i don't care. a crutch is a crutch is a crutch

Sharpness is a bourgeois concept.

- Henri Cartier Bresson

1. i have an accountant and studio manager who handles the accounting side of the books

2. 4-6 rolls of 220

3. i have an assistant for all out of state weddings and usually for instate weddings but they never shoot for me, they assist, thus, the title assistant :).

couple of things.

1. kodak is not closed down (where do you hear this stuff?)
2. you can buy film pretty much ANYHWERE and when i say ANYWHERE i mean ONLINE
3. even if kodak shut down, hell even if fuji shut down, SOMEONE will make film. the demand is there regardless of the reports coming from wall street about numbers
4. if they stopped making film and i can't shoot film, of course i'll shoot digital. there is NOTHING wrong with digital. NOTHING. i wont stop photography just because i cant shoot film. i could shoot on glass plates if i wanted. but seriously though, film is not going anywhere
5. and even if it did, i have 1.5 years worth of film in my fridge. literally.
6. and my name is jon, or jonathan if you are my mom or owe me money :).

best on? tie between the decemberists/band of horses/andrew bird backed by the LA philharomonic at the LA bowl or damien jurado at velour in provo

yeah, i have thought about it but again that all comes down to the second shooter. which unlike unicorns, i don't believe in them. i've shot almost 700 weddings on my own. and i'm a one man show (one shooter only) so, me being bogged down at a photo booth is not an option for me. want shots of your guests? i have you covered. plus it is not something i'm really into either. props? plain back drop? not my thing. now give me a plain backdrop and let me do avedon-esque stuf? hells yes, but that is not what the bride and groom want so no dice. i'd rather focus my attention on other things happening at the wedding. so yeah, to me, not worth it.

Oh for sure. To name a few...

1. This may sound weird but the day I realized Isis or have to shoot everything straight. You might laugh but it never occurred to me that the camera could be tilted from anything than straight on. This literally happened about 1 year into shooting. Yeah, I'm not the brightest person...

2. When I not only discovered my voice but became ok with it. In college I wanted to do editorial portraiture. I shot bands, and shot them literally like 2-3 times a week. I was super embarrassed that I was shooting weddings. It was not the cool thing to be doing circa 1999/2000. And it was something i fell
Into not something i persued. Dont get me wrong, i love it, but i was not ok
With it at first. But it is because of weddings I've become the photographer I am today. It has literally prepped me to be able to shoot ANYTHING and not just shoot it but shoot it well. And regardless if something is not cool to the people around you, finding your voice and then being ok with it is monumental to any photographer...

3. The day I realized it does not matter at all what the guy down the street is doing with his photo biz. It took about 4 years into it to realize this. I blaze my own path and don't worry about what anyone else is doing.

4. Every time I get the email/call thanking me for
taking the time to take a portrait of someone's friend, parent, grandparent or whoever it is they've recently lost. Photography goes beyond just pushing a button, or documenting what happened or who was there.

5. Knowing that the workshop I teach actually helps people. Forget me trying to get film in people's hands. But seeing past/current/future attendees lives change for the better from the community we've built is pretty amazing.

There you go...

my kryptonite is shooting horz and pj. both of these things are forced upon you shooting the g2. AND i just could not get passed the mentality of point click. call me super picky, but it just did not really feel like photography to me. there was a disconnect i could not get over when using that camera. though i've seen some people take some amazing photos with it. its a great camera, just not for me.

it is a choice. there is no other way around it.

i work HARD. and i work HARD OFTEN. BUT. as hard as i work, i work on my family as well.

i have 5 kids, and a wife who is 9 months pregnant. it is a very difficult thing to balance family and work. but again, i am here to tell you it is completely doable. but i think it is a choice.

i just got back from taking 9 days off with my family in st. louis. we pulled the kids out of school (1 week into it) to do so. i pull my kids out of school quite a bit to do family trips. i think at their age, there is nothing really they could learn that would be more important with the time we created to be with them. some people, won't agree with that, but hey, its my family, its my choice.

i also make sure that i am home for family dinner, no matter what. and if my wife calls and says i need to be somewhere, i drop everything and i am there. no matter what, family comes first, no matter what.

no matter how fun, awesome, or demanding deadlines you may have with your work, you make the choice of when you start and stop. and you have to remember this is a job. we just happen to be paid to do things we love that we'd do weather we were paid or not.

my suggestion? date night once a week, no matter what. and if you don't have a wedding on saturday, DON'T WORK. take that time off with your family.

the days i do work, i get as much done as humanly possible (including answering these questions). i'll spend the first 20 minutes plugging my to do list into my calendar and start knockin them out in order of importance.

so i guess to answer your question, the thing that has helped me the most is putting my family first and doing everything i can to put as much into my family as i do into my business.

The profile pic looks great! Quite the studious pose :)

I don't use a second shooter at weddings and I'm not a fan of the idea for a few reasons.
First of all, I think it should primarily be one photographer's vision for a wedding day. Often times I see the same wedding on two different photographer's blogs. This creates two completely different looks.
Secondly, it seems as though second shooters are often shooting the same thing as the primary shooter just from a less interesting perspective. Its completely superfluous imagery.
I do take an assistant with me on the wedding day but their primary role is to take care of all my film needs so that I can focus on the couple 100%. They will shoot during the ceremony and reception but being a photographer is secondary to loading film and managing a clients needs.