Hello! I’m Blayne.

 5 THINGS ABOUT ME:

• I’m tall. At almost 6’ tall, I’m the shortest one in my family.

• I own a professional photography studio, but I’m not the photographer.

• I discovered cosplay about 12 years ago, and wish I had known about this when I was 20. Because I’d definitely be doing that for a living.

• I’ve created and designed well over 100 personal photo albums and close to 1,000 wedding albums.

• I’m a movie and pop culture fan. Oh, and I’ve been in a short film. (Bucket List!)

Read the "long" story below. 

THE LONGER STORY

My career as an entrepreneur has taken me down several paths: as a studio owner, a software designer and patent holder, a working mom, and an avid album maker. Photos have always been a huge part of my life. They provide my family’s income and also enrich our lives as little time portals back to different experiences and moments together. I’ve seen clients react with both tears of joy when presented with a wedding album, and also tears of sorrow from opportunities missed, waiting too late to schedule a session.

My journey to this blog probably started with simple human procrastination. Back in the early 2000’s, maybe even late 90’s, when professional photographers were pressured to ‘go digital’, I was responsible for the transition from film to digital files. It was during that time that I sat down in frustration and told my staff: “The average person is not going to get this. There will be a generation of people without photos because not only will they not know how to manage digital files, but they will simply put it off and do nothing. They will lose their files and memories.”

Yep. I said that before the digital dark age became a thing.

Since then, so much has changed about the way we take, store, and interact with our photos - some good, some bad. My goal on this blog is to share what works for me and hopefully inspire you to preserve your photos without too much pain. Even if you only pick up one tip that helps you out, do it! Because one day, believe me, you’ll wish you had.

Bryan’s art, painting talents, and sales background (along with my retail experience) made us the perfect power couple. We joined professional photography organizations and Bryan began to compete on a professional level with his artwork. He won so many times that other photographers would call our studio prior to an upcoming competition and ask if Bryan was entering. If he said “yes," they would enter their prints in other categories (This was all good hearted fun, though! We were all friends). We outgrew our first home studio, our second home studio, and purchased our first commercial location in 2001. We are now in a live/work retail office and growing again.

Bryan began speaking at national conventions and we both mentored other aspiring photographers. I also won top prize for our marketing materials at a national level. Bryan’s work was featured in national magazines and was part of the Professional Photographer’s Loan Collection, which traveled the globe. Once, we even got to cut the yellow ribbon at the Kodak exhibit in Epcot, featuring Bryan’s work. They didn’t have to ask me twice to go to Disney!

Locally our studio was commissioned to create custom art for many government agencies, including most of the county libraries, historic sites and businesses, as well as the new $6 million courthouse.

While Bryan creates all the artwork, for all those years I was the wizard behind the curtain handling everything else. From managing the staff, all marketing, web and graphic design, IT and company direction, you could also find me cleaning the bathroom and sweeping the porch daily.

In the early 2000s, I was personally responsible for our studio’s transition to digital photography - acquiring the equipment, developing a digital workflow, and training the staff. Taking on this challenge from a professional standpoint quickly revealed the struggles that would become evident in the consumer market. I have seen literally millions of digital files come through our studio over the years.

Another hurdle came with the onset of digital - everyone and their brother/wife/sister thought they were a photographer just because they had a digital camera (and now iPhones). Some were good at capturing an image, but most had no idea how to run a business. Unfortunately for many of our friends, this put lots of studios out of business.

By consciously remaining true to Bryan’s art background, we were not competing with the new ‘shoot and burn’ photographers, who never really understood what they were giving away. Our sales remained higher than ever and we are grateful to still have our doors open. Believe me, it’s hard, but we still believe quality and true art never go out of style.

As we began our own family, our children and family portrait business grew and I began turning over my studio responsibilities to our staff in order to stay home part time with the kids.

It was during this time that I realized I had another calling. Photos were still my life, but now I was taking more of my own photos of everyday life with the kids and documenting our day to day lives through scrapbooking.

I realized, too, that there was just no good way to store my digital photos and my stories, much less an easy way to design with them. I heard the same comments from friends and clients every day. There were many photo software programs out there, but none did everything well.

It was actually Bryan who said “why don’t you write your own program?” and I literally laughed at the thought. Months later, I realized I could hire a team to do the programming and I could manage the design end. I ended up with an easy-to-use (and learn) software for both Mac and PC that I was really proud of. Oh, and I got a patent! That was a proud moment.

But back in real life, I continued to be needed in the studio, the kids were teenagers and had a whole new set of needs I wasn’t prepared for, and my new company needed more than full time marketing to survive. I finally realized I couldn’t do it all and decided it was time to turn over the software to someone with more resources than me. I sold the company and my patent to Forever.

That might make some people sad, but I’m not sad at all. Sure, my product may or may not ever see the light of day again, but I realized that I had done exactly what I had set out to do: create an amazing sontware. And the patent was the bonus. No one else I know can say that. When everyone was telling me I was too old to get investor money and I couldn’t do (what I wanted), I proved them all wrong. And I have not one regret. 

Which leads me here. Now I’ve got the time and energy to fine tune my photo/video library, create some fun projects, and document my family’s stories along the way. My hope is that I can provide some inspiration for you to enjoy your photos and stories as well.