God's good graces

My process to becoming a professional photographer is proving to have it's ups and downs. I don't mean that business has been up and down. It has been a consistent incline. (which will not always be the case) but sometimes it is hard when it feels that I put some much into this without seeing direct benefits. I understand the importance of apprenticeship,  and I see that the experience I am gaining from Maura by shooting for her and learning from her, is so incredibly valuable because of its long-lasting affects. It seems that I have a few very good and potentially profitable things in the near future, but I can't quite reach them. "God give me the confidence to constantly strive to follow you"! I do strive to be successful! This plays into many areas of my life. Successful with my relationship with the Lord, my relationship with my wife, friends, and my business!! I have been very blessed lately to have a few shoots of my own, and I have more coming up so these will definitely help with my dilemma. I pray constantly that I am doing what God wants me to be doing. It's funny because when I started with photography, I felt such peace! I was ecstatic to actually be good at something and love it 200%!! Then money comes into play and seems to completely reverse that. Maybe that constant battle is a way of the Lord showing me that I am on the right track. I pray that above all other things, I am doing what is pleasing to the Lord, and that what I am doing reflects Christ in all ways!

wow, sorry for this to be such a strange post. It's just a little different than normal but today has been a little different day than normal. I had two shoots that I was lined up to do but one got rescheduled because of the weather and the other one just fell through. So no photos to put up but I still wanted to be consistent and post monday-wednesday-friday. Even though this week I posted tuesday-thursday-friday, but whatever!

until next time
Ryan

10 fingers... 11 toes?

wow... posting a blog monday-wednesday-friday is tough! How does Dale do it every single day!? I'm starting to feel like it is a job and I should definitely be getting paid for it!

I had the great opportunity to do a family shoot for my friends and their little boy yesterday at Wilson Park. Preston and Leslie McCormack are old friends of mine. They lead a community group that my wife and I used to attend and are now moving to Little Rock so Preston can go to medical school!! Dr. Preston! I wanted them to be able to have some good pictures of their little boy in Fayetteville before they moved, which is Sunday. It was such a chill photo shoot. We just walked around the park for a while talking. I forgot for a while that I was supposed to be snapping pics because I was so caught up with just hanging out!

oh... you may be wondering about the title to the blog post. their boy, Silas has 11 toes?! I guess it wasn't that hard to figure out, ha! Well I should really be getting back to doing my taxes! I know that it is Thursday and this is taking place of Wednesday's blog post, but I will post tomorrow as well. I have a shoot tomorrow with Maura in Eureka Springs! It's gonna be cold.......

Here are some shots from yesterday:
enjoy!

until next time
Ryan

exhausted.

It's not even wedding season yet and I'm already getting little to no sleep because of shoots and editing! Bring it on!! I am so incredibly excited about all these weddings this summer.

Well this weekend was nuts! I had two senior shoots in Tulsa that I did solo and they went great! Molly and Jenna rode with me into Tulsa because after the shoots we picked their two older sisters up from the airport because they all ran the hogeye marathon relay together! so fun!! We ended up staying in Tulsa until about midnight before I drove us all home. I've made the drive to and from Tulsa plenty of times, but running on only 4 hours of sleep and being in the sun all day shooting, is really draining! I drove back and it felt like I was driving for days!!

The next morning we all got up (fairly) early and I did a sister shoot for Molly and her sisters at the farmer's market! It was really nice and they turned out great! Immediately after I had to work one of the booths for the hogeye. I took photos for it and left from there to go straight to Rogers. I met Maura there and we hopped in the car with Iain and Corrie and headed out to Eureka. This shoot was beyond words incredible!!! That couple was so much fun. One of the best things I am learning about being a photographer is the awesome opportunity I have to really gain some new relationships with people. And not just being acquaintances but really becoming friends. It really shows up in the photos if we are all genuine with one another. I especially like doing engagement shoots because of the journey I get to see unfolding before me of their transition to the wedding day. By the time the wedding comes around, I know that we will be more like friends with awesome cameras rather than their photographers! 

Now I have the week to recoup and get some editing done (oh yeah, and do school work). I am happy to announce that I have a family shoot tomorrow with my good friends and their new baby boy!! Just booked that about 10 minutes ago as I was writing this up!!

hope you enjoy the pics.

until next time

Ryan

Ridin' Solo

This marks the beginning! I am currently in Tulsa at the coffee house on cherry street in between shoots. I just finished up with one senior and have some time to kill until my next client gets into town. Not a lot of time to post so here are some shots I took a sec. ago of my lovely wife and sister and the coffee shop where we are hanging out! 

until next time

Ryan

eventful to say the least

Today has been one of the more eventful days I've had in a long time. Molly and I went to Iron Horse Coffee Co. for lunch today. This was my first time going there and it was really good. We had about thirty minutes before I had to take her back to teach so we walked around downtown Rogers. I've only driven through the downtown area, (and dropped Molly off one time to try out for American Idol). I really like it! After I dropped her off I had a couple of hours to kill so I went back to downtown to scout out some places that I would like to do a shoot.

Check these:

I've really been trying to work on my symmetry 

I like this little guy

Crazy thing happened on the way home! We  got rear ended!! I've never been in a wreck in my life. It wasn't too bad. Luckily the woman driving was a State Farm worker so we were able to get everything worked out pretty smoothly. I will be taking our car in tomorrow to get it fixed and pick up our loaner car. I wander what we'll get? Doubt it will be any better than our Volvo...

oops:
















On a milder note, I came home and had an awesome workout with Ben and when I was walking up to my apartment I saw Benny and Angela outside with their boys. They were all dressed up so I ran upstairs to get some quick shots.

Here is what came of it:

love this

until next time
Ryan

Jairek Robbins

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to think of ways to expand my business and to continually press forward. Probably the biggest thing that has helped to push me along is my photo-a-day that I post everyday on facebook. Just simply using my camera everyday has made it to where I almost feel uncomfortable to be without it! Another major role that has played into my success is second shooting for Maura. Through her I am getting the chance to experience what it is really like to be a professional photographer! Starting from this past weekend until the fall I will be shooting at least a few shoots with her every weekend!! Words can't even begin to describe how thrilled and thankful I am for this! Recently I have had some opportunities to use photography is different ways outside of portraits and weddings. A woman contacted me, who owns a stone business, about shooting some houses with her stone it. It is completely out of my element but I am always up for the challenge. I also have a MAJOR opportunity to expand my photography exponentially! But, I will save that for a later post... : ) As I was looking at Becker's website, a photographer based out of Orange County, California, I came across a video he posted by Jairek Robbins. You may know him as Tony Robbins' son, the famous motivational speaker. In the video he goes over four steps to being successful. I normally don't go for stuff like this but he has some really good points.

step 1: know what you want, where you want to go, and where you are in comparison to where you want to be.

step 2: educate yourself!

step 3: find someone to model. Study their blueprint on how they got from point A to point B as fast as possible. Doing this will save the time it takes to learn everything from scratch. "Turn decades into days"!

step 4: TAKE ACTION!

He goes on to talk about making whatever it is you want to succeed in, a habit. Normally it takes about 30 days to create a habit, why not make it 90?! The main way to achieve this though, and not get burnt out on it, is to truly find something that you love. That is the biggest turning point for me. Photography has truly become a passion in my life. And if I can speak in all honesty, this is the first time in my life, something that I am really pursuing because I really love it and not just because it will pay a lot. I have never felt such drive and satisfaction in any job like I do when I have a shoot coming up, or when I just finish one. I think about it constantly and always strive to make it better. Whether that be in the equipment that I will one day get, continuously finding new awesome places to shoot, or even editing. I truly love it! And I truly believe that God has given me such a cool talent and I want to give Him glory by being as creative as possible! I want to give excellence because He is excellence!! Wow... I am truly blessed and I am so excited for life!

here are some shots I did over the weekend:

until next time,
Ryan

blessings through disaster

So a lot has happened since Wednesday. Most notably is that I have been shooting non stop! I second shot for Maura Dawn Photography at a senior shoot yesterday, earlier today, tomorrow morning, and an engagement later tomorrow afternoon!! I am so thankful that Maura has been letting me work with her so much. I really can't wait for all the weddings this summer! Getting on with what that title is all about... Yesterday, 45 min. before the shoot, I was making sure that I was ready. Checking batteries, memory cards, the usual. I snapped a quick shot and all I heard was grinding!! My auto focus was going nuts. I started to freak and switched to manual focus. Nothing! Okay, let's just take the lens off... yeah right! This is when I really started to freak. I went straight to Bedford's Camera and they helped me get the lens off. The guy working on it was pulling on the lens to come off so hard, that the inside of the lens came out!!

Check It:

They exchanged it for a brand new 50mm and I left. About 30 min. into the shoot, my camera was saying that it couldn't read the lens and that I needed to clean the connector pins. Luckily I had a back up camera so I was good. The rest of the shoot went great and after it was over I went to Bedford's again with Maura to tell them what happened. We ended up having to mail my camera out to get fixed which will take around 2 - 4 months! I was really starting to wig out about then. This is where the blessing comes into play. Maura was there with her Nikon D700 (awesome!) and she was getting a new Nikon 24-70mm 2.8 lens. She has a Sigma 24-70 2.8 that she had been shooting with, but this Nikon lens is incredible. She tells me that I can use her D200 with the Sigma 24-70mm 2.8 until my camera gets fixed! Can you believe it? I am so thrilled! Then my friend Brandon said I can keep his 50mm for the time being, since mine is for a Canon. I am truly blessed to have such great friends! Well off to bed - big day tomorrow!!

heres some stuff from the past two days shoots:

very nice

I wasn't sure about that pole at first... it's growing on me

my favorite shot today!

the talented Maura Johnson

until next time
Ryan