Not taking a break, it just looks that way...

There seems to have been a bit of concern that I've been asleep at the wheel here at Cycle 61 Photography (everybody who knows me personally is giggling right now) but I want to assure you this is not the case. I've been pushing forward with my business building with every minute that my schedule allows. There hasn't been any huge news, but Rome wasn't built in a day, right? How things are going, after the jump.


In keeping with one of my business building goals (#8 here) I've got two jobs scheduled for next weekend. The first is a wedding for the niece of one of my wife's good friends. I'm doing this for them as a favor, but mostly to get some experience for myself. Please understand this is not my permanent business model.

The second is for my cousin's theater group, which is a collective of the drama departments of two great high schools. I shot one of their shows last year, using only my 18-135 and available darkness stage lighting, and came up with images like the one here. Certainly not ideal, but several people asked for copies and apparently it was good enough to get me invited back.

This year I'm hoping to do a much better job for them. I'm going to go up next Sunday, ahead of opening night, and shoot during a dress rehearsal, which will allow me to use some off-camera flash instead of being limited to the minimal stage lighting. I also plan to do a cast group shots and some portraits of the leads. Edit: Looks like I'm going to do individual shots for everybody, should be fun! I still want to do a few lead shots for a poster, like Bogart and Bacall in Cascablanca Money has yet to be negotiated, but as this performance is put on by a school I'm asking them to cover my costs for prints, etc and call the rest a charitable donation for the amount of my day rate (which I still need to determine).

I know, of course, that this isn't earth-shattering news for any of you guys who shoot on assignment all the time, but I'm getting there.

I'm still working on getting my landlord's signature on the business papers to file with the city, he was going to take them to his lawyer friend yesterday so that should be taken care of pretty quickly. Once I've got his blessing, I can go ahead and make my business a real entity.

Speaking of which, I've got to get some business cards to hand out at the wedding and to the theater guys. I was going to wait until the business was legitimate, but I guess I don't have that long. Thanks Mike, for the reminder.

I'm also continuing to build my stock collection at Photoshelter, and I'm going to be setting up a Personal Archive account with them this week, to replace Zenfolio for event images, print sales, direct downloads, etc. Zen's very pretty, but seems a bit limited in their fulfillment options and customization.

So, although it's been a slow news week, things are happening!