Part 14 of 50: ¡Las Tortugas! The Very Nearly True Story of Henderson the Sea Turtle
This is part fourteen in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico. After safety returning Meghan to the Hotelito with no major incidents with los Federales, my next shoot was scheduled with the ever inspiring Brooke Lynne in a few hours. I found Brooke curled up on one of the comfy [...]
Part 13 of 50: Prohibido el Paso with Meghan Claire
This is part thirteen in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico. On the fourth day of ZoeFest, my true love gave to me…. Sorry, my brain is saturated to the point of insanity with holiday music this week. But yes, it was the fourth day of ZoeFest in Todos Santos, [...]
Part 12 of 50: Playing in the Light with Rebecca Lawrence
This is part twelve in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico. I was nearing the end of my experiment of two days in a row of having booked three shoots in one day. Looking back, I’m glad I did what I did for two reasons. First, it would have been [...]
Doug Menuez talks at TEDx about photographing Steve Jobs and the Geeks of the 80s and 90s – The Beginning of Modern Tech Success
I’m taking a small break today from writing about my wonderful adventures in Todos Santos Mexico to talk about a great photographer. Doug Menuez is a friend, mentor and genius humanitarian. One of Doug’s recent projects is a photo book on how 20 Ugandan AIDS orphans have come to be a incredible dance touring group [...]
Part 6 of 50: Carlotta and the Pool
This is part six in a series of blogs on my recent artistic adventures in Mexico. I dropped Ella Rose back at the Hotelito and returned to Todos Santos Inn where I had arranged to meet the lovely Carlotta for our mid-day photo shoot that was scheduled to begin in just a few minutes. I [...]
Screw Smelling the Roses, but Remembering to Stop Anyway
I forget to stop. I’m not really sure why I’m wired that way. Maybe it was the way I was brought up. Maybe I’m trying to prove something to myself. My friends tease me about how many hours I work in any given day. It’s true. They’re right. I do work too much. I do [...]
Yes, I Love What I Do: Finding the Enthusiasm
“Wow, you really love what you do.” I get that a lot. A few months ago, I was out shooting a long time lapse project with a great client of mine. We were going to be out there for five hours watching the cameras click away, every eight seconds, so we had a lot of [...]
Billy and the Sexy Lady Bug
She walked in my direction, scanning the crowd with her large eyes as she neared. Orange tubes circled her plump middle with purple wings on her back. Suddenly, she saw me sitting there and her giant lashes expanded with her eyes growing even larger as a huge smile washed over her face. “Ooooh! You are [...]
Yummy Yummy FishBar, a Saturday lunch treat
I love it when I’m waking up at home on a Saturday morning. Coffee, checking email, relaxing. And then I get a phone call from my good friend Mark about heading out to lunch and an overdue catch-up. Mark and his wife Melissa arrived to pick me up and we went over a list of [...]
I Can’t Stand the Rain, In My Window, Bringing Back Sweet Memories…
It’s raining again, in Chicago… again. It’s like it’s Halloween and Chicago dressed up like Seattle and forgot to take off its costume last month. But it could be worse, I guess. It could be snowing. And rain does make for some pretty pictures through my window. Impressionistic photographs. Like my own little Claude Monet gallery [...]
Building the Brand of You. How Giving It Away Helps You Get Something Back.
The first time I heard that a person could be a brand was way back in the early 1990s. Anyone remember MTV’s House of Style with Cindy Crawford? I met her when she was promoting her book, Cindy Crawford’s Basic Face. She discussed the concept of Cindy Crawford being a brand. She talked about how [...]
Now With 25% More People!
I’ve been meaning to write a blog about new things going on at Billy Sheahan Photography for some time. It’s been difficult though because of all the new things going on at Billy Sheahan Photography. One of these new things, or at least more than usual is that I’ve been shooting a lot of people [...]
One For the Video Editors – June is Square 1 Month with FCP X
As many of you know, in addition to being a photographer, I’m also a video editor. We used to be called film editors, but I think the last time I received film dailies was back in 2009. So why talk about video editing on a photography blog? Because if you’re a photographer, your future skill [...]
Rain, Rain, Go Away
Here in Chicago, we’ve been experiencing more rain and dreariness during the month of April than usual. So I made a few phone calls today. They tell me it should be fixed by tomorrow. If not, I intend to write a sternly worded letter.
More Praise for ASMP… a Photographers Best Friend
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know how much I value my relationship with the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). Any photographer of any skill level can benefit from all of the information that the ASMP puts out there, from copyright registration, to model releases, to bidding, to better business practices [...]
Windows Open!
One of the best days of the year living in Chicago is opening the windows for the first time after a long winter. That day here at the studio is today. Ah the fresh air! Curtains blowing in the wind. I love it when something so normally mundane makes me smile. That is all. You [...]
Billy Sheahan Photography – Class 103 – Finding Your Style
Billy Sheahan Photography Class 103 Finding Your Style This is part three in a series of photography discussions to help you make the most of your photographs. If you haven’t read Class 101 or Class 102, you may find those interesting. I’ve been sharing the technical aspects of making photographs in previous classes, but most likely [...]
Hey there snow! Don’t let the door hit you in the arse on the way out!
Something was different this morning. Everyone I met on the way to breakfast was… how do you say… happy. Chicago winters can be brutal. But the upside is the incredible energy you feel from the entire city when we can see the end of the tunnel. After temperatures last week hovering around zero, today heralded [...]
Surf’s Up… in Chicago… sort of
Well, we here in Chicago should be through the worst of it in a week or so. After relatively mild winter temperatures for the last few months, February arrived with a near record setting blizzard and now we’ve got a week of temperatures hovering around zero. Here’s a some of the aftermath. A snowbank in [...]
The Survival of Photography as a Career Depends on Every Photographer
A fairly old statistic offers that only 1 in 500 photographers looking for a full time career in photography will actually achieve it.* The odds are probably much worse than that today. I begin this entry with that sobering statistic not to scare, but as a call to do something positive about the nature of [...]
Proof That Sometimes the World Works Correctly
Amidst the holiday clamor, deadlines and other seasonal unpleasantness, it’s nice to see that if you look really hard, you can see some actual karma happening. I have two instances of proof of this I’d like to share with you here. First, Sign #1. It’s difficult to stomach the way holiday television advertising hijacks every [...]
My letter from Yoko
Exactly thirty years ago at the exact moment I am writing this, John Lennon was shot and killed. And the world became a lesser place because of it. Ten years ago, as it is happening again today, the various television networks were running documentaries on John’s life. I watched many of them. And I learned [...]
Conquering the weekly to-do list
It’s not very often that I get to the end of the week with everything checked off on my to-do list. Last Monday I saw a slight crack in the wall to wall schedule and made big plans to do some serious accomplishing. New work and anything that might distract me was immediately sent to [...]
Voter Registration Ends Tomorrow, October 5th
Here’s my usual public service announcement to remind everyone to register to vote for the November elections. Voter registration in Suburban Cook County Illinois and Chicago ends tomorrow October 5th. If you’ve moved recently, you’ll need to re-register. You can also check to see if your current Illinois voter registration is accurate here. In addition, [...]
