Monday, June 25, 2007

I'm in Business

Well it's official....I'm now a professionally paid photographer. Someone bought some of my pictures!

There's been so much going on here lately that it's been difficult keeping things in perspective, but one of the things I've been working on is a side business.

Last year I was at one of Chicago's many street festivals when this girl approached me and a friend and asked if she could take our picture. She snapped and then handed us a business card directing us to a website where we could view our picture and buy it if we liked it.

Well it was such a great concept for a business that I've been working for over a year now to start one of my own....and I'm very happy to say that I DID IT!!!!!!

So now, I travel around to the festivals here in Chicago (honestly there are tons of them - just this past weekend I did 4 events and could have done two more if I had the time and or energy) in my blue shirt and throw my fancy camera in people's faces and ask if I can take their pictures.

I try to look as "official" as I can without coming out and saying that I'm actually affiliated with the event I'm photographing....but if someone asks me I come outright and tell them who I am. I have a shirt with my name on the front and "Event Photographer" on the back and I have professionally printed business cards that I hand out to everyone whom I snap a picture of.

This past weekend was Gay Pride in Chicago (as well as a host of other cities) and I had a blast running up and down the street taking pictures of people enjoying themselves at the parade.

So now that the "hard" part of getting everything up and running is out of the way, hopefully I'll have a bit more time to pay attention to this here blog.

If you'd like to check out the pictures from Chicago's Pride Parade you can find them here at:

Get Around - Chicago

Oh yeah if you're a photographer in Chicago and have a nice DSLR who enjoys going to festivals and taking pictures of people, let me know - you could be making some extra money.

Oh yeah and if you're somewhere else in the world with lots of festivals - we should talk!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea, the website looks great too!

Good luck :-)

Karen said...

Michael, THAT is cool! Fun & hopefully profitable as well! Congratulations - it looks terrific.

The Sour Kraut said...

Would you take pictures of our family sometime?