I can explain myself in 30 seconds.

In the meantime I will be updating my website regularly with some of my wedding photography, but also some of the happenings and goings of the business. I hope you will learn about me as a photographer. I think this will make selling myself as a photographer a bit easier.

My friend Alex Gallivan created this photograph of my on the second day there. I’ll confess – I like being in front of the camera. Granted I want to lose so more weight before I step in front of the camera for an official photo shoot – who doesn’t?

While I was there I tried to capture interesting people for some cool and colorful portrait. Eyeglasses, masks, costumes, or anyone with a unique look caught my eye. I did find one person in a wedding dress – crazy. I guess it would make for one hell of an engagement photo shoot as well.

dav.d at the Holi Festival - photograph by Alex Gallivan

Events like this make shooting a wedding seem like a breeze. To photograph in an environment like this you have to protect your camera, and be super aware of your surroundings. There was body surfing and a mosh pit – I haven’t seen that too often at a wedding – yet.

And the event isn’t over once you leave – you carry the event in the form of powder in your shoes, clothes, nose, ears. I think I still have some pink dust in the car. However, it is a lot of fun and I look forward to next year. And I hope next year to con some people into a photo shoot at the event. The photos would be epic!

Well, I just finished Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh of Zappos. A truly inspiring book about happiness and corporate values and corporate culture. And even if it is just me as a photographer I can still take a lot of these principles to heart and apply them to my wedding photography business.

One of the memorable phrases was “It’s a random act of Wowness” – instead of a random act of kindness it is wowness. I learned so much I think I need to re-listen to the audiobook. It has so much information.

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh of Zappos

So I am officially inspired to create an amazing experience around dav.d wedding photography. I will be doing some soul searching and finding ways to make my clients say “Wow!”

Well, I finally gave in and paid the Barnes & Noble membership fee which will allegedly help me save money on magazines, books and more. For the longest time I resisted buying the membership – I always thought it wouldn’t be a good deal – but looking at Quickbooks I spend quite a bit on books, magazines and even the occasional chocolate bar.

It is always fun to find some inspiration from wedding magazines. And with local magazines that feature Salt Lake City and Utah County vendors it is a great way to find other businesses in the area. And it is fun to see the art work of other photographers – especially in Utah!

My new Barnes & Noble Card, wedding magazines, and a Godiva chocolate bar

BTW, I did buy a Borders membership and within 6 months they went out of business. Hopefully I am not a curse and Barnes and Noble stays in business long enough for me to save some money on chocolate bars and magazines.

This time, however, was all business. In addition to redesigning my website (I hope you noticed) I am looking at expanding my marketing and I wanted to pick the brains of a fellow photographer. So I invited her to the Market Street Grill in Cottonwood. If you haven’t been – get the Crab Omelet – it was so good.

Having a friend to bounce ideas about invoicing, contracts, wedding packages and more can be really helpful. Obviously the needs of brides comes first in this industry and things can change so quickly. Thanks to the internet al wedding photographers can learn so much – but sometimes it is the chance to hang out with a friend that I learn the most.

Market Street Grill

I would chalk this up to habit or maybe old age… or maybe life is just crazy. And I think life is crazy for everyone.

So I am going to drop a few hints today. I think they are exciting. This weekend I will be redesigning my website – it is long overdue for a website redesign. I will be updating my website’s galleries and portfolios. I will also be announcing some changes to my pricing & packages. And last but not least I will be announcing my first ever sale… This is going to be a crazy weekend.

I was trying on some clothes at American Eagle and for some reason I took my shoes off