Alex Black's Wedding Photography Blog

My New Personal Blog: blog.alexblack.ca (Thursday, October 01, 2009, ) [Permalink]

You might not know this about me, but photography is a part time profession for me. My full time career is in software development. Back in 1998 (while still at the University of Waterloo) I started two small tech companies with my friend Chris, and we worked our asses off trying to build them up fulltime for 7 years from 2000 to 2007. At our peak we had 15 employees, and over $1 million in revenues, most from consulting work under BrightBlocks, but some from multimedia yearbook sales through Booksoft. By 2007 it was clear that Booksoft's multimedia yearbook product was not gaining much traction, at our peak we had 50 schools and organizations using our products and services, but we didn't make much money off each one unfortunately. (Looking back, we had an online community that was included with each CD-ROM yearbook, much like a very early and simple facebook... Damn, if only we'd done online yearbooks!). Later that year our main consulting client defaulted on payments leaving us hanging, so we then shut down both businesses.

I'd been interested in photography for years, and so when in 2006 I got married something awakened and I started to persue wedding photography at first as a hobby and then as a 2nd career. In 2007 I was the most serious about I've been and photographed 17 weddings that summer. After that summer though I realized it was too much work for 2nd career, so I had a decision to make, should I make it a fulltime career or scale it back? My first passion is in technology, and honestly I'm better at than I am at photography. The parts of photography that I am best at in fact are the technology skills (lenses, flashes, settings, photoshop, etc). So after losing my entire summer to wedding photography, photographing weddings every weekend, editing photos all night during the week, and working days at my day job, I decided to stop seeking wedding photography clients, instead I now photograph 1 or 2 weddings here and there for friends.

I've just recently quit my job at Primal Fusion where I was Director of Platform Architecture to start a new company. I'll be blogging about this new company and other news at my personal blog. Please follow me there!

http://blog.alexblack.ca

- Alex

2 Comments:

Alex wrote... Hi Lynette, thanks for your comment, I'll send you an email to get in touch! Tuesday, October 06, 2009,

Lynette Tilt wrote... Hi Alex, it's too bad that you can't keep both jobs and have a million extra hours in a day to make it happen! Your work is great! However I understand the whole losing your summer to wedding functions as I'm in the wedding business also but with cakes. A tough choice to make (giving up all my summer weekends that is), but worth it as I love what I do and all the people I get to meet with. Anyway, my real comment/ question here is that you have a photo from Virginia and Jim's wedding of the cake that I made for them. (Sugar Tree Cakes and Cookies). I was wondering if I would be able to use that photo on my website and possibly other marketing pieces. I would of course give credit to you. Let me know if this sounds alright. You can email me at lynette@sugartreecakesandcookies.com Thanks, Lynette Tilt Monday, October 05, 2009,

Wedding Photos: Virginia and Jim (Thursday, September 17, 2009, ) [Permalink]

Virginia and Jim got married this past Saturday just outside Port Elgin, it was a wonderful day. The ceremony was at a quaint church in nearbye South Hampton, followed by a reception at their cottage near the lake. The back yard was setup beautifully, I loved the lights on the tent as the evening progress. Congratulations you two!

- Alex

A Friend's Wedding: Michael and Zuzana (Saturday, September 12, 2009, ) [Permalink]

Back in June, Melinda and I attended the wedding of an old friend of mine Michael Ekers and his now wife Zuzanna. Here are a couple of shots! The ceremony and reception were both on Toronto Island, which was really nice. The church was small and quaint, and the reception near the lake was very elegant. Congratulations Michael and Zuzana!

- Alex

Cliff Mautner Workshop: Day 2 (Wednesday, May 13, 2009, ) [Permalink]

Day 2 of the workshop with Cliff Mautner. Really awesome stuff so far. Today we shot at the gorgeous La Hacienda Sarria, in Waterloo. (It doesn't seem to have a website). La Hacienda is a renovated old factory in an industrial part of Waterloo, and is an incredible place for photography. It has a large interior courtyard with a glass roof above it, and stone pillars all around it. The interior decoration is very lavish and spanish in style, full of wonderful stone and metal work, tiled floors etc. This would be a great place to get married!

Today Cliff was showing us how to find and use light for dramatic effect. The beautiful location along with some great models made it hard not to get some nice shots. But wow, Cliff really finds beautiful light, everyone was taking such incredible photos, I thought mine were nice until I saw the rest of the group's shots!