Hey Girl, Nice Shot

Subscribers!

I remember only a year ago I was so excited to get my 500th subscriber to the site.  Well, yesterday I broke the 1400 subscriber mark.  I wanted to thank all of you for being such great supporters of this site and helping to keep me going.  The email messages and comments I get from people that this site has helped has totally made it worthwhile.  And I have so much more to share for the next year including some BIG posts about changes to my business. 

This is the graph showing the number of subscribers to the site since I started it in 2007.  It has been growing steadily.    I also had 35000 unique visitors in 2008!  Hey you visitors....did you know you can subscribe to the website to find out when it updates?! 

I hope you all have a year of growth in 2009 too!

more lens tests

I took the kids out to the botanical gardens to see their clean-up status after Hurricane Ike and to try out my new camera/lens.  All in all, I was happy with both!

Sebastian at f/1.8 using the 5D Mark II and 50mm 1.2L

Abby at f/1.8.  Here you can see that back focus problem that is bantered about online whenever anyone talks about this lens.  Apparently if you center point focus when you are close to the subject it does back focus and I saw this on a lot of my test shots.  I'll definitely need to practice with this lens to compensate for the difference between this and my 50mm 1.4.  But the color and bokeh are fantastic.  I was really impressed by those!!

A few other test shots...

Photocamp Houston Sponsors Last Call

It is your last chance to be a sponsor for Photocamp Houston (tomorrow night we are finalizing the list for our printed materials).  Sponsors will be listed on the schedule card to be handed out to the over 100 registered attendees and listed on the Photocamp Houston Wiki.  No $ amount is too small to be a friend of PhotoCamp.  Do you have an online business that caters to photographers?  Chipin!  Are you a photographer that is planning on attending and can spare a few dollars towards our costs of putting on this FREE event?  Chipin.  Just a generous soul?  Chipin!

2008 Recap

I got my accounting caught up for 2008 so I thought I would share with you some of the interesting numbers for last year.  So you know, I didn't pay myself for 2008 so I could reinvest that money back into the business but I do plan on being able to finally pay myself SOMETHING in 2009.  

So, to start with, my photography income went up 150% from 2007.  Woohoo!

So, where did my revenue go!? Roughly 27% went towards my material costs for order fulfillment (prints, albums, packaging, etc). 

And here's the breakdown of the other 73%:

(all of this data is stored in Quickbooks.  I ran a Profit and Loss report, exported it to excel, selected the expenses section, and clicked in the pie chart button to create this fancy chart)

This makes it pretty easy to see where my big expenses are.  Rent is the biggest at 20%.  And considering my rent tripled in October from what it had been, I better sell a lot of pictures to keep it at that percentage.  My new camera, lens, and misc other electronics/equipment was roughly another 22% of income.  Training & Travel combined to about 15% (Secret Workshop and Learnfest made that totally worthwhile).  The rest you can see is spent over little bits here and there. 

What is also interesting is looking at 2007 vs 2008 numbers.  For example, I sold way more gallery wrap canvases this year, so my spending on materials went up 637%!!!

For graphic design, I actually spent 50% less in 2008.  I remember in 2007 buying ANY template I saw...I was addicted and just wanted them all.  I streamlined in 2008 and also had some great stuff gifted to me so didn't have to make as much of an investment myself.

My marketing budget went up over 200% between 2007 and 2008.  Not surprising at all considering all the marketing pieces I had printed and handed out last year.  I would not be surprised if it went up again in 2009 since I have some pretty big goals, again.

I bought very little equipment in 2007. I already had my 5D so I'm not even sure what equipment I did buy in 2007.  However, I did buy my 50mm 1.4 in 2008.  And in my year end flurry to end the year I bought the 5D Mark II and 50mm 1.2L lens so my equipment budget increased 386%.  Yikes!  The good news is that while I'm considering one other lens, I'm not really thinking about adding much equipment to my arsenal in 2009.

Some goals for 2009?  Double revenue again. Owner compensation!  ;)  Possibly bringing in another photographer to concentrate on tweens/teens/seniors.  Increase minimum sales from each session.  Have a larger average sale.

How did your 2008 compare to 2007?  How detailed is your accounting?   Are you afraid to look to carefully at it?

Updating Equipment

At the end of the year I got to try some new equipment, and buy some too!  Christmas was a good season for me and I reinvested in some new equipment for 2009.

Buy: Canon 5D Mark II Camera Body
Yeah, I bought one.  I was lucky and got one direct from Amazon when they happened to have them in stock.  I haven't really had a chance to do much with it but I'm hoping to get out this weekend to test it out.    I'll be sure to post a full review with pictures when I have more time to spend getting to know it!  [PS.  as of 11:15am on 1/9 Amazon has the body in stock but they go out of stock quickly!]

Buy: Canon 50mm 1.2L Lens
I really struggled with this purchase.  I have heard from so many photographers that this lens just wasn't worth the extra money.  I think when they say that though they just mean from a sharpness point of view.  But after my 50mm 1.4 lost focus abilities for the SECOND time this fall, I knew I needed a change.  I debated just buying a second 1.4 so I'd at least have a backup but after talking to the person at my local camera store started to second guess.  One of the benefits of the L lens is that it is just a better made lens so it is less likely to break down.  And that really sold me on it.  So I ordered one.  And when I got it I put it on and took a few test shots. AND I LOVED THEM!  One of the things I didn't really expect was that the bokah would be so different.  But the blur is smoother and just yummy!  I mean, I don't know how else to describe it.  Yes, I'll post some test shot pictures of that soon too!  Oh, and it is heavy!

Borrow: Canon 24-70mm 2.8L Lens
My sister in law picked up this lens at Christmas during her visit to Houston and let me borrow it to try it out and I really liked it.  It is likely going to be my next lens purchase.  The sharpness is fantastic and the images had a great quality to them.  I can definitely see having fun with this lens!  I was a little sad to give it back.  And I could see it being a great combo with the new 5D Mark II.

Renovation Projects

I got the idea in my head that I wanted to paint this one wall in my loft pink.
...Which lead to me ripping out the little useless shelves that were on that wall. 

...And taking out the bigger built in shelves to paint them white. 

...And painting the ceiling white (which was some kind of dark blue and wood combination).

So today we got to work.  My studio manager and I spend a good part of the day taping, priming, and painting.  We primed the wood and the shelves, and we actually got all the walls in that hallway painted pink.  Now tomorrow I'm hoping to finish painting the ceiling and shelves so I can put it all back together.

We also painted the wall at our entrance blue.  I was inspired  by the tutu that I have which was hanging on the post to the left in the picture.  Between the two of us we got two coats up on the wall. 

It is exciting to add some color to the space! 

Lots of other exciting news on the horizon!

PhotoCamp Houston 2008

Just a reminder that PhotocampHouston is coming up January 24th.  This FREE one day event is being held at the Houston Technology Center.  Topics discussed are driven by attendees so come and share what you know, or learn something new.  The attendees range from hobbyist to pro photographer.

Visit the Photocamp Houston wiki to learn more and sign up to attend or speak!!

Also, it is not too late to become a sponsor.  If you would like to sponsor with a give-a-way or coupon code, you can contact me...and if you'd like to provide a cash donation (sponsors will be listed on a handout for attendees) visit the Photocamp Chipin page.