Catching up

Well I just got my MacBook Pro back from the shop and I'm very excited to have it because before I wrecked it I had just transitioned all my communication stuff onto this computer and that's a huge part of what I do and so I desperately need to get on it. I have a pretty good system setup but I'm gonna be typing like mad for the rest of this week to catchup the mail that came in last week because I know I'll get backed up again while I'm in Canada.

As you can see I have lots of people to respond to so if I'm sorry if there's an email in here from you and I have been lagging. I'm gonna work really hard to respond to everybody but again I usually don't respond to emails asking support questions about Showit applications or technical photography questions because the Showit support team is much better for the Showit stuff and the OSP forum (which will hopefully be back up soon) is a better place for photo conversations because then lots of people can chime in and share and learn. :)

Thanks for your patience. :)
DJ

Resorting to Backup

My friends at Bliksem have been trying to find a needle in a hay stack for the past three days but it's impossible so we're gonna have to go to the last resort which is to apply a backup from late last week. My web host takes 3 backups a week so it'll be a pretty recent one but you'll notice some missing posts. The good news is that it should be all solved today! Thanks for your patience through all of this and I've definitely missed you guys while I've been dealing with the chaos! I'll post here when it's up and ready to rock!

:)

Closing and Cleaning

We're gonna close up the forum for a bit to find the code that is causing the bad script to launch and as soon as we do we will open up a new - safe - secure OSP.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at the PUG group tonight!

...and my apologies if you've sent me an email in the last week because my laptop has been down and with OSP going down as well I've been a bit out of the loop with people but I'm excited to catchup soon!

:)
DJ

Funny Videos

Temporary Registration Required

Until I get some things sorted out I'm gonna require you to login to view OSP...this is only temporary and if you are a member on a PC please read the post below.

PC - Beware

There are still some quirky things going on that we're trying to clean up so if you're on a PC without antivirus software I'd stay away until I get a response from my web host.

Sorry for the trouble and you shouldn't have any problems if you're on a mac.

Back in Action

:) I wasn't able to get ahold of my web host today so I did a little hacking of my own and got the needed security patch installed on OSP and got the site back up and rolling. Thanks for your patience and love through this! You all are the best!

Bad things happen in 3's

...at least that's what one of my ex's used to say...

I'm sorry to all of you who couldn't access OSP yesterday and who were sent the email with the virus in it. I was in LA shooting all day and I'm really happy that my excellent host hopped on it and closed it down so nobody else would be affected. I'm working with them to get it back up and secured to prevent any further attacks.

So now my question is, if you weren't shooting today and you weren't on OSP - what did you do!?! Seriously!

This past week has kinda been a time of "cleansing" for me because I busted my new MacBookPro trying to install Windows on it so it's been in the shop getting fixed ...but it was kind of a weird week and I did all sorts of stuff like cleaning, reading, edited 2 weddings, getting the oil changed and updating my downtown parking permit. Stuff I never would've done if I had my laptop

So the MacBook tragedy was the first thing that went wrong, then OSP got attacked by the Russians and so on my way home this morning I was really excited to drown my worries with a nice hot cup of coffee and some Krispy Kreme doughnuts from the shop that I always stop at b/c it's open 24 hours...



...but just my luck - they were closed. I couldn't believe it! This was almost the final straw for me but I'm a survivor so after a few minutes of feeling sorry for myself, and a brief photoshoot to lift my spirits, I'm back home and ready to rock!

Thanks for everything you guys!
DJ

Do not open

Looks like the osp server got hacked...so do not open any .exe files from an email - ever- and i'm shooting but my host has shut down the server until they get it resolved. Thanks for the emails and phone calls...we'll get it fixed as soon as possible...back to work for now... Sorry about this everyone...hackers are losers.
-------------------------------------------------
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.
-------------------------------------------------
davidjay photography inc.
www.davidjay.com
www.opensourcephoto.net
866.727.2777 (Toll-Free)
-------------------------------------------------

Showit Web Success!

I LOVE THIS! Hearing success stories from people who took control of their business is so encouraging! Regina Holder is a wonderful photographer that I met in Atlanta this year and she immediately started applying the Word-of-Mouth and "Word-of-Mouse" techniques that I talked about and it had an immediate impact on her business!

***Click here*** and read the post on her blog from the bride.

...and then she made a nice post about me and what's funny is that the slideshow I put online 2 years ago wasn't even for a friend - it was just a random client but he still passed it around and I'm shooting a wedding today that came directly from that slideshow!

The power of these slideshows is so incredible and they really can take your business to a new level!

:) Happy Shooting!
DJ

Sweet - Hot - Sharing

I just arrived down in LA for a wedding tomorrow and I've been totally fried this week so I did something I never do - I turned on the idiot box (TV) :) ...and being the true teenage girl that I am I flipped on the Tyra Banks show and Tyler Perry was on there and he talked a lot about faith and the importance of giving and he just seemed like a really solid guy. Then I saw that they incorporated Krispy Kreme! Yea!

Now ya'll know that I love Krispy Kremes and did you know that they're a company that doesn't advertise. They concentrate on Word-of-Mouth as well as giving away free hot samples of their sweet doughnuts and have been one of the fastest growing companies because of it.

And it reminded me that just before I left I got an awesome surprise from Sarah Barlow and it was this autographed poster with her amazing pictures in it.



Now I know most of you think that I love the BarlowGirls because they're the hottest band out there, and that's true, but I also really respect the business that they run and how they've taken advantage of the power of sharing to promote the most powerful type of marketing - Word-of-Mouth. Here's a post I just read on the Pictage forum and I get dozens of emails saying the same thing and it's so fun to hear that others think they rock as much as I do so if you became a BarlowGirl fan, or any of the other artists on my site, after hearing them on my slideshows send me an email and let me know!



So when I turned on the TV I didn't know I was gonna get a lesson on Word-of-Mouth marketing but it seems the recipe for success is to be sweet - hot- and to share!

:)

2nd Shooter

I rarely ever 2nd shoot and I've really only done it for 3 of my closest friends because I absolutely treasure my weekends off and last weekend I had the chance to shoot with Chris Humphreys and we had such a blast! I shot just a few pictures and then shot video of him the rest of the time.

Chris is incredible with rolling with whatever happens and I learned a lot just watching how he negotiated the circumstances and got even better and more unique pictures because of the change in weather! I hope he posts up a few of his favorites!

Here are some of my favorite pics!

I like this one because of the colors and the pretty flowers.



And this one is cool because it's also kinda abstract.



And I really like this shot because it's the first time I had ever shot with an F 1.0 lens! Whoa! I missed the focus just barely (I must've been distracted) but I still think it's a good shot.



Thanks Chris! You rock man!
DJ

Gary Fong - right on the $

A couple of weeks ago Gary and Missy invited me and some friends out to Catalina and at the time I was looking into investing in either a condo or this house...and this house I was pretty stoked on because it's in Montecito, which is where I'd love to live and it has killer views - and it's on the market for under a million ($999,000) which is unheard of around here.








...but Gary gave me some really good advice and when I came home I saw that my friend Deyl's boss who's this gnarly real estate guy in town who buys and builds hotels and shopping centers had posted on his blog almost the exact same advice that Gary had just given me!

CLICK HERE! and read Matt Marquis advice if you're thinking of investing in property.

:)

Ooops :)

I guess the PartnerCon website I posted yesterday was not supposed to be released yet and my post caused a lot of people to try and register and Pictage wasn't intending to take registrations yet so please DO NOT try and register or contact Pictage about PartnerCon - they will have the site up shortly.

:)

Cluster Maps

When I saw this on Pastor Joe's blog yesterday I was like "Pastor Joe's so cool - I gotta have that!" So I immediatly went out and put a map on my site and what it does is it keeps track of where people hit your blog from in the past 24 hours and puts a little dot there and the more people that hit from that area the bigger the dot gets! Check it out here!

Do you believe

In DESTINY?

So today it was really fun to log onto this thread and see people posting how they found OSP and so I posted up that it was just destiny that brought us all together and that reminded me of something I saw today that MUST BE DESTINY as well.

...right below my place is one of the best magazines in CA - Santa Barbara Magazine and as I was walking home today I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw their new cover...because of the title of the article of course! That's the same title they used for my Professional Photographer article!



I mean what are the chances of that! So I started thinking that maybe it's destiny that I meet this girl so I went home and sure enough my copy was buried underneath a stack of mail and I opened it up and saw that there was a photoshoot from the Bacara in there and my last shoot was at the Bacara! So I'm thinking ok that's two big signs but I'm gonna need something even bigger to fully believe so I turn the page and there is one of my pictures featured as their main wedding!

This must be divine!

You are succeeding!

I got so excited this morning when I checked the forum because as I scrolled through I saw so many amazing posts. Everybody caring for each other, sharing knowledge, and helping one another get to the next level! That's what OSP is all about and so I just wanted to let you all know that you're making a HUGE positive difference through the whole wedding industry. I see more people than ever opening up and joining together in communities and investing in the lives of others.

It's no wonder that we're all "addicted" to OSP :) and look how many people have gotten the bug in just one year!



Keep on loving!
DJ

Get together then

Read this post.

Today I got together with my friend Ashley and everytime we hangout she inspires me so much. She's just an all around incredible girl who does so much to help and encourage others.

and so we got talking about society today and how important marriage is then we got into how important it is for parents to invest in the lives of their children. She told me the story of a family she knows who is extremely wealthy because of the work the father does but the family is a mess because all the dad does is work.

This really hit me and reminded me of a song that I heard at church when I was really little. I remember crying when I heard it because I felt so blessed to have a dad that invested so much in me. I actually had to tell him to go to work sometimes because he wanted to be at all my soccer games and sometimes I got embarrassed with him cheering so loud.

*** CLICK HERE *** and listen to this song.

Anyway - the point I'm trying to make, more to myself than anybody else, is to wake up to what's important and make sure that my business helps me spend more time doing those truly important things. At the end of my second year as a photographer I realized that I was on a bad path. Spending every waking hour focusing on my business and not leaving any room in my life for real work to get done

... but this year I've worked so hard to change that and set myself up for another stage in my life. It's amazing how simple it is to setup a business that truly does create freedom for my life and I really want to encourage and help others do the same.

Mom and Dad - Thank you and I love you!
DJ

Quick Edit

I'm so thankful for RAW processing because even though I love photography and looking at cool images I really don't like spending a lot of time editing my own pictures. So tonight I had a wedding to blast through and I've been working on saving some very customized .xmp files and it makes it so easy and almost mindless. I seriously watch a movie while I edit because everything is just click of a button.

Tonight was a smaller batch of 1074 pictures and I was able to get through it in 2 hours and 7 minutes. Not bad but I was spending some time making food and also making more .xmp files that I'll be able to use to speed up future weddings.

Here is my list:

Confession

I have a confession - When I was out in Chicago a week ago Sarah Barlow opened up her fridge and I experienced what is commonly referred to in Bachelor circles as "Fridge Envy" The Barlow's fridge was loaded like crazy! So I thought I'd show you a side by side comparison...and yes they did have 16 dozen eggs! Whoa!


...and so this morning I decided to go out and for the first time ever stock my fridge! It was actually kinda fun roaming through every isle of the supermarket at 3am just imagining the feasts I am going to prepare for myself with this huge loot of food! I filled a whole cart and decided that was enough and it was indeed because the total rang up to $155 and I think that's about 10x what I've ever spent at the supermarket but check out my new fridge fully pimped out!

Deep thoughts by DJ

So this morning I got to have breakfast with my best friend Deyl and he was telling me all about a trip to Europe that he just got back from and he always talks about how amazing his wife Paige is and how much he loves her and stuff like that and he got me really excited to one day travel around Europe with my wife...and so I did what anybody would do - I went and found pictures of my ex-girlfriends.

..I was actually looking for pics for a magazine article but regardless it got me thinking...

Do we really have "types" because these girls are totally different! Jen is a tall blonde with blue eyes and is from Colorado and total outdoorsy girl who likes camping and things like that



and Saxon is from AZ and a total city girl who's barely over 5 ft and has brown hair and brown eyes.



So what do you think?

Pastor Joe

Last weekend I was out in Chicago for the Maximum Impact conference and while I was there I got to stay with the Barlows and every time I'm around them I just feel so blessed and so I was like dude (Pastor Joe) you totally need a blog! ...I didn't think he'd actually do one because I've been telling my pastor here in SB to get one forever and he's so slow on that stuff but Pastor Joe was like let's do it now! Ya see usually churches, government agencies, and academics move like slower than molasses but not Pastor Joe - he was wicked fast and I've been checking his blog every day because he always posts words of encouragement and devotionals and inspires me every day!

*** CLICK HERE *** to be encouraged.

It's so cool to wake up and hear something new....oh yea and special props to Andrew Barlow who owns Barlow Computers for doing the killer custom work so Pastor Joe's blog doesn't lag on the creative side. Andrew was super fast in doing the photoshop and custom html coding.

Captain Fong

This weekend Gary Fong invited us out to Catalina and this place is so fun and it's just the cutest little town ever and everyone drives around in these little golf carts. On the way in I went out on the front of the boat like Leonardo and took this picture just before Missy pushed me over - no just kidding...and then it was so fun to take more pictures because the island is just beautiful! I'll post up more pics when I get home b/c I'm on the boat right now and I get kinda sick typing. This boat is so insane though! I've never seen anything like it. It's got all these different rooms and secret compartments and I love that kinda stuff. It even has this little built in place for the Mac plug so the power cord comes straight out of the sofa. I need that at home!

Price is Right

So a few weeks ago my friend Missy Carl got something she's been dreaming of her whole life - Tickets to the Price is Right! So knowing that this was going to be such a big day for her I wanted to be a part of it so me Janey and Amy went down to see the show with her and Gary and a bunch of her friends from Ohio even flew out to be with her on this special day! Unfortunately we arrived at 1pm and the people who actually got into the show had been waiting there since 1am! Haha! Can you believe it! People waited all night to get into the show and win toasters and patio furniture.

Anyway, I don't mean to make light of a tramatic experience for Missy but if ya'll could leave some words of encouragement for her that would be nice. Gary's going to risk sinking his boat (because of the high winds I think) and take us to Catalina Island for the weekend so we can get our minds off of Bob.

On a brighter note Amy was nice enough to drive today and Janey navigated so I emailed and whoa did I ever jam!
I started the day with 160 emails flagged and I sent 72 emails today so I'm really proud of myself b/c I've been wanting to get back to so many of you for so long. I condensed a lot of double emails into one so I'm actually down to only 69 left before being all caught up!!! I love hearing from people and especially photographers...but please don't email and congratulate me on getting caught up on my email.

P3 - Me! :)

I'm sooooo amped about Pictage's new P3 credit card processing! This is like a serious answer to prayer because I hate collecting money from people - I hate it - I hate it - I hate it...but now I'm gonna run every wedding this way and my couples are gonna be stoked b/c they always ask "Do you take credit cards and I always hated saying "no" but now I can accept them without it costing me anything and I can spread out the payments for a year after the wedding so the B&G doesn't have to pay it all beforehand!

This is absolutely awesome! It took me under 10 minutes to setup my Packages on their system.

So if you wanna book me or just read what some of my past couples have said about me just ***CLICK HERE*** and type in dj003 for the Studio ID and you don't need a password or anything - so cool!

Pictage - YOU ROCK!

Retiring at 90!

So I have two big announcements!

1. My old Powerbook which just turned 90 yrs old (computer years = human years x30) is now on its way to retirement! Yea!!!

2. My MacBookPro just arrived! Woohoo! The guy at the store said I was the first person in Santa Barbara to get one! I feel special!

Anyway - this is my first post from it and I'm so excited! Because I use .Mac I was able to sync all my important data and my email accounts on here instantly and it was the most painless computer purchase ever! Thank you Mac.

Continually Amazed

Over the past year I have been so amazed, encouraged, blessed by the people in my life and the relationships that have come through this forum and this industry. Gary and Melissa just left last night after hanging out in SB for a week and I find myself sitting here already getting excited for the next time I'll get to hang with them. They are two incredible people who bring so much joy to my life.

...ok...enough with the sappy stuff...oh wait...maybe not..ANOTHER incredible couple who I met last month just sent me the sweetest package. Justin and Amelia Lyon are awesome photographers who will lead this next generation because they have the intagibles that it takes to get to the next level. They are the sort of people who just "get it" and I'm excited to get to know them more and learn from them.


They sent me the Arrested Development dvd's and the coolest Volcom sweater ever! ...and those of you who know me know that I don't watch TV and Justin and Amelia know this too but the reason why I'm so intrigued by this show is because the story of this award winning show is so similar to many photographers who's work is excellent but still go out of business just like this show did. If you want to see the never ending list of awards this show won click here and I'll be talking about the reasons for tragedies like this on the PUG tour because I get so bummed when photographers overly focus on areas of their business that aren't going to help them reach their goals.

Thanks you guys!!! Can't wait to hangout again!
DJ

Hilarious!

This whole last week we were dying laughing at this commercial! The expression on his face at the end is so funny! You need Windows media player to watch it and I got it from Andrew Barlow!

***CLICK HERE*** to laugh!

Tourists

One of the awesome things about friends is that they can remind us of who we really are - and just the other day my friend Sarah Barlow reminded me that I am a dork...and I used to try and hide that but now I'm ok with it.

Anyway, now that that's outta the way, we have been having such a blast in Santa Barbara! ...and it's so funny because I love SB so much but I love it even more when my friends come into town b/c then I get to do all the fun tourist stuff and yesterday we did something I had never done before - ride on those crazy bikes


It was a blast and as you can see here we had Leonardo hanging off the front screaming "I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!!"






and we were all on top of the world until we broke the bike and had to carry it like 7 miles back to the shop.

Maximum Impact

Last week I was out in Chicago for the Maximum Impact conference and it was absolutely incredible! I think I'll be thinking about what the speakers said for the rest of my life and one of the things that was said is so simple and yet I think it hit me the most because of how true it's been in my own life.

"A word or a sentence can change a life." - Don Soderquist (Former Vice Chairman of Wal-Mart)

I bet we can all think back to a time when somebody's words effected us for good or for bad - isn't it amazing how powerful our words are!

Here's a fun little video from the trip and each time I go somewhere I learn something new about traveling. This trip didn't feel like "traveling" at all and there are several little things you can do when flying places that will make it way more comfortable and relaxed. One thing I do is have my airline call me two hours before every flight (wake up call here in SB - it's great) and I receive an email an hour or so before every flight telling me if there are any changes to the schedule and what gate I'm going to be boarding at. The reason the gate info is so helpful is because now I never have to look at those crazy boards anymore. So if I have to change planes, which I usually do b/c Santa Barbara only flys to certain places, as soon as I land I check my blackberry and know where I'm headed before I even get off the plane. :) ...more tips to come!

The Windy City

As you can see "The Windy City" lived up to its name and we almost lost Mark one evening but he held on until the winds died down! Phewwww! John and Natalie were using their Ninja "rooting" skills that I taught them so that's why they were unaffected by the winds but Mark was playing "Brick Breaker" on my phone during that lesson.

I'm in the Chicago airport right now getting ready to catch my flight back to SB and I just can't stop thinking about and thanking God for the people he's put in my life - especially the Barlows! The last couple of days they opened up their wonderful home to me while I was in town to go to the Maximum Impact conference but I think the real reason I was here was for them to open up my heart and my spirit to a new way of talking to God and listening for what He has planned in my life. I'm very excited!

I'm also very excited to get home and have a good stretch of time to get caught up on everything including emails! Yea! :)

Missy and Gary are in town and we're gonna be celebrating Missy and Amy's birthday! Amy's birthday is actually today!!! Happy Birthday Amy Nave! You're no longer a teenager!!! Woohoo! So awesome! :)

Ok..gotta fly!

Very Exciting!

So in a few hours I leave for a super awesome couple of days in Chicago with the Sarah Barlow and her family. A group of us will be going to the Maximum Impact conference and I'm 100% positive it's going to be a life changing event.

So on to the important stuff - I got some new luggage! Ever since I've started traveling a lot I've been looking for the perfect travel bag and I had very very high expectations!

It had to be able to:

• Carry 3 days worth of clothes.
• Extra pair of shoes
• My laptop
• Be carry-on even from Santa Barbara which means it has to be a backpack because otherwise you can't sneak it by the guy at the door of the plane.
• Open up completely because it's so hard to work out of some bags that only open at the top.
• Have soft wheels because my old bag had noisy ones and it bugged me. (The lady looked at me so funny when I was poking the wheels.)
• Have LOTS of secret compartments and zippers (guys like that stuff)
• Match my car (not really - but it does so that's a bonus!)

It's a killer bag made by Tumi - Here's a link!

...so the only bad thing about it was that it had this dumb logo on it and I almost didn't buy it because of the stupid logo. I told the lady at the store that it looks like something that a jr. higher would like...so when I came home I grabbed my switch blade that I got in Brazil (guys like those too) and I removed the logo. Doesn't it look so much better without it! :)

Ok...gotta go get some sleep - I just had fun finding all my new "places" for stuff. Yea!