That's a phrase I keep telling myself over and over.  I've got a day job, a home to maintain, a child to parent and all of the usual life distractions.  I have a general idea what I want/need to do to hone my photography skills and know that I have to practice shooting regularly in order to be the photographer I want to be if I expect to eek out a living from it.  

Jim and Denise talking about a preparing a healthy meal.

Some of this practice comes along with my regular routine.  My son has recently taken up Lacrosse, so I've been shooting his practices and games.  I don't plan on becoming a big sports shooter or play one on TV, but sports photography is all about adjusting for slow and fast moving subjects at a distance, adapting to constantly changing light, dealing with limited vantage points, etc.  My practice here should improve my wildlife photography.  I'll put that theory to the test in the coming weeks at the migratory bird season is now here.

Denise has photo and video requirements with her growing ventures too, so I've recently flipped my Nikon to movie mode for the first time and dusted off an old copy of Adobe Premier Elements to do some basic editing.  She's got a lot of ideas for content and I can already tell I need to come up with creative ways to get better audio.

I also need to work on my portraiture skills, landscapes, post processing, and on and on.  So, I'm leveraging social media to connect with models, meet with fellow photogs, get inspiration and learn new tips and tricks.  I've hosted a few events which has not only given me shooting practice and editing fodder, but is also a great networking opportunity.  Weekly photo challenges are a great way to try something new with photography and I'm trying to keep up with two of them at the moment.  I'm not always successful, but I always try, I work the images and submit for constructive comments.  The photo community is great for helping you see your images from another perspective, identifying issues you might not have even realized, advise on how to correct difficiencies, move in different creative ways and a provide a bit of praise when you turn out something worthwhile.

I'm spending a lot of time thinking about where the business and art of photography is going in the coming years.  If I work to simply emulate the currently successful photographers out there I'm going to fail.  Digital still images themselves are such a disposable commodity - everyone has a smartphone with "Instagratification" built in so appreciation for a well taken, well processed digital image is waning.  Pro photographers are going to have to evolve to either become a service/experience provider or find a niche that won't become a commodity like the still image has.  Pro togs will need to shift toward exotic landscape, artistic video clips, etc.  I'm not sure yet how I'm going to differentiate myself, but watching the trends and continuing to create in new and different ways will help me be prepared for that direction when I see it.

Finally this week - I've turned on the comments feature for this blog series so I hope you'll share your own ideas and experiences.

I want to share some of the activities we're doing to prepare for this huge change in life we're planning.  Planning is the big word here because without a plan all you do is talk.  I'm a technical person (as you know if you read earlier posts) so I like to start any plan with the end in mind.  So let me describe what we want our lives to be like in 4 years:

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We live in a relatively small house, somewhere in the United States, that has a number of key characteristics:  A small, easy to maintain yard or perhaps no yard to maintain whatsoever.  I've enjoyed gardening and yard maintenance in my current and previous homes but it is a huge consumer of time.  We want to spend our time doing other things so minimizing this is important.  Optimal house size would be around 2,500 square feet, including a master suite, a smaller guest suite, a good sized kitchen with modern appliances, a large garage and a Huge (500+ square feet) general purpose room like a FROG (Finished Room over the Garage).  Why that big room?   Well, currently we need three separate spaces to get things done, including a small home office where all the computers live, an art studio including storage for photo gear, and a loft as a home portrait studio.  We want to combine all that functionality into one larger working space that's flexible and re-configurable.  The house has to be compatible with us from a feng shui perspective.  I'm thinking that finding this perfect home for us already built will be quite a challenge, so I'm readying myself to the challenge of having it built to our specs.  We want to live in an interesting area not too far from a major airport.  We're leaning toward the left coast but not sure about that yet.

We travel frequently.  We plan and take three big trips each year to new locations around the world.  We choose locations that support our ventures (my photography and Denise's healthy living)  I can envision both of us hosting workshops and making instructional videos, taking still and moving images, learning local homeopathy, etc.  And we spend quality time where we visit.  No canned package tours, and enough flexibility in our schedule to allow us to explore a spot for a few extra days when we find something really special.

In between those big outings we might take smaller trips within the US, but the down-time will mostly be spent tending to our businesses.  Those businesses will be our new garden and like any garden it only yields quality fruit when tended to with constant care.  In a small business you wear many hats.  Only a small percentage of your time do you actually perform the function that directly brings in money.  The majority of the time you are the office manager, research assistant, accountant, VP of marketing, and sale director.  Not to mention CEO and custodian.  Striking a productive balance between all of these jobs is what makes any small business successful, in my experience.  

We are always learning, researching, watching trends, and making sure that we are relevant and accurate.  If we come across a promising home remedy, we do our own research and apply scientific method to reach conclusions that are based on objective quality evidence.  So any recommended we give are substantiated and where possible, corroborated by experts.  

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Do we have a 4 year plan with every tiny detail and step all written down to get us from here to there?  Nope.  But we do know the big changes in our lives that we need to be working on now to begin the journey.  The plan will mature along the way and will certainly need adjustment as life continues to be "what happens while you're making other plans."  We are starting to work on those big changes the way you eat an elephant, "one bite at a time" as the saying goes.  

For example, this huge house we live in now is full of stuff.  Things collected over more than a decade.  We're starting to discuss what's going to go and what we're going to keep.  To help this effort I've made a promise to get rid of at least two boxes of things every week.  I'm giving them to friends that might want them, donating the remaining useful items, and tossing the rest in the trash.  I hope after a year of culling down junk, it will be a lot easier to work through what's left.

I recently created this home studio so I can constantly practice.  Here I'm directing a model during a catalog shoot for a local T-Shirt company.  

While I feel my photography skills have improved over the past years, I've still got a long way to go before my images compare with folks that are making a good living at it.  I set aside time each day to shoot, practice processing, read, and learn from on-line experts.  I take a critical view of myself and so if I think I disagree with something said, I ask myself why I disagree and can/could I do it differently.  If I can't then I add it to my list of things to practice. I'm still experimenting with different photographic genres.  If one emerges as "my style" so be it but I'm also OK being a photographic generalist.  

Networking - we are starting to seek out friends and acquaintances to add to our professional network.  We want to foster those relationships to everyone's mutual benefit.  For example, we recently met a doctor with a background in pharmacological research, but has turned to homeopathy.  I recently shot with a model who also makes her own organic soap.  We have friends that are into paleo lifestyle and are cross-fit instructors.  I have pro photog friends that specialize in everything from newborns to scientific instrumentation.  We'll call on these folks as we build our content along the way.

Branding early is important too.  I mentioned that Denise is re-vamping her web site, so we're redesigning that layout, making a new logo, migrating to a new hosting service, and changing the overall feel from text heavy descriptive content to one with more visual balance.  She's started working a shot list so we'll know when an image presents itself and will think to grab it. 

I use this photography web site as a gauge of personal progress.  My goal is to replace the weakest image in this portfolio with a new, stronger image each month.  This is a great tip I learned from Tony Northrup.

Having a viable financial plan is critical.  Downsizing will certainly give us some seed capital but you shouldn't jump off a career cliff with just that in hand.  Other's have gone through late career changes without a penny and survived fine, but most of them were pushed off that cliff through unplanned circumstances.  I'd rather do things with a little less risk to my wallet if possible.  So, I'm evaluating my 401K and estimating where it needs to be when I set it on autopilot for several years.   I'm looking at options for evolving my current photography business and what costs to expect (commercial studio space, equipment budget, etc.)  Denise is growing our anti-aging products business by working it almost every evening after leaving her day job and experimenting with home remedies we're soliciting from folks we know.

This blog is a big part of making progress as well.  When you write things down, they tend to gain weight and importance.  By sharing these plans it puts us on the spot to perform.  I got the idea for this blog from the photographer Stephen Dennstedt who retired from corporate america to become a wildlife and landscape photographer currently traveling through South America but he might be in Asia or somewhere else in the world by the time you read this.  

It will be interesting to revisit this blog in six months and see how we're doing eating our elephant.  So, I'm putting on my calendar to do just that in mid-September.

So far I've given some background on our professional lives and told you a little about Denise's passions.  Now I guess I have to share a bit more about myself.

I've enjoyed different forms of art from grade school classes and art appreciation courses in college.  I took formal lessons on oil painting as a teenager from the Bill Alexander school and a few of those "masterpieces" are still hanging in my parent's home so either they weren't awful or my mom doesn't have the heart to tell me they stink.  

My Olympus OM-10

I picked up my first film camera in middle school to take photos of my friends and life growing up in South Florida in the mid-70's.  Only a handful of those photos survive and I won't torture you by sharing any of them.  The Kodak Instamatic was amazingly forgiving as much as modern smart-phone cameras are today.  

Shortly after heading off to college, I bought my first SLR (an Olympus OM-10).  Through the 80's I took snapshots.  Meaning I grabbed the moment with a moderate understanding of how to properly expose the shot and not much consideration for composition.  I spent all my time on the technical aspects of getting a good shot but never really applied any of my art training to photography.  If you've never shot film, it's a very different animal.  For every shot you took a stab at correctly exposing the frame given your film speed and aperture, but didn't know if you'd guessed right until the film was developed days or weeks later.  And then, unless you took really good notes, there was little feedback as to why a picture turned out or didn't.  Those guys in the photo labs had their work cut out.  The best pro cameras at that time were starting to embed camera settings into the border of the negative (the first EXIF data) but mine was not one of those.  The OM-10 does have a built in light meter and a rudimentary aperture priority mode, but the rest is all very manual.  There are a few photos from this period that managed to turn out despite my efforts to the contrary.  Last year I went back and tried to scan in all those old negatives.  Most were pretty badly damaged by light or dust or moisture.  I wasn't the best curator either, apparently.  I managed a few dozen salvages from that time.  I still have the OM-10 as you can see from this Instagram shot on the right.  It's in good working order although I shoot it far less often as it becomes more difficult and costly to shoot 35mm film.

Cannon Beach, Oregon.  August 1989. Restored from damaged Kodak Gold 200 35mm film negative.

Munich, New Town Hall, July 1999.

I mentioned before that I traveled quite a bit after graduation.  So you'd think I would have been smart enough to document my wanderings with decent photographs.  I wasn't that smart.  It was the start of the digital camera era and first generation point-and-shoot boxes were all the rage.  So, while I have quite the collection of images from across the US, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Belgium, the opportunity was squandered with only those low-resolution snapshots to document some amazing places and people.  

When my son came along my photography focus turned exclusively to documenting him growing from infant to young man.  His mother and I split up 8 years ago which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  With my new found freedom I decided to rediscover those things in my life I gave up for one reason or another along the way.  One of those interests was photography and I bought my first DSLR.  It was a Nikon D5000 and kit lens.  Not a great camera by today's standards but from the moment I pressed that shutter, my life-long flirtation with photography blossomed into love.  I could finally apply and grow my understanding of artistic composition on a platform that provided immediate feedback.  It was a real game changer for me.  With all of the content available on the Internet I could now learn at my own pace through my own shooting and study of other people's work and processes.  I started using Photoshop then Lightroom which continue to evolve and add powerful functionality.  I've upgraded my camera equipment two generations since that first DSLR with the best glass I can afford, inexpensive studio gear and DIY (Do It Yourself) widgets as much as possible.  I want to take my proficiency and artistic expression of photography as far as my days on this earth.  I admire successful social media photography personalities like Matt Granger, Elia Locardi, Tony & Chelsea Northrup, and Aaron Nace just to name a few.  I don't want to emulate any of their successful formulas.  I have my own ideas which I'll share along the way.

I met Denise 2 1/2 years ago.  She's an amazing woman and we're a perfect fit.  She supports my artistic endeavors in every way imaginable and I try to help her with her pursuits as well.  She keeps me healthy in body, and I challenge her mind.  We're going to grow old together, but we're not going to sit in rocking chairs and crumble.  We are going to re-invent our lives to focus on our passions and see more of the world in the process.  This blog will document our journey from our as-is state (which I've just shared in these past few posts) to our future life as we realize this dream.  We still have a million details to work out.  We'll make plenty of mistakes along the way.

I'm excited to share all of that with you as we go.

Last week a wrote a bit about who we are professionally and how we came to be in our current day jobs.  Now I want to share a little more about our passions - the things we want to make into our day jobs in the coming years.  

Denise has always been a healthy person.  Everything about her is young - from her muscle tone to her skin tone, from the smile in her eyes to her contagious laugh.  She can be dead serious when she needs to be, but more often she's cracking a joke or acting like a teenager (in a good way.)  She prefers healthy meals, is a runner and takes great care of herself.  

That includes the world around her which is why she began studying feng shui several years ago.  What started out as a desire to make her own living space more healthy is growing into a nice consulting gig.  She's got a web site dedicated to the practice and is in the process of revamping that site now to be more modern and appealing to visitors.  I'll share more about her feng shui later on as that new site starts to take shape.

About 8 months ago that love of all things organic brought her in contact with a line of anti-aging  products.  A co-worker asked her to try them and she was amazed by the results.  So much that within a month, she decided to join up as an independent brand partner and sell those products to her family and friends.  The company is called Nerium and we'll talk a bit more about that later too.

Her favorite healthy foods have always included organic eggs rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, non-GMO farm fresh fruits and vegetables - free of pesticides and herbicides, and only the leanest meats.  We enjoy cooking our meals at home and when we use a recipe we work to substitute unhealthy ingredients.  Sugar becomes stevia or agave, mayonnaise becomes Greek yogurt, white flour becomes rice flour and vegetable oil becomes olive or coconut oil.  You get the idea.  I don't think we'll ever give up red meat, but everything in moderation makes for both a healthy and delicious diet.

Recently she's begun to blend her own teas with ingredients like whole ginger root and turmeric.   She's always been a firm believer in preventive herbs like echinacea, and now she's starting to explore the whole world of homeopathy.

All of these passions are interconnected and she's exploring them all with a goal of sharing what she learns with others.  I already mentioned her web site, and she's just getting started making some YouTube videos and leveraging the power of social media.   We're thinking of branding all of them together under something like "Healthy Living with Denise."