Dad. Husband. Photographer.

I seen a question  from someone online who's fear that having children will stop him for 3 years or so from pursuing his work as a photographer. I thought it was a very awesome question and thought I would indirectly answer it ;)

I think it's pretty relevant since today marks my 5 year wedding anniversary with my wife, Becky.

Five awesome years ago we were married but I started my photography business while we were engaged; She in fact, was my biggest supporter and gave me the kick in the pants to do photography professionally. Having that support is the first thing needed to have a successful photographic career.

Fast forward a couple years to 2008 when we had our son, Cameron. My photography business was finally doing really well for us. I was knee deep in it all! I couldn't be as helpful as I wanted with our son and I thought it sucked. But there my wife was a trooper and taking care of it all.

In 2011 we had our daughter, Addison. I learned this time around that being a photographer was great and all, but absolutely didn't want to miss time away from my little girl. So 2011 was when I fell off the map so to speak. I did my weddings and portraits more selectively and didn't update this site nearly as much as I used to.

I did this 110% voluntarily because I realized that being a good parent and husband is most important. Before I know it, my children will be off to school, college and then moved out so I had better enjoy it while it lasts.

Ironically, 2011 was when I really discovered myself as a photographer. It took me 13+ fricken' years to discover my style and what made me tick as a photographer. I wasn't obsessing over these rockstar photographer blogs, I wasn't on forums anymore and I didn't have anything to distract me from myself and my style. I didn't put any pressure on myself to shoot like so-and-so. I was just shooting a ton of family photos of my children just being kids and I had no pressure whatsoever. I shot what I wanted, when I wanted and, most importantly, how I wanted to.

Here are some examples. These are some snapshots that I took last week just using Instagram on my iPhone:

 I am in absolutely in love with these two pics. The first one is of my daughter. Yeah her head is cropped but I know it is her. This was a "daddy" memory. See we just got the kids a swing set in our back yard and her and I were passing the swing back and forth to each other playing. I know it's her. I am capturing the moment and it really encompasses the "mood." It makes me happy when I look at it so that makes it a good photo in my opinion.

The second image was taken a couple weeks ago when we visited Rushford Lake. The kids were about ready for bed so we hung out in the bedroom and watched a DVD on our laptop for a little bit. I snapped this shot real quick, once again using Instagram.

I showcase these two images because years prior, I would have never been caught dead cropping heads or taking dark, ambient lit photos. You know why? Because my "photo journalistic" skills bit the big one. It was only when I second shot for someone I knew or took snapshots that I experimented. As you can see, those are all my favorite shots...

So back from my tangent...
 
Having a wife and children helped MAKE me the photographer I am today... This is nothing to be feared of but rather embraced. I have never been more excited to shoot for my clients then I am right now.

You know what else I learned? How to do $#!% right in the first place. If I have a family and they need me to be a part of their lives then you better believe I am going to nail the shot so it requires little to no time in post-processing. Wow, I am suddenly an even-better photographer.

I cannot wait to see which child takes a liking to photography. I am like a giddy little school girl thinking about it. But even if they don't have any remote interest in photography I want them to at least see that anything is a possibility and that they can pursue what they love, whatever it is, be their own boss and love what they do for a living...

Teaching him young. Here I am showing my son how to use a camera.
Taken on Father's Day 2012 @ Letchworth State Park

In closing, when all is said and done and your time on this Earth is over, do you really want to be remembered as a rock star photographer for 15 minutes of fame or an amazing husband/wife and father/mother?

~ Mike

BorrowLenses.com Review

Update: To celebrate their 5th year in business, BorrowLenses.com has a promotion where you can win a Canon 5D Mark III or Nikon D800 D-SLR. Click here to enter.

Lately, I have been diving into the commercial and editorial photography business. My personal photography website has started to showcase more and more of this kind of photography.

Now, I am just getting into the business. Not sure how the future will pan out. What I do know is that I don't want to get into debt having to buy myself all new gear. I can just budget into my budget some rental equipment, use it for the shoot and ship it back. Way better than racking up the bills.

Not only is http://www.borrowlenses.com great for commissioned work, it is also great to try new cameras or lenses before you buy. Back in 2008 I made the switch to Nikon from Canon. This was right around when the Canon 1D Mark III was supposedly patched up with the "blue dot" fix and whatnot. I came to a crossroad; buy the Canon flagship model, or jump ship and go to Nikon. Nikon had just released the D3 and it's baby brother, the D700. If I would have known better (hindsight is 20/20) then I would have dropped $200 and tried out a Nikon system through http://www.borrowlenses.com. If I would have done that then I would have saved myself so many headaches.

Maybe 10,000 shutter clicks into the 1D Mark III, it just broke. Nothing worked. To make things worse I was on assignment. So I had to run and get my backup Canon 5D to finish the shoot. Not cool. Canon didn't look out for me (CPS membership and everything) and send me a replacement body until mine was repaired so I just said screw it and jumped ship to a more reliable system.

My first shot with a Nikon D700 was really a "Holy S#!#" moment! I couldn't believe the sharpness and high ISO abilities to shoot in low light. Now if I would have just bucked up $200 and just gone to http://www.borrowlenses.com to try out a D700 before buying that damned 1D Mark III I would have been impressed enough and would have just jumped ship at that point. I could still smack myself because that 1D Mark III was the one piece of equipment that I leased for 5 years. I ended up ditching it in 8 months, still paying for the lease today...

Awesome!

Another example. I have really been into Leica digital cameras as of late. I mean I was drooling over these things. So I smartened up and dropped a couple hundred dollars to rent a Leica M9 from http://www.borrowlenses.com along with a Leica 50mm f/2 lens. Sure enough, the camera wasn't for me. I am so glad I tried it out because I would have been like $10,000 in the hole for something that didn't fit my shooting style.

So if you are considering jumping ship, try before you buy. Maybe you want that new $3,000 lens. Try before you buy. Going on a little vacation for the week and want to bring an astronomically high priced piece of glass? Rent one for the week and ship it back when you are done...

Comment below and feel free to share your dumb photography purchases.

Learn from my mistakes. Thanks for stopping by.
~ Mike

Update: To celebrate their 5th year in business, BorrowLenses.com has a promotion where you can win a Canon 5D Mark III or Nikon D800 D-SLR. Click here to enter.

$100 Google Adwords Coupon Codes

I get stuff from Google all the time. Most recently, they gave me nine $100 Google Adwords coupon codes. These are valid for new Adword accounts only and will expire on June 30th, 2012.

For those who don't know, Google Adwords is a great way for businesses to promote their website on the first page of Google. This is especially beneficial to those who don't have their site on Page 1 of Google yet.

First come first serve for these Adwords Coupons:
LDPN-X6KR-SNUN-FNPQ-SFQ
LDPN-XULK-UA5L-HL7T-748
3USL-4ZAA08YKC-YH2G06BQ
LDPN-XNJU-PP6B-DXSR-HFQ
LDPNNN-XLC8-Y8DF-85PM-2LG
LDPN-XHRAA-CXHQ-2JM7-LE8
3USL-4Y9X-5RMM-M7C3-FEY
LDPN-XC77-WYUB-VPXT-ZDG
LDPN-X9FX-4WZC-5Q3U-NMQ

Remember these will be valid for only one person and only for new Adwords accounts.

Visit www.google.com/adwords to get started.

~ Mike

Back To The Ol' Drawing Board

Hey, longtime inLIGHTin'ed followers, remember waaaaaayyyyyy back when I said I was going to be publishing some eZines ?

Well good news, I finally got around to do that not too long ago. The only bad news is that I am going back to the drawing board. First, it is taking me forever so a lot of content that was 'new' back then is now sort of irrelevant. Secondly, I am going to be self-publishing the magaizine though Apple's iBookstore.

It will be available for iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch as well as in a PDF format in case you aren't an Apple fanboy (or girl).

Very exciting times are coming for The inLIGHTin Workshop and I look forward to sharing them all with you.

Thanks for stopping by!
~Mike

50% Off At The inLIGHTin'ed Store

The inLIGHTin Workshop Storefront got a facelift! For a limited time the first 10 people will receive a 50% discount towards ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in the inLIGHTin'ed Store...

Photoshop Actions, Lightroom Presets (LR4 Optimzed) or even my inLIGHin'ed Photography Business Templates.
Are you in Buffalo, NY? If so then you even get 50% off my One-On-One Workshop Tickets!
Use promo code: "INLIGHTIN50OFF" at checkout to claim your discount.

Thanks for your support!
~ Mike