The mixed bag life

Life is exciting. My life has always been changing. Every year of college has been totally different. Different environments, activities, friend groups, things I emphasized, and so on. This year might be the most different. My outlook on life has changed so much these past few years.

I’m just holding on and trying to make the most of each day.

Hopefully these posts will start being less random and have more of a concise idea, but for now, here are some of the things that I’ve come across:

~ Jon

Come back from California

I’m back from California.

It was a blast.  It was good seeing the long lost two sisters of mine.  We did a lot of sight-seeing and having good times.  These pictures are mostly touristy pictures…so beware.

I almost wrote a list of what I like about California.  I got bored. In short: 1. Interesting People  2. Sweet landscape / topography.  The rest…in picture.

[Note: most of the pictures have captions when you click on them (or mouse-over).]

Leeland.  great guy. 

The family minus me minus the parentals.

This was one of my favorite parts. We ditched the paths and just headed straight up the mountain.

This happens to be a fun road to drive down.

The sisters!  They’re all awesome, for the record. 

The bros, plus David.

This kid looked pretty awesome.  You could say he’s a baller.

A pano I took from the plane.  I really love all the mountains and crazy landscapes in CA.  The topography and look changes so much from place to place.

~ Jon

Heading out, again

oh yeah.

This summer has been pretty crazy. I have my random times of having free time (ie: this week), but I’m always going from one thing to another.  That’s how I like it.  Keeps me on my toes.

In the morning I’m heading out to Blue Knob state park for PCC! It’s always a great time being out in the wilderness for a week.  I’ve been doing the slideshow there for a few years now, and hopefully this year’s slideshow will be the best yet.    Throughout the week, I’ll take approximately 6,000 pictures and come up with a 20 minute show of a few hundred pictures and maybe a few videos.  But enough of that–the slideshow will be on here soon enough.  Now, I need to begin packing.

In other news, I got a car!  It’s my first one–a Chevy Malibu.  Hopefully it lasts me years and years. 

~ brief Jon

p.s. feel free to send me mail. 

Wedding Things; branding; the biz

Being professional and also open about your learning seems to be two things that don’t usually go together in the photography industry.  From the start, my plan has to been to turn jonyoder.com into my business site.  Since I haven’t always had a clear plan for where my business is heading, this blog has mainly just been a place to put the photos and ideas that I come up with, having only thoughts of doing photography professionally here and there.

The idea that seems to be most prevalent nowadays is to “fake it ’till you make it” in your business, while also having a personal side that people can relate to.  I understand this concept–you want to make your potential client confident in your ability to deliver something of quality in a professional manor.  So, even if you’re making things up as you go, you should do it with the confidence as though you’ve been doing it that way forever.

This mindset might sound weird to some of you.  Maybe it sounds wrong to show confidence when you aren’t sure or always trying to look/sound professional.  Personally, I’m choosing to be mostly open in my learning of the ins and outs of wedding photography.  It isn’t that I think different ways or what I’m used to seeing is bad, but I’m just choosing to be open about my learning simply because that’s the way I want to do it.

I’ve always been pretty open about things, so why stop now?  There could be many different good answers to that question…but for now, I’m just posting what I do.  What I learn.  Today it’s logo, website, and style choices.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time looking through different fonts to put together a logo.  As of now, I’m thinking: Jon Yoder Photographer | weddings & portraiture.  Pretty elaborate, right? 

I know that photographs speak louder than websites, fonts, styles, and logos, but being a perfectionist, I spend a lot of time trying to get things, well, perfect (except that I never am 100% happy with the way I make it).  I follow quite a few wedding photographers, and a decent amount of them have websites that are kinda hideous (I’m not going to name anyone ).  Yet they still seem to be doing fine–I guess brides know that they aren’t getting a website made for them or a book of some terrible font, they’re getting the photographs.  That’s not to say that the presentation doesn’t matter, it certainly does, but you can sometimes still do alright without a strong website.

All this brings me to the things that I still need to work out:

• I don’t know my unique style.  I’ve been tending toward more natural vs. lots of photoshop work lately, but I think it’s good to have more of a distinctive style than just the way you shoot.
• I haven’t settled on a logo.  Or a watermark.
• This goes with the last point–but I also want to change up the website a bit and have a style that goes across my whole brand.

There are definitely more things, but those points are what I’ve been thinking of most.

My favorite wedding photography brands (as far as websites / styles / design goes) and inspiration:

• Mindcastle // amazing style.  I really like their name, defined style, video work, & creativity.
• Red Leaf Studios // I like the leaf in the logo…and the background, and the photography. 
• Stacy Reeves // Really great style.    I like the brightness and the patterns.
• Matthew Saville // One of the few photographers that uses dark theme/light text.  I like the fonts and color choice. Great guy and mentor.
• Jasmine Star // obligatory.
• Jon Yoder // The color blue…the simplicity, the experience…wow–haha, I’ll stop now. 

I’m always going to aim high.  Where that will get me, I don’t know, but I suppose you’ll find out how it’s going soon enough.  =)

~ Jon

Fireworks Tent 101

I’m back from the wilderness of Camp Hill! Now richer and maybe wiser. The fireworks tent was definitely an adventure, but not always as exciting as I was hoping. It was a good experience though.

I do have a lot of catching up on life to do now. This summer is going by crazy fast, and there’s still so much to do.

This is my tent. Except when it was open I would hide the bed.

It’s kinda neat to be by yourself for 11 days.  A situation like this doesn’t come along very often.  Working in a fireworks tent has been compared to urban camping, whatever that is.

The good:

• I actually ate better there than I usually do.  This is due to some really kind people.
• Time alone is good.  Thinking time, God time, etc.
• The pay was decent.  Some would argue that it’s not worth it.  They may be right, dunno.
• I got to visit with some people from church that I don’t talk to very often.

The bad:

• Since I was doing the tent by myself (which is a bit abnormal), I couldn’t leave.  The tent was my life.  My jail. 
• It was pretty hot most of the days.
• It was a bit unorganized at times.  The first two days I was there, I kept the tent closed because I didn’t have some things I needed to start business.

All in all, it was a something that I’m glad I did and I’m glad that it’s over.

Some crows statistics:

11 Days of so-so busyness equates to a whole lot of free time.  To add to the lists,

Notable things I did:

• Read Crazy Love, by Francis Chan.  Finishing an entire book in less than two years is quite a feat, and I managed to pull it off.  Crazy Love is a really good book that has been getting a decent amount of buzz lately (in my Harding sphere, at least).  It’s really motivating and I recommend it.
• Played a lot of Peggle.  It’s kinda addicting.
• Learned how to play Mindsweeper.  It’s one of those games that everyone knows about, but nobody plays.  So, I thought I’d see what it’s all about.  It can be frustrating, but it’s a great game.  I think I could say that I mastered it.  There is a decent amount of guessing involved though.  After trying about 200 times (it can also be addicting), I got one square away from beating the Intermediate level, but luck had other things in mind.
• I got to catch up on writing to some people.
• Watched about 130 wedding photography videos.
• Listened to music about 15 hours a day.
• Brainstormed a few things, namely business ideas for my plans to do wedding photography.  I settled on this logo:

It seems pretty good to me.  It shows that as a wedding photographer, I’m personable and also professional.  Ideas?  Suggestions?

The mushrooms were neat looking but too expensive, so I only sold one.

My view of the fireworks. This was my first 4th of July (that I can remember) where I didn't really watch the fireworks.

Some things: 1. A fan was pretty essential. 2. Music, too. 3-4. These were probably my most memorable childhood 'fireworks.'

Adios muchachos,
~ Jon

Life is a fast song

It sure is. This summer I’ve had a couple weeks free to do whatever, weeks of lots of farming (these past two weeks) and very little free time, a free day (tomorrow)–except not really, and coming up from Friday until July 5th is…fireworks tent!

I get to live at a fireworks tent in Camp Hill 10 days!  It’s gunna be a pretty crazy job, but I’m actually kinda excited about it.  It’s probably going to be really boring, but I’ve been just thinking of the positive aspects of it.  I’ll have to be at the tent or have someone else there at all times.  For all 240 hours.  Most people work the tent with two people so that you have someone to keep you company, someone to stay at the tent while you take a break, etc.  But then they also split the money you get from working, so it’s a tradeoff.  But as for me…I’m following the money.

It will be an experience, that’s for sure.  Today I was practicing not going to the bathroom for extended periods of time, and I fou…well, maybe I won’t go into that. 

So I’ll be roughing it the next two weeks.  I don’t know if there will be wifi at my location or not, but I’m not expecting anything.  I might just have to watch lots of movies, read a couple books, think of/do photography experiments, go crazy, and/or mess with people.  I’ll keep you updated.  Maybe.

Will it be a great camping experience?  Nope.  Will it be neat sleeping at a gas station at an intersection with the lights always on?  Negative.  Will I get filthy rich and come out with some interesting life stories?  Sure thing!

And of course something for all you visualites:

A bit abstract. I like pictures like this with a bunch of different layers per-se.

Also, I heard a song yesterday that was a blast from the past…Traveling Light.

~ Jon

My life be like

This is an epiphany post for me. Not really about anything too specific, but I’ve been a little unsettled about myself lately. This post will be all about the bullet lists. [Also, if you want a picture, here are a few.]

Things that I’ve been up to, in no particular order:

• The past two days I’ve been working on the farm.  It’s a summer job that I can’t seem to get away from, not that I mind.  It’s a lot of time of reflection (or annoying songs popping into your head) in a super noisy tractor.
• The past two weekends I’ve assisted/shot with a photographer that I’ve recently gotten in touch with.  Doing weddings isn’t easy.  It was good just being there without the massive expectations of coming up with great pictures.  Currently wedding photography as a profession is what I’m planning on (hint hint )–it’s a challenging job that I enjoy.  But anyways, real life experience is great–and so much different than just reading stuff online.  And I think I’ve seen enough beer games to last a long time.
• Today I visited a video production studio (a few minutes from my house!  How surprising).  I’m debating trying to get that job, as it would be kinda cool doing after effects stuff and video editing.  I like video work, but there’s something to dirty farm work that is really appealing to me.  We’ll see what happens with that.
• I bought a lens.  It’s my 2nd lens that I bought, after the 50mm prime that I got a long time ago.  It was recommended by one of my favorite photographers, Matthew Saville, a super guy.  I’ll have some pictures soon enough.
• I’m still doing internship work with Andy Gaskin here and there.  I’m not doing stuff all day like when I started off, more so smaller projects spread out more.  He’s a great guy to work with, and has a sweet family.  Also, he calls me Dark. 

Read the rest of this entry »

A day in the life: Grandma’s house; HDR

The other day my brother, Dad, and aunt went to my grandma’s house to help out and do some cleanup work. It was a good time to

Pictures.

(that’s how my attention span works most of the time. )

My dad pouring over paperwork.

My Grandmama. She's an amazing woman. (sorry for making you nervous grandma! )

My dad doing his chain saw thang.

Grandma wanted a tree limb down. My dad's first method was to (try to) use the force to bring it down.

Unfortunately, that didn't work, so he resorted to the lesser method, chainsaw, which promptly got stuck in the tree due to unforeseen evil, gravity.

So, this picture...

[non-related, photo talk] So the above picture is an HDR (high dynamic range).  My first one, actually.  HDR is where you take multiple pictures of different exposures to get a really dark picture, a normal picture, and a really light picture.  Then, on the computer, you combine them to include more detail (since it’s multiple pictures in one).

Many people love HDR pictures.  If you search google, you’ll soon find pictures like these, which tend to be way too overprocessed in my book.  A TON of people (even decent photographers) love the overprocessed, details popping out everywhere look, but I’m not one of them.  It makes me gag sometimes.  I’m not saying I don’t like the pictures that I linked above, but I just don’t like the fake plastic non-real look that the term HDR is affiliated with.  You can make HDR pictures that look realistic, and I like those, but the mobs seem to like the overprocessed HDR pictures more.

Pardon the mini rant.  All in all, HDR is kinda cool.  I might use it once in a while, but it isn’t something you’ll be seeing here very often.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. ~ Oscar Wilde

Peace and love,
~ Jon

Memorial Day Campout stuff

It’s crazy, but the 3rd annual Memorial Day campout “Blast” at my house was one whole week ago! It was a blast. It happened to be one of the smaller campouts, since lots of people bailed, but it was still awesome. A smaller group just makes it more personal.

Well, that may or may not have been the last one. I think I’ll pass the whole shabang on to my brother. I don’t remember him organizing things, but we’ll see what happens soon enough. I just don’t know what I’ll be doing next summer. I’ll be finished with college by then (crazy!), so I guess by that time I’ll officially be an adult. I have no idea where I’ll be one year from now, but it will probably be great.

On to the pictures…

Kicking it back over the fire.

Roman candle fun. hah.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bye bye beard. And hair. (+ soccer)

It’s gone–1, 2, 3, 4, 5. As is the tradition–with summer comes less hair. Now…the hair!

Before and after the haircut. (alternate)

Also, I found another cool world cup video.  It comes in the form of a nike commercial.  Write the future. Good stuff.

~ Jon