i quit.

well, not entirely, but blueflash is going to get a change in direction for 2011. i’ve decided that for 2011 (and the rest of the foreseeable future, as if any of the future is foreseeable) i’m only going to sign up for a maximum of four weddings per year (maybe five if the fifth one is a destination wedding to hawaii or something). this may sound a bit like a ‘for a limited time only’ sale to prospective brides, but there’s better reasons than that. for the interested parties, here they are in no particular order:

1) my wife and i had our first kid on november 1st. i’m definitely going to want to spend tons of time hanging out with him and by the time the end of next summer rolls around he’ll be old enough to roll around too. i don’t want to get older and have my son grow up and then realize i spent more time shooting and editing weddings than hanging out with him, as much as i love doing weddings.

2) i want blueflash to get more into the fashion/modeling side of photography. i really love deliberate photoshoots where you have a little bit of a plan, enough time dedicated to accomplish that plan, and then you end up with a few awesome shots. don’t get me wrong, weddings are great, but it’s different when you focus on five shots from the day rather than two-hundred and fifty. it’s just a different animal, that’s all. plug – check out the bluefashion portfolio. it’s going to take more effort to get into this segment than just waiting around and hoping some magazine wants me to shoot their cover for them.

3) earlier this year i launched the bluecube. i didn’t really give it the advertising time or effort that it deserved because i was so focused on signing, shooting and editing weddings. i’ve got a handful of weddings that it’s scheduled to be at but i know that this thing’s got tons of potential. people have a ton of fun in it and it really makes whatever event that it’s at a lot better. once this thing catches on i really feel like it’ll spread like crazy. if i have a wedding scheduled every weekend then i can’t be out there setting up the bluecube. there’s only one of me last i checked.

4) time. i don’t think many people realize how much time (good) photographers put into weddings. there’s tons of emailing back and forth initially, then there’s meetings with the clients, sometimes an engagement session, the actual wedding day (with getting ready, driving, and shooting time it usually ends up being a twelve hour day), then the work starts! dump the shots to the computer, sort through well over a thousand photos, individually edit about two-hundred and fifty of them, assemble a facebook album, write up a blog post on the day, design a custom cd, burn it, print it, mail it, upload the album to the site, and then update the portfolio with the new shots. you can easily spend thirty hours after a wedding is over doing all that stuff. multiply that by a bunch of weddings and you’re talking a lot of time. i’m not complaining – it’s an awesome thing to shoot someone’s wedding, i’m just explaining where the ‘time’ reason comes from.

5) i really keep wanting to get into video a little bit. at least experimentally, just to see what my limits are in terms of quality output. i don’t really know what i’d shoot a video of quite yet, but i want to try to put something together. that takes time too. does anyone have any time for sale?

6) my wife and i work with the youth group at our church. they have a lot of things going on during weekends in the summer and more often than not i can’t go to them because weddings are primarily on weekends. it’d be nice to have a few more free weekends to do things like that.

well, i hope that i didn’t scare off any future brides from even emailing me if they’re interested in using blueflash. i do love shooting weddings and i’m still going to do it, just a little less than this upcoming year.

any thoughts on anything? ending a blog post with a question is so lame. that’s my thought. here’s a couple pictures i took in newport.

---

---