Year in Review 2016

As the year draws to and end and I sit here and enjoy the last breakfast of the old year and eagerly await the beginning of the new, it’s time to sit back for a minute and reflect on what a good year it has been for Vagabond Photography.

Vagabond Photography had a good year with some ups and downs. While at Imaging USA in Atlanta in January, I decided it was time to start writing down some of our experiences in the photography industry. This has turned out to be a good way to communicate with you our clients and readers.

Bookings didn’t come in quite as quick as I had hoped for, for weddings and senior/portraits in the first half of the year but we did have a large expansion into the Corporate photography niche, with this new area now comprising about a quarter to a third of our business.  Something that I learned from my father is that even though you may have intended for your company to serve/provide one style of service, sometimes it can take on a life of its own and move in a different direction.

In April and May we had the joy of teaming up with two non profit groups in Milwaukee called Sweetwater and the Water Council of Milwaukee. They both have a great mission Sweetwater aims to help clean up the Milwaukee River, Menomonee River and Root River basins. While the Water Council of Milwaukee looks at ways of restoring our aquifers and delivering clean water to the area. It was such a great experience to be able to work at both of their conferences, I learned a lot even though I was just there to document the day for them.

Over the summer, we saw the launch of our new website for Vagabond Photography. www.vbphoto.co  For many years, I used and loved the hosting company Zenfolio, they have great layouts and custom designs but with diminishing returns though search engines and a lack of being able to do customized SEO, I decided it was time to make a move. After some research beginning in late July I decided on moving our hosting duties to Square Space. It took a little while to get everything set up and also, I had to find a new hosting platform for our client galleries and for that we settled on a little-known company called Pixieset. I was able to integrate both platforms to create a seamless new website that I think looks marvelous.

As the fall approached we moved to the last of our Senior Portraits and a few weddings. It was so great to a part of our wedding client’s special day.  I really love fall weddings so much more than summer weddings. There is such a great wide range of colors from golden hues of yellow, fiery reds, hazelnut browns and every other color in-between.

At the end of October/beginning of November I interviewed with an auto auction company called Mecums to possibly photograph cars for them part time while still being able to run Vagabond Photography full time. It didn’t pan out but I am thankful for the time to learn from there master photographer David Newhardt. I always love to learn new things and in a couple of days photographing with them it turned into a great learning experience. Learning something from a gentleman that has photographed classic cars for over 40 plus years is a great treat.

As Christmas approached we moved back into our Corporate Christmas season. I was great, to have our friends at MUZA Metals in Oshkosh ask us back for a second year even though getting there did happen on one of the more hazardous snow storms we have had it Wisconsin in a while. But it was fun, they all were but this one stick out in my mind the most because the getting there was just as interesting as the actual event was.

Christmas was spent back in my home town with my family and it was great to have some down time and to be able to be with friends and family for a few days.  I keep telling myself one of these years I need to bring my gear home with me and photograph a Gumz Family Christmas on Christmas Day but I have yet to do this. It’s a great time with mom and dad on my dad side of the family all the aunts and uncles show up with all the cousins and it turns into a great time when you stick 75 to 100 people into a town hall with the same last name. I guess next year should be the year to do that before the family starts to dwindle.

As we look forward to the new year it comes with hope and a little apprehension of the unknown. I cannot wait to get to San Antonio in the first part January for Imaging USA’s annual convention and trade show and to escape part of the cold Wisconsin winter.  We are still working on bookings for 2017 and I would love to be a part of your wedding or collaborate with you on your senior or family portraits. No idea is too big or too small for us. For our corporate clients, we would enjoy teaming up with you and photographing your summits, meeting and conventions and we can work with you based on your business size.

Have a great and safe New Years Eve folks, if you venture out tonight and you find you had a little too much to drink call a friend or a family member because a little lecture is better than not having your presents to enjoy. And as my favorite character Sherman T Potter from Mash says “Here’s to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we may we all be home before she’s over.”

I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in the New Year.

Best wishes,

Tim Gumz
owner and principal photographer

Believing in yourself and finding new opportunities at taekwondo camp

     Over the weekend we had the joy of taking Vagabond Photography on the road to Steven's Point, WI and teaming back up with our friend Alyssa Fencil. Our project destination was a taekwondo camp hosted by Five Rings Martial Arts with special guest Rio Olympian and part of Team USA, Stephen Lambdin. It was a great multi day event and being able to be a part of it was enlightening and fun as always.

I always say you need to love your job and if you love your job it will never feel like work. Covering events like this is what I mean by it. To be around so many energetic people who want to be where they are at that point in time is really eye opening and refreshing. I cannot say enough about the owner of Five Rings Martial Arts Steven Decker and Olympian Stephen Lambdin. Watching them work with students from the ages of six all the way to the mid 40’s, one can see they believe everything they talk about and it’s not something they do because they feel they have to. The one on one time and direction is something truly amazing and you can see when what they say is actually getting through to the students. At the end of the day, through Stephen’s talks and workout/training sessions, everyone was able to come away with something to help them become better.

“Believe in yourself and at first if you fail you have to get back in there and try again” is one thing I took away. Another is “It is okay to lose. It lets you know what you need to work on.” That second part is something that is vital I think to most photographers. This is something we should remember when we enter into photographic competitions and don't place as well as we think we should. It’s not that we are horrible photographers but it shows us there are parts of our craft that we need to work on.

In the end the best memories from this weekend’s events are the laughs, the sounds of feet meeting outstretched pads, and the few bruises or badges of honor (which I was sent a photo of earlier today) that we take away until the next time we gear up to do it again.

Turn the screen off & treat it like film Challenge

A little Challenge: Turn the screen off & treat it like film

I went out in the city of Milwaukee last night to scout a few locations for an upcoming session and I noticed a few other photographers out and about doing their thing and having a good time.

The one thing I noticed though, is almost everyone out there was looking at the back of their cameras on the LCD screens to see if the photograph was the way they wanted it every time they clicked the shutter button. It got me thinking I started with film, moved too digital and now I do the same thing, it's kinda interesting how the times have changed. Also, it’s a little sad, because there was a time we could not see what our images looked like until we developed the film and then went into the dark room and created out prints or had that dreaded W store develop our prints for us. I do miss the darkroom some days.

So what if we found a way to turn that little screen off or temporally black tape over it so we cannot instantly see the result to know if we have to shoot it again or not? Think of it as getting it right in the camera without the instant gratification like we used to have back in the film days.

I’m not saying to do this right off the bat on a payed gig but on a test/fun session just to see how things turn out. I’m willing to bet the first time or two we might need to go back and possibly try again or modify it in Photoshop or your current editing software more than you needed to over just looking at it on the screen. I think in the long run it would give us a more intimate understanding of our cameras and accessory gear.

Give it a try for one or two fun sessions I encourage you and I will try this myself to only look through the viewfinder and not at the LCD screen on the back, wait till you get home to see if you got it right like in the days of film.

I would love to see what you come up with right out of the camera leave a photo in the comment section below.

Best,
Tim Gumz

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/)

Summer Fun

Well the long winter seems like it has finally come to an end in Wisconsin, so that means it’s time to get out and start working with our valued clients back in the great outdoors.

This summer in addition to working with our customers on their Senior Portraits, corporate and live events, weddings and sporting events, I plan to work in some time for personal projects.

So I would like to take this time to tell you about some four ideas I have for summer projects.

First being “dancing in the streets” it is a simple concept I would like to partner up with several people with a dance/gymnastic background and work them to pose them in areas you might not think to normally see a dancer. (Ex A foggy night on lit street in Milwaukee, on a rock in the middle of a stream, river or lake, basically places you wouldn’t normally think someone would belong.) This idea came to me a reviewing some photos from few years ago. At the time I was working with a few students from UWSP who were dance majors and their elegance and gracefulness started to get me thinking it is something we don’t take the time to appreciate much these days.

Second is “thinking outside the box” this is a project I actually started this winter and it was something to just past time with friends. So by thinking outside the box you and I figure out how to portray our plan inside 4’x4’ cube that I created. This has actually been quite fun for both myself and the models/friends involved so far. I had it suggested by a close friend that I find someone flexible and see what we could come up with involving creative lighting and poses.

Third is “Castaway” I live on a lake in Walworth Co. and it has a small island on it and from time to time I wonder while floating by what it would be like to be stranded on a bigger island. So I would like to try and recreate this image I have in my head of someone sitting on a shore line waiting for someone to come and rescues them.

The Fourth is “Forgotten” while driving around scouting for locations from my senior portrait clients I find quite a few run down places and coming from a journalism back ground I think well there has to be a story there. For this one I would like to partner up with a model female or male or both and have them and have it more themed as I was left behind or forgotten here. I had always intended to use the old Solvay Coke and Gas buildings but a construction company has put fence and the MPD is actively ticketing trespassers. So for now I am looking at using a few old houses and other buildings I have access to and old abandoned car/machinery.

I look forward to teaming up with some very talented people in the near future and start having a little fun with some of my own projects. If you are interested or a have a project of your own you would to collaborate on you can go to my contact page and shoot me a message. Contact