lotsa email

I just wanted you guys to know that I really am trying. I sent 52 emails today but I still have 134 more to send out dating back to June 8th. Whoa.

..and I just found an email from a bride wanting me to shoot her wedding next year but her email was on August 1st so I don't think I'm gonna get that job.

Of Course!

A very special birthday wish to Mr. Andrew Barlow! I think I heard he was invited to be the next Bachelor but I'm not sure...

...and secondly a big congratulations to Ms. Jessica Claire who is by far the most amazing photographer out there and if I had my other computer I would find the email I sent to her a long long time ago telling her she was the best I'd ever seen and she was gonna shoot my wedding...and Shyla just sent me the write-up on her and to my surprise they talked about me a little bit but am I ever glad I wasn't in the competition because I hate losing and there is no question that Jess is the best so next time let's not waste anybody's time with the whole voting thing. Jess - I've told you many times - You ROCK!



Thanks to both of my fans who wrote in and asked why I wasn't included.

:)

Seattle is Cool

So I really like Seattle and I don't like it just because Gary Fong likes it. I've only been able to walk around a little bit today but this place is sweet! Seems like a great mixture of old and modern.

First of all Fong and Missy are so nice to let me stay at their sweet pad which is insanely awesome and I love it because it has both city views and water views. I'm super excited to see them tomorrow.
I also like the tall buildings because Santa Barbara doesn't really have any tall buildings and so I was walking around in Chicago and now here just looking up wondering what's in all of them...and then I saw this really different looking parking structure.




I almost forgot this picture which I really like. I took all these with my camera phone when I was walking around today. :)

Anyways, I have like 10,000 emails to respond to and I seriously love hearing from everyone and I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to so many of you. Email has really bogged me down lately and I don't want anyone to feel like I'm being a punk and not writing back. I really want to but when a lot come in like after the tour and after PartnerCon I sometimes feel overwhelmed so thank you for writing and for all the encouragement and questions.






It's so exciting to see so many of you taking steps towards more freedom in your lives and working hard to make continual progress towards your purpose! Keep rocking and I'll try and get back to all of you.



:) My best,
DJ

Leaving on a jet plane

Leaving on a jet plane, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

...don't know when I'll be back again. Haha...I like that song.



It's kind of a sad day though because for the past couple of months I've been in Chicago every couple of weeks and so I've never had to leave without knowing when I'd be coming back but right now I'm leaving and I don't have another trip planned yet so it was kinda sad. The Barlows always take such good care of me and teach me so much and it's always a blessing to be around them!



Right now I'm off to Seattle and I can't believe I made the flight. We left the Barlows 1 hour and 10 minutes before takeoff and arrived at the airport after boarding had started so I was super thankful for the loyalty programs because I didn't have to wait in lines at all and I even took tme to be nice and talk to the TSA guy about my camera. He was really interested in the image stabilizer and I'm trying to make sure that even when I'm rushed I take time to be nice.



Gotta fly now.



Bye!

DJ

I must say...

I am quite proud of the very accurate prediction that I made about the sweet girl who found my phone last week. So here is me and my new friend Jen. :) and as soon as BB is fully charged back to health I'll make another post because I know all of you have been worried.

:)

Chicago Wedding!

Incredible! I've been able to meet so many wonderful families through my career as a wedding photographer and the two families from last weekend rank at the very top! I was honored to be involved in Talia and Anthony's wedding and have the opportunity to spend time with their wonderful families! They had a gorgeous wedding downtown at the Four Seasons and Brad Person came out from Minnesota to shoot with me and we had a blast! I pulled in the singer from the band for this shot because a shot of just me and Brad wouldn't cut it. :)



and of course here's the slideshow! Yea!




:) Enjoy!
DJ

BB is safe

I am so happy! A girl named Jen found it and called me and Amy and I think some other people as well and this is just so amazing! I really like my Blackberry. It's the first phone that I've had that I've actually really liked and so I was sad today...until I heard that Jen had found it. She left me a message and she sounds cute too! Bonus! :)

Goodbye BB

Minutes after sending off this last post I paid the cab and my poor phone slipped outta my pocket :( I was in a hurry so didn't bother with a receipt and my phone was on silent mode because I was at the rehearsal so I think she's a gonner...

Goodbye by dear Blackberry. I will miss you.

Looks like Monday is back to the T-mobile store.

My baby is healthy

My baby is healthy, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

So do you remember how worried I was about my Mark II after I thought I had broken her again...well I think she had just gotten a bit shy from all the attention she got at the canon factory because when I went to ship her off again she worked! Yea! So she's back and I just finished shooting a rehearsal out here in Chicago and it looks to be an incredible wedding tomorrow!



:)

Friends and business

When my friend Shyla posted this quote on her blog it really stuck with me...

"All things being equal, people will do business with a friend; all things
being unequal, people will still do business with a friend."

...and I just listened to an interview with Bill Gates and the interviewer asked him to give advice to people just getting into business and he said that he thought his business became successful because he hired his friends and they had fun and really believed in what they were doing.

I think working with friends is so important because when you're in business with your friends you can't just bail when things get rough and so it forces you to do the thing that most people fail to do in business and that's persevere! It's been proven over and over again that ideas aren't really worth anything - it's the "aggresive implementation of those ideas" that makes ideas succeed.

I also think this is why the photographers who surround themselves in communities ( like OSP :) end up making big strides really fast. When you put yourself out there and tell people who you are what you want to accomplish those people will become your friends and help you reach those goals and get your through the tough times.

:)

DJ workout

I did 45 minutes in the weight room tonight...oh yea! ...and I took my book down there and read while I was on the bike b/c I'd hate for you to think that I was just like some of those other really big strong muscle guys. That picture isn't really me (on the bike... or in the spa) but I don't like posting without pictures.

:)

Still at home

Still at home, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

After having a good two weeks at home in California I'm back to Chicago (my second home) for a big wedding this weekend and then I'm headed straight to Seattle for another wedding out there next weekend. I really want to shoot a wedding in every state before I retire.



Also Pictage just asked me to do another webinar on the 28th because I guess the first one filled up within a few minutes so we're gonna do another one earlier in the day so if you get the email sign up fast because I guess they can only have 150 people in each one. It's gonna be weird to give a presentation without being able to see the audience!



Lunch time!

DJ

BarlowGirl

I just finished reading BarlowGirl's new book "BarlowGirl - More than Music" and it was fantastic! I'm sure they wrote it for their target market of high school age girls which means it is PERFECT for me! I read it in one day it was so good.

These girls are such an inspiration and it's fun to follow their life and see how God is using them to change a generation of young people who are so overwhelmed with conflicting messages.

The book gave me a glimpse into their life and their struggles and the last time I was out in Chicago I was talking with Sarah Barlow about the pressures they feel to be perfect. They talked about this in their book and I think it's one of the worst traps we fall into and it's funny because the harder we strive to be perfect and present ourselves that way the less we'll be able to connect with anybody and the less effective we'll be in getting our message across.

We connect with people through our mistakes and through our faults and I didn't think of this until right now but that's probably the reason I connect with so many people! :) Haha! Wow!

Anyway, thanks Sarah for the great CD and book and congratulations on shooting your first album cover! It's great!



...also...there's something spooky about someone the BG's mention in their book b/c it's actually someone I'm working with right now! The world really is small! I'll post more tomorrow b/c now I gotta go pack!

Word-of-Mouth

In the past year I think I've enjoyed studying Word-of-Mouth marketing more than anything else because I think understanding and implementing it is one of the key ways we can create more freedom in our lives. Most people spend as much time, or more, pursuing work as they do handling current work and so by eliminating the need to pursue work you could potentially free up your schedule by 50% or more!

I have never looked for work or really thought about how to get it because I got lucky and implemented a Word-of-Mouth and "Word-of-Mouse" marketing system from the beginning and have continued to encourage and enable people to have conversations about me through the use of Showit slideshows and it's no wonder that Showit has absolutely exploded. Just in the past 3 days we've had 77 orders and I get tons of emails like this from people who's lives and business have been changed by the Showit apps...this one came into our support system from Charles Ford.



and the reason this stuff works is because the world of marketing our business is changing fast! So if you're still wasting money on advertising and hoping it'll get you more work I'm afraid you're going down the wrong road.

Checkout these latest stats from the Word-of-Mouth-Marketing-Association (WOMMA)

Pearl post!

Brett's "Before" picture!

Pearl post!, originally uploaded by davidjay13.

I'm downtown right now testing out all the new features of my phone! The camera is really good and hopefully a picture will show up in the post automatically. Dane taught me how to do this.



:)

Rad toys!

I had a Blackberry 7105 for awhile and loved it and then tried the MDA and wasn't happy with it so then went back to the 7105 and then the Pearl came out and I'm super stoked on it so far...but JT was right in that it won't sync with Mac so I had to bust out my old PC and sync my old phone with it and then sync my new one with it so I could see who was calling...and I just noticed that a lot of my friends called today but I didn't know it was you so I didn't answer but now I know.

...and anyway this week is one of those "DJ goes in the cave" sorta weeks because for the past couple of months I've done a lot of talking and so I'm just gonna shutup for a while. I don't really like to talk that much anyway but it's fun to listen and ya learn way more when you listen anyway.

I'm gonna be leaving on Friday for another 10 days or so. I have a wedding in Chicago and then in Seattle so it's gonna be fun to fly again - NOT! (I'm scared of flying if you didn't know) and I'm so glad that Verizon finally came out with the new express cards becasue I paid a fortune for internet at the hotels on the tour and now I don't have to do that anymore! Sweet!

I've been enjoying going to bed early too. I really don't have much to do because all I'm doing now is shooting weddings every weekend. I read a lot today and walked around downtown some and I'm glad I have a lot of good books to read right now.

I'll post again tomorrow.

:)
DJ

Telling secrets

I suck at keeping secrets so I'm gonna tell you something that nobody really knows...tomorrow all the T-Mobile stores are gonna start selling the new Blackberry Pearl. I heard about the Pearl by reading this article in Business Week and I read it on this really cool program that my buddy Nathan Holritz told me about called Zinio Reader and you can just subcribe and get Magazines on your computer and then you can search them and organize them much better. It's really cool...and then tonight I went into a T-mobile store with my Ninja Mask on and demanded they tell me when they're coming out...and it's tomorrow and they already have them in stores! I can't wait! Camera! Music! and a memory slot on a Blackberry! Woohoo!

I just get Business Week and the Harvard Business Review right now because I think books are better things to read but every once in awhile it's good to take in some "Fast Food Knowledge" as Tim Sanders calls it. :) He rocks!

Brooks downtown Shoot

I can't even begin to express how much I was blessed by the great photographers in the workshop this past weekend. I really couldn't have imagined a more wonderful group. I was coming off of being on road for about 3 months straight so their energy got me through the weekend.

Also, I was really encouraged by how many of you have already started blogging and have posted here! That's so awesome!

Here are some more pics from the night "Mike Colon Style" engagement shoot! It was so fun and everyone got killer pics!

I was sporting my new cool Paul Frank shirt from Justin and Amelia Lyon! :) I love it!







Notice once security showed up I just put my camera down and acted innocent...





Then once they found out I was responsible I just played dumb (it was easy)

New Friends!

This crew at Brooks is awesome!

We're taking a break so I wanted to post a quick picture of us! We've been having a blast and managed to get through everything in two days! ...and we even got some fun pics of JD and Jasmine last night during our night shoot!

JD and Jasmine

Who else thinks JD and Jasmine are the most amazing people in the world?

PartnerCon Pics!

Kristin Renee just sent me these pics so I had to post them!!! SOOOO FUN!!! Now I really miss you guys! Also, be sure to read Mike Colon's blog! He's such a stud! ok...gotta get back to preparing for tomorrow! Yikes!

What an amazing experience the 2nd Annual PartnerCon was and what a treat it was to get to meet so many of you! I always get a little sad after things like this are over because so many of my friends live in different states and sometimes the only times during the year that I get to see them is at the conferences so I'm glad that I've been super busy today otherwise I think I would've had to think about how much I miss everyone.

I really think it's incredible that Pictage puts these things on and has developed such a wonderful community of photographers - they are true lovecats.

I'm gonna be awol the next couple of days because I have a workshop at Brooks tomorrow and so I've been preparing like mad today and it's gonna be a lot of fun! We're going through a bunch of new "permission based" marketing stuff tomorrow and then we're gonna do a night shoot downtown SB! Sunday will be a complete hashing through of setting up a studio for freedom through automation and outsourcing.

So I'll try and post tomorrow night but probably not till Sunday.

:)
DJ

OSP PartnerCon Party!

I can't even begin to describe how incredible it was to see everyone tonight. Wow. I love you guys so much...we need to do this way more often!

Sleep well everyone!
DJ

Back to Blackberry

I really love simplicity. It seems like our lives are full of so much stuff we don't need and that became really evident in my replacement MDA phone. It had tons of cool features (some of which I liked) but it had way to much stuff that I didn't need so I took it back and got another blackberry. I was reading in Business Week this month about a cool new Blackberry "Pearl" coming with a camera which I'd really like on my phone but all the other jazz just slows it down I think. Nathan Holritz showed me this cool new service for reading magazines called Zinio Reader where you can just order magazines and get them on your computer and then you can search them for keywords and stuff which is way cool. I don't suggest peope read a lot of magazines "Fast Food Knowledge" but there are a few good ones out there.

oh yea...BTW....for the last month I didn't have any numbers in my phone so if you sent me a text or called or something I might not have responded because I didn't know who it was or didn't have the number but I'm syncing my new blackberry right now so that will be cool to know who is writing and calling. :)

Ok!!! PARTNERCON IS HERE!!!! WOOOHOOO! See ya'll tonight!!!

Slideshow! Yea!

Ok so here's a quick slideshow from last weekend! What an incredible day and I couldn't have imagined it going better!

CLICK HERE! for the slideshow!

Life is too short...

Sometimes people ask me if I only shoot gorgeous brides and my answer is "of course."

I seriously have thought every one of my brides was beautiful but today folks - wow! I'll post a slideshow tomorrow but here are a few pics of my buddy Peter's bride! I'm not claiming to have a "type" but if I did...

BTW - all these shots were taken before my Mark II went down again (I think she's just getting old) :(

Cool shot!

Kristin Renee has been helping me out this summer because I knew I'd be outta town a lot and I always think it's funny because she always wants to come and shoot weddings on the weekends even though she's been working all week so I decided to peek back in to the last wedding we shot together and this was the first shot of hers I clicked on and wow! I love it! I dunno why she wants to shoot with me b/c this is way better than any shot I got that day...and it's even cooler because she was actually in shooting the cocktail hour when she noticed this composition.



Great job Kristin! Thanks for all you do for me and sorry I don't talk much when you're here and I always leave and go shopping...and speaking of shopping - I got the coolest stuff this weekend at Z Gallery. I got this pot thing for my bedroom and it took me about 30 minutes to figure out what kind of branches to put in it but I think these work



...and then I also got this little droor thing to set my keys and wallet on when I come inside because if I don't put them in the same spot I'll lose them...and I also got a blanket rack but I didn't take a picture of it.

Cool

So the last couple of days I haven't had much to do because Kristin has been jamming out all the weddings. I think she got 5 up in the last week and she only works for 5 hours a day. The workflow is so fast - I love it...and so today I was surfing the web and I saw one of my pics on the front of Rebecca St. James site! That's so cool!

I guess somehow it got passed to them from a Showit Web show and they stuck it up there. Rebecca St. James is the princess of Christian music and I think one of the reasons she's so successful is because she's always doing somethng new and so is her webite! Everytime I log on there is new info on the front page and it makes me want to go back.

Anyway, just thought that should be something for us all to think about as we develop our next generation of websites.

:)
DJ

Rohit Chander

This morning FOUR of my good friends forwarded this email from this person Rohit Chander - rohitstudios@gmail.com - who is asking everyone for a password to Showit Web. I seriously laughed because of how bold this joker is...honestly - talk about no shame. I'm not super big on security but a few months ago Todd implemented a new registration system that tells us who registered the application and how many times it's been registered so it's pretty simple to see who is sharing their codes.

What's even funnier is that now when somebody googles the name Rohit Chander or Rohitstudios.com this post will come up and they'll see it and read about it.