2022 Year in Review

2022 made with a long exposure of sparklers

By many standards, 2022 was a wonderful year! It finally felt like things were back to normal in many (but not all) ways!

2022 had me creating over 130,000 images. These do not include the freelance images created for photojournalism. I keep them on a separate laptop.

I transitioned all my video delivery to online only. This allowed me to deliver higher quality video that can be seen on more platforms. My videos had over 1600 views from over 700 unique viewers of which 1000 of them were on mobile devices! Total time watched amounted to 63 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 13 seconds worth of content!

Notable highlights:

• In 2022 I added two new dance studios and greatly expanded my rain machine offering. I also offered new types of dance portraits sessions and continued with some tried and true.

• It was a year of change as well. I will be dropping an existing dance studio and most likely another.

• I was honored to have one of my images selected as Best of 2022 for Behind the Shutter magazine!

• I attended two professional photography training conferences (Imaging USA and Pas De Deux). I believe in staying up to date and current as much as possible.

• I provided photography services for Fairleigh Dickerson University, a new client

• I expanded my volume sports photography coverage and picked up a new softball league, new field hockey league, and a new soccer league.

• The 2022 Freddy Awards was back to in-person which was great!

• I photographed my first Bat Mitsvah as well as an event photographer for “Make Your Mark” for another temple.

• One of the highlights of the year was the popularity of my expanded rain machine experience! Everyone who participated enjoyed themselves. This will be expanded even further next summer!

• My photo booth was very popular in 2022 as well despite losing one school dance I’ve done for years

• I provided commercial still and video images for an illusionist at the State theatre in Easton, PA

• In late summer I offered my first ever “skirts and scarves” sessions which was a blast to do and another big hit!

• There were plenty of headshot sessions, theatrical performances, dancers, recitals, senior sessions to name a few.

So, what’s ahead for 2023? Plenty!

• Plan on having a dance portrait session in NYC with a group of pre-professional dancers
• As long as mother nature cooperates, we look forward to having some dance portraits created in the snow!
• My rain machine experience will be expanded and offered earlier and more often this summer
• I plan to attend more professional training in Chicago as well as photograph dancers while there from across the US.
• More dance portrait sessions of various types

I would be honored to have you come along for the journey! Let me know what I can do for you or your organization as far as photography or videography is concerned. Contact me for more information. I can’t wait to meet you!

Dave

2019 Photo Retrospective

top 300 photos of 2019

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. My fall schedule was intense, to say the least. I was blessed to be working practically 7 days a week from mid-October until Christmas.

It’s common to have a year in review for photographers. Its a fun yet challenging task for an active professional photographer. My Lightroom catalog recorded slightly over 106,000 photos that I created. The sad thing is that is not all of them. Many sports assignments and a few others are kept on a different computer (laptop). For the sake of my sanity, I didn’t look at them.

The 300 images above do not represent everything I’ve photographed either in 2019. I know there are a few clients I realized after creating this I left off, not on purpose.

You can tell from above that I love to create dance and theater photographs. There are also plenty of others too including events, fire, photo booth (not even included above!), headshots and family portraits.

In closing, I’d like to thank all of my clients, past, present, and future for a great 2019. I look forward to 2020 to be even better. I plan on rebalancing some of the types of photographs I create and events I cover so it will be interesting to see how this works out!

2014: Year In Review with Photography

I enjoy looking back at the past year from a photography point of view. Below are a small assortment of some photos and events recorded in 2014. A lot of Fire Department photos were omitted as well as most of the freelance photos with the Express-Times.

62,885

That’s the number of photos I recorded in 2014. There were probably more (not included are smartphone photos and some photos from other camera) but all in all not too shabby.

First, Last

I thought interesting to see the first and last photos of 2014:

I took photos at the January 1 Greenwich Township re-organizational meeting. The last photo was at Times Square in NYC. Don’t worry: we were not crazy enough to go in on New Year’s Eve. It was from Monday evening, December 29th.

January

January featured lots of snow photos: (remember how cold and snowy last winter was?)

As well as ShowKids’s production of “Annie” later in the month.

February

February was a quieter month. I wanted to try my hand at some sports photography so took some wrestling and basketball photos at some of the Greenwich Township Recreation events:

I also had the opportunity to get to know and photograph “Tower Suite & Friend’s” band.

March

March featured more sports with basketball:

Then finished up the month with some publicity photos for SKIT’s upcoming production of “Shrek”

April

April proved to be a very busy month. I photographed a Dance Recital and Raritan Valley Community College,

A family portrait session with the Modde family, A bad fire house fire on the north end of town and finally “Shrek.” There was also a bad fire along the railroad tracks in Phillipsburg. Some of my photos got picked up by AP as it was the Easter Bunny train ride that caused all the commotion.

May

The craziness continued into May with my schedule getting even busier if that was even possible:

My youngest daughter graduation from Raritan Valley CC, SKIT Workshop production, and my wife’s SPAC show of “Willy Wonka Jr” of which I did the headshots, publicity, show photos and video!

From there it was Freddy Award season. We start off with some rehearsal photos:

Then go right into the dress rehearsal and show night

The month finally ended on a calmer and warmer note of the Greenwich Township Memorial Day parade.

June

June continued to be busy but in a different way. Some couples photos for Damian and Kait, engagement photos for Lindsey & Tim, a tanker shuttle drill with the fire department, a model shoot and to finish it up a nice photo walk with Rick Sammon’s at the old World’s Fair.

July

This blog post is going on longer than I anticipated so if you’re still reading, thanks you! July featured a summer photo conference in Kentucky with some model photo shoots, a natural gas drill with the fire department, special photographer’s access to the Festival of Ballooning, the fire at Hunter’s tavern and finally the Warren County Farmer’s Fair.

 

August

August started off with some head shots for Dawn, then the annual Atlantic City Air Show, a trip to Great Adventure amusement park, and finally Lindsey & Tim’s wedding!

September

September featured SKIT’s participation in the 2014 NJ ACT Perry Awards (SKIT took home 4 awards including Outstanding Musical for Shrek!) and the Greenwich Township Community day where I had my first ever booth for the community.

October

October picked up again and started off with Kailey & Jason’s wedding, Fire Prevention week at the Elementary school, photographing a corporate event (complete with a Joan Rivers look a like!) Confirmation at Church of the Holy Spirit and finished off with some headshots for Joelle

 

November

November started off with engagement photos, my oldest daughter Julie, and Cody and Brittany, then the Fit, Dribble, Dish and Swish event, followed up with some crazy Thanksgiving snow photos:

December

December started off with Andrea & Michael’s wedding, photos of Santa on the Stewartsville fire truck, and finally Christmas Eve candlelight mass at Church of the Holy Spirit.