Hi all! I think it is about time for an update! Here is what has been going on…
I have been on “vacation” this week. I have not left my apartment often but have been quite busy here at home… I have gotten a lot done!
I finally got the computer parts I needed to get to get my “work” PC up and going again. It broke about a year ago and I haven’t had the time or funds to get it up and going. I didn’t really have the funds to spare but I had the time so I did it anyway! I got an AMD Phenom II X4 810 with an Asus M4A78-E AMD 790GX AM2+ motherboard and 8GB of RAM (but I only installed 4GB for right now as I am still in the old school 32 bit OS world!) I installed XP a few days ago. I finished copying a lot of the thousands and thousands of pictures, songs, and website pages a few hours ago. I still need to reorganize them and copy some of the files over. I also have most of the programs installed that I use, but I’ll have another hour or 2 of work to put in on that! I will have more hard drive space again and will not have to worry as much about how much space I have for pictures. The new computer will run much faster than this one I am using. I am expecting that picture conversions and what not will not take as long as they have been.
Yesterday I did a MAJOR spring cleaning! I vacuumed, mopped all of the floors and dusted some. Only place I didn’t mop was under and behind the couch.
Yesterday evening Karsten and Irina came over to look at their wedding pictures. That is one of my favorite parts of wedding photography; getting to see the newly married couple’s reaction to the photos and reliving the day with them. They picked out a number of photos so I have some work to do! 
On Monday I did a product shoot and was busy Monday night and Tuesday getting those photos edited since they needed to be done quickly before the product goes on sale.
I have also have a chance to look through the photos from the wedding I shot a week ago yesterday. I hope to get to editing those photos some time soon!
Next week I am also on vacation. I am seriously thinking about going on a bike ride. I really need to get away for a bitl. I originally wanted to ride to Budapest, but I don’t think that will happen this year. However, there is a trip that I could take and it would be quicker to get to and come back from and it is a trip that I have been wanting to do for a long time… riding around lake Constance (Bodensee)! I plan on leaving next Wednesday and will probably take the shorter route around for the sake of time. Anyone want to join me?
Well, that is about all for now. Time to get out of the aparment for a change and go on a bike ride!
Hello all! Well, I have been on “vacation” this week, but I have been very busy. Last week on Friday I shot a wedding. Saturday was busy with copying pictures to the computer, doing the first review and making backups. On Monday I did a product shoot. I stayed up all night Monday working on those photos and spent a good part of the day yesterday and this morning working on them as well. It is for a product that needs to be put on sale soon, so timing is critical! I just finished working on those pictures and now I need to continue the work on the pictures from the wedding in May! Whew (as I wipe the sweat from my forehead)!
But first, time for some lunch…
I have been quite busy over the last few weeks. I still have a little work to do on the engagement photo session I did in mid-April, a lot more work to do on the photos from the wedding I shot 4 weeks ago and some work on the baby photos from 3 weeks ago. Never fear though for those that are waiting on these photos (or for those that are considering me to do their wedding 
 ), I have 2 weeks of vacation coming up soon and part of it will be spent catching up!
Its late, but I wanted to share a few pictures from the first dance… Enjoy!
Just wanted to share a few more pictures this evening. I am sure that a few people are waiting to see a few more! These are from a bride and groom dance in the middle of a big heart made out of tea lites and surrounded by sparklers.
(click on the thumbnail for the full size pic)
Here are is a set of pictures taken at the wedding May 9th from one of the events that the 2 MCs put together. I had not seen it before and it made for what I think was a beautiful photo opportunity and a precious time for the bride and groom to have their first house “built” by the guest throwing white balls of yarn over the umbrella (which got “dangerous” when you were not looking out! 
)
I’ll be shooting a wedding on Saturday! I started getting ready on Thursday by charging most of the camera batteries. This evening I have finished charging the camera and rechargable batteries, got the lenses cleaned, the CF cards formated and the bag is now packed. Now I need to get some sleep.
Check back soon for some photos coming from an E-Session I shot in April and for the first pics from the wedding!
Well I have been staying busy over the last weeks… A week ago tomorrow I shot a concert. I have had this week off and I was planning on going up to the Handwerkskammer (among many other things), however I haven’t made it there yet and it probably will not happen this week. I have spent time with friends though, which has been great and yesterday I had my first “E-Session” (Engagement Photo Session) of the year. It was great fun! I took all day for it because it was for friends and a present. We went into town and then went to the zoo together! There will be a few pictures to come!
Posted April 9th, 2009. 1 comment
Hello and welcome to my first blog post on my site! I have started this blog to share a bit about me as well as to share about the things I have to go through in order to start a small business here in Germany and ultimately things that have to do with that business… If you know me, big news like this may come as a surprise, so keep reading!!
First a bit about who I am. I was born and raised in Texas but have lived in Germany since 2001. I have lived in the beautiful city of Munich since the beginning of 2004. The very first time I came to Germany was just after high school in 1994 for an internship. Six years later I came to Germany for 10 months in 2000 to do another  internship. I got an internship working with computers; it was something that had been a hobby of mine for quite some time but up until that point I had not taken any computer courses or workshops. Before this internship I was unsure what I really wanted to do in life. However, I quickly realized that I had a God given talent to work with and quickly learn about computers. I soon knew what I wanted to do “when I grew up”! I moved back to the Texas towards the end of the year 2000 and signed up with a consulting company that paid for a 2 week computer course and the related Microsoft exam, as long as I agreed to give them a chance to find me a job that was acceptable. I successfully completed the course and passed the Windows 2000 Professional exam on the first try, but was trying to enter a work world that had just been hit by the bursting internet bubble. This company couldn’t find anything that fit me well and so I contacted the company that gave me the internship in Germany to see if their offer to give me a job still stood. It did and I was back in Germany by mid-2001.
Fast forward 8 years later. I have been working either as a “Systems Programmer” or a “Systems Engineer” for the past 8 years. When I first moved to Germany, I can’t say that I really had hobbies outside of website programming and building computers. Since then I have taken up many hobbies including Cycling (specifically long distance bike tours… this year I would like to cycle from Germany to Budapest Hungary!),  Klettersteigen, and photography. This last hobby I have enjoyed for a number of years, but up until 6 or 7 years ago I only had point and shoot film cameras. I then bought my first digital camera and really enjoyed taking pictures. I took tons of vacation photos, photos at every party I went to and a friend’s wedding at the beginning of 2006. I enjoyed all of that to the point that I eventually bought my first Digital Single Lens Reflex in late summer of 2006. Since then I have poured a lot of time into learning and lots of money from my savings spent on photography books and new equipment. I was asked to be the photographer at a friend’s wedding in 2007. This was really a great experience! I enjoyed the challenge but since then I have enjoyed the many complements on the photos and the wedding album I made for those friends even more. A few months after that I photographed another wedding together with someone else for another friend. Again I really enjoyed the experience and again the bride and groom loved the photos and the album that I gave them. I have received SO much encouragement from these couples and from so many different people that have seen their albums that I have been considering trying my hand at wedding photography as a side job. However I have been busy with many things over the past year and have been missing the necessary push out into the cold deep water of wedding photography.
Since January 2009 I have had 3 different people come to me to about me possibly photographing their weddings. 2 of the 3 have come because the brides-to-be have seen one of the wedding albums I have made. Those things along the encouragement I have received from so many friends, including all of the brides and grooms whose weddings I have photographed have lead me to make the decision to pursue a part time job as a Wedding Photographer!
A number of the first posts in this blog will be about the things I have to go through to become a legally licensed photographer in Germany. This process will be more difficult than in the United States, that is for sure. I hope that this blog will be interesting enough that at least a few people will follow it and that I would write at least a few things that someone finds helpful. If you do find this helpful and interesting I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment!
Thanks for reading and please come back soon!
Posted February 21st, 2009. 1 comment
