Studio (stu*di*o) Pronunciation /ˈst(y)o͞odēˌō, ˈst(j)udiˌoʊ

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1. a room where an artist, photographer, sculptor, ect., works.  

A studio is an integral part of a commercial photographer’s life. The studio is used as an office, storage, and place to hold a shoot. A studio is a photographer’s personal workspace. I have been looking to get into a good photography studio, but I have found studios are expensive. The average cost to rent a studio for a half day in Nashville, TN is $300. That is a hefty price tag for 4-6 hours of usage, especially if you are shooting a headshot for $500. It’s hard to justify that additional cost to a client.

Some studios allow monthly renters where photographers pay a set monthly fee for using the studio for 4-5days a month. Often times these studios will also offer office space. The problem is in these studios photographers’ personalities are always butting heads and there are always scheduling problems.

I have been in the search for the perfect photo studio for several months. I want a place where I can work everyday. I want to have my own office and my own storage space. I want to be able to have a studio that I can call my own. Unfortunately the options that I have found in Nashville do not a good fit for me right now, especially when it comes down to cost.

Book Review: Getting Things Done by David Allen

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My workflow has always been inefficient. From my earliest days in school till just recently I have been an unorganized mess. While my quality of work has always been high, the amount of time and effort involved in obtaining that quality was on the long and difficult side. From elementary school though my junior year in college I was grossly inefficient at getting things done. I would always finish my projects on time, but things were never well organized. Things were never well organized because I had never been taught how to be organized. My senior year in college I read a blog post about being more efficient with my time. I started blocking out 4 hour chunks of time to work on projects and doing them one at a time and taking no breaks. This method worked well for me, but I still had other things on my mind that made me ineffective with my time.

Since graduating college, getting married and starting my own business my organizational skills really started showing up as being quite poor. I was terrible at managing my time. I had a very hard time making time for my business, my family, my friends and also wanting to get more involved with other organizations. I figured it was time to try to get things prioritized. There had to be a better way to do things then they way I had been doing them.

I was on twitter about a year ago and a friend of mine tweeted about David Allen's bookGetting Things Done. They said that they were going to start a getting things done system, and sent me two links about what that was. The first link was to an article about using Gmail as your central “Get it Done” inbox(to http://lifehacker.com/5321180/turn-gmail-into-your-ultimate-gtd-inbox) The second link was to an application called Evernote that one man used to change hislife(http://www.40tech.com/2009/08/25/getting-things-done-gtd-in-evernote-with-only-one-notebook/).

These two links got me started with GTD. Later I decided to buy the book.


David Allen has a simple concept.  Get things out of your head and on paper.  David Allen says that if you can get all of the ideas swirling around in your head on paper that you can be more productive.  David advocates writing all the ideas down and putting them in a filing system.  David has a great system that I have implemented in my life.  I have become more productive with his system.  Writing everything down and organizing it into distinct areas and projects has helped me to get more done and to remember more stuff that I need to do.  I recommend GTD for those that are looking to help out their workflow in any industry.  The concepts that David presents can be implemented in any knowledge or creative job.  This is a great read for photographers.  You can apply the workflow discussed in the book to your creative process.  You can apply the concepts to client meetings, post processing, and your daily life.


I purchased my copy from Amazon's Kindle Store.  You can purchase your though this link Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Tweet The other day Wes Aldridge had a test shoot up at Studio Daylight with an amazing model Christina Crawford. I got the privilege of shooting Christina for a few minutes before I had to leave for a meeting. The above is the result of my quick 5 min shoot with Christina.

Katy Grace

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I had a great shoot last week with an amazing model Katy Grace.
Model: Kati Grace
MUA: Joel Green
Stylist: Brandon Hood

Camera Bags

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Pelican 1510
Domke F1X
Melvin and Moon

Domke F6
Banana Republic Camera Bag


Domke F803

The above pictures are of my favorite camera bags. I get asked a lot of questions about camera bags. Mostly what bags do you use and why.

Pelican 1510- this is the largest Pelican case that is carry on approved. I bought this case last Christmas because I was in need of a hard carry on case for transporting my camera gear around. This case can hold my 1DMKIII with 70-200f2.8 IS mounted with lens hood reversed, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 85mm f1.8, Canon 24mm f1.4, Lens Baby 2.0, Rocket Blower, a few CDs, 3 Pocket Wizards, cables for Pocket Wizards, card case, note pad, pens, clips, business cards, a few ponchos, 3 way power adapter, a few gels, the battery charger for the 1D MKIII, and a bunch of AA batteries. I use this case mostly for transporting gear from my home to my end destination and will then switch bags to one of the soft bags.
You can purchase the Pelican from Amazon here Pelican 1510-004-110 Medium Carry-On Case with Padded Dividers.

Domke F1X- this is the big boy bag that everyone will recognize you as a PJ with. It is a big heavy canvas bag. I love it. I use this bag when I am going to need to carry a lot of gear and wont be able to go back to the car or studio to swap out gear. It is a soft bag with out much padding which keeps the weight of the bag down. It is also a really easy bag to shoot out of. This bag can carry almost everything that the Pelican 1510 can. One of the best features of the Domke bags is the gripper strap. The strap grips really well to your shoulder and does not slip.  You can purchase the Domke F1X from Amazon here Domke 700-10S F-1X Little Bit Bigger Bag (Sand).

Melvin and Moon- this is primarily used as a grip bag. It is a big nice canvas bag. It generally hauls around a Nano stand, power cables, A clamps, Super Clamps, reflectors, Gaff tape, flash brackets and other grip accessories.

Domke F6- This is a smaller F1X it takes away the pockets on the outside of the bag except for a front pocket and a rear pocket. This bag can hold 4 lenses and a camera body. This used to be my primary walk around bag. It is made of the same canvas as the F1X. It is a soft bag that conforms to the body. Also the bag wears in really well. I have used this bag for about 4 years and it is in amazing shape. Like the F1X it is a water resistant bag. I use the standard Domke 4 pocket insert which is a bit snug if you want to put the 70-200 in the bag with the lens hood on. I generally put the lens hood in the larger compartment or on my strap.  You can purchase the Domke F-6 from Amazon by clicking here Domke F-6 Little Bit Smaller Bag (Sand)

Banana Republic Camera bag- this bag pulls double duty. This bag is primarily my man bag but also serves as a camera bag for events where I have to be more dressed up. I throw the Domke 3 pocket insert into the main compartment and it allows me to put three lenses in the bag. I then just swap out lenses. The front compartment has enough room to store a flash and a battery pack and a cf card case. This is not the most easy bag to work out of but when I shoot grip and grins at social events this is usually my go to bag.

Domke F803- this is my new go to walk around bag. It holds three camera lenses, some batteries, a note book, and has room for a few pocket wizards. This is the rugged wear edition. It has a coating of wax on the outside that makes it more watter repellent than the other Domke bags. It also wears in really well. Like all Domke bags it is a soft bag with minimal padding.  You can purchase the Domke F803 from Amazon Domke 701-83A F-803 Camera Satchel Bag (Brown Waxwear Finish)

When I am looking at camera bags I am looking for a bag that will be easy to carry, will wear in well, and has minimal padding. I like bags with less padding because they give you more room for gear and are lighter weight. Also I find that a lot of photographers put too much faith in the padding in their bags and will treat them carelessly. I find that if you are gentle with these lightly padded bags that they work really well.

What Nick Uses

Tweet People ask me all the time "What gear do you use?" This is a post dedicated to the gear that I use.

Canon EOS 1DMKIII

Canon 24mm f1.4

Canon 50mm f1.4

Canon 85mm f1.8

Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS

2 Alien Bee 800s

2 White Lightening Ultrazap 800s

1 Elinchrom Ranger RX AS Speed with S Head

Vivitar 285HV

Canon 580 EXII

2 Alien Bee foldable medium sized soft boxes

1 Alien Bee Beauty Dish

1 Speed-o-tron Beauty Dish adapted to Elinchrom mount

1 Elinchrom Deep Throat

1 Elinchrom shoot though umbrella

1 Westcot grey 24in umbrella

1 Alien Bee 64in PLM

1 Elinchrom ELOcta

2 4x8 California Sunboucne

Reflectors both the real photographic thing and rescue blankets

Pelican 1510 case for camera

Storm case of some sort for Alien Bees

Melvin and Moon grip bag

Old Tenba stand bag-way to heavy

Grip Stuff

Super clamps

Unbrella adaptors

Silks

A Clamps

Gaff Tape

A lot of extension cords

Power splitters

24in 2.7ghz iMac with 4gb of ram

Photoshop CS3

Lightroom 2.4

Adobe DNG Converter

Adobe Bridge CS3

Wacom Intous 3 6x8 Tablet

Sandisk Cardreader

Sandisk Extreme III cards both SD and CF

Gepke card case

A slew of hard drives from Western Digital, Sandisk, Maxtor and others.

Domke F1X

Domke F6

Domke F803 Rugged Wear

The above is the gear that I use pretty much everytime that I shoot. Below I have a list of suplimental gear that I use when I shoot for fun or when required by a client

Olympus RD-35

Toyo View C 4x5

Calumet 120mm f3.5

Mamiya 645 1000s

Mamiya 80mm f2.8

Mamiya 45mm f2.8

Tenba Road Case

Razzle 900

I buy the gear that I need to get the job done. From time to time I also rent gear. I use www.lensrentals.com to rent gear.

This is just a quick run down. I plan on posting a more complete list with pictures and maybe a few reviews later down the road.

Nick

Introducing the new Mrs. Bumgardner!

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After dating for three years Kati and I finally tied the knot on September 5th. It was truly one of the best days of my life.We had a small ceremony with our families and a few friends in Paxton, Il (near Kati's home town). The ceremony and reception were beautiful. The reception was very elegant. We had an amazing caterer LA Gourmet, who provided some of the best food that I have ever eaten at a wedding. Kati's mother surprised me with a red velvet armadillo cake with grey icing (right out of Steel Magnolias).

I got asked by many of the guest what it is like to pick a photographer when you are a photographer. The answer is simple you look for the same things in a photographer as anyone else. For a wedding you want a photographer that you get along well with and who has a photographic style that you love. You have to trust the photographer to take amazing pictures.

It is still kind of strange having your picture taken as a photographer. All sorts of things are running though your head. What aperture, shutter speed, ISO, flash power are they using? Is that softbox placed to high? Does that pose look natural? You just have to let go and let the photographer taking the pictures take the wheel.

Melanie Dunea

Tweet Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting a photographer that had previously been unknown to me. The photographer is Melanie Dunea. She came onto Nashville to work on a book project called "My Country" you can find out more details about the book on her blog www.melaniedunea.com/blog. She has been shooting some of the biggest names in country music for her book. I was asked by a friend to be one of the assistants on a shoot for the book. So yesterday I assisted Melanie Dunea on her shoot with fellow assistants David Johnson and Wes Aldridge. It was a great shoot. Melanie took pictures of two major country stars. The first shoot of the day was at a small town drive in just south of Nashville. The second shoot was at Lawrence Tubb Record Shop. Between the shoots we stopped off and had lunch at Arnolds Country Kitchen which is an amazing meat n three. Melanie is an amazing photographer. She has a great report with her subjects and really tries to understand them. She also works amazingly quickly.

To find out more about Melanie Dunea visit her website www.melaniedunea.com where you will find some absolutely amazing photography.

Kristen Kukta

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Kristen Kukta is a great country singer based out of Nashville, Tn. I had the pleasure of shooting her the other day during a test session with fellow photographer Wes Aldridge. A big thanks to Wes for allowing me to shoot Kristen. To find out more about Kristen you can visit her myspace at http://www.myspace.com/kristenkukta.

Test Day: Halo Stereo

Tweet Thanks to my friend Wes Aldridge I had the pleasure of shooting Jody Hicks of Halo Stereo. Also a big thanks goes out to Brian Carter at Red Light Management for making this testing session possible.

You can find out more about Halo Stereo at www.myspace.com/halostereo.

Testing

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Yesterday Wes Aldridge and myself held a test day at the studio. A big thanks goes out to David Bean and Michael Gomez. David allowed us to do the test at his studio, Studio Daylight in the heart of down town Nashville. Michael allowed us to borrow some of his gear.

This is the first shot that I will be posting up from our testing session. We had a country music artist, a model, and a band show up for our test day. More pictures and information to come.

Danielle Dobbs' is the model in this picture. She is an amazing model to work with. You can find Danielle on Model Mayhem