The ladder to success & SHOWIT

When I first started really getting into photography back at the beginning of the year I still had my Nikon D3100 and made the decision to look for an upgrade. When I was looking for an upgrade I came across the Nikon D7000 which was considered an "intermediate" level camera. After looking at all the specs of what its capable of from its AF points, ISO, Mega pixels, frames per second, etc I wanted to see how its video capabilities played out.

Thats when I found Chase Jarvis. I saw his road test of what he thought about the camera and did a video that was completely created from the D7000. I fell in love with the camera, it was like a match made in heaven and I had no doubts that I wanted that camera. Not only did I love the way Chase put together this video but I also loved his style of photography and wanted to learn more about him so I checked out more of his videos and I noticed that he went about talking with other photographers and interviewed them.

That's when I found Jasmine Star. I saw her interview with Chase Jarvis and watched the whole 1:43:22 and loved everything about Jasmine, from her story of how she got started and wanted to become a wedding photographer to how she planned her business and most importantly how she stayed determined and never backed down. Sure we all have our moments where we question where we are and if we're going to get where we want to be but she's an example of never letting go and I definitely look up to her for that. after looking up more of her story through her old blog I learned about this site called Showit that helped her progress her business. I didn't know much about the site and didn't pay too much mind in learning more about it because I was busy with school and work at the time.

Months later after making the Jump to Florida I had to meet photographers in the area to start networking and second shoot for other wedding photographers. so after keeping up with Jasmine Stars like page on Facebook I made a post asking her if she knew any photographers in the Florida area. I only needed one person to help me out just ONE!

That's when I found Julie Story. Julie commented on the post saying that she lives in clearwater Florida and that we should connect and we did! :) After meeting with Julie I learned a lot about her, her sister and friend Cassie from the ups and downs of photographing a wedding. In the back of my head I had a feeling it was gonna happen and I knew it would eventually need to happen and that's when Julie challenged me to create a website for myself and have it live and ready to go by October 1. Ok so I know I need to start working on creating a website but where do I go to to create it! how do I put it online and make it work!

Julie simply said "Use Showit". I knew I heard about it before, but didn't know anything about the site. she had explained to me that it allows you to create and have your site hosted by them, all I need to do is: 1. buy a Domain name and 2. start creating my site! she had told me there was tons of templates and stuff to already work with, all I needed to do was add my own little flare to it.

After hearing all that I let it all soak up on my 1 hour and 40 min drive back home from St. Petersburg. I decided to jump on making the site asap. So with ALL that being said, the past 2 days and over 10 hours later only to stop for an occasional bathroom break or ramen noodles, I've been working on this site. It's a process that I'm still trying to understand and it's slowly coming along.

 The nice thing about Showit is I can make the site as detailed as I want for a flat rate every month to keep it online but until I actually do put it online I can work on developing it however long I want AND if I need help there's video tutorials on putting things together without costing anything (Music to a college students ears!) I really do love showit because they are there to help photographers like myself who are determined to do something with our business and they actually show that! And to think, it only took me the second time hearing about them to actually let it hook! ;)

Taking a break from putting together my Site I get to enjoy the weekend with my beautiful girl friend patty :) this is gonna be great!

When looking back on all this I realized I've been climbing a ladder, occasionally I miss a step but that doesn' mean I'm slipping because there's always the next step ahead of you.

Happy Saturday!