JDKnight Films

Get out and shoot you never know what might happen.

It is so easy when you are hired to go out and shoot for a scheduled production, but what about the times in between?  I have been saying I need to go out and shoot more stills, I have a bunch of good ideas but instead of getting out of the house I will let almost anything get in the way... Am I lazy? That may be a small part of it. Another part may be that I feel guilty if there are other things around the house that needs to be done.

I live in northern California so many beautiful places to shoot. I just need to get out and do it.  Last year Tammy and I took off a week from work and made a point to take some day trips just for photos. On one of the days we drove to Bodie Ca and we got a ton of beautiful images How can you go wrong with a ghost town in the eastern sierras?  Then we took a day and took shot around Sacramento, there can be a lot to shoot in your back yard. Also took a trip to the bay area and was able to explore Oakland and the Marin headlands overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge  .... That was a great week and I came away with some great photos.

One of the interesting things that came from the trip was a friend of mine saw a couple photos on Facebook. Her boss tasked her with putting art on the walls of a brewery tasting room. She asked if I had any prints of if I wanted to sell some photos.. I was a little shocked but said yes... I spent the next week editing photos and printing them out and looking for frames. Now I have the photos for sale hanging in a public place. The first photo photo I sold was this one "Old Car in Bodie".  Now this is hanging on someone's wall.

I never thought about selling photos, but this led to me starting a  Smugmug account. Its a good site that will let you host albums of your photos with watermarks and copyright protections. it will also let you set your prices, they take care of the printing and the shipping. Everytime I get a image I'm happy with I upload it to the page and hope someone else will like it to. It's a good site for photographers, check it out and make sure it's right for you. http://www.smugmug.com/

So give yourself assignments or carry your camera with you everyday just get out and shoot you never know where it may lead.