I love kids, always have. I couldn’t wait to be a father and may have jumped into it a little to early, but I have no regrets what so ever. I’m one of those people that believes children bring meaning to ones life, a purpose to care for and teach another human being.

My oldest son Logan was planned for, we were among the lucky couples that had no problems conceiving. We basically lost the birth control and about 6 months later my wife was delivering the good news (please don’t quote me on that one), Nathan on the other hand was a complete surprise.

The first months were a joy, but as Nathan grew we started to get worried about his development. At first we got that ol’ line “Don’t worry, children develop at different rates”. Other parents were saying this, Nathan’s doctor was saying this, but as time went by we really started to get worried. Then on a late night visit to the Children’s Hospital for an ear infection (gotta love those ear infection eh!), the doctor on duty walked in and with in 15 seconds he noticed signs that signaled our worst fears…There was something wrong with our little Nathan.

After a few months of waiting and worrying, Nathan finally got in to see a developmental pediatrician and he diagnosed Nathan with PDD-NOS (pervasive development disorder-not otherwise specified). From what I understand, this basically mean “He may have Autism, MAYBE, but we don’t really know. If it’s not Autism it’s something else, either way theirs something wrong”. At the age 2 and a half years, Nathan is not speaking, has social problems, motor skill problems and has a major case of Momasboyitis, he’s a HUGE mama’s boy!

This last part kinda stings sometimes. I come home from a long shift at the day job and Logan will come running to say hi and jabber on about his day, but Nathan completely ignores me. I do get to have some fun with him with tickling and stuff, but it doesn’t take long till he wants his mommy and goes running. I completely understand that the combination of my working long hours, starting a photography business and his condition won’t lead to strong bond. His mother is his life line and that is why their is such a strong tie between the two of them. But when he runs past me to go to mommy, well it kinda breaks my heart just a little.

I know this won’t last and as he improves (which he is doing little by little) he will come to daddy for more fun and rough housing. Till then I guess I will just have to satisfy myself with snapping pictures of my little guy and enjoying the little time I do enjoy with him…So don’t be surprised if you start to see even more pictures of Nathan.

So a while ago I heard this interview with a guy that had started a cool Google Earth project on North Korea. With the help of North Korean ex-pats and people scattered around the world he started tagging locations of interest all around North Korea. He has managed to tag airports, dams, military bases, missile launching sites, ground defense locations and even Kim Jong Li’s house.

This interview got the rusty wheels in my head turning, I started thinking about all those posts in forums all over the internet from photographers traveling to unvisited cities and locations looking for good locations to shoot. I have yet to travel for a wedding yet, but when I do I’m not looking forward to scouting out locations in a city I know nothing about. I would really hate to be a photographer scouting in a country who’s language he doesn’t speak!

Now, wouldn’t it be cool if a bunch of photographers got together to collaborate on a Google map just like the one for North Korea, but instead of military bases and dictator’s homes, you would have cool locations for a portrait or engagement session. What a great way to help out other photographers from all around! Then there is the local aspect, this would be a great way to spare that cool barn you found or that little bridge with the rusted support beams.

So I’m now looking for photographers from all over to help out create this map, if you are interested just drop me an email and I will shoot you off an invite to the Google map. This wouldn’t even take up a whole lot of your time. You would just pull up the map in your browser, click edit, drop a pin and then enter a small description or a photo of the location if you want… It’s that easy.

I’m expecting this to have a slow start, but once I get the word out and hopefully more people join, we’ll have one killer resource for location scouting world wide!

Update – Been a good response so far, thanks all who have contacted me asking to help out! Anyways, I do have to mention that you need a Google account to collaborate on a Google Map. So when you contact me with your email I will need the email address you use to sign into your Google account.

I believe I have already told you how much I love second shooting, but just in case I haven’t, let me tell you now…it’s awesome! Don’t get me wrong, shooting my own couples is great, but sometimes it’s nice to slip off the coat of responsibility, step out of the field of attention and just shoot. I’m not alone here either, I have yet to find a photographer that doesn’t enjoy it. You get to experiment with new techniques, practice on styles that may not be your strong suit and don’t forget what you learn by watching other photographers work. Second shooting just has all the makings of an enjoyable day of photography.

That is exactly what happened last Saturday when I had the chance to second shoot with one of my favorite shooters here in town, Eric Rockburn.

Dawn and Matt’s wedding was this great backyard ceremony, finishing off at Forest City National Golf Club for the reception. Eric and I were only with Dawn and Matt for a shoot time, but I enjoyed every minute of it and i can’t wait till August when I’ll be shooting with Eric again. In the mean time, here is some of my favorites from Dawn and Matt’s big day.

I went to school with Sarah for a very long time, like from grade 3 all the way to high school. Sarah was one of the coolest girls I knew in school, while every female preteen around was drooling over the Back Street Boys, Sarah was the hip one listening to Bobby Brown.

About a month ago I was at the grocery store waiting in the checkout line when I spied Sarah with her grandmother. We started talking and she informed me that she was getting married and how it was going to be a small wedding in Port Stanley. Of coarse considering what I do I HAD to ask the question “Who’s shooting your wedding?”. When she told me that she was just “get some friend to cover it” my hackles raised and I replied “Ummm no you’re not, give me a call and we’ll talk”….She did!

So today I met Sarah and her fiancee Dane at one of their hangouts, the Wortley Roadhouse and we had a killer time just wondering around, ending up at their house. They told me that they “Weren’t the types to frolic in the woods”, they just wanted a This is Our Life kinda coverage which I thought was a great idea.

I had an amazing time with Dane and Sarah, their wedding is one of the most anticipated events on my calendar for this year. Till I get to show you all the great images I’m sure to get from their wedding, sit back and enjoy their engagement!

And now folks, please remember! Friends don’t let friends hire friends to shoot their wedding! Of coarse if that friend is a talented wedding photographer…well then by all means, but a cameras a wedding photographer one does not make, or something like that lol

What do you think about when you hear the word branding? Do you think logos, colour schemes, fonts? If you said yes, then you are just where I was about a week ago and if you said no, well you are further ahead then I am, or was until I read Dane Sanders’ amazing book Fast Track Photographer.

Ok, you’re right, logos, colour schemes, fonts, websites, matching literature, these are all important aspects of branding , I totally agree. But, I’m starting to see them more as tools used to create something and that something is the brand. In Dane Sanders book, he brings up an interesting idea, you want to sell yourself, not a product and hence you need to build a brand around yourself as a photographer. Here is how I see it, by putting all the emphasis on your product (I.E. you images) you then bring in the matter of cost. There are a lot of photographers out there and a lot of images, so if you market your images you run the chance of competing with all the other photographers out there that may be producing images that a prospective client may like just as much as yours. This is the exact moment price comes into play, your work no matter how good it is just isn’t that rare of an item, it can be compared to and priced against another image. But there is only one of you, so that means that you are rare.

These are all things that I have been thinking about for a while now. I kinda got Dane’s ideas before buying the book, but reading (well actually listening to) Fast Track Photographer made things a little more clear…and troublesome. Why troublesome? Well because, now all your efforts have to turn inwards. Like a lot of photographers I worried about my work, my business knowledge and so one. I was more worried about becoming an amazing photographer who creates timeless images all the while ignoring what was most important to my fledgling photography business. I really don’t know myself, who does? It all really does sound like a self help book doesn’t it? Know yourself, know what you have to offer the world, know your strengths. It may sound corny but it is all very important, how are you going to sell yourself if you really don’t know yourself?

After I got all this down and I starting looking inwards, another thing hit me “Damn, big companies have it lucky!”. When a company like Apples builds a brand, they build it around their company. Sure the employees kinda have to help hold up that brand with their behavior and appearance and the big wigs have to watch what they say and do to some extent, but when you build a brand around yourself, everything you say and do effects that brand. The car that you drive, the clothes that you wear, where you choose to live, all of this can and does affect how people see you. And since your brand is you and you are the brand, you do need to watch it. This can make things a little more interesting because if you decide to fake it, to make up a persona for yourself, you will have to uphold the lie in everything you do. If you try to get people to believe that you are a high class photographer with an attention to detail and you show up in a beat up pickup truck with a mustard stain on your pants…well lets say that your clients will see right through your lie.

I was talking with one photographer who stated “Sell myself? But I’m boring!”. This is something I have to get over as well, some times I wonder exactly how many people actually do like themselves. I was listening to the CBC radio show The Age of Persuasion with Terry O’Rielly. Terry is one of the big names in advertising here in Canada with some great campaigns under his belt. Remember that Hockey Hall of Fame commercial where the guys steps up to the Gordie Howe display and proceeds to get elbowed in the face? That was Terry’s baby. Any ways, he was explaining how some marketers will actually take the product they are to advertise home with them, they would use it and learn to love it. They do this because if you love something it makes the task of selling it so much easier. I think I need to do this, not only do I have to “find myself”, but once I have found myself, I have to learn to like myself.

Liking yourself…Sounds kind of hard doesn’t it? If it were easy, then the section on self help books wouldn’t be so large now would it? Dane Sanders had a killer suggestion here in his book. He pointed out that most people look for their weaknesses and try to improve on them, the whole while completely ignoring their strengths. Dane suggested focusing on your strengths and putting a little less emphasis on improving your weaknesses. I can see this being a legit way of improving your own self value. how many of us spend days, weeks, months beating ourselves up over things we have tried to change?

Now earlier on I stated something that may have been construed as me saying that branding and marketing is more important then the product. I still believe that you have to deliver a solid product, I still do want to be an amazing photographer that delivers timeless images my clients will love and cry over. I’m just not going to make such a big deal out of my pictures in my marketing. There are thousands of images out there with a large majority of them better then mine, even if I were named as one of the top ten photographers in the world, that would mean that there are still 9 other photographers that can produce images just as good. But! There is only one of me and that’s worth something.

I have tried keeping this post as short as possible (didn’t do a very good job now did I lol), but a subject like branding can be a little long winded, I really could go on longer. I know all of this can be hard to swallow sometime, you can hear from experts all day long and still doubt it. I think it may be one of those things that needs to be implemented and the results experience first hand before you can truly believe it. All the way through our education in photography, we have had the the image drilled into your head. You have worked so hard to be technically knowledgeable and creative with your photography. You have always thought that the image is the only thing that matters just to open up the shop and find out a crappier photographer is getting more business. I think this is why so many people fail at this, they have to many problems with this idea that the image is not the end all and be all in the business of photography. I’m still having a problem with this myself, but it is slowly being beaten into me and hopefully it will help me succeed.

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I LOVE small weddings! They just seem to be more about the couple for some reason. A close group of friends and family coming together to celibate the union of two people that really love each other. Well Justin and Julie’s wedding is going to be just that and I’m really looking forward to shoot it!

Today we headed out and did a little tour of downtown London Ontario to do their engagement session. It was a lot of walking (trust me, I need the exercise!), but it gave us a chance to talk and get to know each other a little better as well as creating some great images…. and here they are! I hope you like.

J.C. Hutchins’s “Personal Effects: Dark Art” – SuperVlurb from Stephen Eley on Vimeo.

Ok, so you may be asking yourself “Why the hell is this guy posting a video trailer for a horror novel on a photography blog?”. That’s easy, it’s a perfect example of a community coming together to help out one of their own.

Lately I have been looking at my efforts in wedding photography and have noticed that I really need to do things differently. I have always taken my photography very seriously, but when it came to the business side I figured that all I had to do was follow the road map left by others that had made it. The biggest problem with this idea is that the map left behind by those successful photographers may have worked for them, but it isn’t going to work for me. I’m nothing like them, I have different strengths, a different personality, different work. I have fought to make my own way with my photography, to develop my own style, so why would I not do the same in the building of my business.

In my research of marketing, branding (more on my adventures in branding in a later post) and general business, I have been looking at other artistic industries. One field I have been very interested in lately, one that is actually fairly new, is serialized audio books.

Maybe I should give a little back story here. A few years ago I found this great place, Podiobook.com a site that offers free serialized audio books. What is a serialized audio book? Well quite simply, it’s audio book read most commonly by the author and released for free serially once a week/bi-weekly/monthly over the net.

As I was listening to all these great authors, I started to notice something kind of surprising, the authors of these audio books have created a very tight and supportive community. The different authors appear as voice characters on each others audio books and they have even teamed up to write, produce and perform audio books. In general they were promoting and helping each other out, a lot! If you listened to say James Melzer, there is a very good chance you had heard of or listened to the works of Mark Jeffrey, Mur Lafferty, Philippa Ballantine, Seth Harwood, Matthew Wayne Selznick, Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff or Phil Rossi. The community they have build together, all of them working together towards the same goal and supporting each other along the way has produced some amazing results

So what exactly have they done? Well look at Scott Sigler, late last year his book Contagious made it onto the New York Times hardcover bestsellers list. J.C.Hutchinson, the author who’s book is featured in that video at the beginning has had his last series, 7th Son, options by Hollywood and with everyone rallying behind his new book Personal Effect: Dark Art, I expect it to have a very good showing on Amazon. Not back for a couple of guys giving away their work for free eh?

I have talked about community before, I have talked about Twitter, Photography Forms, Facebook and the such, but what these guys and gals have done is truly amazing. It has made me realize that although I have participated in the photographic community to some extent, I need to step up my efforts to play a larger roll in the photographic community, not just locally, but internationally. Thank God for the internet!

Talking about helping out and promoting fellow artists, I wouldn’t want to leave you without mentioning James Melzer’s new audio book, The Invasion coming June 17th. The Invasion is the second book in The Zombie Chronicles. I listened to the first installment, The Escape and it was amazing! Zombies, aliens, clones, how could you go wrong?

Earlier this spring I was at Gibbon’s park here in London Ontario with the family. I was busy tracking my boys, getting shots of them at play when I spotted this cute little guy and his mom who also was sporting a camera. I asked her if I could get a shot of her son and gave here my website to contact me for a copy of the image if she wanted one.

That was how I met Amanda and her adorable son Brayden (Love that name by the way!). She contacted me via Twitter about doing a session with her son and I was more then happy to help her out! Brayden has one of those faces that just cries to have a camera pointed at it and I was excited that camera was going to be mine.

We decided to met up back at Gibbons Park seeing that there is quite a bit of stuff for kids to do and the park does offer a lot of different backdrops. Amanda asked if she should bring anything for Brayden and I suggest she bring some balloons. After seeing an engagement session by a California wedding photographer Bonnie Tsang, I so wanted to work balloons into a few shots and Brayden offered the perfect opportunity.

I normally try to keep my image count in the blog posts down to around 5 or so, but I really had a hard time choosing between all the great images we produced, it was all I could do just to get it down to ten. So this is a long one, but with such a cute kid like Brayden, I’m sure you won’t mind…….Hope you enjoy.

What is it with kids and water? Last Sunday the wife and I introduced the kids to the beach for the first time. I have been wanting to do this for a while, but the crowds of Port Stanley have kept me away with such young kids.

One thing i love about kids is their excitement and amazement over the things us grown ups have become desensitized to. I think that is why I prefer to photograph children at play rather then having them pose for the camera.

Our trip to the beach was a short one for the first time unfortunately, about a hour in Nathan (the youngest) got it into his head that he wanted to swim to Erie or something and he wasn’t happy that mommy wouldn’t let go of his hand. He insisted and took the required temper tantrum when he couldn’t get away from mom and we had to head back to the car. Our trip may have been short, but I got some great shots of our first time at the beach and I thought I would share.

Hope you enjoy,

I was introduced to No, Really by the Creative Commons music website Jamendo, if you are ever looking for music to inspire, I highly recommend stopping by and check it out.

What can I say about No, Really…Well to start Hannah Clemens, Ms. No, Really herself, has the voice of an angel. It says in her bio on Jamendo that her goal is to get people to stop what they are doing and listen, well she does just that. The first time I came across her music, I had to listen to her album Rust from start to finish while doing nothing. Even now I will be editing and one of her songs will come across iTunes and I have to stop.

I have gotten tons of inspiration from No, Really and I hope you do to. One of my favorite songs from the album Rust is a mellow number called Go. So sit back, close your eyes, press play and enjoy.