Usually progress happens in small increments; but there are some steps that require a scary leap, and after a year-and-change of looking over the full-time-photographer’s cliff, I’ve finally made the jump.

In the two weeks after I gave my notice at my day job, I certainly had a few moments of panic, but I’ve worked hard at photography like I worked hard at skiing.  I know it well.  I’ve done my research and made my plans.  I’ve got small fires burning and have just lacked the time to fan the flames.

The plan is to keep going with the corporate work I do: Portraits and headshots, group portraits, brochure photography, website photography, editorial (down the road…).  I also love to teach and am looking for ways to work that in.

I’m also excited to keep working on my own projects, especially indyhikes.com.  I’ve got the content for more hikes but just haven’t had the time to pull it together.  I’ve also got a beautiful photo printer and have been thinking about some new ways to display the work.  Hopefully print sales can help support the project.

This is an exciting time, and I wanted to thank everyone who has helped get me this far.  I’ve got a long ways to go, but I certainly wouldn’t have made it even this far without the fantastic support of friends and family.

So, need some pictures?  Send me an email or give me a ring at 317-443-3792.

The same holds true for printing, I’ve recently found.  I’ve tried my own printing in the past, at first years ago with an early Epson inkjet, then more recently with a hand-me-down Epson R1800.  I enjoyed the process somewhat, but between me and making a print were too many hoops.  I never could get the color quite right in my home-made prints and the cost of ink was outrageous (a frustration compounded by frequent nozzle clogs that wasted far too much ink to get cleared).

With the launch of IndyHikes (something I need to write about here), I recently purchased a new photo printer, hoping to be able to sell prints to help support the project.  This isn’t a printer review, nor is it meant as an endorsement for Epson printers, but like other photo equipment, I’ve finally found a printer that gets out of the way.  (Or possibly, printing technology as progressed enough that many current printers are sufficiently slick enough to get out of the way, but I happen to have purchased an Epson 4900.)

It’s still not a perfect process, you  have to know about paper profiles and have the equipment and know-how to make the profiles if they aren’t provided by the paper manufacturer.  Finding the paper that works for each image and makes it really sing is just a blast, though.  And, better yet, seeing that the same image can say different things depending on what paper it is printed on adds a whole new dimension to image making.

So far, here’s a few of my favorite papers: Epson’s Cold Press Natural for warm-toned B&W, and Cold Press Bright for color images that work well on textured paper (like this: http://prints.pdaphotography.com/p251038326/h2342a7cd#h2342a7cd).  I also liked Museo’s Textured Rag quite a bit for color with texture and Moab’s Entrada Rag Bright for color without texture.  Moab’s Slickrock Metallic Pearl or Inkpress’ Metallic Glossy for a print that really pops but isn’t over the top (these papers are so similar I have trouble telling them apart).  Epson’s Exhibition Fiber is a very nice gloss paper, I need to experiment with this one a little more though.

I’ve been babbling about this sort of thing over on Facebook lately, so if you’d like to chat some find me over there.

This was a fun mix of techniques, some HDR and off camera lighting for the machines and even some great portraits while I was at it.

Here’s some of my favorites:

They were in one of the meeting rooms of the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association, located at the top of the convention center. There’s always a moment of… concern when I walk in to an assignment like this, hoping there will be something to use as a good backdrop. It can be almost anything, a section of parking garage, interesting office furniture and architecture, or a window view out to another interesting building…

Thankfully, the ICVA meeting room had a large, very nice abstract painting of the Indianapolis downtown and I quickly put that to work as a nice backdrop for the ISM portraits:

Below is a tiny slideshow. Here it is full screen.

I was also able to work with a new model for me, Sarah. I got to play with some ideas I’ve had for the thin plastic backdrop that I play with so often. This time I folded it into a strip and hung it from the ceiling. Firing a studio light through it was I able to use it as a light and a backdrop. I’ve got some of those images up on Flickr.

It’s looking like the fall might be pretty busy, so it’s nice to work on some personal projects while I’ve got the chance. As always, thoughts and questions are welcome.

This was quite a fun little project. I’ve never mixed down sound before, so cleaning, mixing, and matching multiple tracks of drips and bug noise was an interesting challenge. Let me know if the sound works or not. Too loud, not loud enough, hard to tell what it is?

I’m really excited about the possibilities in these slideshows and sounds. So many directions to explore…

It’s fantastic to see my work being used in such a great design.  Doug had asked me to come by for portraits, so that’s what we mostly worked on.  While I was there, he asked if I had some time for some snaps of their office space.  I’m not sure I knew at the time what great plans they had for the images.

Doug’s team is great to collaborate with, and the caliber of their work is plain to see (they built this site too).  I’m very much looking forward to the time when we get to work together again.

This is the third time I’ve done portraits for Doug.  The last was just after his book Corporate Blogging for Dummies was released.  I wrote about that session here.

I was excited to head back to Doug’s conference room, it’s a challenging location with lots of options.  I started off much like I had last time, using the corrugated wall as a backdrop.  After we got images I was happy with using that backdrop I wanted to try something a little different, using the under-lit blue table.  Here’s some of my favorites:

Doug also asked me to grab some shots of their work space.

The door:

The Office:

The logo (made by local artist/metalworker/all-around great guy Andrew Ball):

We made some very cool images and had a great time while we were at it.

If you’re local to Indy and have time this afternoon, think about coming by.  Here’s the details.