New content separation

For those of you who have been by our studio in the Avenues Mall, or saw our new website when we first launched it, you may have noticed some samples of our Glamour work.  The choice to enter into this intimate specialty came from my existing wedding and maternity clients looking for someone they could trust to create beautiful, artistic images of them for their husbands. 

With my Fine Art Photography background, working with the human body as an aesthetic subject is not new.  My graduate thesis exhibition when I completed my Masters degree at Purdue contained a fair amount of nude subjects and I have a print in the permanent collection of the Greater Lafayette Museum of Modern Art that is of two nude subjects.  It’s something that I am comfortable with and through the years I’ve done favors for friends who wanted to create a Valentine’s or Anniversary gift for the special man in their life.

With the relationships I enjoy building with my clients, I am happy to tansform them into a work of art.  Word of mouth and the added exposure from the mall has brought new clients to us as well.  However, Robin and I took council from our families, friends, and colleagues and realized that in the conservative environment here in Jacksonville, not everyone would appreciate the artistic side of our Glamour work.  So we deactivated the Glamour Gallery on the www.DamonPhotography.com website and launched www.SeductionPhotography.com to market them separately.

So for those women of Jacksonville looking for an artistic, tasteful approach to semi-nude or nude photography, Damon Photography is there to turn them into works of art! 

Moving the Blog

I apologize for not having any recent posts.  I’ve been having trouble posting images (a very bad thing for a photography blog!) through this WordPress Blog, so I’m working on switching over to a Blogspot Blog.  I don’t think I’ll be able to move all the posts from this one to the new one without losing the post dates so I’ll probably just link the new one to this one.

It’s been a busy few weeks since I last posted so I’ll have to get some of my new work up for everyone to see!  Thanks for your patience as I make the transition!

Damon

A new life!

It’s not as often as I would like, but I was again honored to be able to witness (with my camera) the birth of a healthy baby girl!  She was born last night at 9:05 pm of a wonderful couple that invited me to be there after we did their maternity session last weekend.  The mom pushed for hours and finally the Doctor had to use a suction cup to help the baby girl make it the last little bit.  She was healthy and beautiful and I can’t wait to do their newborn session this weekend!  Without knowing how much the couple is willing to let me use on the website, I only have these two shots to share right now.

Here’s the baby girl meeting her Dad for the first time.

And here she is weighing in at a healthy 5 pounds and 12.8 ounces.

Busy Weekend!

Wow, it’s been a busy weekend!  On Saturday we shot three maternity clients, and also had our friend Bruce from First Sight Pictures in doing video of one session and taping testimonials from one of my longest clients.  Then on Sunday we held our second Bridal Open House and had several wonderful couples come by to look through our albums and discuss our services – some even took advantage of our booking special and now we have a wedding as far out as April of 2009 on the calendar now!

One of my favorite things about our specialties of weddings, maternity and newborn photography is that we get to become part of our client’s lives’ most important moments.  My clients often become friends and we create relationships that last for years!  One great example is a wonderful couple named Kayela & Jake.  They were referred to me by another bride of mine that had worked with Kayela.  They were planning their wedding and looking for a photographer.  I started by doing their engagement session back in 2005 , then they had a beautiful beach wedding on New Years Eve ; Kayela practically got pregnant on the wedding night because late summer of 2006 I was privileged to do their maternity photos and was honored to be able to capture the delivery of their son, Hayden .  Ofcourse we did the newborn session  and we made this birth announcement for them .  And then Kayela wanted to do a gift for Jake so once she was back in shape (it didn’t take her too long), we did a glamour session.  Last year Hayden turned one and Kayela and Jake brought the little man in and we had a blast doing pictures to commemorate is first birthday . 

So with our new website we are going to be incorporating some video content with the help of Bruce from First Sight Pictures (possibly the best videographer I’ve ever seen).  He came in on Saturday and taped Kayela, Jake and Hayden doing a video testimonial for us.  I haven’t seen the footage yet and I need to get Bruce some images to put into the trailer he’ll create for us, so look for it in the near future.  He also taped me in action shooting a maternity session so that clients interested in that specialty will be able to see how we work to create those beautiful images.

Lots going on at Damon Photography so keep checking back to see what’s new.

New Website Launched!

www.DamonPhotography.com  has it’s new look!  Preliminary set up has been completed and so we pulled the switch to get the new site online.  The beauty of this site is it’s ease of being updated so we’ll be able to keep the images fresh.  We also love the music that we’re able to play throughout the various parts of the site.  We welcome any feedback or constructive criticism that will allow us to tweak it and continue our goal to stand out in Northeast Florida. 

Thank you to my beautiful wife Robin (the brains of this operation) who pushed me into making the change.  It was hard for me to fix something that wasn’t necessarily broken.  But now that we have it up, I’m very very happy with it!  I hope all of you enjoy it as well!

Bridal Open House with Free Upgrades!

After a successful Bridal Open House following the January Show at the World Golf Village, we are again inviting brides to our Avenues Mall location.  At the end of February, we did our second (and last) Bridal Show of the Spring season at the University of North Florida.  So this month on Sunday the 16th, we’re offering couples the chance to win door prizes and get a free upgrade on any wedding package they book that day.  Here’s the link to the Email we sent out about it:

Bridal Open House at Damon Photography

This is also the first use of our new Email Marketing program with Marathon Press.  We’re very happy with the professional presentation and the adherence to anti-spam laws.  There is an easy one-click to unsubscribe, but it also allows us to know how many of our email are being read and how many people click through to view our website.  It’s great to have such immediate feedback and I’ll bet it’ll be more effective than the mailing campaigns we’ve had in the past.  Damon Photography is finally getting up to speed with the internet-age!

New Website in process

Due to the encouragement of my beautiful wife, Robin (“The brains of this operation”), we’ve begun to re-do our website.  Not that there was anything wrong with our website – in fact, we got a lot of positive responses from it and a great many of our clients found us online and it was our website that helped them choose to use our services.  The challenge was that when we wanted to update images in the galleries with more current work, it was a cumbersome enough process that I would drag my feet on doing it.  Robin, who designs our albums, has seen how much better my work has gotten over the years and she hated seeing the old stuff on the web when she knew I had better, newer images to display.

 So we’ve chosen to work with a new design and hosting company (not that we ever had any problems with our old design/host companies), due primarily to some amazing features that I’ve never seen before.  BluDomain will be our new host and their design is amazing!  Images will be full frame and galleries will play as a slide show automatically with their own music for each specialty.  Our only concern is how image heavy the site is because it may be difficult for potential clients to view unless they have a decent internet connection.  We’ve tried it with both a 3.0Mbps and 1.5Mbps service and it seemed to work fine.  There were occasional delays in loading, but once the first image comes up, you don’t really notice how long it takes for the next one to come up.

 The biggest advantage is how user-friendly the interface is with setting the site up!  Changing images is a breeze so I won’t have any more excuses not to get my latest-greatest images online right away.  We’re even partnering with an amazing videographer named Bruce with First Sight Pictures to create some video content for the site that will amaze you!  Look for that closer to the end of the summer.

Here’s a screen shot of the Splash page that will allow you to go to the main site or this blog.  I could add other links but right now I’m trying to keep it simple so we can get it launched as soon as possible.  Luckily I’m caught up with editing so I have the time to focus on getting this up and running.

Look for it soon!

Fun with Glamour

“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” – anonymous

 I’m sure that quote has an author, I just don’t know who it is.  It’s an amazing thing to have a career that you love and that people respond to enough to keep you in business!  This is some experimentation and playing that a recent client allowed me to do.  It was a glamour session but she trusted me when I said, “would you be interested in letting me try something new?” 

I had done this technique a couple times with Maternity clients recently and loved the results and I wanted to see what I could do with a subject that had more range of motion and balance.  When I asked this client if she ever danced (ballet) she said it had been a while but I think the images show that she still has that sense of grace and elegance! 

I had been inspired by a photographer whose work I found on www.Flickr.com named Alberich Matthews, but unfortunately I don’t actually have a black pool to photograph in so Photoshop became my underwater set.  Some photographer friends also showed me the work of Howard Schatz who does amazing underwater work as well.  Once I saw his book, “H2O” I went right home and ordered it. 

Here’s my first attempt with a maternity client that worked out so well:

I love my clients for allowing me to make art for a living!

Jacksonville Business Journal

Here’s a heads up to everyone that there’s supposed to be a feature article about me and Damon Photography in the February 29th issue of the Jacksonville Business Journal.  After winning Photographer of the Year and opening the new Studio in the Avenues Mall, we had a press release sent out and the JBJ came out to interview me.  I was a bit nervous and am not the bragging type, so most of the conversation I directed towards my involvement with Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.  For those of you who aren’t aware of the organization, it’s a 503c Non-profit started by Sandy Puc and Cheryl Haggard in Colorado when Cheryl’s son Maddox was to be taken off life support shortly after his birth and they had Sandy come do portraits of him before and after he passed.  It was such an important part of the healing process to have those images that they started the organization to give the parents of infants that will never come home from the hospital, some beautiful images that they can cherish after the child is gone. 

 As NILMDTS was being formed, my wife Robin and I were going through a similar experience when our son, Aidan, was born still at 33 weeks in our pregnancy.  I was encouraged to take pictures even though I couldn’t imagine why I would want to remember such a painful experience.  Although losing our son was the most difficult thing we could ever face, not having those images to remember him would have been even more devastating.  I was introduced to NILMDTS through the Florida Professional Photographers and became one of the photographers that helped bring the service to Jacksonville. 

Most people know that I am passionate about Maternity and Newborn Photography, but few know the reason why I love that specialty of ours so much.  I know the worst that can happen and I truly appreciate the Miracle of Creation that too many take for granted.  Every one of my maternity clients is special to me because they see the value in capturing this amazing moment in their lives!  I love photographing weddings because it’s such a wonderful event about two people in love (I know, I’m a romantic sap), but when those two people bring another life into the world to raise and love…that is Divine in every sense of the word.

So hopefully the article in the Jacksonville Business Journal will reflect well on Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep and recognize that every life is precious, even the one’s that only shine for a short time.

Damon Photography has a Blog!

After a bit of foot-dragging, I finally caved in to the pull of weblogging (if that’s a word?).  Robin (my wife and the brains of this opperation) was pushing us to revamp all our marketing material from print to electronic media.  So now Damon Photography (Robin and I – mostly Robin) will be able to keep our loyal clients (and soon to be loyal clients) up to date on some of the noteworthy activities that we get to experience.  I’m not sure who exactly will read this thing, but I’m told blogs are addictive so we’ll see how this develops!