At the end of business on January 30, 2018, we shut things down for a bit while we underwent a renovation to our shoppe and studio. When we first purchased our building, we thought it would be more room than we would ever need, but circumstances being what they were, we also had to purchase the adjacent unit or face the prospect of splitting the cost of building a new firewall, something that would have cost us a great deal of money and time. Now, almost three years later, our tenant has moved out and we are glad we added the second unit. By knocking down the non-fire rated walls we jumped from being around 1,800 s.f. to more than 3,000 s.f. and added a lot of functionality in the process. It was a lot of work, but it is almost complete, so I can get back to photography and doing the work I love.

We spent a lot of time deciding whether this was the right thing to do; we could have just rented out the empty unit and had another source of income, or we could have just sold it all, folded our tent and moved on to the next big idea. It was understood that converting two units into one would require a lot of sweat-equity, still be expensive and require diving head-long into the unknown. Would the changes we made translate into more income? It’s too soon to know for sure, but we seem to be headed in the right direction.

In the meantime, while all this was going on, I continued my plan of switching from a DSLR-based studio to one where the only cameras were Nikon Z-line mirrorless. I’m happy to say that the learning curve has been quite gentle, but it still had its share of WTF moments, almost always because of user error. I’m comfortable with the change now, and await the arrival of  some new glass in the coming months (the 500 mm f5.6 and 24-70mm f2.8 S, both of which will be discussed in future posts.)

I’m debating the choice of IPS (In person sales) software, with Pro Select and Fundy being the frontrunners, and I continue my life-long pursuit of the perfect camera bag, a quest that exemplifies the idea that it isn’t the destination, it is the journey that counts.

All of these aforementioned activities involve change, most of which were a choice, not a requirement. Change can be unsettling, and often unnerving, but it is also refreshing and it makes you constantly test and evaluate yourself. I can’t see myself ever not embracing change: it is like reaching the crest of a hill and seeing for the first time what is on the other side. A little bit scary, yes, but certainly invigorating.

More changes? Bring ‘em on!

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