My current status

[AiRdAncE]

Hi guys !

Just wanted to get you all up to speed on what's been going on in my life.

As most of you know by now, I'm trying to get out of my dayjob as an IT consultant and trying to make it as a fulltime photographer. I've been working in IT for almost twenty years now, and I'm bored with it all. It's hard to find a challenge even in designing networks for 2000+ users nowadays. I get to the same point every time "been there, done that, seen it all".
I've been enjoying photography for many, many years as a hobby, but never even considered doing anything serious with it.
Until people around me started telling me I should do some paid work. At first I just laughed them off, convinced that nobody would possibly benefit from my 'snapshots'. But they were more tenacious than me, so I started doing some work here and there and finally in November last year I started a business.
I'm doing my stinkin' best to get some work going, but it's a hard business. Everybody has a good camera nowadays and it's hard to get a job as a 'real' photographer when the client's neighbour or nephew is available to do the job in exchange for a beer. It's hard to convince people of the fact that experience and dedication and actually knowing how to work a camera can make all the difference in how the photos look.
The neighbour or nephew will spend two hours shooting 500 pictures and have maybe 10 or 15 that are near decent. I can spend 15 minutes, score 30 good to excellent shots (all in focus) and be gone again. Not always, but most of the time anyways and getting better and better each week. FrankPet (Frank Peters, one of my idols and an inspiration to me) knows what I'm talking about. Frank has told me on a few occasions that he could observe a growth in my work/technique and that's always one hell of an incentive to keep going.
My goal is to be a fulltime photographer by the end of this year. Very hard to accomplish, but without setting a serious goal, I'm certainly not going to get anywhere.
So, by day I am an IT consultant and by night and in the weekends I shoot photo's. At least, that's the idea. Haven't had a single assignment in march and have nothing in the agenda for this month, so it'll be the slowest month till now. So, you spend time getting your ratings in the search engines up, go see people just to remind them that you are a photographer and would appreciate an assignment every now and then and you post on photo-related forums just to get your name out. I have a 'spend no money on advertising' policy - advertising in newspapers and magazines and on billboards is so unreliable - you never know what your return is and it always costs money. So I try other ways.

Anyways, although photograpy isn't going as good and fast as I'ld like it to go, I'm pretty happy with my life right now and at least I'm busy and committed. Marital life is good as always, and the little girl is going to turn 4 in august and is the big light in my life. She's everything to me, has a great sense of humour and makes us both laugh very much. Every day again. She's bright (counts to hundred, can add and substract small numbers, is interested in anything technical), caring, beautiful and strong.

For those of you that are interested in what I've been doing with the camera lately, feel free to surf my website at www.kidogo.nl. I'ld love to hear your feedback, good or bad. I can take it

I still come by here every now and then and read up on what everyone is doing, and love to see how technology is getting better and better and the pits are evolving to complete immersion experiences Keep it up, buds !

Kim.

[Peten]

Good to hear from you Kim.

I wish you success in your new second carrier. you'll enjoye it for sure.



Asi

[trashman]

Nice website, Kim!  You have the eye for making people look good!  I also like your "colored smoke" - and the windmill picture was nicely done too...

Only half joking:  I saw on the "Tor's world tour" thread that you have a "hexacopter":  I know here in the US there is a market for "aerial photography" - and a number of RC copter pilots have strapped cameras to their helo's and done well...Maybe an excuse.....err...business expense to get yourself that TREX 700 you know you've dreaming about.... (btw - I fly a TREX450)

Best of luck in career 2.0!

Cheers,

Dan

[TOR]

Hey Kim!

Nice to see you back here 

Attempting a change of career these days takes a lot of nerves. None the less I am certain that you will make it just fine. Your photo?s are very good... some even "art" - like the nightshot of the windmill.

Just out of curiousity... an issue I rose on a danish site some years back... do you "photo-shop", or do you "compose" when on the scene???

Recalling when Kukki and I came down... how about a shot of a wall of Dutch cheese - you know, say "cheese" 

As for feedback... with regards to the portfolio - I do NOT like the photo of the Transall with 1/16 of Union Jack, 1/3 of a parachuter, 5 odd treebranches and a shitty shuttertime on the airplane-propellers 

... but hey, I am still single - so would I love to be "Pale Rider" or what  .... excellent movie by the way - probably the 2nd. best "western" with/by Clint... only surpassed by "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly"

Let me know what size Charlize is by now, and I?ll wrap you a box of rainwear... don?t forget bootsize!!

TOR 

[Kukki]

Hey Kim!
Great to see ya inhere again.
And thx for your pm.  And yes Tor and I will make a hit?n run for some days down to you, drink all your beer?s and eat all your food   and then see some of the other V-pilot nerds.

I will talk to Tor and see when the time is best here after summer, where the weather is still good.

Take care my friend, and give the girls a hug from me.

Kukki

[Helio Estrela]

WOW! pretty cool photos. congrats and all the bets in your new career!
cheers
Helio

[AiRdAncE]

Just out of curiousity... an issue I rose on a danish site some years back... do you "photo-shop", or do you "compose" when on the scene???

I actually compose my shots on site; I rarely use the crop feature of photoshop, I hardly ever use photoshop. Most of the time I use LightRoom, import the shots, apply the lens profile, add some black lens vignetting some times, apply the export function with a print profile (for prints of the photos) and apply an export on 800px with my logo overlay for web.

Good to 'see' you too

Hey Kim!
Great to see ya inhere again.
And thx for your pm.  And yes Tor and I will make a hit?n run for some days down to you, drink all your beer?s and eat all your food   and then see some of the other V-pilot nerds.

I will talk to Tor and see when the time is best here after summer, where the weather is still good.

Take care my friend, and give the girls a hug from me.

Kukki

Woohooo ! We can't wait for you guys to come over and eat and drink us into poverty !

@every one else; thanks for the feedback and comments, guys !

[Fenix]

Hola Kim, tienes buen ojo fotografico, magnificas fotos 
Saludos desde Espa?a

Fantastic job, very good

[Nigel]

Kim,
great to hear from you but I still wish you had built the damn pit!!!
Regards
Nigel

[gus]

Hi Kim. Welcome back, vipers haven't been the same since you left

For the photos, yupp. you do have a career there (also). Light, focus and composition is top notch as far I can tell 

Cheers
Gus

[AiRdAncE]

Thanks for the kudos, guys !!

Yeah Nigel, there's times I miss it... on the other hand I am so glad I stopped the whole thing. It was literally a weight off my shoulders. There was soooo much to do and I could not see the end of it

So I really am impressed with those few in here that have been here for years and are still going strong, pulling their weight in the community. Wow !

[Muddog]

Best of luck to you mate!
Cheers
Mud

[Ka-Bar03]

Nice pics Kim! I'm sure you will succeed in your photography. Please keep checking in.