Reinvention

Reinvention implies a prior career or course of life and a subsequent change.

Most people who meet me today don't know that beginning in 1998, I worked full-time as a computer software developer programming primarily in C++. Over the past ten or so years, I've been employed by five different companies where I've written and tested code for libraries, entertainment, defense, communications, trading firms, and other industries.

About two years ago, I picked up our digital camera and decided I would try to take pictures for my wife's cupcake blog. If you go back far enough in her blog's archives, you can see some of my first attempts mingled with her own much better cupcake photos; I had a lot to learn.

So I did.

I read about photography, composition, and exposure, and applied both my technical skills and artistic vision to this new hobby. I practiced. I practiced more. I took pictures of all manner of things to learn everything I possibly could.

Some good fortune hit me in March, 2008 - I was at the right place at the right time with the right equipment. The Sauce Magazine team won a trivia night at a benefit for Slow Food St. Louis and I took their table's picture. They published a few of my photos from the event, and I met with Sauce and started shooting regularly for the magazine shortly after that.

Photography was still a hobby at this point, though I started to make a little money doing it. I struggled with some questions: Is it still a hobby if you incorporate? Can you call yourself a professional once you're regularly published?

I brought my camera gear to weddings to take pictures - trying as hard as I could to not interfere with the photographers hired to shoot the event. I was flattered when brides would tell me that they liked some of my pictures better than their hired help's work.

There was no reason I couldn't do this on the side, right? Lunch breaks and weekends and any spare time quickly became full with taking and editing photos.

Inquiries began to come in: Could I shoot families? What about children? How about an engagement session, wedding, or a Bar Mitzvah? Could I go to a farm and take pictures of pigs? Yes!

Photography started looking like a nice backup plan, a successful side business, even, and maybe one day in the future I might be able to switch from full-time coding for a living to part-time.

I didn't anticipate the mental toll that resulted from juggling my side business of photography with the day job in computers. I didn't want to say no to photography assignments, but every waking moment was spent either programming, taking and editing photos, being stressed about my situation, or being stressed about being stressed. This wasn't fair to my wife, family, friends, or myself. I wanted to talk to my employer about cutting back my hours to accommodate the photography business, but they had just asked employees to give just a little more of themselves and to remain busy working on billable projects if at all possible. I tried to keep it all together as best I could, but I was unraveling internally.

Citing bad economic conditions (I hadn't been assigned to any long-term customer projects in a while), I was told that I would have two paid weeks left at my job of five years. Just like that, my employment there would end. They were kind enough to offer me the use of their equipment and facilities for a while to look for work elsewhere or to polish and submit my resume to their sister consulting company where I could be placed.

While that might have yielded a great programming job, I felt that it was time for a change. I chose to view what happened as a great opportunity rather than an enormous loss.

On April 6, 2009, with the support of my fantastic wife, I took the plunge and became a full-time photographer.

Shortly after that, a reporter from our local NBC affiliate, KSDK, reached out on Twitter to locate people who had reinvented themselves. I thought I fit the bill, so I tweeted Kasey back. Within a few days, Kasey came and took footage of me for the story she was working on.

Here's Kasey's story about reinvention. You can read the transcript as well as watch the video from that link.

Moonrise Hotel St. Louis: Grand Opening

The Moonrise Hotel in St. Louis is a new 125 room boutique hotel built by Joe Edwards in The Loop, next to The Pageant. I took photos of their grand opening (for their marketing firm, Twist), which involved hotel management, Alderwoman Lyda Krewson, and of course Joe Edwards.

This fantastic old Buick was parked right outside of the hotel entrance for the grand opening:

While I did capture photos of everybody speaking, I think Joe stole the show with his outfit:

Joe also christened the hotel by breaking a bottle of Segura Viudas Brut Reserva against a wall. Shards of glass flew everywhere, scratched his head (causing it to start bleeding), and ended up collecting on top of my camera bag. Here are two shots from two different cameras taken at nearly the same instant (a lucky coincidence!):

Despite his cut and bleeding forehead, Joe went on and introduced the hotel to the community:

The hotel is going to be a huge boon to the East Loop, and I'm sure it will be a fantastic success. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Corporate Head Shots and Fun at EdExperts, St. Louis

We recently went to EdExperts to take some corporate head shots of the staff. In addition to the formal portraits, we also had staff members do something fun, different, or bizarre (of course, this was at the client's request).

As far as equipment is concerned, we brought a few Canon Speedlite 580EX II flash units to light the space and used the available walls in the office as backdrops. I shot with one lens, my Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens. That's it.

Here are a couple of the many formal portraits we took. The top photo is of Michael, the CEO, who got extra billing during the shoot - complete with wardrobe change - and thus is featured prominently throughout this post:

We wandered around the office and caught people striking poses at their desks:

We encouraged people to try out different expressions and poses:

Others played with their pets:

And others jumped or attempted to do jazz hands:

Thanks to EdExperts for having us out - we had a great time!

Lumen St. Louis: A Private Event Space

Lumen is a private event space on Locust in downtown St. Louis, occupying the front space of the Packard Lofts building (and dangerously close to an outstanding beer at The Schlafly Tap Room, for those of you looking for a well-known brewpub landmark). The building used to be a Packard automobile dealership and showroom, and the Lumen portion has been completely gutted and designed by Minaret Group (of Mike Shannon's) and Lounge Concepts to be an amazing, open space for events. It does not disappoint.

Lumen's a chameleon of sorts; with St. Louis' only LED lighting system of its kind, renters can fully customize the colors inside. When I went to shoot the space, it was set up for a wedding and was wearing purple.

Lumen gave me a good chance to test out my new (to me) Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens (Canon EF mount). I couldn't have timed this photoshoot better, though, as I got this lens about two hours before I had to show up at Lumen. I'd love to hear what you think of the wide-angle goodness (as well as my timing!).

Without further ado, I present Lumen, ready to party: