Gearing up for Halloween

My wife and son go nuts for all the holidays. The house gets decked out in the greatest stuff and my son's enthusiasm is off the charts as only a soon-to-be-four-year-old can maintain. Today we made a trip to one of the local farms thinly veiled as a way to sucker suburbanites out of their hard earned cash. When a petting zoo and pumpkin picking is on the line, cost is no object. Ponies were ridden and llamas fed.

Next week is the big event. My son will don is Luke Skywalker costume, complete with glowing light sabre, and most likely threaten the safety of all around him. It's gonna be great!!

All in all we had a great time today. Here are a few shots of the picking and carving of our pumpkins for this year.

You meet the nicest people when you least expect it

In the past forty eight hours I met six and a half great people all because I decided to go to a party.

Jason Groupp hosts the annual DWF Platinum Party every year, the Wednesday before Photo Plus Expo starts. I got an invite and went to check it out. That set the chain of meetings in motion. First, I met Ajit Singh, an incredibly nice guy, talented photographer, and fellow Long Islander. Next I met Kim and Randhir Reddy, a wonderful husband and wife team. We all talked about the ups and downs of photography as a business and how it is one of the greatest jobs you can have no matter what. Randhir and I talked cinematography for a while, him being a trained filmmaker, me being a novice enthusiast. Turns out Randhir made an independent feature film that is due out in theaters in 2010.

A HUGE bonus for me was getting to shake Zack Arias' hand and chat for a few minutes at the party. He set me straight a while back and I was really happy I got to thank him in person. I am a major fan of Zack and his work, so I'll leave it there and avoid a ramble.

That puts me at three and a half great people met, since I already knew Jason Groupp, who is a serious amount of fun and a helluva shooter and I had kind of met Zack through e-mail already. Thursday morning I head to Photo Plus Expo. I get in line right behind Randhir. Of the thousands of people going to the show, what are the odds I get in line right then? Weird. Randhir and I hung around and wandered the expo. We spent some time at the WHCC booth, where we met some extremely cool folks, of which Jed Taufer was most certainly the coolest. He spent so much time with us talking about business and personal life and I pretty much wanted him to adopt me. He happens to be married to the very talented Vicki Taufer, who I did not get to meet unfortunately. Again what a weird turn of events.

A little more wandering and business brainstorming with Randhir and who do I run in to? Ajit. Such a genuinely nice person. Really. We wander the floor and take in the sights. Photo Plus Expo is a toy and candy store for photographers. Some more wandering and we run into a friend of Ajit's, Punam Bean. After about five minutes I figured out why this woman is so successful. Charm, personality, grace, humor. Oh, and man can she make a beautiful image. Before I knew it an hour had gone by and the three of us decided it was time to split for the day.

That puts me at five and a half great people met in less than twenty four hours. Today, Friday, I made a quick stop at the expo in the afternoon to say hello to Dennis Lennie, one of the two principals of the F-Stop Academy, an exciting new educational undertaking for teaching cinematography. Philip Bloom is the other half of the Academy. I could write for a few hours on the awesomeness of Philip Bloom. Just check his site and spend a few days watching his films. Back to Dennis. I only got about fifteen minutes to chat with him, but it was a great fifteen minutes. I so wanted to go out for a drink with him, but alas it was time to get home to my two most favorite people of all.

It's funny and fascinating how through a random chance I get invited to a party and end up meeting six people in forty eight hours that really made an impact on how I think about my business and myself.

I hope you get the same chance to be surprised. Have a great weekend.

Busy, busy, busy

I am as busy as anything these days. My mind is running at double or triple speed. My family always keeps me on the go. My technology job just got a whole lot more interesting and intense. My photography business is presenting some tough challenges. The imaging world is blowing me away between getting better at my still work and gushing over the film work I want to do with my new Canon 7D.

I want (and valiantly try) to cram so much reading and learning in to my days that I don't do enough doing. There's a saying, "What gets rewarded gets done." You can interpret that with a Pavlovian view as the things that actually get done are the ones with a reward at the end. The more noble view might be that the rewards come from the doing of worthy things. Picking the worthy is tough for me. I want to do it all. I feel like I might miss out on something great if I take my eye off the RSS feeds, Twitter, and other information fire hoses aimed squarely at my face. Of course, I'm not a beautiful and unique snowflake for making that revelation, but it helps to see it in print.

I know the solution is to just turn the volume down and live. Live my life rather than stunting my growth with all this reading and thinking about doing. Do. Fail. Learn. Grow. Repeat. That is exactly what I teach my son. I need to take some of my own advice.

Starting this week I am instituting "Don't think, do" weekends. From sundown Friday to sunup Monday I'm going to ban non-recreational reading and social media rabbit holes. It's time to click the shutter, put pen to paper, ride the bike, chase my son, and take my wife out for lunch. If it's not an act of creation, experimentation, or relationship building, it's banned. Everything is better with an acronym, so I christen this idea DTDW. I feel better now.

What do you do to keep in touch with the world and make sure you are living in it rather than watching it? Leave a comment and get a conversation started.

Images for a Cure

I am admittedly a last minute signer-upper, but I just got signed up for Images for a Cure. On October 11, hundreds (hopefully thousands) of photographers will donate 100% of their sessions fees to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Here's how it works. If you live in or around Nassau County, Long Island, New York...

1. You contact me to lock in a time for one of the three child or family photo mini-sessions I can do that day.
2. You go to the Images for a Cure web site to securely donate the session fee that I give you for the package you want.
3. I take pictures of your wonderful family.
4. You wait for said pictures, cherish for a lifetime, and feel great that you helped fight breast cancer in the process.
5. Good karma finds us and makes us better people for it.

So, get your fingers tapping and get in touch with me. While you're at it talk two more families in to it and get them to contact me. Let's DO something!!

Holiday Mini-Sessions Are Here!

Trick-or-treating and turkeys are on your mind right now, but Santa's sleigh bells will be jingling sooner than you think.

Don't wait until the last minute to crank out those holiday cards. Book a holiday photo mini-session now and check one item off your to-do list!

It's the perfect time: The weather is nice, the parks and beaches have beautiful light, and your waistline hasn't expanded from all that Halloween candy and Thanksgiving dinner.

So what's a mini-session?
A quick 30-minute photo shoot with your kids at a location of your choice.

What's included?
The session, of course. You'll also receive two fully re-touched (skin smoothed, teeth whitened, eyes brightened) photos that you select from an online gallery of 15 to 20 images captured during the shoot. These will be suitable for use on your holiday card - plus, you can share them via website, Facebook and e-mail to spread the joy even further.

The price?
$195 for up to 2 children.
$25 more for each additional child.
If you'd like a session that includes Mom and Dad, it will last 45 minutes and cost $245.

For an additional $75 plus the cost of prints, I will work with you to design your holiday card and have them shipped to your door. That's another chunk of time back in your day!

Pricing for additional re-touching and prints is available upon request.

This offer is for a limited time only! To take advantage of this promotion, be sure to book before October 17. I'll be shooting sessions through November 29.

Here are a few shots from the summer. Check out my web site to see more.

Education-o-rama

Over the past two days Sarah Petty and fifteen other photographers put on one helluva show. It was called the Master Photographer's Marketing Series telesummit, and it was packed to the gills with brilliant information from a wide range of working pro photographers and educators. Go ahead and take a look then come right back. I'll wait.

Welcome back.

The kicker? IT WAS FREE. Except for the long distance charges, you got sixteen hours of high quality, immediately useful photography business and marketing education. All of my hats are off for these talented people giving their time and wisdom so freely. It means a lot to a budding business to get access to such talent.

I caught a little here and there between meetings and downloaded all of the MP3s this evening. I can't wait to listen to everything. If you didn't sign up early, you can still buy all sixteen hours for $99 at the site. This is a ridiculously low price and you will not be disappointed.

I'm back and ready to rock

It was a busy summer for the Randell family with a few staycations and of course some fun photo shoots. I'll post some images from the summer over the next few days. I took too long of a break from the blog and I'll be a better blogger...promise.

Road cycling grabbed my heart this year and I had a fantastic season putting in the miles, making some new friends, and getting faster. I've set an aggressive weight target to hit by my next birthday and it's all about getting faster on the bike (and for chasing the kids on photo shoots) and being healthier for me and the family. Turns out they want me around for a awhile.

I'm the lightest I've been in several years and I really feel wonderful—physically and mentally. Taking and holding control over a bad habit is really powerful. If there's a habit you want to break, please do yourself the pleasure of grabbing it by the collar and shaking it in to submission. Taking that first step is damned hard but I swear it gets easier from there.

Holiday photo mini-sessions are starting now (details very soon) and I have a couple of interesting projects in mind to expand my work and help some people in the process. More to come on that as things develop.

Stay tuned and thanks for dropping by.