2006 Tour Dates!

Bono and Master Po

Today I was reading in my Bono book because I couldn't find Creating Customer Evangelists (I think somebody stole it at the PUG meeting and I don't blame them - it's amazing) ...
anyway...Bono was talking about meeting Nelson Mandela and he said that what makes Nelson Mandela so different is,

"His imagination. His ability to see, taste, and almost touch a future that wasn't yet there. Most people in his situation would have focused on what they had lost - the past. He's only thinking about the future."

I really want to be like that... but it also reminded me of a quote from my favorite TV show growing up - Kung Fu - when Master Po said,

"If a man dwells on the past, then he robs the present. But if a man ignores the past, he may rob the future. The seeds of our destiny are nurtured by the roots of our past."

I think it's a fine line and a balance that we need to keep in our lives. Do you think you spend more time dreaming and planning for the future or trying to learn from the past?

Angel's Baseball!

Today was so much fun! Me and my friend Shelly got to go down to the OC and hang with Becker, Jules, Tony, Blake, Sara France, and Keats! It was an awesome game and then we got to head over to Becker's place and when I saw the setup he had my jaw hit the floor! WOW! I've never seen anything like it and he talked me through his absolutely amazing marketing and branding setup and let me checkout his promo kit which is the most stellar kit I've ever seen! Every little detail of it is thought through all the way down to the flap on the envelope! ...and it has obviously worked because [b] shoots as many extremely high-end weddings every year as Denis Reggie and still has time to watch baseball and play Apples and Apples!

***Check out the kits here!***

SB PUG!

Last night was amazing! Thank you all for coming and for all the good ideas you shared! Isn't this new RAW workflow incredible! I got so amped while we were going through it! Under 3 hours total editing time is the goal and we're gonna hit it!

Sorry no pictures - I got so excited about the workflow stuff I forgot to pickup my camera.

Special thanks to Pictage as well for coming up and showing us how to read our statements! You guys rock!

BTW - the little swirly thing on the left is the Adobe Bridge logo - Adobe Bridge is the key component for your workflow so if you haven't already updated to Photoshop CS2 definitely make the investment! The small price will be worth the hundreds of hours you'll save!

Windows Bug

I've noticed that my PC has this same beeping sound - I guess it's a bug and it's kinda hard to hear but it's at the end of this video but anyway I'm gonna take mine back - I just order the 17inch MacBook! Yea!

Good Wedding Photography - Becker!

Well it looks like the BadWeddingPhotos blog stirred up some heat on some bridal forums so they had to remove it...not a big deal...but what made me bummed was to see some lame person come over and hack at my buddy Becker for posting up the link. Becker is awesome and such a fun loving cool guy who is always out helping people. He helped me a lot without even knowing it. When I was first getting started shooting weddings I bookmarked his site and I'd always check it out before weddings to get inspired and I still love his style and aspire to shoot more like him. You'll see a lot of his influence from my last wedding (slideshow posted below). I really appreciate all that he's done to help turn this into a respectable industry.

Moral of the story - if you're upset about something and you're over the age of 12 then act like a normal person and have a conversation about it but don't send these threatening emails and post lame stuff anonymously on blogs.

...and hire an awesome wedding photographer like Becker so your pics don't end up on that site!

:)
DJ

I may have an answer

People often ask, "DJ, you go to so many weddings - what do you want your wedding to be like?" ....and I never really have had an answer so I always just say "Oh - I'll put in my 2 cents but mostly I just want whatever my bride wants." ...well after yesterday I might be putting in a whole lot more than 2 cents because yesterday's wedding was almost exactly what I want my wedding to be like!

I really can't put it into words but everything from the spirit of the people to the physical beauty and perfection of the location made yesterday one of the most memorable and wonderful days of my life - and I got paid for it! lol

***CLICK HERE*** for the slideshow!

...more to come!

Where in the world is....

So this is a bit embarrassing but last weekend when I flew out to Philly I had no idea where Pennsylvania was! Ya see at my high school the history and geography teachers were always the athletic coaches and so I always took those classes with my soccer coach and we didn't spend much time going over anything other than soccer.

So today I went and picked up a globe! Globe's are so cool especially the kind I got because you can spin it and it makes for really cool photos! I just shot this one with my Canon SD 500 on the star mode that Becker showed me for long exposures!

I think I'm gonna go find out where you live! Yea!

:)

Art and Attitude

Unfortunately every once in awhile I have to deal with situations that arise on OSP and in the photo world and sometimes I get some heat for the way I choose to handle them but I have always chosen to take the side of the community and to use everything as a learning experience for myself and for others.

So when I received an email last night about a quarl some people were having on OSP I decided to "go to the balcony" as William Ury describes in his book "Getting Past No" - which is a great book by the way! Ury talks all about conflict resolution and how to negotiate your way from confrontation to cooperation and the whole book is packed with valuable insight into how to approach difficult situations. Anyway...the idea of "going to the balcony means that you take some time away from the conflict situation and allow yourself to think through the issues without being distracted by the emotions...so I went to sleep and when I woke up I found this second email. I couldn't believe it - this is a super bummer that this person sent two emails 8 hours apart and didn't even bother to realize that maybe I was sleeping and that I might have 90 other nice emails flagged for response.







So I just want to encourage you all to take some time in your conflicts and "go to the balcony." ....because the number one rule in communication is that "you can't take it back." and once you say something to somebody the damage is done.

As I've always said - I don't expect everybody to agree but I do want everbody to realize the power of their words and treat each other with respect and love and approach their life with a fun lighthearted spirit. Life is too short to take ourself seriously.

Live - Learn - and move on! :)
DJ

Creating Freedom for Photographers

"The Purpose of your life is not to serve your business - but the purpose of your business is to serve your life."

Michael Gerber
The E-Myth Revisited


My goal over the next year is going to be to share with everyone how I got my life back through a "Hands-free" marketing system and a "Hand-free" post workflow. My first two years I would spend lots of time meeting with clients trying to persuade them to hire me as their wedding photographer and it was really hard work. Then after the wedding I would spend 7 - 10 days editing through large jpeg files for every wedding.

Then I started to realize the power of people and that the best way to market myself and promote what I do was through other people's mouth instead of my own. I also made the switch to RAW files and got a better workflow down to 3 or 4 days and then last year Tim helped me get that down to a day or two which was awesome and now I can download, backup and edit a complete wedding with less than 4 hours of work. Over the next couple of months I'll be making a tour to 20-30 cities explaining this philosphy of using your business to create freedom for your life.

I'm working with my friends at Pictage to make this happen and it's so encouraging to see a company like Pictage continue to invest in the wedding community and provide a means for us to learn and grow with each other.

Stay tuned for more details. :)

Pepper's Pug Pie

Last night I had the treat of getting to hang with the Orange County Pug and what an awesome group they are! I'm always so inspired by the photographers in Orange County because they really embrace new changes and technology so fast and immediately start applying them and I think that's one of the reasons why the OC has become kind of the "Hollywood" of Wedding photography!

Last night Tobi and Mellany joined us again from Palm Springs and brought us this amazing pie!

...but the real reason I wanted to post was because of Pepper and Mitch. I've had the chance to get to know them over the past year and what a blessing they've been in my life. Pepper is an absolutely incredible Photographer and here is just one of her incredible award winning images.



Pepper and Mitch are two of the most giving, caring and loving people I've ever met and in an industry where we gossip more than we should and there's way to much bad mouthing going on I have never heard of anybody who doesn't absolutely adore these two. If you ever have the chance to meet them don't miss it!

Thanks for everything you guys!
DJ

Sunset and Girls

I snapped this picture on Easter as I was landing in Utah to catch my flight into Santa Barbara and I know that when the pilot says to "please turn off all electronic equipment." I probably should but the problem is that during take off and when it's turbulent I get really scared. I dunno why because I fly all the time but for some reason I still get that nervous feeling like you get the first time you kiss someone. My heart starts to beat fast and my hands get sweaty and the whole world just seems to slow down and pause for a minute and I'm sure I just have this blank stare...although I think the blank stare can actually play to guys favor sometimes because girls think we are like gazing romantically into their eyes when really we're just like a dear in headlights and we're so freaked out we can't move.

Anyway...the flight to Utah was really bumpy and I think the bumps have something to do with the mountains and how the wind comes over the mountain because I flew into another place with mountains and it was really bumpy there too so I'm gonna avoid those airports.

So back to the beginning - the reason I keep my camera out is because when I'm taking pictures it distracts me and I don't think about how one of these bumps might make a wing break off or something.

Philly Party!

So this last weekend I was invited to Philly to celebrate my friend Ole's birthday. He's a photographer who's been shooting mostly for LifeTouch for the past couple of years but he shoots some weddings and portraits on his own as well. It was an awesome party and a great group of people!

He lives close to this Amish community and it was really interesting to see how the Amish people live. They still drive around in horse drawn carriages and apparently they don't have electricity either. I couldn't imagine living like that (no OSP!) and it reminded me of a movie to see these people living like people lived 100 years ago.

Here's a video of one of the little carriages ...and watch the big red truck fly past right behind it!

Thanks Ole and Heidi for the awesome time! Can't wait to see you guys again!

Words of Wisdom

When you have a late flight and you're loading your luggage in the trunk DO NOT EVER place your keys inside the trunk.

:)

Stop Carrying Buckets

The summer before my senior year in college I went on a trip to help bring running water to the small village of San Pedro Sula in Honduras . There is a big city of San Pedro Sula as well but we were just working in a small village that had no running water and no electricity so in order to get water they had these big buckets that they would load onto the back of a truck and then they would take them to the river and use little buckets to fill up the big buckets.

This was their system for many years but our team was coming in and digging trenches and putting in pipes so that every house could have running water that came from a well up on the hill.

A year later my friend Deyl introduced me to this idea of building pipelines in my business life and it changed my whole way of thinking. He is in real estate and has an incredible understanding of how money works and how to make it work for you. We would spend hours talking and playing Robert Kiyosaki's Cash Flow game and then bounce ideas off each other .

***CLICK HERE*** to read his post and Robert Kiyosaki's brilliant ideas of how to stop working for money and start having your money work for you!

In Vegas......you eat a lot!

What a trip! This was only my second time at WPPI and it was an incredible experience. The OSP party really topped it off and I can't even begin to tell you all how much your encouragement means to me. The effort you all went through to make that night the amazing night that it was will never be forgotten. Thank you thank you thank you! Wow!

...after that I spent two nights at The Palms "9" restaurant which was really really good! I got to eat there one night with Andy and his son Brian Marcus, John Solano, Jay Goldman and the Leather Craftsmen crew. Then the next night I got to eat there again with all my friends from Pictage! Master Colon was there with Shyla and Kristin and Pepper Nix, Liana, Salomone and Reggie, Katie Clark and Michelle Walker and then the last night was Becker's party and that was super cool and I stole some of these pics from Fongs blog - hehe... :)

Enjoy the pics! and you can watch them as a slideshow too just hit the restart button! :)

Speechless

Words could never describe how I feel after a night like tonight. Tonight was one of the best nights of my life and I have all of you to thank for it. You all konw that my work and my life are very intertwined so I spend a lot of time with people in the wedding industry and I can honestly say that I feel like the most blessed man in the world to have so many incredible friends who share this same occupation and if it wasn't for all of you I don't think I'd want to be in this industry. Thank you Thank you Thank you! I couldn't possibly do what I do without all of you and I can't wait to share more but it's 4am and I'm falling asleep in this chair so I better go.

Love,
DJ

Great videos!

My friend Paige Kearin is so awesome! She's interviewing all these famous people and gettting advice on how they got to where they're at then she's gonna write a book about it and tell their stories.

So I was like you totally have to put this stuff on a blog because it's so cool. A couple weeks ago it was hilarious because she really wanted some interviews so she actually crashed a $2000/plate dinner and started asking Bill Clinton questions! Haha! Freakin awesome!

Anyway...she just posted up a cool video with the two richest people in the world and they were talking about Showit Web! just kidding...they were talking about ethics and cool stuff like that and Warren Buffett gave the coolest answer!

***Watch the video here!*** (it's short but really good)

See you guys soon! :)

The Reason

I've been getting hundreds of emails over the past couple of months with people telling me stories of how Showit Web has changed their business and their life but I think this email tops them all! It's hearing things like this that keep me up at 4:45am - honestly I'm so excited!!!

Killer show Brad! Keep up the incredible work!

***CLICK HERE*** to view Brad's show!

:)

INCREDIBLE! under 10 MINUTES!

This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen! A new feature we just added to Showit Web V2 is the ability to put your shows on your blog! This was my first time using the new feature and I made this show from start to finish (including uploading) and got a pot of coffee brewing in 9 minutes! Amazing! Be on the lookout for my March newsletter in the next couple of hours and go to www.showitfast.com for more info!