Decided to go to ImagingUSA conference

I’m a member of the PPA…new member, and so far all I’ve done is listen to a webinar telling me what their website already told me about the services they offer. I don’t mean that to sound bad, it’s just that I haven’t had an opportunity to use their services yet. I’m still in the fledgling stages of all this you know. Yesterday afternoon, my wife calls and says that she believes I should go to the conference in Phoenix in January because she feels like it will be a good way to jumpstart my business. I agree with her, we have talked about this before and I thought the money was too much to justify but she made some valid points. If I spend $2500 going to this conference and the pre-sessions I want to attend, and it saves me from making big mistakes from the beginning and it sets me up to succeed from the start, then it is money well spent. So, I’m going.

Now I’m a planner. I’ve been to several conferences for my regular geek job, including my favorite, Microsoft TechEd, which I’ve attended several times. Each time I plan on going to a conference, I go through the scheduled classes and events and plan out my time there. I don’t always follow the plan as once you are there you learn more about what the sessions are like and find that you may want to change some things, but I do this anyway. I don’t know if it is time well spent or not but it makes the planner in me happy. So, in case anyone is curious…here is my plan:

Thursday & Friday
9am - 5 pm	The Business of Photography
Thursday 7pm	Coyotes vs. Lightning Hockey
Saturday
9am - 5pm	All I Know: Mastering Light
7pm-1030pm	Coyotes vs. Stars Hockey
Sunday
7-830am	Importing and Organizing Images with Lightroom
9-1030	The Magic of Posing and Lighting (The Lost Art)
11-1230	Bellies and Babies
5-630pm	Profitable Portraits
7-9pm	Under the Desert Sky - Opening Night Party
Monday
7-830am	From Ordinary to Extraordinary in Children's Photography
9-1030	Retouch Secrets of the Masters
11-1230	Portraiture in Today's World
5-630	2008 Benchmark Survey Unveiled: What it takes to Succeed
7-830	Anne Geddes
Tuesday
730-9	The Joy of Pricing
1-230	The Structure of an Event - Event and T&I
3-430	The Subtle Art of Family Portraiture
5-630	How to Photograph Everyone
7-830	PPA Awards and Degree Ceremony
830-1030	Nashville…Next Stop! Closing Night Party

Yes, that is Hockey on the schedule. I figure if I’m going to go across the country for a conference, spend all this money and vacation time from my geek job, then maybe I should have a few hours dedicated to just relaxing and enjoying something not related to photography. I happen to be a southern boy who loves hockey. Well, I’m not very southern, I just happen to live down here. But I love it. We have a minor league team in town, the Columbia Inferno (ECHL) but they are taking a break this season in hopes of building a new arena in time for next season…unfortunately I don’t think it is going to happen. Anyway, I need my hockey fix, and I’ve never been to an NHL game, so I’m going to at least one of these. Anyone who wants to go with me, let’s go!

One last thing, sorry I didn’t post some of the other shoots yesterday. I got really busy at home. I’ll try my best to get them up today. Thanks to everyone who has commented so far. I really appreciate it.

Shots from my first maternity session ever

Good morning, and thanks to those who commented about my first post. It's great to have someone actually read something you've written. I wanted to start off with a bang and show some images from a maternity shoot I had not too long ago. I have two more shoots I'll upload images from as well, but this is Allison and Kyle's shoot.

Little heart fingers...yes, I stole it from someone, not my idea. Not sure who but thanks to whomever I stole this from.

Pretty standard pose here. Nothing big.

I liked this image. If I could learn how to color the flower one color and make the rest black and white I would...haven't gotten that far in Photoshop yet. But I will.

Hope you liked these. I'll post more later.

David M.

My web site

I forgot to mention my web site...shame on me. http://www.davidmphotography.com
Check it out too.

Giving blogging a try.

So everyone seems to be blogging these days and they say it is good for business so I'm going to give it a try. This is my first post, so I guess I'll talk a little bit about me.

My name is David Martin...thus the David M Photography name. I live in Columbia, SC and I'm a full time computer geek for a power company and a part time professional photographer. If my plan goes as currently set, I'll be dropping the computer geek part in favor of full time photographer in the next 4 years. I currently do on location work and shooting in my make shift studio in my garage but plan on opening a studio in the very near future for "By Appointment Only" work.

My photographic focus is going to be on maternity, babies, children, and families. I also hope to do a bit of Team and Individual photography for gymnastics teams, dance studios, etc. as I enjoy that work very much as well. I guess I just like working with kids and taking their pictures. They seem to like me so hopefully I'll be successful at this venture. I've had a few positive comments so far, so I'm hoping for the best.

I'm married, for the past 15 years, and I have two beautiful daughters, 10 and 2. My youngest loves being in front of the camera so expect to see plenty of her, especially once the studio is up and running.

I look forward to posting on here and hope that people enjoy interacting with me via this medium. Please feel free to comment and don't be offended that I moderate the comments. You never know who is going to post what and while I don't aim to censor, I do want to keep the blog clean and family friendly.