one fine day photography

As promised, I’m pleased to announce that registrations for our new photography course are now open!

Click here for full details, including times, dates and content.

Only 3 places remain on our first course, so register now if you’re interested!

In case you were wondering, no, we haven’t forgotten about the new photography course we’re launching this year.

Details we can confirm:

• It will start in March. Registrations will open mid-February. People who have registered their interest by emailing training@ofdphoto.com will get a 24-hour head start. After that, registrations will open for everyone else (if it hasn’t booked out). You can still email us to register your interest
• Weekly theory workshops will be held in the Newcastle CBD, most likely on Thursday evenings, from 6pm.
• The course will cost $550 per attendee. This special introductory price will only apply to the first course.

Stay tuned for more info

You’re probably wondering why I haven’t blogged a wedding for a while. After all, I do have 10 weddings to share with you. What gives?

Well, to cut a long story short, 2009 will be remembered as the year my business got too big for me, without me noticing. Even with quitting my day job halfway through the year, I was still taking on more work than I had time for, and my post production backlog wasn’t improving much.

Somehow I remained optimistic that I’d increase my productivity enough to catch up quickly, so I made unrealistic promises about when photos would be ready, failed to keep them, disappointed my clients, got depressed, became less productive, tried to set new deadlines … and so the cycle continued. It sucked. It hurt many of my wonderful clients, it hurt my beautiful wife, and it hurt my health.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Hard as it is to “bare all” and publicly address this dark chapter in my life and my business, I feel compelled to be honest about the past before getting excited about the future. This blog, being the main place I’m telling the story of OFD, seemed an appropriate place to share about some of the growing pains of doing photography for a living.

Also, I’m very aware that not all of this disappointment and pain is in the past … many are still waiting for their photos, and that upsets me. So, I’m posting this by way of explanation, and also to let you know what I’m doing a) to catch up quickly and b) to make sure post production backlogs never happen again.

Most importantly, I’ve accepted that I need to allow other people to do my post production for me. Given how hard I’ve worked to build my own “brand” of post production, and how difficult it is to teach what I “see” in an unprocessed photo, this was hard to accept. But I’ve been working on a workflow that will make it possible for others to replicate my “look” in post production, and I have my first PP person starting tomorrow (yay!). I’m also looking to bring on an additional PP person, this week or next, to help clear out my current backlog. This will basically triple OFD’s post production staff immediately

I’m also working on better processes within OFD, to make sure the day-to-day running of the business is more streamlined, better documented, and less dependent on me.

Meanwhile, I’m not making any more unrealistic promises! If you’re waiting for your photos, please know that I’m aiming to deliver at least 3 weddings per week, which translates to being fully caught up by the end of February. In the near future, I’ll publish a live queue of pending jobs so you can track progress. And if you need a few hi-res photos for thank-you cards or something else, please get in touch; I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.

I’m so very sorry that I’m in this position. I promise I’m doing everything I can to get out of it as quickly as possible, and to stay that way. Thanks so much for your kindness so far.

In response to a number of requests for one-on-one photography training, and in light of the fact that I’ve enjoyed teaching other things in the past, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll be launching an OFD photography course this year!

We’re still finalising the details, but here are the brush strokes:

• The course will run for 8 weeks. It will involve a weekly theory component (3 hours, probably starting around 6pm on a suitable weeknight) and 2-3 field trips (to be chosen democratically by the participants).
• We will only accept 10 participants per course. This will ensure that everyone receives enough individual attention, and will hopefully make it easy for us all to become good friends!
• We’ll cover a lot of ground, including the basics of exposure and composition, working with available and artificial light (including on- and off-camera flash), portraiture, candid photography, and the essentials of digital workflow.
• Because we’re packing so much content into 8 weeks, some things won’t be covered in much detail, e.g. Photoshop. The course will focus primarily on helping participants improve their results in-camera, so that Photoshop can be avoided
• An online forum will be provided for participants to ask follow-up questions, share photos, request critique, and generally stay in touch.
• Participants will need, at the very least, a digital SLR with a kit lens. Optional extras that will be beneficial include a fast prime lens like the Canon 50mm f/1.8 or Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, a dedicated flash, and a computer with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom running on it.
• We’re not expecting participants to know much more than the basics of operating their camera, and we’re aiming the content at hobbyists who simply want to take better photos. That said, we’ll happily welcome amateurs with professional aspirations, and even working photographers who never got around to learning the basics!
• The price of the course is yet to be locked in, but it will probably cost around $550 including GST.

If you’re interested in participating, please let us know by emailing training@ofdphoto.com. We’ll send out further details, including dates, locations, a course structure and a firm price in the very near future. This information will only be provided by email initially, so make sure you get in touch if you’re keen!

And because this post would be boring without a photo or two, here’s a sneak peek of Jess and Mark’s wedding. Plenty more photos are on their way