Tag Archives: Behind-the-Scenes

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' | Posted in Behind-the-Scenes, miscellaneous randomness | Also tagged , | Comments (4)

what’s-a-goin-on?? behind-the-scenes look

April 17, 2009 – 3:54 pm

I feel guilty when I’m not able to post to the blog very often. I love all of my dedicated followers and it makes me sad to think of you guys coming here or looking at your RSS feeds and saying “sigh, nothing new today, guess I’ll go eat dirt” in an Eeyore kind of way. Ok, I know you aren’t eating dirt (at least I hope not!), but you get the picture. 

I wish I could be a daily blogger, but if you ever catch me posting daily for any length of time it’s because either a) I don’t have very much client work to do, or b) I am procrastinating on getting said client work done, in which case, please slap my hand. In my biz, I always try and put my clients first. :-)

That said, I wanted to give you guys a behind-the-scenes look. Here is what we have been up to lately:

  • art for ruby & buster, finished revisions, off to printer now for the two 18×18 canvases
  • art for ruby2, finished, printed, returned to me yesterday- 3 *amazing* 14×34 canvases, plan to take photos today, will deliver this WE
  • print for tucker, ordered, back yesterday, shipping today
  • prints for duke (remember him- from May of 08?) printed, shipping out today
  • print of astro shipping today
  • surprise gift for rachel shipping today 
  • art proofs for 2 bassets + kitty for surprise gift done, waiting for revision request
  • prints + 2 12×18 canvases for sydney and sienna delivered to their home yesterday. parents loved the canvases and prints. kitties loved the ribbons and tissue paper the packages were tied up with. double-bonus!
  • cleaned and painted new office (what? new office?)
  • moved offices (yep, that’s right- we moved! yesterday in fact. total impromptu.). same studio, wayyyyy cool office. will post photos when it’s all done- probably about 10-14 days. can’t wait to show you guys what we’ve been up to. sore and tired today but SUPER happy!
  • working on art proofs for mattie, waiting on images for his photobook
  • starting on art proofs for murphy and mr jones, need to edit images for photo prints
  • bought some stuff to use for my natural light studio work- will be practicing some more soon!
  • bought some stuff for a small product photo ‘studio’- stuff that cost me maybe $30, lol. total DIY.
  • continued work on workshops stuff, decided on an additional city. more on that *very* soon!
  • passed off the bulk of workshops correspondence and research to christina, who is now working closer to full-time until we get caught up on it. 2-3 weeks behind now on the deadlines on my action item list. 
  • completely overhauled my pricing from the ground up. took 4 weeks and some professional paid help to do, but it’s finally done! about 3 years overdue.
  • agreed to be a judge for a new pro photogs directory for their pet photography category, agreed to be interviewed for a podcast for a popular internet spot
  • submitted insertion form for 3-issue ad for very popular national dog magazine. next one: may-june issue. designed the ad overnight because past deadline!
  • learning, learning, learning, learning. this has been a time of massive mental expansion and ideas and creativity and improvements and change. LOTS of NEW things going on business-wise. 
  • hung one new photography display, attended the successful store opening party, met with 2nd store owner for a 2nd display- planning a big launch party with them, sooo excited! planning a 3rd photo display to replace a current decopaw art display
  • revised art proofs for lucy & ethel, need to email parents, soon will be going off to the printer- ginormous long canvas. need to confirm my printer can do it that big first, lol. 
  • proofed jack & blu’s images using a totally new process with LR2 and custom created finishing actions in PSCS3. 
  • designed new blog post image prep actions to speed workflow
  • finishing new client services site, only one more page left to do!
  • designing new website for cowbelly.com. will take many months to complete, have no deadline, maybe done in the fall??
  • launched 2009 workshops and new website to go with, started signing folks up. registering people every day for 5 cities.
  • designed flash slideshow for homepage of www.cowbelly.com. tweaked the website a bit. totally changed the ‘about’ page to be a better reflection of ‘jamie’ and show my personality more and better fit with my branding. need to add a static image file to start of slideshow cause it loads too slow.
  • planning a photog retreat with a few pet photog colleagues to take place this fall. location tbd.
  • proofing willow the kitty’s images today
  • doing more new office organizing today. clearing the floor so we can walk in there.

Whew, this all looks like A LOT of stuff! BUT, keep in mind these things have been over the past couple of months, so it really isn’t that crazy.

No longer will I say “I am crazy busy”. I am not interested in that kind of lifestyle anymore (remember my meeting with Christina back in October?). Now I am “happy busy”. I love being busy, but don’t love being stressed. I am making every effort with my life and my business this year to greatly reduce stress and ‘crazy-bizyness’.

Finding balance and being able to work and do what I love is a lovely thing. Also having learned from my many mistakes over the past 6-9 months or so means that I am more knowledgeable now than ever before. I love that I will be able to pass on these newly learned lessons and tips to others during my workshops this year.

On the personal life front, lest you think I am just a working *machine* here is what’s-a-goin-on with that:

  • completely cleaned out all closets, drawers, nooks and crannies. felt sooo good. I highly recommend it! 
  • will be having a ‘free’ party with girlfriends with awesome stuff that would otherwise go to goodwill
  • bought new bed, it’s so tall fergie almost can’t get on it. super comfy. back pain is gone.
  • new purse, new wallet, old purse and wallet were falling apart!
  • cleaned out and detailed car, repaired car issue with some sort of sensor. got invaluable info on audis from my super cute car mechanic. 
  • got new driver’s license (dmv NOT fun). guy at the dmv almost took my picture and put it on the card of the short hispanic man standing behind me. we all giggled about that. cop pulls him over “uhh, are you sure this is you?” looking at a photograph of a tall brunette scandanavian looking woman. 
  • been taking fergie to the park every single day. she is in *amazing* shape right now and really happy!
  • got my new panasonic lumix dmc-fx35 point and shoot. LOVE it! will post photos at some point. been taking pictures every single day everywhere I go. even have some of bald eagles at the park!
  • researching unlocked jailbroken 2g iphones to use with my t-mobile plan. (if you have advice for me there feel free to email me at info@cowbelly.com!!). have been told the 3g iphones are overkill for t-mobile users because t-mobile only has edge?? so much to learn here…
  • decided I *will* be moving at the end of my lease at the end of july. horrible timing but it has to be done. rent is going up *again* and I learned that the owner of my building is a horrible, horrible person. renter’s market means more choices for us! plus fergie needs a yard and I want a house. if I end up in west seattle it will make 3 (4?) pro pet photoggers in that neighborhood! yay, close to my girls! :-)
  • dealing with health issues, still hope to post on that to help others out there who may have the same illness. finally starting to feel some improvements in the last 7-10 days. finally. been quite sick since december. no longer sleeping 12-14 hours per night (yes, you read that right). taking gross tasting magic tonic and vitamin d drops and prenatal vitamins (don’t get any ideas! no babies on the way here!!). 
  • trying to stave off mom who is *intent* on setting me up with her doctor in her area. “yes mom, he is quite cute, yes, he seems very charismatic, yes I very much do want to meet him, yes, I will call him, but I have a few things going on right now”- see above. lol
  • trying to meet friends for drinks regularly to get away from the social networking and back into the real world. and no we don’t text or tweet each other when we meet, hee hee.
  • needing to start some sort of exercise program. hate gyms, hate exercise videos. have it down to: hip-hop dance classes, or dancing at the baltic room twice a week, or swim lessons up the hill, or long power walks with fergs on the waterfront, or free weights or some or all of the above. will get out there and start doing *something*. the sun is coming out again, I am ready!

So you see, I’m not just a working *machine*! hee hee

Since no blog post is complete without a photo, here are a couple from one of our recent trips to the park, taken with the new Panasonic Lumix. This image is probably most relevant to my life right now because we are there every day. Wish I had had my camera with me today, it’s *gorgeous* out. That’s Elliott Bay on the right, which is where downtown Seattle is, and you can see the Olympic mountain range on the image on the left. 

p1000321

Not too shabby for a little point and shoot, eh? It even has wide-angle! And macro! And video! I’ll post video of Fergie soon. I’m *loving* it!

p1000348

Thanks so much for reading our behind-the-scenes and I promise more photos soon! :-)

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Behind-the-Scenes | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (10)

project #2 backstory

June 7, 2008 – 4:42 pm

Only a handful of people have known what I have been up to for the last handful of months, and now everyone knows!

Since the first week in January I have been meeting with a team of people, doing marketing research, developing excel spreadsheets and crazy matrixes, drawing up legal documents, consulting with expert business and legal professionals in the community, doing web design, troubleshooting microsoft word issues, locating space, researching vendors, meeting with guest speakers, creating contracts for them, researching lodging and transportation, and oh, about a million other things that go into planning a workshop.

It has been such a massive amount of work and has become such a large part of my daily business life for so long that it feels very strange to have the bulk of the preparatory work now done. Officially as of about 3:45am last night! (Or I guess I should say this morning).

BUT, I am excited. SUPER excited!! Every time I think about it it fills me with an overwhelming sense of joy. I love to teach, and I love to help others, and have always felt frustrated and sad that I can’t give more because my business keeps me so busy. But now I can!

A few of you may remember that last summer I tried my hand at consulting, which was generally by email. I did a phone consult with my clients first, and then sent them an email full of information tailored to them. I stopped doing it because I felt like I wanted to give so much more, and a quick hour long email wasn’t nearly enough. So the workshops were the next best thing (only better!). And really, to give credit where credit is due, it was Ron from North Carolina who contacted me asking to be put on a list should I ever offer workshops that helped me make the final decision. The deal was sealed baybee. 

After doing a massive amount of research my team and I came to the conclusion that there aren’t any intensive workshops for location pet photographers, at least, none taught by full time professional pet photographers whose sole income comes from the business of photographing animals. At least, not in the documentary-style that is so popular among pet owners. 

I am thrilled to be the first person offering this type of workshop resource, and although I have a lot to learn myself, I feel I have a lot to offer those who are early on in their businesses. Did I mention I was excited?! :-)

Now, to all of my clients and friends that this special project doesn’t affect, I’m trying to come up with something nice I can do for you, since so many of you have asked me “when do we get to find out the big surprise?!”. 

How about a fun open house party at my new studio next month? Yes, that’s right, it looks like I found space, at the one place I had my heart most set on. The place I mentioned on my blog a couple of months ago. I’m still pinching myself and won’t believe it until I move in, but to say I am happy would be a huge understatement. Wait till you guys see this place. It’s uh-may-zing. 

OH- and if anyone likes to paint walls let me know! I may need a helper or two to paint my office in the new studio (Christina’s got that yoga thing). Sometime this month, whenever, I’m flexible. I’ll bring the drinks and pizza, you bring the scrubs!

So many changes, and all oh so good. To those of you who follow my little business, I can’t express enough how much your support means to me. I feel humbled every day at how many really wonderful, loving people are out there, and feel so lucky to be a part of such a great community online and off. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel deeply grateful for everything I have- and you my dear blog readers never cease to bring me joy, as I hope I do for you. 

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

After hundreds of hours sitting in front of the computer lately, I am off tonight for dinner + the Sex in the City movie downtown with my sis! Can’t wait to relax. I need a vacation. :-)

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Behind-the-Scenes, NEWS!, Workshops | Also tagged | Comments (6)

Big Changes for Cowbelly

April 2, 2008 – 5:01 am

I was initially going to make this post about a specific new business change that occurred today, but started thinking about all of these other things I wanted to post and realized that I needed to make an entire post of all of the changes, if that makes any sense at all. I have a feeling this may be long so consider yourself forewarned.

First, let me say that I am now 4 years and 9 months into my business (3 years of doing pet photography/dog art full time) and boy are things a’ changin. I had always heard that the 5 year mark for most businesses was a time of change and positive growth, a transition out of the start-up phase, but that always seemed intangible to me.

Now I’m starting to get it.

I was thinking tonight about how unreasonably challenging last year was on so many different levels, and realized that last year may be the reason why Karma is now blessing me with her beauty and grace.

So many cool things are happening right now and I just wanted to share them with you my lovely blog audience.

First, the change that happened today.

A new benefit to clients:

The ability to order professional-quality prints, stretched canvases, greeting cards, and other gift products, directly from their private online galleries.

No more sending me print orders in email. No more having to wait for me to process and mail the orders. No more messing around with custom invoices. No more waiting for my busy butt to get stuff back to them. All very good things for all parties involved.

Clients will receive outstanding prints on their choice of matte, glossy or lustre paper, shipped directly to them.

The prices are staying the same on both prints and stretched photographic canvases.

I have yet to decide if I will use their canvases for my Decopaw art. It remains to be seen and is based on a number of different factors.

Now, I have to say that I have always had the option for backend print order fulfillment from my galleries, but was unhappy with the print quality in the past, so decided to do my own printing.

I have been using the Epson R1800 printer, a great printer that makes really fantastic truly archival prints, but in the past 6 months or so it has been getting more finicky by the day, as Epson printers are known to do. After a recent argument between myself and the printer that turned physical, resulting in Fergie hiding in fear in the dark bathroom, I decided it was time for a change.

That change came when this morning I received an email from my online gallery host (smugmug for the curious, which btw is a *fantastic* company) notifying users that they were changing papers to Kodak Super Endura (I won’t mention what the old paper was as I have nothing personal against them).

Last week I ordered test prints from another lab that are ironically printed on the exact same Kodak paper, and when I read the email from smugmug today, those prints were sitting right in front of me. I was very pleased with the prints (had actually decided to go with the other lab), and really stunned at the turn of events, but remember what I said about Karma?

After about 2 hours I was up and running with pricing and everything set up in my galleries. (btw: I just counted and I currently have 148 galleries online- I need to do some serious housecleaning!)

Go check it out and play around with it here:

http://cowbellyproofs.smugmug.com/gallery/4635455_ftvjb#273610475

Oh, and if you’d like to purchase a print, by all means go ahead, they really are quite beautiful.

The only thing that users (me) can’t customize with css and html coding is the final checkout/shopping cart, but I know those things can be very tricky. Smugmug is growing by leaps and bounds and they have it on their to-do list so it’s just a matter of time.

To say I am thrilled with this new development and change to my business would be an understatement. Add this to the new widescreen slideshow and xl image preview and I am a very happy camper.

Side note to my pet photographer friends: if you’d like to set up a pro account with smugmug (not only are they a fantastic company but they all have dogs and love them!), send me an email to info@cowbelly.com and let me know. I believe I can get you a referral discount. Also, are you a flickr user? Smugmug will transfer all of your images over for free!

The next thing is I am in the process of hiring an assistant. I finally got over my bad past experiences and found someone I am really excited to work with, yippee!

She starts next week and I promise at some point to do a little interview with her for this blog so you can get to know her a little. I might even post a picture of her. Her name is Christina, she is a real go-getter and highly organized, two things I desperately need right now (oh yeah, and someone to answer phone calls and emails.)

So for my clients who read this, when you contact me, it’s highly likely Christina will be the one you talk to, but if you want to talk to me personally, just let her know. I do know that my clients like to send me personal “how’s it going” emails from time to time which I love to receive and reply to. That won’t change. This change will only be for the better.

(Side note to Rebecca- after sharing my past horror stories with Christina, she *volunteered* to sign a non-compete contract and I have that and an NDA already lined up. Love this girl).

Let’s see, what else.

Oh yes, since there will be little room for Christina and I in my home office, I have been diligently looking for studio space to lease. Online anyway. I mean, I have been looking online; the studio space isn’t online. Hmm, that would be weird.

I have my heart set on one specific (very rad) place so please send your positive energy my way, say your prayers, or do your little happy dance that I get it. I need to wait another month or two to make sure I have the funds but if it works out the way I want it to it will be incredible.

BTW: if anyone in the Seattle area has a desk they would like to give away for free (I’d only need it between now and the time we get a studio) let me know. I don’t care what it looks like, I just need it to hold a heavy emac!

Auscape update: I heard back from Auscape this weekend and was bowled over to see that they requested 103 of the initial 340 images I sent them. I don’t know what the average is, but for someone like me who really doesn’t know what they are doing in that area it’s huge. That’s 30% of the images I sent them.

The files are all prepped and ready to go as TIFFS, I just need to burn the CD and mail it off. I am very excited to officially become part of the Auscape team.

Let’s see, what else is there…. oh yes, a couple, actually, few, projects that I can’t give details on yet, but have aluded to in past posts.

Two projects have a launch date of May something-or-other. One is a smallish, but very exciting project nevertheless, and the other is a much (much) bigger project I have been working hard on since early January and really hope to launch by May 1st.

Which leads me to my next point.

The months of April and May will be filled with quite a lot of non-client work while I work on these special projects.

I will still be booking clients for shoots (fewer clients for art commissions), but probably won’t have the flexibility to do any last-minute bookings, especially in April. If you are a potential new client and would like to do a shoot with me soon, please p
lan to book it at least 3 weeks out. The projects are taking top priority which means they have first dibs with my schedule.

Total aside: I am currently eating some baby carrots I bought tonight at Safeway and holy cow are they good. Sweet, crunchy, and very fresh.

Lastly, look for some exciting things in the way of my partnership with CityDog Magazine, specifically for the summer issue.

Speaking of summer, does it feel stuffy in here?

It seems like it is so stuffy in our homes, our offices, our cars this time of year.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the weather to get warmer, to be able to open the windows, get out into nature and let the breeze blow through my hair. Can’t wait for summer!

Thanks for reading this dreadfully long post and I hope you are having a great week!

By doggirlseattle | Posted in Behind-the-Scenes | Also tagged | Comments (0)
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