Studio Stuff | Cowbelly Pet Photography Seattle Blog

Category Archives: Studio Stuff

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Happenings in and around the Cowbelly studio at 116 Elliott Ave. W. in the beautiful city of Seattle.

Great office space available at fantastic Seattle photography studio

August 10, 2009 – 3:35 pm

As I mentioned in my previous post, I moved out of my beautiful office space at Studio 116 on Elliott and it is now available for the next creative person/photographer to rent!

The deets:

Office available in beautiful commercial photography studio to share 5,600 sq.ft. total. Looking for either a designer or photographer to share.

The cost/mo. would depend on how much you would need to use the studio/cyc wall for photography. From $700 to $1125/month. Office is 11X23. The office is the best in the studio- on the 2nd floor with a full unobstructed view of the studio below through sliding horizontal ‘french doors’. It has a peekabook view of waterfront park and has been freshly painted in a soothing white. It’s in move-in condition and has all of the grounded outlets you could ever need.

The studio is conveniently located just several blocks from downtown and just 2 blocks from Puget Sound & the Sculpture Park, directly across the street from the Seattle PI building and nextdoor to Espresso Elegance, a great neighborhood espresso shop with yummy drinks, sandwiches and noshes.

The studio has 20′ wood beamed ceilings and is well laid out, with a private dressing room, two bathrooms, a full kitchen with full fridge, small client meeting room, and long hallway flanked with large framed photographs.

• 32 ‘ cyc wall • 28′ flat wall • 2 bathrooms • dressing room • conference room •

• equipment storage • kitchen • can drive into studio to unload • shop • DSL •

• Go to: www.studio116.us ( to see online )

• Call Rocky at 206-325-2500

After being there for over a year, I can attest to this being arguably the best photography studio in the city. The guys who work and shoot there are the nicest bunch (and extremely talented and experienced), and the location couldn’t be better. The space is large and bright and airy and I will miss it deeply!

Please call Rocky for more information and/or to see the office and studio. I hope they find someone really awesome- the space deserves it!

Pics (don’t hate- some of these were taken at 1600 ISO with shaky hands with my little P&S)

the office:

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comes with a cool old metal desk and big cupboard we recently purchased off craigslist

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the view down to the studio (and the park beyond)

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If you know someone you think might be interested, please forward this post to them! Thank you

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Also posted in miscellaneous randomness | Tagged for rent, office, Studio, studio 116 | Comments (3)

an update

August 10, 2009 – 2:36 pm

SO sorry I haven’t blogged in 11 days! I know I haven’t been blogging much the past few months (life has been busy), but for the past 2 weeks, life has been VERY busy!

As those of you who follow me on twitter already know, I moved out of my office space at Studio 116. I also moved my home as well. Both on the hottest day of the year (103 degrees- fun!). I moved both my home and office into a super duper amazing house (my twitter friends already know all about it- it’s phenomenal). It’s up the hill from where I used to live, so I get to go to the same bank, keep my same mailbox, shop at the same stores, go to the same parks. It’s essentially the same life only upgraded, way upgraded.

The only way I could afford the house was if I gave up my lovely office space at the lovely Studio 116. I’m paying about the same now in combined personal + biz rent as I was before, but am really enjoying having a home office again. In fact, it’s downright awesome. I worried I wouldn’t be able to solve the problems that naturally arose from giving up a studio but it has been no problem. I’m super happy!

Happy. But exhausted.

Anyone who has done a major move knows how stressful and tiring it can be (yes, those are both understatements, lol). This was compounded by the fact that I packed, moved and unpacked during the hottest week ever on record in the PNW.

It was, in one word- brutal. I did have one little mini meltdown the Monday after I moved (Christina was there and can attest to my tears, lol), am still trying to recover physically, and am only about 65% of the way through organizing my new office. I have sooo much to do to finish organizing the office. But I love it because it has a huge walk-in closet with a custom built-in system, almost like having another room for all of my business stuff that has accumulated over the years. The office itself is in a converted bedroom that has been used previously as an office. It has full cable and all of the grounded electrical outlets a photographer could need and even a keyed lock on the door. It’s awesome. It has a pretty view out of two windows, and a nice breeze blows through during the day. I love it.

Having an office in a photography studio has *great* advantages, and I will dearly miss my studiomates at Studio 116 (and Fergie will too!), but I found that I was working from home on my laptop at least 85% of the time. And now that Christina and I can work together regularly, I think we will both be more efficient.

Now I have gotta get my act in gear and try and catch up on the overwhelming pile of emails and client work and prepare to go to Boston and Chicago in less than 2 weeks. I have a massive amount of work to do and just want to say how grateful I am to all of those who consulted me when it came to my decision to move my office home, who congratulated me on the house, and who have been patient with me during this process.

Now I’m off to take the dog to the park, then come back home to work!

Hope everyone is having a great Monday and I’ll try not to be so MIA from here on out. I have new photos to post tomorrow!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Also posted in Behind-the-Scenes, miscellaneous randomness | Tagged Behind-the-Scenes, cowbelly's new office, moving | Comments (4)

we like to have fun

May 29, 2009 – 10:00 pm

I have to preface this post by once again reminding everyone that I am *not* a studio photographer. Yes, I have my office in a studio, and I have done some practicing, but every shoot I have done in the studio thus far has been little more than an experiment.

I never picture myself being a studio photographer, and I pretty much suck at taking pictures with studio lighting, but from time to time I like to have fun. Natural light only, anything goes, no planning involved.

And with that said I bring you mine and my friend Victoria’s version of what studio photography *should* be. Can you tell we don’t take ourselves very seriously?
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by the way, that’s me above. and seymour. I love him. A lot.

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And that’s Victoria. The lucky caretaker of Charlie and Seymour, the puggie pies you guys know from this blog since way back. I LOVE that they are both laughing in the shot on the lower left!!

We cracked up when we discovered that we could synch our head tilts with Seymour’s. I have many outtakes where we are each just doubled over laughing. For each of us taking pictures, we had to stop many times to laugh it out before taking the next shot. Ahhh, Seymour is awesome.

Pugs are so gosh darn easy to get the head tilt from. Any pet photographer who hasn’t gotten a head tilt out of a pug they have photographed should be ashamed of themselves. ASHAMED I tell ya!

Anyway, it was time for some levity on this blog so I hope you enjoyed it!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Also posted in Pugs!, seattle dog photography | Tagged jamie, natural light studio photography, self-portrait, seymour, Studio, victoria | Comments (7)

the future’s so bright…

May 4, 2009 – 5:55 pm

… I gotta wear shades.

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these sunglasses were sent to me as a suprise from an Amazon.com company I bought several pairs of aviators from. I must have had my business name attached to my mailing address, because when I opened the box and pulled the shades out, there at the bottom sat this tiny little matching pair of aviators with a little handwritten note attached that said “I can see a pet wearing these”. I was so touched. And knew this would be a hilarious shoot if I was able to pull it off. Fergie was a champ and she had me busting my gut the entire time.

In similarly funny news, I also photographed Fergie’s buddies Charlie and Seymour, the cutie-patootie pugs some of you may have seen around here.

We had so much fun at the dogs’ expenses, and I laughed the entire time I went through our images last night. I can’t wait to share those with you all, these are just the beginning.

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Also posted in fergie, natural light studio work | Tagged dogs in mirrored sunglasses, dogs in sunglasses, fergie, fergie aviators, gotta wear shades, natural light studio | Comments (26)

high-key natural light studio dog photography (yes, really!)

March 23, 2009 – 10:22 pm

Upon doing some more experimenting in the studio for a recent Decopaw sitting, I discovered, much to my delight, that it is possible to do high-key photography using exclusively natural light.

I should provide a disclaimer here: although I didn’t use any auxiliary light, only what was coming in the west windows of the studio, I *did* do processing in LR2 to get the final look (see the notes on the image below). The next time I do this I’ll be sure to start a little earlier than 2:30pm on a cloudy winter day, lol.

This is Missy. Missy was an awesome subject, and super expressive, and even given the MacGuyver-ish nature of my setup, and her penchant for jumping after her ball, the backdrop didn’t get knocked down once. I can’t wait to try this again!

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