My last couple projects have been of the proprietary sort, so instead, some of the best picks from my Photo-a-Day project, which just hit Day 400 this week!
Next week one of my side projects should be ready to be released to the world. Not strictly speaking a photo project, but will feature some great photos none-the-less. Can't wait to show you all!
Until then.
Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope yours is filled with love, be it from your special someone, your family, or friends.
One quick announcement:
Some recent changes on Instagram have made it much easier to have multiple accounts, so I am separating my business and personal postings.
From now on, the home of Zack Wussow Media will be @zackwussowphoto. I hope you'll follow me there if you're an Instagram user. My personal account will probably get switched to private in the near future.
I've always been a little uncomfortable with my account pulling double duty, so I'm very excited about this change. I expect it will mean I'll post a lot more photos on both accounts.
See you there!
Trish and Ryan met at UConn, but they spent a good chunk of their relationship in Stamford. I met them there for an engagement session.
It was a ton of fun, a surprisingly beautiful late-November day, and it only got better after a small, ah, costume change.
(Finally, the third wedding from my very busy weekend in October.)
It's a fact of the wedding business that you are constantly popping into and out of people's lives. One day you sign a contract, months later you're part of the inner circle for one of their most important days of their lives, and then you're back to being strangers. It's weird.
Which is why it's always such a pleasure to work with people who really are good friends of mine.
Some of my clients will recognize Marissa - she has often worked for me as a second shooter at weddings. We met back in our college days, during long nights toiling in the darkroom.
Over the last couple years, she's caught me up whenever we worked together about her and Jan buying a house in the country, and then pouring themselves into fixing it up. (It helps that Jan is a contractor.) I could tell from the way Marissa talks about Jan that he was something special, but I've never had a chance to meet him until their wedding.
It's clear she's made a good choice.
I can't say how happy it makes me to see my friend so clearly in love with a man who so clearly loves her.
Congratulations, Marissa and Jan!
For once I'm not posting about one of my clients. Yesterday I asked my girlfriend Heather to marry me, and she said yes.
Which of course means now we get all the joys (and stresses) of planning our "big day", with the added complication that I'm actually pretty opinionated about what I think works and what doesn't. (The dangers of working in the wedding industry...)
And of course, the ultimate question... Who do I get to photograph my wedding!?
(I'll be traveling through the 19th - for now, here's a post about the second of three weddings from a very busy weekend in October.)
I met Tricia and Andrew at the Seasons at the Tradition for their early-October wedding. After a rainy wedding the day before, I was excited to have bright sun, green grass, and a hint of fall color in the trees.
Tricia was dealing with a painful injury from the night before, but she was such a champ! I would never had guessed if someone hadn't told me, and she didn't let it stop her from having a blast.
In contrast to my wedding the day before, this time we had the full suite of special events - fitting at a venue called "the Tradition". Cake cutting, parent dances, bouquet and garter toss.
Still plenty of time for dancing, though, of course. There is always time for dancing!
(Also, one side note: It's a very strange feeling to be really moved by a song I've never heard at a wedding, only to learn it's by Adam Sandler...)
Congrats, Tricia and Andrew!
Happy New Years!
I'm a big fan of New Years resolutions, in part because I'm actually pretty good at sticking to them.
(The secret - make them achievable, measurable, and ideally something that you can break up into a series of smaller steps. So no "Get in shape" - instead, something like "Be able to run a 5K without stopping.")
Despite that, I hesitated to write a blog post about my resolutions this year. Plenty of them have to do with Zack Wussow Media, but to be frank those aren't that interesting. Either the goals are somewhat out of my control (I can't make more people hire me, for example, only look for ways to encourage it) or else I've set up systems which should take care of the goal with no real work on my part.
Instead, the goals I am most excited about are only tangentially related to ZWM. But I am excited about them, so I thought I would share three big ones.
This one goes on top of continuing my photo-a-day project (which is nearly a year old!) and continuing to expand my Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Maternity portfolios, two areas of my business I'd like to see expand in 2016 and beyond.
This year I want to do four large, involved photo projects that push me as a photographer.
Self-assigned projects are a great way to develop any skill. In my case, the projects are partially just for the fun of it, and partially to see if there are new avenues of photography I should be exploring, or new skills I can bring back to my regular work.
I'm sure I will post about them here, and depending on the details they may make it to some permanent home on this site.
I also want to learn (to some reasonable level of fluency) four new skills. I'm not terribly picky about what they are (though I have some ideas already), just that they are useful things I don't currently know how to do.
Are they likely to change the way I photograph a wedding? Nope. Though I never rule out the possibilities of cross-pollination.
I think it's important to never stop learning, though, and I always find it amazing how once you learn to do something, you start to see opportunities to use it everywhere.
I've already dipped my toes into the first thing, and I expect I'll be sharing some news about that here around the end of January.
I know, I know, I know. I said earlier this is a terrible resolution because it's entirely un-measurable. I'm working on the details.
The fact is, my body is pretty important to my job, and my job is not really good for my body. Hefting a heavy camera and an even heavier camera bag of accessories for eight-hour days is bad for you in almost every way possible. So I need to take better care of myself than someone my age normally would, just to break even.
Two years ago I ran a Tough Mudder. Right now, I wouldn't stand a chance. A year from now, I'd like to be able to again.
I'll work on the details...
There's a few other big-ish things I have planned for this year, most of which you will probably read about here when they happen... But for now that is all I will say.
What about you? Any exciting resolutions for the year ahead? Whatever the new year brings for you, I hope you have a wonderful, exciting, successful 2016!