Hmm… I have been thinking a lot about other types of photography lately.

I do not do family photos, portraits, senior photos, head shots, baby pictures or anything else like that. I don’t really enjoy it and I think that part of the reason is that there is not really any relationship created since the job is so brief. If you have ever met me, you know that I really want to make life as easy as possible for everyone so I believe that I will be offering additional photography services in 2007, however, there is a catch…

I am only going to offer the additional types of photography to my existing or future wedding photography clients. If you booked me in 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006 or are going to book me for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010… you will be able to work with me for other types of photography.

I think this is going to make your life easier since you already know and love me and I think it is going to make my life easier because I will be able to expand my business while maintaining the meaningful relationships that are already in place.

Almost everyone that I work with lives hundreds or thousands of miles away from me so I will set up some really great flat rate prices that include the photos, a disc of the images, travel, online hosting, a cool album and gifts for the family .

Part of the reason for offering this service to wedding clients only is that I will not have to take time and energy away from my wedding photography. If I photographed your wedding you already know me, know my package philosophy, know my pricing structure, know my photo style and know my work ethic… all you have to do is call to set up a time and place and we are ready to work .

I think it would be great to be able to give all of you really amazing photos of your child’s birth (I’ve seen some stunning birth pictures!), your daughter’s baptism, your son’s first birthday party, your daughter’s ballet recital, a family trip to the park, your son’s tee-ball game, a day with the grandparents, your daughter’s school play, your son’s senior photos, your family’s Christmas card and everything else fun.

I only take photos that I am really proud of and I think providing lifelong photography this way is a win-win situation for everyone!

There are no plans to have a website set up for this so if you are interested in working with me as your life gets exciting you are going to have to contact me directly .

I will have flat rate, all inclusive pricing set up after the first of the year.

Have a great day!

This is a really interesting way to announce a presidential candidacy. I probably would not have heard about it otherwise since I don’t watch much TV, I don’t read the news and these sorts of topics don’t generally come up in my conversations. The only way I heard about Barack Obama running was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno because of a joke about Hillary Rodham Clinton probably not winning now .

About 40,000 views in just a few hours, a rating system of how well received the announcement was, the ability for it to spread via word of mouth across thousands of blogs and all done for little more than the cost of filming on location… my initial opinion is that it is a very smart way to announce his intention to run for president. Being the first to utilize an internet announcement, John Edwards will certainly get a significant amount of press time, possibly more than what a normal announcement would have given him.

By the way, I’m not democratic or republican; I am registered as an independent .

Have a great day!

Blue Collar Comedy Tour – The Movie is hysterical, I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard while I was watching it. It features Larry the Cable Guy, Ron White, Jeff Foxworthy and Bill Engvall. I’m not going to ruin the humor by telling you about it so go and buy a copy .

Here are some photos from the snowfall today.

READ THIS ON YOUR LUNCH BREAK
Berkeley astronomer Don Goldsmith reminds us that the earth receives about one billionth of the suns energy, and that humans utilize about one millionth of that. So we consume about one million billionth of the suns total energy. At present, our entire planetary energy production is about 10 billion billion ergs per second. But our energy growth is rising exponentially, and hence we can calculate how long it will take to rise to Type II or III status.

Have a great day!

Pat of NAVAR sent me a link many months ago that had an MP3 stream of Meant to Be, one of my all time favorite songs from him. It wasn’t a link that I could pass on so I just enjoyed it privately. He recently recorded a video of Meant to Be and put it online for everyone so click play below and pass the video on to everyone that you know .

Pat is a really interesting guy, probably one of the few people who have lived a life as intriguing as mine in so few years. I have known him for probably 3, 4 or maybe even 5 years and from conversations, his blog and his songs I have seen many sides to him, it is fun to observe the inner dialogue that someone has when things go their way and when things go against them .

Just looking back over the year I am really impressed by how much influence we, the general public, had in making big things happen and by preventing stupid things from occurring. I completely agree with Time’s person of the year… let’s keep influencing the world .

The first ever photo exhibit that I saw that I can remember really impressing me was The Architect’s Brother by Robert ParkeHarrison, I saw it at the George Eastman House several years ago and it has stuck with me ever since then. Take a look at some of the images here .

I love all of the old Christmas shows on TV, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and A Charlie Brown Christmas; they are all excellent .

Have a great day!

Thanks for the 1,000 free trades TD Ameritrade… at my current rate that ought to last me for just about the rest of my life .

The verdict came back in the Venus, Serena and Richard Williams trial that my friend Leland testified in several times. It was not-guilty for Venus and Serena but guilty for Richard, however, there was $0.00 awarded to the plaintiffs. I wonder if we’ll see the trial be dragged out for year number three .

I heard on the weather report that there should be snow in Buffalo for my wedding at the end of the year. I am really looking forward to that since an all white wedding is really pretty in my mind. I am going to bring my battery chargers with me to recharge everything throughout the day, normally I would have more than enough power but the cold drains batteries pretty quickly.

After my last Windows Update my computer got all screwed up so I emailed Dell tech support and they have a really great system where you just tell them the code from the bottom of your computer and it brings up your purchase file so they have 99% of all of the information that they need . Haha, they sent me a link to a third party website to fix the problem, you’d think either Dell.com or Microsoft.com would be the solution but it was actually the number one Google search result for the error code that I searched for before I emailed Dell

By the way, I got my creativity back! I lost it for a few months but after some hard work in the book Thinkertoys I am all set to be the smartest and most innovative person that I know.

Do you ever think about all of the people that you know who don’t know you? Do you ever think about all of the people who know you that you don’t know? My next book is about networking, maybe it will talk about those two questions, and if it doesn’t then maybe I’ll write a book about those two questions .

I might be starting two newsletters in 2007, one for clients and one for the business side of photography. I have almost three times as many photographers than past, present and future clients on my list!

Enjoy Christmas if you celebrate it!

Today was another busy day and it was really beautiful in Canandaigua while I was out walking around. I left my winter hat at home and it was really cold by the lake so I walked into JC Penny, which was close by, and I bought a brown hat and a black hat. It took me almost 20 minutes to check out! I was really shocked that so many people were out shopping at 2:30pm on a Wednesday.

I got my hair cut in time for Christmas so I am happy about that .

I met Jonathan and Rachel at their excellent restaurant Hyjea today and I had a really good dessert cup while we talked. I love how we’ve become friends more than clients/photographer; it is going to make their wedding really easy and fun!

These are all with my Nikon 12-24mm f-4 AFS lens, it is a super wide angle lens and is a lot of fun to shoot with since I can fit so much more ’stuff’ into a picture than what I can see normally .

I have been confusing the use of SINCE and SENSE a lot recently in emails. I am not sure why, as I know the difference between the two… I usually write reasonably well but this is just odd. If I used the wrong version when I wrote you an email it is not because I am dumb .

Have a great day!

I have been speaking with Beth of Hero & Sound Inc in Buffalo, NY about her wedding in 2007 for a while and just a few days ago I took some time to look through the great graphic designs that they have on their website and I am really impressed. They have a cool aesthetic that I love!

Beth sent me a really amazing Buffalo poster today and I love it, I highly recommend taking a look through their galleries and buying a couple of music posters or Buffalo posters.

This is the one that Beth sent me in 18×24″ .

Have a great day!

You have about one month left before the 2007 booking season gets crazy… this means that to get a peak date without too much competition you are going to want to get me the contract and your initial payment before 1-15-07. You can certainly book at any time after 1-15-07 but historically the second week in January marks a big rush in inquiries that will last until about March 15th. All wedding dates book on a first come first served basis so you may hear that two, three, four or more people are interested in your wedding date and if that happens whoever commits first gets it . Inquiries and bookings never really slowed down for me this year (we usually have a few month slow period in the late fall and early winter) so I am really excited to see how much busier I will get!

I had a firefox browser crash yesterday and lost something like 200+ bookmarked sites… I never thought to back all of those up. It’s not a huge issue, just a minor inconvenience while I try to think of all of the sites that had something important to offer me. Use this as a warning, back up all of your bookmarked links .

I will post my last wedding of 2006 after the New Year when I return from Buffalo, be sure to check it out .

Have a great day!