photography

Oliver the…. And changing things up

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Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through a whole process of trying to figure things out; both on the personal and business side. It one of those times where you start thinking and reflecting on what you are doing and where you can go. The key being is making sure thy whatever I do I end up happy.

So I guess we will start on the personal side. There’s has been a lot of things going on. A lot of things that has me thinking and reflecting on doing things. I have made and fostered more friends, reconnecting with some, working out some issues with others, and making plans with others. But ultimately I have realized that I need to make myself happy and make things happen no matter what. I have also been more willing to share a bit more in person. The conversations that I have had with friends recently have been good that have challenged and questioned me to do better and seek what it is that I want.

And that is where the question rest; what do I want. At the moment I don’t know. I just don’t know. I can’t at the moment decide on just one thing. But here a few things that I would like;

1. Do a little more traveling.
2. Display more of my photography work.
3. Open and share a photography place with friends.
4. Spend more time with family traveling and seeing the sites.
5. Improve and continue a good overall health outlook.
6. Advance further in my engineering career.

So as you can see, there is a lot of things on the plate of wants. I am starting on whatever allows itself to be work on. And I do recognize that every little victory that I accomplish everyday helps me get closer to my aspirations and goals. And that currently concludes the personal side of things.

The other thing that I have been working on has been on my business. Over the last several weeks, I have been reorganizing, rethinking, and redoing my business from scratch. This all began a couple of months ago when my friend Jared, invited to attend he in studio audience on CreativeLive. He’s class was about the business of photography. A lot of the topics we discussed and learned there hit home for me. It was one of those lightbulb moments of life. During the three days of class I realized the following;

1. I must design a business to make me happy.
2. I must make the business centered around me.
3. I have to understand every aspect of my business.
4. It’s going to be a lot of work and success won’t come easy.
5. Share your work and business with others
6. Be unique ( think of three words )
7. Your Art and your Business are two different things.

So over the last weeks I have been working on refining my photography business into a business that I’m proud to work on and share with the work.

With the help of my fellow friends that were in the audience with me, we are part of a group called the Bauman Six. Together we help each other through our processes and journey through the forest that is photography. Over the weeks I have discovered, toiled, and figured out my three words. I started with the words of; passionate, loyal, and explorer, and those have evolved into; tailored, outdoorsy, and geek. I have learned from and still learning from this experience. A few things I have learned is that you have to allow yourself to be seen. Allow yourself the time to figure it out. This is something that doesn’t occur overnight but it is a process that takes some time. And most importantly you have to be Yourself. Your true Authentic Self. With that in hand, I have found that you will and continue to discover yourself.

Other than a journey of self discovery, I have also been working on learning the process. The process being everything! And I mean everything. From the easiest to the most complicated task. Everything that I do, to run the photography business. This experience has been. Great and eye opening. It has been one of those things that you didn’t realized you do but once it out on paper you realized that you do a lot of work to run the business. And when you do this you realized that you are WORTH IT. And in doing this, I finally realized that all my work and art is WORTH the cost that I charge. I realized that my cost are justified and it is what I feel comfortable with. So now my outlook with my business is bright and shiny!!! And I’m looking forward to where it will go.

In the next couple of weeks I hope to have my new photography websites up and running. My goal with the websites is to have them represent me and my vision of the world. I will focus both on landscape and wedding photography. Both will be completely different from on another but still have the words; tailored, outdoorsy, and geek, as the main themes in them. They may not be visually apparent however they will be interwoven.

That’s been the latest with me in the personal and business end.

Oliver the photographer…Photographing

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A picture is worth a thousand words.

To me pictures are worth a thousand words and a whole lot more emotion. Photographs to me are about emotion and feeling. When I’m out photographing either a landscape or a couple on their first day as husband and wife. There is an emotional investment that I put into it. Like most photographers I know, we take our work personally. We each have our favorites, we have our own idea of how to photograph the day and tell the story. I know that my favorite thing to do when I’m out photographing is to be present.

Being present, gives me the opportunity to be a guest and photographer and makes the experience so much more richer than if I was just a photographer. The photography takes care of itself when I’m present I feel. I know longer have to coach a client to do something or do much post work on an image to make it look like how I want it. Rather I just let it happen and document it knowing that this is how it’s going to be.

The biggest take away I have learned throughout the years that has helped is knowing your vision for what you are going to capture. I have found mentally preparing has helped make the process go easy. I’ve gone as far as mediate and imagine the day as it is happen. I envisioned in my head everything that I can see. Doing this easies my stress and gives me my game plan. And allows me to direct any of my associates that are helping me that day.

Before all this, I was the photographer that wasn’t sure. I was the photographer that didn’t know what to do. I practically was a nervous wreak. As much as I tried it just didn’t come naturally or as easy. I had to do the work. And boy did I work. It was one of those sweat, blood, and restless nights things that you have to go through. I don’t care for the people that say it just happened. Because it just doesn’t happen like that. It seriously happens with a lot and I mean a lot of work. And with that also come with realizing that you are not as good as you think you are however you know that with enough effort, work, and time you will make it happen. You will create the world that you want to create and live in.

And just like that; YOU HAVE TO CREATE THE WORLD YOU WANT TO HAVE AND LIVE IN. I have learned those that have the earned success have created the opportunities that have lead to their ultimate success. And equally as important; WORK HARD AND STAY HUMBLE.

So we come back to where we are now. Today I’m in the middle of a whole rebrand and process in my photography. I declare now that I am a landscape and wedding photographer. I am a specialist in this fields. I approach both in similar ways that allow me to be a tailored and outdoorsy geek. I am part of a group of 6, that have called ourselves the Bauman Six, together we work together and come together to help on another to succeed in our vision of our photography.

I will soon retire the Oliver Henry Photography brand of the business and restart them as Oliver Asis Photography for the landscape work and Oliver Asis Weddings for the wedding photography.

Oliver the Photographer…And you can’t Win them All

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This past week was the first Professional Photographers of San Diego of San Diego County’s (PPSDC) Image Competition.  These are bi-monthly competitions where entrants enter their images to be judge and critique by their peer of judges.  With each competition comes a great learning opportunity and even some victory.  This also was the year that I was in charge of running the image competition.  Which in its own right it is a victory in itself.

After attending, entering, and helping with the image competition over the last 2 years that I have been a member of PPSDC, I took over the reins of this very exciting and gut wrenching competition.  And from what I can tell thus far, organizing and running competition is a lot of work.  A LOT of work.  But that’s not the point of this post.

The purpose of this post is to talk about what happened at this latest image competition.  And I’ll just come and say it; I TANKED!  I tanked in a major way.  None of my images Merited on this night.  I’m not going to lie, it stung and it hurt a lot.  It hurt enough that I seriously wanted to just leave and tell everyone to go fuck it.  The insecurities that I had as a photographer once again showed its ugly head.  It’s ugly head spewing out the; you’re not good enough, that sucked, you sucked, do you really want to do this, you don’t have talent, and you just don’t have it anymore.  You’re a one trick pony.  And to top off it seemed that people that usually didn’t do well in the competition actually did pretty well.  And as much I am happy for them, I’m slightly more annoyed that they did.  I know this is coming from my insecurities and even some cockiness from my end.

Sitting there running the competition and seeing the scores and seeing others doing well made me feel small again.  I kept a straight face as much as I could.  But friends that do know me, usually can tell.  I don’t know if did that night but I think I showed it.

I think the thing that made it worst was that there are some people that got credit that I know they didn’t earn and most annoyingly I know that with such allocates it would be a “look at me, look at me” show.  And it being a couple days since, I know it did.  And too me that was the most annoying part.  I could attribute part of that to be jealous and that is true.  I was jealous.  But still, it was the fact that now it was just going to be shoved in my face not on purpose (well…that’s up for debate) but it was going to be presented in away that I feel that it shouldn’t.

But with this round of ranting and venting over…there are a few things that I did realized that night too.

For one, I understood, you can’t win them all.  And you can’t.  If you did, it wouldn’t make the times that you did special.  Right?  So I know that you need to go sometimes with a down so you can ignite the fire to start it up competitor mentally again and start the process to dominate it.

Secondly, you can’t rest on your laurels.  I think what happened in this competition is that I didn’t follow my normal procedure of getting input from friends that I usually ask if I should enter.  I rested and assumed on my end that my images still would be good like they where last year.  And when I think about it, they are good as last year but that was last year.  What I did wrong in this situation was that I was still producing the same old work and not innovating and creating images that won me the allocates that I did in the past.  I remember I told myself and other that I would always keep people guessing on my work.  And looking at what I entered, it was easy to pick out my work.  And on top of that, there wasn’t much imp ace in those images.  So they should not have merited.

Although, I should note, however it is not an excuse, that the judging that evening was a pretty tough.  Cut throat, blood bath, and massacre come to mind.  It was hard.  And those images never stood a chance.

Another thing I learned that night was that there are a lot of people that truly care, support, and genuinely want me to do well.  And that’s the biggest realization that I got from that night.  Truly the people that showed up, helped, messaged, and text in terms of “how can I help,” truly made the night best for me.  If they are reading this they know who they are.  And as I’m writing this my heart is healing and being filled with love and gratitude from those people.  I seriously love and appreciate them.  I hope they you know that.  If I could I would hug and give you each the world for just doing such a simple gesture.  With that I think I still came out on top.  The night ran smoothly as can be, it was long one but they stuck around, and afterwards we got to have a laugh and enjoy each others company.

But come November, I’m going to bring it.  And bring it BIG.  And along me with I’m going to make sure my friends that I support and truly believe also bring it.  I want them to also succeed and make their dreams come alive.  You can’t win them all but I surely will help those that I believe in without hesitation.  Buddies, I promise you this.

The following are the images that I entered.

Laser beam of light in Antelope Canyon

Laser beam of light in Antelope Canyon – 78/100

Long exposure of a rock lit by Moonlight

Long exposure of a rock lit by Moonlight – 77 / 100

Seattle taken a dusk

Seattle taken a dusk – 79 / 100

Oliver the Photographer…Goes to CreativeLive (Part #1)

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There are things that happen in your life that you sometimes go, why me? Then as you sit there asking yourself that question, it occurs to you that it was because you needed to be there. Somehow the things aligned and you where meant to be there. And a couple of weeks ago I was lucky, blessed, and humbled to have experienced that during my trip to CreativeLive in Seattle, Washington.

If you don’t know what CreativeLive is, in summary it is an on-line classroom where you can learn just about anything in the creative field from blogging to photography to health. You can watch the classes for free during the LIVE event and if you enjoy the class you can purchase the class and rewatch it at your own leisure.

Here’s a video I created from that trip.  A full summary of that experience to come soon.  Stay tuned.