Client: Mr. & Mrs. Krzywonos

Mr. & Mrs. Krzywonos

SEPTEMBER 30

  Ending the busiest season Bendersama Photography has had, I thought it necessary to post my latest wedding shoot.  These wonderful friends of the Bendersama Photography family were the first ones to hire me and kick off what would turn out to be a huge watershed moment for this business's year.  The bride and groom had a blue theme, along with being fellow Chicagoland residents are big Blues Brothers fans! The below photos are just some of the ones captured during the event, and boy...what a great event!

....and with that wonderful endcap to a busy and productive season, I'll be wrapping up and taking my show on the road as next blog will be comin' at ya from sunny California!  I'll see you folks then, take care!

Questionnaire Results & Actions Taken

  Hey folks!  I told a lot of you over the last few weeks that I had a questionnaire to help shape the site and I got a lot of input on where I should focus my efforts.  If you don't wanna hear me drone on and on skip to the pie charts and what that means, but for those of you who are sticking around, lemme explain why I did this.  Primarily, I'm a dreamer.  I have aspirations toward not only photography projects in the future, but I tend to live in the future where the next logical step of growth is product X, Y, and Z.  A good amount of these things are grounding and humbling, and while the "market" for certain things is low right now.  I see a future for it in the next few years...but that's where things are gonna wait.  By all means, I'm not dialing things back because I wasn't getting the answers I wanted, I'm putting things on the backburner because Woodstock doesn't even know my brand's name yet.  So to that let's see why I got to that conclusion and where I go with this information.

Is this your first time to the site?

a lot of new people / or people who followed the questionnaire's link (still important)

Do you frequent the site

(of the "not my first time to the site")

What brings you to the site?

of people polled, the blog and store need growth, also people are excited to see the new site

  So of the people polled; I have a small following of regulars, and of those people, they come for what I'm trying to push.  This is a start, but needs growth. Let's talk blog.  I'm not going to get into the like/share/comment because it fell flat and completely which leads me to the first implementation:  Going forward with the site, blogs will not have comments, likes, or shares (this can't help if some templates have that built in).  Putting attention or concern into who is or is not commenting or contributing and moderating that is a waste of time and attention.  So, then let's talk about the future of the blog.

I want more _______ related blogs.

~ Agree/Disagree = +/- 1 ~ Strongly Agree/Disagree = +/- 2 ~ Neutral = 0

  Results are in!  I'll say this much,  there was a LOT of hate toward product and gear reviews, which worries me as the gear reviews were to go hand in hand with the planned buyers guide for photography.  On a side tangent,  that book is/was supposed to be gear toward the person asking "what camera should I get?".  Due to the volume of people uninterested in gear (which will only affect how frequent these posts show up),  my hand is forced and decisions are made:
 
Going forward the book planned for the holiday season is suspended indefinitely.  

Blogs will continue to have Upcoming Projects featured,  but the "Photography Techniques" will show up in the blogs soon.  the "Slice of Life" blogs/vlogs may require a separate channel....maybe on that "Bendersama Channel".  IF...if I go through with it, I won't be there regularly like a BDoublO100 Family vlog or even a Casey Naistat.  I just can't put myself and my family in a spotlight that won't be regular and should be more on photography.  I never rule things out though...

  On the topic of the buyer's guide being suspended, I wanted to at least offer photography ground level lessons or some kind of tutorials.  This was supposed to be sister products one leading to the other.  Being that as such I wanted to get peoples intention of learning an art form and trade.  That lead to the next group of questions:

 

Are you a photographer

...in a world where a cameraphone would make you a photographer

  So you answered anything but "Yes", honestly that's great!  That means you are in the market to learn. 

Would you want to learn about photography

The majority have spoken

  Well, that definitely speaks for itself.  Not interested in gear because the people majoritively are not interested in learning photography.  That's not to say things may change over time, but that gives me the freedom to focus back on what is important.  While it's bittersweet,  not once did I ever get the impression that these opinions are permanent.  Now, this isn't to diminish those that do want to learn. Those that want to learn had great suggestions on avenues they wanted to learn and even pay to learn: one on one, workshops, and even videos tutorials.  To those people; contact me bender@bendersama.com, if you are interested. Otherwise, we move on for now to greener pastures.

  This brings us to the last bastion of secondary sources of income, beyond the primary clients, the store. Products beyond the prints, print sizes, and availability of prints were the topics of discussion and some big changes have been and will be made.  Let's dive in:
 

TOPIC: I would buy other merchandise from the store to diversify

What size prints would you like to see

So what this and the other questions asked tells me is that a variety of prints needs to be added. So,  in another announcement I can make:  Going forward, the STORE now carries a variety of sizes of each print ready to print and ship via a local print company who can cater to larger prints.  This coupled upon how people believe the current price of my 13 x 19 print is more than fairly priced (previously $10/ now $12) means I can give a more a variety at lesser the projected price.  On the topic of Limited Print Runs to Open Print Runs, there's no denying that limited print runs at this early of a store's conception alienates a good amount of people.   Consumers don't want to buy a single run or limited run of prints for what they feel is no different (other than supply amount, paper type, and numbered certificate) at more the price.  So.  Going forward,  all limited and single print runs are open!  Certification of authentication will be supplied as will a number of the print, but will not be of a certain print amount unless stated in the future. That means C M Y K, Poison the Mind, Epic, and Clarity are all open runs and in a variety of sizes.  

 What does that mean for those who already were gifted or purchased prints?  For the backers that helped fix my camera,  the limited or "small batch" papers used to print those will not be the same as the photography prints done on luster paper now and in the future.  To my best customer;  we worked out a deal, and I'll leave it as that.  So with the exclusivity for most gone where does, that leave the demographic who would pay more for a less amount in the "print pool".  Reserves. Going forward;  any prints scheduled to come out (winter run) will have a reserve gift with purchase.  The print may come as a variant in color, or come with and extra print, or something else (maybe a USB stick of a digital print version for a wallpaper, maybe special wrapping).  The fact is those will be limited to 5, and if you don't act on it, that's it.  They won't show up at the store, they won't be available any other way except as a reserve to the forthcoming related print release.


   ....and that as they say is that.  This covers how I will be handling the store and the blog on the revamped site coming later in July.  I'll be signing off her and now for about a week as I get to planning and shooting for assets on the site,  but don't think dear reader for one instance that I'm disheartened by some of these avenues not fully being open and accepting.  I see it as a sign to stick with what I know, to help my store's inventory and fill it with prints.  Arguably you all wanna see more in the store and I intend to make good on that monthly, so I'll be busy working on this and you come back soon....eh, not too soon.

 Thanks for stopping by, and see you again soon!
Bendersama

YEAR OF THE ROOSTER: Chinatown Photowalk

It's been a while since I posted on here, and that's going to start to change as it warms up, but I wanted to upload some photos I took on our trip to Chicago's Chinatown during the New Year Celebration.   My trip was cut short how so ever as I wiped out on the street falling on both knees after stepping into and tripping on a pothole.  I made the most of the day, and I intend to return next year, and even sooner as the food was amazing at Triple Crown (not surprised). The photos below were taken on my 5D mk II w/ 17-40mm lens, and per usual copyright laws are mine (Bendersama Photography) and require permission to be used outside this website. Now with that outta the way, enjoy!

EPIC

It was 2012, and I just moved back to Illinois from California. I grabbed a job to pay me the first week I landed and needed something to pass the time and keep me creatively busy.  Luckily, I had a huge inspirational windfall while I flew. I was going to come up with a gallery, or at the very least a book that paid homage to Nintendo Power covers. Those timeless covers of video game scenarios was always one of the main reasons to get Nintendo Power, other than the codes, comics and reviews. Ya know, as a sidebar it may be the reason why I collected Playboy magazines, the cover (no lie). Regardless the case, I wanted to make grand scenes from video games and photograph them; the first one was a no-brainer.  My wife and I had recently (back in 2012) played Epic Mickey, a Disney video game exclusively for the Nintendo WIi. The game spans an area much like 

Disneyland with certain attractions and characters acting as either prominent characters, or video game bosses. In the scene I was trying to recreate the first "boss" to the game was a demented version of the attraction "it's a small world". You are given paint and thinner to use throughout the game the paint creates, the thinner destroys, where you use these and how you handle the bosses depends on the ending you get, so there is a level of decision making throughout the game's progression and sub-missions.  Being so moved by the artistic choices Warren Spector, the games creator, made and the overall first installment's setting I was moved to recreate the first boss encounter, and from there 

start a video game based art project.  After about a year and a half's attention on and off on my own dime, I took to the camera. Finally after a little Photoshop wizardry it was ready.  The fruits of my labor, my first "big" project, was complete.  Now it 2017 I needed to get this out there on the market and in the public eye, because I moving forward and all my past un published project need to be out there in the open in order to move on. So here it is, available for viewing, purchase, and criticism. Looking back, and with more time dedicated to it, I could have done even more than what was shown, but I had to move on to the next photography project without dwelling too much, which will be my new lease on this art for the new year.  As a final word please enjoy this music montage I put together of footage constructing, planning and shooting this EPIC project.