NY and Atlanta

The last two stops on the Preview Tour were fantastic!

I got to meet up with Matt DeJesus who I've been excited to meet for a long time and we even got to hang with the man the myth the legend - Denis Reggie - in NY for a little bit!

Then the crew came over for a stellar meeting and some awesome sushi! We had the meeting in my hotel room which was sweet. Denis suggested I stay at The London hotel and it was well worth it! There was even a little plug in the wall that I could plug my computer into and it would show up on the TV! Very cool!

Then I was off to Atlanta! I love the south! Especially after coming from NY where everyone is mean. lol...just kidding ;P .... NYers are actually super cool...but I left my hair product in NY so that was a bummer. I met up with Liana Lehman and Sara Harper who the wonderful hosts at Liana's beautiful new house! I can't find pictures from Atlanta because they were on everyone else's camera but here's a shot the three of us took using the Mac's photobooth and showing off my crazy hair. :)


Now I'm back in SB! Yea! So nice here and I have a little recap slideshow to post later too but this post is getting way to long!

Oh yea....and for those of you who missed my monthly newsletter be sure to sign up and add thelatest@davidjay.com to your mailbox so your spam grabber doesn't get it. Everyone who is on it just got a discount for Showit Web to save $60 so sign up and find somebody who got it yesterday and you can still use the code through tonight!

Rock on!
DJ

Lots to post but this is awesome

I still gotta catchup from NY and Atlanta which have been awesome but I just had to post this. You guys might remember from the last time I was here at Denis Reggie's Carriage House but watch this video! ...and try this at home!

CLICK HERE to watch the video.

:)

Time Lapse video on the airplane!

Can you guess where I was flying into and where I was flying from!

CLICK HERE to watch the video! and it'll take a few seconds to download and then it'll play.

NY sushi

NY sushi, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

We just finished up a killer meeting and a few of us are grubbing on
some sushi at this sweet place in NY!

Headed to NY

I'm headed to New York and was chilling at the airport and I remembered how cool this little app is! Now you can see where people are checking out OSP from! I put it here on my blog and in the forum because this is awesome....and if you click on this graphic and signup you'll be able to see where people are checking out your blog from!

I love Chicago!

Chicago has become a 2nd home for me and I love it here...not so much for the actual town but more for the people! They are incredible! Yesterday I got to hang with a select crew of great photographers and Priscillia O'Sullivan from Bellissima Photography was so wonderful and hosted us at her super cool studio space.

Above is a shot of the group from the infamous Kenny Kim who has been doing amazing things connecting photographers all over the world. I think he's gonna start meeting with a group of photographers consistently here in Chicago to chat and share ideas so hit him up if you're into that!



...and there is no way I can post as many pics as Kenny so go here to see all his awesome shots from last night! ...and when Kenny and I were walking around downtown these girls wanted to take pictures with us so we were like I guess that'd be ok. Kind of funny. My hair was jealous of their towering head pieces.


and then I took this picture at this giant shiny ball and it's super funny to watch everybody take pictures next to this thing. I'm gonna stay here in Chicago today and then cruise to NY tomorrow morning! :)

Showit Sites Preview - AZ

I'm at home - literally - in AZ and we decided to have the Preview at my house and it was so fun for my parents to be around and here's a shot of me and my mom! Isn't she beautiful!

...and I think I used about 17 cups while I was home because no joke I could never find the one I had used before!


Here's a shot of my dad and Todd just after my dad laid out all his Vonage cards trying to solicit to all my friends and get free vonage service. What a salesman! Hilarious!

....but 3:45 came pretty early this morning. I have an early flight out to Chicago for the get together tonight! Chicago is kind of my 2nd home and I have so many friends out there so I'm excited to see everyone!

Ok...gotta fly!

Melissa showed us her backend

So tonight Melissa Jill offered to show us her backend and WOW! ...lol... just kidding - kinda.

Anyway...whenever someone shows us their backend and then forgets to logout we have some fun.

So...checkout this sweet post from her. Isn't she so nice!

CLICK HERE and leave her a comment.

Showit Sites Preview - SD

So I just made it to AZ after having the Showit Sites Preview in SD and it's good to be back in my homeland!

...but SD was sweet! SD is like a big version of Santa Barbara so I love going down there and I got to meet some photographers who I've been dying to meet so that was cool too! ...and here are some pics of the mastermind group!

We did the preview party at the U.S. Grant hotel in downtown and I gotta say that was one of the nicest hotels I've ever been in so props to Crystal for finding that place.

Then before I jumped over here to AZ I got to meet up with Bobby and Lindsay Earle who are such a wonderful couple and fantastic photographers who are only a year in and already booking weddings over $5,000!!! Gnarly! They are certainly two to keep an eye on in the years to come! They both have a huge heart for people and they work with an orphanage in China and so it was incredible to hear the stories of what's happening out there.





See you soon!

Thanks OC

More fun pics from OC coming soon but just a quick shot of the wonderful group that came out and gave such stellar ideas for Showit Sites! More fun shots later and you'll see why I'm waiting but a special thanks to Jim Kennedy for letting us use his incredible studio to meet in! Wow! ...and if you haven't seen Stephanie James Couture (his wife's) custom made wedding dresses next door you are really missing out!

Ok....More pics to come....


That is Jessica Claire sleeping on the couch....lol....

More Pics from Nebraska

I really had a great time out there and here are some more pics! The last night I got to hang out with some wonderful photographers and new friends!

Here's a shot of me with Shane and Erin Melenbacker


and this is a fun one of us on our way to a really good italian place after hanging with Geoff Johnson and his wife Anne at there insanely cool studio. Geoff has the sickest shot of Bono and I'm begging him for a copy of it because I want to make a gallery here in my house of cool shots that my friends have taken and this shot would definitely quality. Julie Morris and her husband Troy also cruised out and it's funny because I had never been to Nebraska before

Also, last night we had the first Showit Sites pre-release party here in SB and it was incredible! Tomorrow I'm off on a whirlwind two week trip to meet with some more friends. It's gonna be fun!

Rock on,
DJ

It's my mom's fault

Ok I noticed that a bunch of you already saw Crystal's blog about the glasses but it is totally my mom's fault and my friends who knew me way back in the day will back me up.

Ya see there was no need for counters at my house because if you set something on it then it magically drifted straight into the dishwasher. Sometimes I would get a glass out and set it on the counter and then open the fridge to get some juice and turn around to pour the juice in the glass and the glass was already in the dishwasher. I thought I was going loony but really it was just my wonderful mom who liked things clean. So long story short - it's not my fault. :)

New Friends from Nebraska!

One of the things I've come to love about traveling is getting the chance to meet so many wonderful people! When I first started traveling a lot I'd spend a lot of time alone which was good because I'd read a lot of books but it gets old being alone all the time. Now that I know more people all over the country I love connecting them when I'm in town and it makes traveling so much more enjoyable!

I was at the HOA convention which is the regional PPA group for the middle of the country and everyone was so great and I tried Sweet Tea for the first time! When my videographer Paul was in SB he tried to order it and the waiter laughed at him so I was curious what it was. :) Yummy.

Here's a shot of me and Sam and my twin! lol...actually Sam's husband and she said some really sweet things on her blog so go check it out! It was funny at lunch because we went and ate and had a great conversation but then I had to run back for my second presentation but that's ok. Conversation is better than food anyway. I was talking with my new friend Vanessa about humility and she was reading this book right now and she gave it to me! I think it was a hint. ;)

...and as soon as the others post up pictures I'll snag them and post them too. I bet they are all sleeping because we went out to an amazing dinner and ice cream late last night.

Ok...I'm in Denver now but heading back to SB in a few minutes! Yea! In the next two weeks I'll be in OC-SD-AZ-Chicago-NY-Atanta-Denver and I'm super stoked to meet up with a few of you in those cities!

Rock on,
DJ

Phew...61 emails and still cranking...

It's 11:30 here in Nebraska and I'm still cranking. I've sent out 61 emails today and worked on a bunch of websites.

I'm gonna do a small demo with our latest beta release for all the folks out here and for those of you had the first beta you can get the latest beta by simply opening up your program and it'll ask you to auto update. It's slick. :)

Ok...I gotta sleep...I'm on at 8:30am for 6 hours tomorrow...actually it's 3 hours in the morning and then somebody will play with the matrix and I will perform a little deja vu act for the afternoon.

Ciao,
DJ

Super Mobile

One of the main reasons to upgrade to Leopard is the Screen Sharing and Remote Login! It's crazy easy and nearly every time I'm on the road I remember something I did on a computer at home and now I travel with my Air but I have a couple other bigger machines that I do videos on at home.

I'm in Nebraska right now getting ready for the Heart of America Conference tomorrow and I just logged in and could work and uploaded a video to the Freedom Club all from my home computer.

This being said be careful how much access you give others! I was in the airport the other day and logged on with my T-Mobile account and noticed some dude had shared his whole computer so I enjoyed looking through pictures from his last couple of vacations and the profit/loss report from the last month of business. lol

Can't wait to see some of you tomorrow!
DJ

THE assistant's blog

Ok so making the decision to hire "THE assistant" last year was the best move ever! I'm able to get so much more done and be infinitely more focused because she handles so much. Not to mention the amazing meals she whips up! We had Thankgiving and Easter here with all our friends and this breakfast was just the other day and she has really freed up my life a lot!


So on the way back from WPPI Crystal decided to start a blog. At first I thought it would be funny but now I'm a bit nervous what will show up. I mean...well...nevermind. So she finally did her first posts and before you go check it out let me tell you a little story about her! :)

So it was 4 months after she moved in and Jessica Claire was staying with us at the Freedom House and Jessica asked her something about the shower in the apartment and Crystal said, "I dunno I haven't showered since I've been here."

WHAT!!! No joke it had been 4 months! Talk about me being a hippie! So anyway we come to find out that it is a bit tricky to turn on the guest shower but how freaking funny is that! She claims to have been taking a bath every day! Suspect...


Anyway, on her most recent post she's making fun of me b/c I didn't know how to make my bed. It is confusing though because the bottom of this thing (or atually it's the top) is where the buttons are and I didn't think the buttons would go by my face so anyway...read her post.

THE Answer to the riddle...

Here is the answer to the riddle I posted earlier! A few of you guessed it!!! :)

Click and listen

So funny!

Riddle - What does this mean?

Dialing in your Email

Email has always been a HUGE part of my business! Whether it is corresponding with brides or photographers I feel like my businesses have always relied heavily on this form of communication. There have been days where I sent over 100 personal emails manually!

I have some tips and tricks for emailing that have helped me so much over the years and I'm gonna 

send them out in my next free email newsletter so be sure to sign up on the right side of my blog.

Just insert your email address and that's it.

I usually send out one email every 5 weeks so don't worry I'm not gonna start spamming you. :) I have just over 16,000 people on my email list and I get a really good open rate because there is a lot of good info in the emails and it's all opt-in.

Rock on!

DJ

Great Decision

Email Email Email....it certainly has taken over our lives and one of the best decisions I made last year was to sign up with this company! I used to get buried in spam mail and now I get none! It's amazing! There are tons of great features and another great decision I made was to use Gmail instead of my webhosted email.

I have it dialed in where all my email looks professional sent dj@davidjay.com and (both sent and received) is stored on my Gmail account and is available 100% of the time. Have you ever had your email go down! Yikes! I read on the forums about people who's email has been down for days and I think wow that's not good. Just use Gmail along with this spam blocking service and you'll be much happier.

I've also added this link to the side bar of my blog so you can always find it.

SB Crew

The other night the Costa's invited some of us wedding folks out to an amazing dinner at Elements here in SB. It was sooo good! I had Ahi Tuna and it was the best I've ever had! Then we went over to their house and it's so inspiring to see what they're doing!

It's funny because it was me and a bunch of "Brookies" (photographers who went to the Brooks Institute) and those of you who know me know that I am like so far on the other side of the scale from these photo masters but what's cool is hanging out with them and learning from them without having to pay for going to the school! ;)

Michael and I always harass each other because he's like the total artist dude and I'm not so I always end up talking to with his better half Anna who has all sorts of awesome ideas like starting a forum and a book club so be sure to check that out!

:)

PDN Survey

Hey everyone! Checkout this survey that PDN just put out. It only takes 3 minutes to click through a few questions and I found it was really helpful for me to think back on last year about how much time I did spend in my business and how much I got back from that.


Click here and submit your answers.

.

Living in the Clouds

When it's foggy in SB I absolutely love it because the fog comes in below my house! Isn't that crazy! So it feels like my house is floating and it's 12:45 and I was just crashing out but I just had to get a picture of this because it's absolutely incredible! The fog was just coming in so it hadn't covered up all the houses yet.


I shot this with my Mark 3 hand held for 10 seconds using a stellar stabilizing technique ;) 800 ISO at f/2.8 and this is straight out of camera....if you click on it and see it full size you can see stars!

Here's a little crop after some curves adjustments.

OSP is the best!

OSP is such a cool community of photographers and I talked with an editor from Photo District News (PDN) today and he might include us in their May issue because we are one of the biggest (and certainly the nicest) communities of photographers on the net.

Ever since WPPI we've been getting 600-1000 people active all the time which is so freaking cool and I think the reason is because of how welcoming everyone is! Keep it up!

I also ran across a post tonight where a bunch of OSPers were adding their blog links to each others blogs and so I thought I'd add it to mine too. Such a great idea! So checkout some of the awesome photographers on OSP and if you haven't signed up be sure to do that. It's FREE!

:)

A Traveling Wedding Photographer
Croft & Campbell Photography
Felipe Pereira Photography
Stina Plant Photogrpahy
Stevie Photography
Highlands NC wedding photographer
Bruce Erik Steffine
Image Jolie by Jenny
Blue Mountain Photo Works
Jamie Delaine
Washington D.C. Wedding Photographer
Expose the Moment
Candy’s Photography
Rich Smith Photography
Kari Douma Photography
Wisconsin Wedding Photography
DiGiorgio Photography
Milssa Powell Photography
Sandavi Photographers
Lisa Lorraine Photography
Ashley Bartoletti Photography
Lindsay Banderbeek Photography
Patrick Warneka Photography
Kathy Puckett Photography
Chayil Marie Branda

Please help me solve this problem...

Last Sunday I had the chance to go out bowling with some of my dear friends. Now don't get me wrong I love my friends but sometimes it's really hard to go bowling with them because I know they will be bummed when they lose. My intention is definitely not to make them feel like losers but I dunno...it's a challenge...anyway... This was the case (again) on Sunday night. :(

Here is the scores. In this first image you can see Amy Nave's hand blocking the scoreboard. I felt bad taking a picture but I knew that the two or three people that read my blog like to keep up with what's going on in my life.

In this second image you see the score and I know I don't need to point this out but do you notice the CLUTCH strike in the 10th frame for CUPCAKE (that's me) that shoots me past Navel (that's Amy) (...and all the others I might add) ;)

If any of you have a solution for this I'm dying to know. It's hard because like I mentioned before I don't want my friends to feel like losers when we go bowling together because I really enjoy going but I don't know what to do?