Helping Baby Zachary

Dear Clients, Friends and Readers,

As photographers we learn from other photographers with years of experience who help us grow and become better at what we do, providing cherished images for people.

When I first became a member of PPA I had the great fortune to run into and get to know several photographers who helped me with everything from posing and lighting set ups, to better business and contract practices. During that time they never asked for anything in return. Well now it’s time to help pay it forward.

A few weeks ago on April 6 our friend, Janaye, who runs Visually Speaking Photography & Design of Cedar Park, Texas along with her husband, welcomed their first child Zachary into this world. Little Zachary came into this world kicking and screaming like a true Texan, but since day one the little man is kinda having a bit of a rough go of it, with platelet transfusions and digestive problems. So with medical bills mounting Mom and Dad started a Go Fund Me page for lil Zachary to help offset the medical cost. They also have been using their blog site The Melsha Travels to give regular updates on how little Zachary is doing.

I would really like to see our clients, friends and readers at least take a look at their site, read their story and considering helping out, a new young family who is in a tough spot at this moment in their lives.

Best and kind regards,

Tim Gumz owner of Vagabond Photography

Links: https://www.gofundme.com/zacharymelsha
https://themelshatravels.wordpress.com/

Consider joining a photography group

I’d like to take a minute to invite any photographer who is just starting out or is a seasoned veteran to be more and join a photography association or local group. A while back I touched briefly in my blog post on "Finding the right Photographer" about being part of a photography group such as PPA, WPPI, APA or others. They are a great resource to belong too if not for networking with other photographers but also as an association helping especially new photographers avoid many pitfalls we tend to make starting out. Even if you do not want to join a large national group look into join a small photographers group in your local community.

I do belong to Professional Photographers of America (PPA.com) and have been an active member for the past two and a half years. I also belong to a small group of local photographers with no affiliations to any large national group. They have both helped me out greatly when I was starting out and still do several years later.

When I made the switch from being a sports, live events and news photographer to being primarily a portrait and live event photographer these two groups were there to help me navigate some of the pitfalls that beginning photographers or photographers who have been out of the business a while normally face. With the small local group of photographers I learned how to better light my clients along with better posing practices. Then with the national group they were better able to help with setting up better business practices and creating better contracts that protect both me and my clients.

The fun thing about being with groups like these, is that after being with them for so long and getting help from so many great people, it eventually becomes your turn to help other beginning photographers become and be more.

You may want to ask the question hey where can I find these groups? The answer is fairly simple go on Facebook use the search bar and you can find plenty there. Also for the national groups other than the ones listed below you can google them or for PPA just click “here” and you can learn about their mission to help and support photographers.

Professional Photography Groups:
American Photographers Association (www.americanphotographyassociation.org/)
Wedding & Portrait Photographers International – WPPI (www.wppionline.com/)
American Photographic Artists (www.apanational.org/)

Sweet Water Clean Rivers Clean Lakes Conference

This past week was a very fun week for Vagabond Photography we had the opportunity to team up for a second time with a great non for profit group call Sweet Water (http://www.swwtwater.org/). This time we were covering their Sweet Water Clean River, Clean Lakes Conference at Discovery World on the Lake Michigan water front. They are a fun and insightful bunch of people, trying to do a wonderful thing by organizing groups and companies and raise awareness to help clean up the Greater Milwaukee Watershed to bring it back to swimmable and fishable conditions.

The reason why we really like what they are doing over at Sweet Water besides the obvious is because it gives us the ability to photograph our clients in new(to us) and cleaner locations, in the past we would of passed by because of how dirty and unsafe they were.

Also while at the convention two of the afternoon presenters were from Detroit and Toronto. They both went into detail on how cleaning and restoring/reshaping the water shed in their cities brought people back to the waterfront and revitalized the area. We think this speaks to what Sweet Water is trying doing in our area which we believe can greatly benefit people in general and especially our clients.

The other part of why we this think this is a great thing is, in being good stewards of this blue spinning marble we all live on it is our duty to keep it clean for future generations so we don’t just flush our lives down the proverbial toilet.  In our free time at Vagabond Photography we like to spend our time fishing, swimming and hiking around local waterways so groups like this have a special place near to our hearts. Having grown up around the paper mill belt along the Wisconsin River we can remember times when cleaning operations were under way we would not think about swimming or eating a lot of fish out of the river. Though now it is a great river to go out and have fun on year round. So it’s nice to see several groups trying to clean up the Greater Milwaukee watershed.

We cannot encourage people enough to go over to their website and see what they are trying to do to help clean up the Greater Milwaukee Watershed.

Summer Travel & on Site locations

t Vagabond Photography we are known as a on location photography company. If there is something we love to do whether it be with work or personal time, its traveling. Traveling and scouting for new locations is something we just like to do in our free time when we are not working on photo shoots, editing or that dreaded thing called paperwork. Over the years the great thing we found out about traveling to a location is you don’t necessarily have to go far to feel like your half a world away from your daily responsibilities.

This is something we also like to work into our photography sessions as well. When talking with our clients we like to get a feel for who they are where they like to travel to and relax and play. Especially if it is some place close by in Wisconsin and we can find a way to work it into our clients session for their senior portraits, engagement session, family shoots or something that is just for fun.

Below is a few of our favorite places we like to work at during our photo sessions. In the comment section below we would really like to hear some place in Wisconsin or anywhere that you would like to have a photo session at.

Spring is here, finally and hopefully summer is not too far off which means some of our favorite locations are about to be usable again. Which means we can finally start photographing on and around Wisconsin many lakes are waterways. We love Lake Michigan beaches on the western shores because they are great for sunrise photos especially if you go just north of Milwaukee. We also have Lake Geneva with is beautiful shores and nice small town which is best if you shoot a session there before memorial day or after labor day before all the school gets out or midweek during the summer months. Also we have the Wisconsin River between Steven Point and the Wisconsin Dells the rock formations along many stretch of this beautiful river.

As for urban areas we really enjoy working in and around the greater Milwaukee area. We like to work around Discovery World, Riverwalk, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the historic third ward.

We also like to spend our time in nature and in southern Wisconsin we really like to spend time in and around the Kettle Moraine State Park, the trails around the ATV routes around Black River Falls.
In the Kettle Moraine we really like to use Paradise Springs Park just North and West of Eagle. It’s a great place because of its streams, old bath house and large prairie land across from the parking lot. Pewits Nest around Baraboo and the Wisconsin Dells is another great place that we love to use as a shoot location its tall water carved walls give great texture and depth to pictures.

Those are just some of the areas we like to work on with our sessions. We would love to hear from your our friends and perspective clients on plaice you like to travel to and some places that you would love to do a photo shoot.

Have a great weekend it’s finally supposed to be nice out in Wisconsin.