I have created a new blog through Word Press. I am still working out some bugs.  I wanted to unify and simply. I hope I did that. www.kimjamesphoto.com/blog This new blog will take a while to develope. I would LOVE to hear comments....

I have a potential client that asked me to sell myself to him over the phone the other day. Make the pitch like the other studio did, he said. I was an agent in San Francisco, fashion model in NY and Paris, restaraunteur, I am an artist, fine art photographer, mother, wife, I am not in sales. I have always believed in making the best product, presenting it in a clean way, being open and honest and making a human connection. For me , this style wasn't pulled out of the latest business book. It's what I live. So when he asked me that, my knee-jerk response was "If you are in love with the work I do then it's obvious why you would book me and if my work doesn't have an impact on you then it's obvious why you would go with someone else". I completely bungled it. Obviously I didn't pitch. That began a line of thinking for me for the last few days. Why didn’t I pitch. Am I arrogant? Do I think I am above it? What is it that matters to me? So this is where I landed with it and before I go on, I do think that my potential client totally fits my criteria. The following is actually based on a conversation with another potential client that called right after and out the gate started heckling the price before he even knew it.

This is what matters to me and what I think matters to my clients.

I want to have a giant stop sign on my site that says.."Don't enter unless you LOVE art and photography and it is a priority to you! If you are here to find the cheapest deal, I am not it!" Although my average wedding runs in the 3000.00 range. Par for weddings. I have a family to feed, bills to pay, kids that need college, I need to make a living, not a killing. But what I really need is to collaborate with people who believe their lives are worth documenting, who know that life isn't a dress rehearsal and you get one shot at capturing it unfold, that realize, that each shot represents a moment and it must count.

I guess the next time someone asks me to sell myself I am going to ask them these three questions first.

Is honesty important to you? In photos, in connecting with people, in business? Because that's me.

Is your life worth documenting? Are you going to hand your guests instamatics or are you going to do what it takes to be able to ARCHIVE this moment, reflecting your tastes, for your family line that comes after you?

Are you stylish? Do you care about and appreciate fine art?

If it's yes to all three of these questions, then the next line of questions after we meet is....

Did you feel a connection with me?

Did I help set you at ease?

Do you feel you can be yourself with me in front of my camera?

If it's yes to these.......then we talk about money. Because if it’s yes to all these questions, usually to my financial demise, I will negotiate on your behalf. I want to work with and for people that are stylish, take their tastes seriously, care about fine art imagery and value their lives, how they live them and especially how they want them documented. My clients live well.

For me, if it's just about the money I’d be in a different line of business. Art and photography are my passion and my life’s work. I am committed to them and the people that love them.

My intention, when I entered into human photography capture was to create emotionally charged images that emanated beauty and movement, always with the 6 Elements of design in mind. Am I a little overzealous about art. I am. I can't help it. I want to create art in every image I capture. DAMN IT!!!!

I love Paolo Roversi http://www.paoloroversi.com/diaporama/photographs.html He is a fine art photographer fine artist, a genious and his work I find incredably beautiful and other worldly. Last night Lydia came over from Reno to have a little shoot with me and I went through sept. vogue and found some images I knew were Paolo Roversi, then I went to the site above and we both got inspiration for a very Paolo Roversi look. That was the intent at least. Looking for moody, dark, blury, movement, in order to acheive this I had to slow down shutter speed, lower iso, shoot with very subdued natural ambient light at dusk, in my studio, in manual mode and devoloped with some polopan settings. I know I didn't come close to Paolo, but it was fun trying. I did the hair and make-up and cloths, the dress is a 1880's wedding dress I have been holding onto for 30 years. It's TINY and Lydia is the perfect size for it. Lydia was so cool to work with as usual. She has the best tatoos ever on her feet "there is no place like home". Half thesaying on each foot. I think I need these. SO CUTE!

My friend Carl started a forum for new photographers called PT photographer. Short for part time. I wrote my process for him. If he chooses not to use it, I posted it on mine.

                                       The becoming.
              

I am still in process and am sure I will always be in the process of becoming a photographer. It began a few years ago when I left the Bidwell House, a bed and breakfast I managed with my husband and 5 children for 13 years. If you want my story before Bidwell, go to www.kimjamesphoto.com and feel free to read the bio or the bio at www.kimjamesfineart.com it has a bit more. We moved just next door from the Bidwell. I did not want to alter my life too much. Although, it needed a good tweak, next door facing Big Meadows and Last Chance was good enough. I am a creative, but also, I have been told, a rare balance of left-right brain, I am not sure how rare it is. I am the CFO of my family and my husbands concrete business and my multi-media co. 1000 words productions. I have been a manager for 2 decades. My creativity had met it’s end through the Martha Stewart lifestyle we lived and the elegant English Garden Weddings we put on. The business there had reached it’s maximum potential for us and I do not do well in stagnant waters. I needed more and I defiantly needed different. I had been studying the watercolor media for 9 years at this point and I teach the elements of design and watercolor to elementary school children. I have a creative understanding of line, texture, color value and hue, shape, form and space and I teach it. I am in love with art of all forms. I began showing my watercolors in a few galleries, but I knew this would not be the road to financial well being and serving my creative side. I need both, I want both. I needed to find a way to make a good income, satisfy my creative needs and be able to still call all my own shots. 5 children take much of my attention. Also I live in a rural area. I didn’t want to move back to the city. I also understood a photo studio in Chester would not be profitable. I wanted to travel, the youngest is 9 now. So I spent a good couple of months preparing for the jump off of Half Dome. What to do? What to do? That was most of my thoughts for about 6 months…. Then one day I was looking up my old friend David Jay. A fashion photographer I worked with in SF while working at City, the modeling agency. I loved David’s work, his pictures were still vivid in my mind. This man knew beauty and could shoot it like Scavullo. Rare, in my book, for a straight male. His photographs were provocative, sensual and always clean. So there I was typing in David Jay and what came up was a wedding photographer, who is quite big and well known in the wedding photography industry, which I did not know at the time. I soaked in his entire site. Over and over I looked. Then I heard a whisper, ever so small, “You could do this?”. Then it all made sense. My past seemed to be grooming me for that very moment. A convergence of all of my skills, abilities and talents. There was a reason I modeled in New York , Paris and San Francisco. There was a reason I edited stacks of slides for years. There was a reason I scouted and developed New Faces, models. There was a reason I made model cards and portfolios and worked with countless, super talented photographers and stylists all those years. There was a reason I studied psychology, leadership and business with a vengence. There was a reason I continued to cultivate my love of fashion and make-up. There was a reason I created weddings for over a decade at the Bidwell House. There was a reason I had and photographed all of those children.There was a reason I shot all of the subjects I painted first. All of my roads led to photography. No longer was it “what to do?“ . It became “have to do“. I had been photographing for years for my own pleasure, for my art, for my family and for the Inn. From that moment I jumped….free fall into…Make this happen. Then I ventured into the deep and dirty waters of self assessment and appraisal. Granted, inspiration and excitement still isn’t a ticket to go 30,000.00 into the hole. I was, am, making a bet I could lose. The process to making a decision, to put all my energies into photography and putting aside my beloved paint brush for awhile, was arduous, really scary, full of self doubt, full of humility, morbid reflection and still is. My assessment , inventory of my business and creative self found I was already half way there to being a professional photographer. I went to my old friends and asked for their critic of my present work and what they knew of me. That was hard. I went to my toughest critics my husband,an ex fashion model, my oldest son, who loves to tell me I suck If I do. I went to people I knew in business and ran my potential business plan by them and always the questions was “Do you think I can do this?”. Then I would show them the top 4 web-sights. Do you think I have it to do this? Everyone said yes and yet I still wasn’t certain. I began to spend 6 hours a day studying the wedding photography industry. I am an outsider looking in. Detached and skeptical. I know I won’t make $$$ with a photo studio in tiny town. I have to go big or stay home. When I ran the women’s fashion division of City, I was enthralled with Ellen Von Unworths work. My dream was to one day be such creative. So I went back to my fashion roots. I stopped looking at local photographers. I went to American Photo and looked up their top 10 wedding photographers in the world. And like Anthony Robins says “Don’t reinvent the wheel. Find the best in their field and take notes.” So I began my own curriculum of study. I studied all 10, I still do and I found more that I like even better. I looked global rather than local. Without the net I wouldn’t even have considered this to be a game I could play in. I fell in love with David Beckstead’s work and his business model. He had more similarities I could identify with . He lives in rural area, artist, bookes destination weddings only. If I wanted to stay in Chester I would need to follow his business model and through a great stroke of luck I am co-hosting one of his coveted and always sold out workshops this October. www.shootwithbeackstead.com . But, what else I discovered in the top 10 was 7 were on the west coast. Some had moved to fashion editoial and fine art blended with a photojournalism style. Instead of just the over saturated photojournalism. I knew from years of studying art my own style was imperitive. I LOVE FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY. I LOVE CLOTHES. I LOVE MAKE-UP. I had spent years on the set. I knew I needed to bring what I love to my game. I was a model scout for 10 years. I am known to pull my talent out of in and out burger and the local grocery. I don’t need to find models, I remembered I made models. I can do it again and at this point everyone I have shot on my site for fashion and beauty I havr found, I did their hair and make up and I dressed them. I started to really FEEL I could do this. After going through all the wedding photographers and getting my finger on the pulse of a very saturated and redundant industry I went back to the fashion greats, www.jedroot.com handles the worlds best fashion photographers stylist makeup artists, as well as www.artandcommerce.com . I started looking outside the wedding industry for what I could bring back inside through my own fashion translation. The wedding sites are really looking A Lot A Like. Hence why I took on such an odd template for my site. There were some innovators in the wedding industry I found on Grace Ormond’s sight www.weddingstylemagazine.com . Apparently if she likes your work you are made. I like her taste.
My evaluation, certain fashion will always be classic and so will weddings. Besides the technical aspects of digital photography I read Vogue, Elle and Allure,it‘s all about make-up. I study them. I have a link to French Vogue online and Italian vogue. I practice make up on my subjects and my daughters. I do model tests once a week. If had 5,000.00 I could take Greg Gorman’s digital workshop over in Mendocino, but I don’t, I spent it on my camera. So I will study his pictures and practice setting up studio lighting like he does with my own subjects and styling.
I have much to learn in the ever changing digital photography industry. I spent 1000.00 on the New York Institute of photography pro program. Their teaching material is from the 70s and 80s ooops. It would be fine for film but technology is moving at breakneck speed. They do have a digital CD they send out, but I feel that money could have had a bigger bang some where else. I wish I could afford the time and leave form home to go to Brooks. I take workshops. I thought a certificate from NYIP would legitimize me to my clients and to some it might but, my pictures, my guarantee and my insurances are what really legitimize me. The internet is educating me every moment . I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop cs3. I read trade magazines and I do not stop shooting. I shoot lighting in studio and I spent 3000 on various lights. Pleased with them all still learning. The best money I spent was on Big folio for my web-site and their site optimization. WOW. I came to the conclusion based on my history that photography is for me. Can I handle a business? Yes. Do I know enough about photography to take pictures that will please my clients? Yes. Do I know how to see my subjects? Yes. The light? Yes. Am I disciplined enough to learn the aspects of digital photography new cameras, lighting, computers, web-site design, blogs, programs, raw, Photoshop, Lightroom,? Yes but I’ll struggle. Can I do hair make-up and styling? Yes. Can I see bone structure and the best most attractive angles on people? Yes. Do I know when someone is really bringing It for the camera or dogging it? Absolutely. Do I have the money to buy the gear all the pros have that are in the game. No. Brick wall.

How I did it.

Back to what to do? Hate being here. I like having a direction. Ultimately I decided to take out a loan. I am 44 I don’t have 5 years to build a business and I am a girl who jumps in both feet. I didn’t have time to buy used and then buy better when I get a gig. I already built a site that I disassembled 1 month after because I knew it wasn’t good enough. I want to shoot high end weddings, they are beautiful,I needed some high end equipment and big coverage if something goes wrong. My loan wasn’t a business loan, you have to prove profitable at least 2 years in row before a bank will come in give $, and it wasn’t credit cards. I took out 30,000.00 spent 24,000.00 of it on studio lighting backdrops, canon cameras and lenses, computers, an Epson 4000,a printer, fax scanner, web-sites blog, Pictage,which I am still not too sure its working for me, insurances, bags, batteries, chargers, back-up programs and systems, I joined PPC Professional photographers of California and PPA,America, the local chamber,which I probably won‘t do again. I will rejoin PPA and go for WPPI next year and drop PPC. I bought my own font, Youch. The rest of the money is for an emergency and I have begun to take bookings which are paying for my monthly expenses. My basic monthly expenses are 350 for my loan, 100, pictage, 50.00 cell phone, 80 for my 3 web-sites, 50 for insurance,equipment, liability and 100 for misc. expenses. I have a 850 sg ft studio Ian built for me. We own it. My accountant gets to figure out that one this year. I don’t draw a penny and haven’t. My business is paying for itself at this point. But I went big on equipment and web site and small on everything else. I do not have all the equipment I need. I have a huge wedding at the CIA Greystone in St. Helen coming up in Feb. I rented $5000.00 worth of Canon gear for $480.00 to enhance the gear I have. When I have 5 weddings like that in a few months period I will consider buying the 5D and 85mm 1.8, but, for now I will rent. www.borrowlenses.com in San Mateo. In order to pay my bills at home, I wait tables and I teach watercolor to elementary school kids. I am running all the time to make this thing work. I get up early and go to bed late. I wish I could tell you that I am flying all over the planet shooting what I love, making a ton of money doing it, and it gives me the time I need and want to spend with my family. But, what happens next, I don’t know. It is a process I am in. I have heard so many times the journey is the goal. It is. All I wanted to was to understand Raw and I do now. I am grateful. Here is a list of the people on my favorites of my favorites. Just a few. www.mariotestino.com www.santedorazio.com www.gormanphotography.com www.davidjayphotography.com www.davidjay.com www.popphoto.com www.lexar.com www.cutframetv.com I love this site!! www.wedhooter.com Big folio's wedding blog.

They didn’t make the top 10 but could have. Some of the darlings of the moment, in the wedding industry, at least on the net, are Becker, Mike Colon , Jim Garner, Joe Photo, Dane Sanders, Jose Villa, David Jay, Gary Fong, major industry innovator, I bought his fong dong and his chrome dome. Don't laugh, I don't know how he came up with the names, but these things are cool. This wedding season will determine if I have to use my emergency funds for 2009. Before I took the jump, my husband and I both spent time considering the consequences if I lost my bet. We agreed we could live with the worst case scenario. We would have 20,000.00 in camera equipment to shoot soccer games of our children with.

I just shot Camron on the meadow and in my studio tonight. I love my location because I have the best of both worlds in seconds. I can do 2 looks 2 locations in one hour. I think we were both pleased with the outcome. I especially like getting people out of their comfort zone , but keeping them comfortable. My comfort zone is the location. I have to struggle to synthetically create the light the creator gives me at dusk naturally. Camron's comfort zone is camo and the meadow. We both did our jobs in a timly manor and ventured out of the comfort zone to gain some fun pictures.

I am in the heat of editing a few weeks of weddings. After I shoot a wedding, I see peoples faces I've photographed in my dreams. Still images of them in perfect detail. I wish I were only able to remember my grandmother's face so well. I run a typical workflow...All images from my chips are loaded into an Epson 4000 (on site as back up) If I am traveling I take it from there to my laptop...When I get home to my studio computer, burned DNGs,transfered to 800 GIG Box, then edited in Lightroom 1.2, the edited version burned again to DVD-r, one for me one for my clients. In between all those steps are their faces and emotions. My priority in editing the images is easy. After all images are backed up and I have had a quick overview I dive into the body of the work, hunting for raw emotion and beauty. The emotion is not one dimensional...I am looking for all range of emotion joy, fear, intimacy love, lust, confidence, overwhelm insecurity. There is no emotional category I wont shoot, but there is many I won't show. When I edit I am editing for 2 people, me (what I want to add to the body of my work) and my clients. Coming to know them I have an inkling of what they want to see. I look for light behind the eyes a glowing from within. On the exterior my priority is light that accentuates their beauty, makes the skin glow and pulsate, blows out circles and blemishes. Once I crop and adjust the image for white balance and saturation I am usually finished. Because I am looking for the truth in the shot touching it up beyond recognition for me isn't my fancy. I paint in watercolor and if I want an image not to look like the photo I took, I will opt to paint it. I don't paint on my computer but in my studio, on a table, on a giant peice of 300 lb Arches Rough with lots of water and pigment and big sable brushes. I long to move water and paint, but if I choose take that path I have committed 20 hours to an image (at least). If shoot for an hour I edit for an hour, if shoot for 10 I edit for 10. If I were to work some magic is Photoshop CS3 (which I have and use rarely) that time would be tripled. In the middle of that I am also on Neapolitan Mastiff puppy watch. We took in beautiful Kira who is 5 weeks pregnant and expecting her first litter in a few weeks. We find out Tuesday how long and how many. Pictures and puppies lots of beautiful imagery coming on, as well as editing photos.

I am a wedding designer, planner and day of coordinator as well as photographer. It's confusing to people, as Danny Straolzini of TSP dj.com said he had never met a Planner / Photographer before. It's true I do both, but not together. If I plan a wedding I don't shoot it. I shot 4 weddings so far this summer and coordinated 2 weddings and am Co planning one. I will shoot for fun, for any bride, for free, the weddings I am day of coordinator or planner for, but I don't take shots lists. I shoot what I can when I can if I am the coordinator or planner. Any shots that come out of it for me or the bridal party are icing and it's a perk I offer. Shooting is a whole different stress than planning, coordination. Both are LIVE Broadway shows and hard in their own unique ways. I was grateful not to be the shooter on a couple of weddings and really happy not to be the planner coordinator on the others. It's been working out really nice. If there is one mistake I made on this wedding, I find that most people don't know the difference between wedding designer, event planner and coordinator. I probably should be laying that out to the mothers fathers and self appointed cheifs. Even though the bride is in charge and she's the one I work with and answer to, there is usually one who wants to be in charge as well and they usually have an agenda about my job description and what I should be doing. I am so grateful I had this wedding because now I am working on the descriptions as handouts. I understand that no one would really know the differences anyway and why would they for the most part, they are only marring once, so unless they are in the business they wouldn't know what the difference between a designer, coordinator and planner is. A very short discription follows. The designer is the concept person. Imagination and an artistic point of view with a strong grasp in the elements of design is required, as well as how to entertain on a grand scale. The planner chooses vendors, negotiates contracts, sets up the timeline, choreographs the event (so the crowd isn't board to tears and are having fun and refreshments) and makes plans and implements them from tiny details to the big stuff. Day of coordinator makes sure that all those elements come together the two dasy of the wedding. Most brides willing to do most of the work and on a budget will bring in a day of coordinator keeping the design and planning aspects to themselves. I think any bride doing the planning / designing should probably consult and a seasoned designer / planner so they don’t run into vendor and venue nightmares and attain knowledge in entertaining a 100 + people. Seating charts, mailings, programs, favors, delegation, timimg, ecetera....... I was booked for 2 days of wedding coordination at the Country Club in Lake Almanor for a couple that did all of their own design and planning (nicce job too)...My job, jump in and coordinate their vendors, implement their agenda, make sure the set up and details go their way for the day of. The package I created for day of coordination is 2 meetings prior, unlimited phone and email access, on site day of. I usually set up 2 meeting for this, and I had 4 meetings including rehearsal day of and 15 calls and 25 emails. I was on site from 1 30 pm to 11:44 (this is a time I always notice because in Cop talk, my husband is a deputy Sheriff 11 44 means dead body). What I learned from this wedding was, create a description and full definitions of Designer, Planner, Coordinator and pass them out to the folks that have an agenda for how it should go, mothers, fathers, self appointed cheifs etcetera…. Definitions of the wedding planner and thoughts.