River Oak Photography

A few of my favorites from this weekend. Look for a post on thoughts on the business side of this event soon.

A few new products coming in the next few days that I’ll be adding to our retail setup. Pretty excited about these. Once they arrive and I have a chance to use them, I’ll post some reviews.

HP Photo Center

Dell 22in. LCD

I finally got around to editing the photos from Tori and Kevin Parker’s wedding today, which is funny since I also found out today that Tori’s pregnant–congrats to her! I’ve posted the edits here.

A few of my favorites:

What’s funny is that, even though I got some pics that I was pretty pleased with, they took _way_ more editing time than should’ve been necessary because they weren’t shot correctly. It’s kind of funny how much I’ve learned in the past half a year or so. Among other things I would’ve done differently, I would’ve:

- Increased in-camera saturation
- Reduced ISO
- Not shot with two of the three lenses I used (the 17-85 f/4-5.6 IS, which is WAY too slow even with IS and not terribly sharp, and the 50 f/1.8, which fails with a remarkable consistency to be sharp)
- Paid more attention to composition, especially visibility of faces and odd background objects
- Not fallen while walking around the Chapel balcony while everyone was silent (funny story, that)

Hey, you live, you learn, you correct what you can in Lightroom, and you do better next time.

Oh, and I still need to learn how to use Canon’s flash system properly.

So, in an effort to get my head wrapped around what’s going on over the next two weeks, I’m compiling a list of everything I’d like to accomplish over the next two weeks. Here we go:

Events:
- 2009 Senior Circuit meet, Ramsey center, Saturday Jan 10 and Sunday Jan 11
- HS Invitational, Ramsey center, Saturday Jan 17

Tasks:
- Update marketing materials (Meet Handout, Signup sheet)
- Check website for needed refreshes
- (Depending on his schedule) Train Matt @ Meet on 01/10/09
- Create FMP data entry setup
- Create promo loop for digital signage (next week)
- Check equipment (lenses, cameras, memory cards, batteries, computers bins) before each meet
- Edit Parker wedding photos
- Create operations manual (areas: Financial, Web, Customer Service, Sales Rep, Database, Data Handling, Marketing, Corporate Vision)
- Meet with Tim Waters
- Close out books for 2008
- Get back into OmniFocus / Jott system

There are probably 20-30 other things I’d like to do / need to do, but there are the biggies.

As I begin to face seriously the challenge of turning ROP into a full-time operation, I am starting to see the true importance of vision, which leads to prioritization, which requires focus. Ah, that I had more idle time to ramble about these things. Soon. Soon.

Welcome to the first official post of River Oak Blog! I’m so excited for this new year and all that it brings. The big idea here is that I’m seeing if I can transition River Oak Photography into my full-time job…

…in the middle of the worst economy in 70ish years.

I love a challenge.

So what exactly does this mean?

- A much more serious time investment in the things that matter: taking pictures (duh), sales, marketing, learning, networking, etc.
- Similarly, less time wasted on things that don’t matter so much.
- Consistent writing about this process so that I stay on-task and keep asking the questions that matter.
- Hiring employees(!).
- Potentially becoming an S Corporation.
- Getting equipment insurance (finally).
- Lots more picture-taking. Starting tomorrow when I return to Athens, I’ll be carrying my camera with me wherever I go, so I’ll be posting photos as close to every day as I can manage.
- Hopefully, making a dollar or two.

That’s it for now. Thanks!