July 2017

Wow, I'm pretty far behind on making a post about July since we're already half way through the month of August. My photography business has not exactly kept me busy, but then again I have not made an effort to pursue new work. The only photo job of note was making a trip to Premier Build + Design's office in Itasca to do some a few headshots. The real work that kept me busy during the month of July was the ongoing work on my parents' house. July was really the month that I finally got back into the swing of things.

The most notable event that occurred during this month was the torrential rain and flooding that resulted from it. As far as Lake County communities, my city, Waukegan, did not get hit hard. However, many of the surrounding communities were not as fortunate and dealt with some pretty significant flooding. I feel like my problem of having a little longer commute around obviously pales in comparison to the people who had damage to their homes and were displaced by the flooding.

For Clean Power Lake County, we are constantly working to reach our goal. We started off the month of July by marching in Waukegan's American Independence Parade. As always that was a good opportunity to make our cause more visible to our local community. Also in July, Waukegan's city council approved signing onto the Paris Climate Agreement. This a move that the volunteers with CPLC have working towards making happen. I have also been helping plan CPLC's next event which is our beach clean-up and rally.

Finally, July was a good month in regards to the social part of my life. If I were to choose a major highlight of the month, I'd have to say it was the block party. The block party is always a good time so I'm always happy when I can make it. This year, I decided to invite some of my friends that I know through CPLC to join in on the fun. Everyone ended up having a blast and enjoying themselves. The part of it that I thought was pretty cool was how it helped to connect from different parts of my life. In fact, since the block party me and my friends have been getting together for game nights most Sunday evenings.

April 2017

Happy May Day everyone! Well, the month of April began with a flurry of work. Key Lime Cove was busy because it was spring break for many areas. Then, in addition to that I was helping out at the Lisa May for Mayor campaign. It was amazing seeing so many local people from different backgrounds coming together for a common cause. Unfortunately, despite all the hard work and effort everyone put into the campaign, we ended up losing by a couple hundred votes. While we may not have experienced the victory we wanted, I am optimistic that people in Waukegan will continue to push our politicians for the change we need here.

In the time after this campaign season, I worked at Key Lime Cove until its final days. In the days leading up to the closing for Great Wolf Lodge to begin remodeling, the mood at the resort was very somber. I am going to miss all the great people that I met during my time at the resort. When I took this job, I was thinking it was going to be a summer job and instead I stuck around for almost four years. It's sad to see it go, but I'm also looking forward to having an opportunity to spend more time on my photography now.

Over the last month, I have not done nearly as much photography as I would like to have done. I had a couple gigs as I photographed a child's birthday party and a wedding at the courthouse. I have fallen off my pace for my 365 photo project and my self portrait. Today is a new month and a fresh start so I'm planning on getting back to my photo project. Also, looking forward to pursuing new photography jobs and spending to learning my craft better.

February 2017

I can't believe we're already 2 months into the new year. So far, it hasn't been the greatest year, but I'm working hard and finding the silver lining in it all. For example, business has been slow at this point in comparison to last year. At the same time, I take some solace in the fact that this is the slow season for photography and that I was working a little harder last year on getting new leads. The only photo session that I've done so far was for my friend, Alex Morgan, and his campaign for alderman of the the 3rd ward in Evanston. Obviously, I have to push myself to get caught up and be at the point where I can focus my energies on once again on getting leads and growing my business. Another positive is that I have a couple head shots booked for this coming week and I met with a client yesterday.

The big positive for this year has been my creative work and my dedication to my 365 project. In a few days here, I'll be celebrating the 2 month anniversary of this project. While every photo has not been perfect, it is definitely helping me to grow as a photographer in countless ways. In fact, my family and I are planning on having a show in my studio space during the March Art Wauk. I really think this could and hope that this is just a small step in a much bigger journey for myself.

April 2016

April was a very busy month for me and as a result I forgot to do much of anything in terms of blogging. I will work on bring more in depth posts on the last month to a screen near you very soon. I'm happy to say it was mostly my photography that kept me busy and not working at the hotel.

 I started the month with one very hectic day as I worked at the hotel and did wedding photography on short notice in the evening. The next week I worked with an event planning company called Ellis Illusions and did photography for a prom themed 30th birthday party. I really had one of those experiences where you are reminded how small the world is sometimes when I ran into the head event planner from Ellis Illusions while I was working at the hotel a little more than a week after the party.  

Right now, each job is still something that is new to me and a learning experience. I also did a headshot a few weeks ago for an employee of Premier Design + Build Group. Then last week I did engagement photos in my studio. This week the wild world of photography had me doing photography for a children's birthday. Photography for children's birthdays can really take it out of you. 

Don't worry the month wasn't all work and no play making Dylan a dull boy. I found time to have fun as well. In fact even managed to mix business and pleasure as I met some great local business owners at the Waukegan Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours event at Three Brothers Theatre. A couple weeks ago me and my friends enjoyed some time in Chicago for a Cubs' game on the rooftops. I went down to Springfield with Clean Power Lake County for Lobby Day. Finally, I spent a few days visiting my alma mater, Bradley University. I had been meaning to visit for quite some time and knew the timing was right when a couple of my pieces got selected to have a couple of my pieces in the the Bradley University Photography Society's Considering Light and Time exhibition fundraiser. 

March 2016

I'm still trying to figure out where the month of March went. Man, did the month ever fly by quickly. While my photography has been lacking a little in terms of work during this month, I've made progress in terms of marketing my business. For one, I've started to explore a new avenue as I've started posting ads on Craigslist. For quite awhile I've scoured Craigslist looking for work, but never made the effort to post my own ads. I've gotten a decent response from my ads and gotten a few potential clients from them. Also in terms of marketing, I continued to ad my business to listings leading to my site continuing to move up in terms of SEO.

This month I didn't have any photo sessions with clients but I did do a little bit of photography from time to time. One of those projects I did was my self-portrait session where I dressed as a lumberjack. I also entered a photo of my cat in the Waukegan Park District's Pet Superstar Photo Contest. Despite my best efforts which included a bit of editing, my photo did not win. Finally on a more serious note on the last day of the month I photographed a luncheon hosted by Clean Power Lake County. I will write more at length on that in the coming days.

So far, I'm not entirely sure what the month of April is going to hold. I photographed a wedding on short notice yesterday. I'm photographing an event next Saturday and a portrait session next Sunday. Then as far as my personal life goes, I'm looking forward to the Cubs season beginning Monday. Hopefully this is the beginning of a great year for the them. Also, later in the month I'm going to Springfield with people from Clean Power Lake County to lobby for clean jobs in Illinois.  

February 2016

February was an interesting month. I ended up having two paid shoots that I got off of Thumbtack. Also, I had a free shoot that I gave away as part of a prize drawing during when I had work on display at Sidecar Studios. I'm working on editing images from a couple of those shoots and hope to have them finished up by the end of this week. I'm so happy to have some work to do during these colder months. Also, I volunteered my photography skills for the Waukegan Park District a couple nights this month and did photos for their Mother-Son Sweetheart Dance and Father-Daughter Date Night. 

This coming month, I'm not sure what exactly to expect with my photography. I'm definitely looking forward to the beginning of spring and as a result more outdoor photography. While life may become a little busier with photography, life may be a little busier this month with my other jobs.  In about a week and a half, I have orientation for Six Flags and will have to say goodbye to my beard that I've been growing the past few months. Then a week later, I'll be attending Six Flags' Leadership Summit and learning about what this coming year has in store for the park. This is also the time of year where many schools will be having spring break and as a result KeyLime Cove be getting busy and I'll be working more there.

January 2016

Well here we are already one month into 2016. This as expected has been a slow time of the year when it comes to the photography business. I'm not too nervous about this fact and realize that at some point in the future, there will be a part of me that will miss this slow period. Since I've had quite a bit of time on my hands, I've been using my time to gain knowledge on photography and business side of it. Last week, I got to watch numerous webinars from some of the most respected names in the photography during the Turn It Up Conference. The last few days, I spent preparing for a shoot that I had yesterday. So you guys can look forward to me posting shots from that shoot later in the week. Additionally, I had a week in there where I didn't get much work done since my cat played with and chewed up my computer wire one night while I was sleeping. 

July 2015

The month of July went nothing like I expected it to go unfortunately. I spent the first week and a half of the month without a cellphone. On one hand I kind of enjoyed being "off the grid" and being free of the distraction of having a cellphone. However, being a little harder to reach than normal is not good for a growing business. As a result of being without my phone, I ended up missing out on a photo session. 

Additionally, in my last post I mentioned that I was hoping my workload was going to ease up a little and give me time to work on my photography. To my disappointment, my work schedule did not slow down and instead was still rather busy. My job as a landscaper took up its normal 40 hours a week and work as bellman still took up a few evenings of the week. This week the job as a bellman finally had me scheduled for one day of work. Granted, most of the spare time that I have had has been used to continue with the renovation project at my parents' house. By the end of the week, the renovations should be complete and hopefully I finally will have more time to devote to my photography.

June 2015

The month of June was very hectic for me. I attempted to balance 4 different jobs at once over the past month. I found myself working my usual 40 hours a week on landscaping and then found much of my spare time consumed with a mixture of working as a bellman at a hotel and helping my parents as they renovate their home. All this work, made it difficult to find time to focus on my photography as much as I wanted. The good news is that my boss at the hotel is interviewing and hiring people soon. I will soon have more spare time. Praise the lord!

I started the month of June off by preparing and participating in the Dandelion Wine Arts Festival. Partaking in the festival definitely helped to rejuvenate me and definitely encouraged me to continue to pursue my passion in photography. I have very little in the way of complaints of the festival. The weather was lovely and I got to meet so many new people. I even got some clients that I ended up photographing later in the month. I’m going to edit the photos from that session soon and be posting them on here.

For the month of July, I have a goal of getting out and doing some artistic photography. Also, I’m hoping to do some photo sessions that I’ve been meaning to do for the longest time. This month, I’ll continue to work on helping my parents with the work on their house and prepare for hopefully having a gallery space setup for the August ArtWauk.