Driving Around Downtown Orlando

Videography

This weekend I wanted to take some time and test out my GoPro accessories while driving around Orlando. I drove around Lake Eola, Orange Ave, and more to see what would capture from the window of my car. While there are some bumpy roads and smoother ones I think it held up pretty good. Only bad thing was it was pretty early in the afternoon so the brightness levels aren’t the best when the sun is in the video. This is obvious, but not much I could do to adjust the mounting while driving.

There were a couple of nice angles though, and I’ll be trying this more to get a better views like turning around street corners.

Photo Friday with Cheryl

Photo Friday with Cheryl

All Posts, Photography

[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
A close friend of mine has been crushing it with teaching people different forms of Yoga. Her name is Cheryl Snyder. I took a body flow class with her not long ago and I’m looking forward to my first hot yoga class soon.

The photos here were from a shoot we did for her at the beach. My associate photographer that day was Trevor King of KingTMedia. It was a fun shoot capturing different poses of Cheryl as she performed some of her routines as well as some popular and difficult positions for this shoot. Check out the photos and let me know what you think in the comments below.
[/av_textblock]

[av_gallery ids=’7424,7425,7427,7428,7429,7430,7431,7432′ style=’big_thumb’ preview_size=’magazine’ crop_big_preview_thumbnail=’avia-gallery-big-crop-thumb’ thumb_size=’portfolio_small’ columns=’4′ imagelink=’lightbox’ lazyload=’avia_lazyload’]

What I Learned in Real Estate Photography Shooting My First House

What I Learned in Real Estate Photography Shooting My First House

Photography

[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
This week I shot my first house in terms of real estate photography. This is something slightly new for me because a few months ago I shot a 2b/1.5b condo. This is a new area that I’d like to add to my portfolio as well as list of photography services that I can provide. I was working with a local realtor that I have met a few times around my neighborhood. And in talking to her is how this opportunity came up.

For me lighting is everything when I’m shooting, and I brought along my wife who’s my technical director. She sees the objects, misplaced items, coordination of objects, and so much more so I’d say we’re a good team.

One thing that I wanted to mention is that this house was staged rather nicely. There wasn’t any clutter of objects or things around the floors or counters. It was like a house just done by HGTV.

The Tech Breakdown:

  • Nikon D3200
  • Sigma 17-70 2.8 Lens
  • 3 Speedlights
  • 1 150w Strobe
  • An 11mm super wide lens is the next purchase I’ll be making! 

You’ll be able to see for yourself my results after editing. Your comments are of course welcomed!
[/av_textblock]

[av_masonry_gallery ids=’7410,7411,7412,7413′ items=’-1′ columns=’4′ paginate=’pagination’ size=’fixed masonry’ gap=’1px’ overlay_fx=’active’ caption_elements=’none’ caption_display=’always’ container_links=’active’ id=”]

WordPress Orlando MeetUp Notes – “WordPress in Business”

Product Reviews

This morning at Ideas Orlando, the WordPress Orlando Meetup held a talk and called it “WordPress in Business”. In this talk there were a few talking points that were mentioned that I notated below. I was unable to post all of these on the MeetUp page as the text exceeded the comment limits so I created this post for the notes. Please feel free to share where needed.
Hosting Provider Suggestions
  • Host Gator
  • Digital Ocean (cloud based)
  • SiteCore
  • SiteGround (inexpensive shared hosting for starter users)
  • Pagely (high volume of traffic)
  • GoDaddy (WordPress specific hosting)
Food for Thought:
A good idea to note is that hosting providers do not make changes or updates to your website. When you get to a point of making money with your business/website consider hiring an agency that will monitor and maintain your hosting services for your websites.
Plugin Suggestions
  • Pretty Links
    Shrink, beautify, track, manage and share any URL on or off of your WordPress website. Create links that look how you want using your own domain name!
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/
  • Gravity Forms
    Advanced Forms for WordPress Websites Just Don’t Get Any Easier than Gravity Forms
    http://www.gravityforms.com/
  • Member Mouse
    MemberMouse is an easy to use WordPress membership plugin that allows you to sell products, subscriptions and memberships, setup a password protected member’s area, offer 1-click upsells and downsells, manage customers, automate customer service, track critical retention metrics and more. No matter where you’re starting from, MemberMouse has the power you need to maximize revenue and get your business running like a well-oiled machine.
    http://membermouse.com/
  • WooCommerce
    WooCommerce is a free, powerful WordPress eCommerce plugin. With the extendability of a huge catalog of commercial themes and extensions we have all the tools you might need to get your shop running.
    http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
  • Shopify
    Online shopping cart software
    http://www.shopify.com/
  • Sharesale
    ShareASale has been in business for 15 years, exclusively as an Affiliate Marketing Network. Our technology receives accolades for speed, efficiency, and accuracy – and our reputation as a fair and honest business is well known within the industry. We encourage you to browse around our website and learn more, but if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
    http://www.shareasale.com/
  • Commission Junction
    Affiliate Marketing
    http://www.cj.com/
  • Click Bank
    Entrepreneurs everywhere use our powerful online and mobile e-commerce platform to build a vibrant business across popular lifestyle categories. We believe in cultivating a new generation of digital entrepreneurs and helping them transform their passion and expertise into top-selling digital products and affiliate marketing programs to achieve financial happiness. Our solutions, combined with top-rated client support, help you grow and maintain every part of your business. Making money online has never been easier.
    http://www.clickbank.com/
Tips and Ideas
  • Amazon has tips and reports about website speed and why it is important to your website conversion rate and more.
  • Look into CDN options like CloudFlare or JetPack. (Content Delivery Network) This will make your website load much faster by utilizing distributed content processing.
  • For video hosting you can use Amazon S3 hosting, YouTube, or Amazon. http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
  • To check your web page load times check http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/ or try
  • Google Page Speed Test https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
  • Set up email filters (Gmail)
  • Hire a virtual assistant for your repetitive tasks and saving more time each day to dedicate more to yourself or to the core parts of your business
  • Advertising on Facebook is really the most effective once you start paying for ads. Even at a small daily rate.
Suggested Reads:
Great source for asking questions or finding answers about WordPress:

Photo Friday: The Business of Blogging [Pictures]

Photography

A few weeks ago David Laietta hosted the monthly MeetUp of WordPress Orlando that featured the title “The Business of Blogging“. There is a large community here in Central Florida that are bloggers and use WordPress so this particular MeetUp was anticipated not just for the topic but for the guest speakers.

The speakers were Bess Auer, Angel Yard, and Gloria Rand. While I won’t get too much into what they talked about, I would rather point you to the MeetUp website and see for yourself here. For now, check out some of the photos I shot from the event.

[av_gallery ids=’7263,7260,7255,7256,7257,7261,7262,7258,7259,7253,7254′ style=’thumbnails’ preview_size=’portfolio’ crop_big_preview_thumbnail=’avia-gallery-big-crop-thumb’ thumb_size=’portfolio’ columns=’3′ imagelink=’lightbox’ lazyload=’avia_lazyload’]