Tony Bisson

I have turned out not to be the most prolific blogger with a handful of posts in 6 months. It is not that I don’t have anything interesting to write about. Life has been very exciting this year and I feel like I have hit a great groove with my business and social life.

My life balance could still be a little better but at least I love my work. I am doing less photography now than I used to, mostly by choice. I am taking a year off from weddings which has been part of my long term plan. Five years ago I began to phase out of wedding photography and into my second career as a wedding album manufacturer. Laguna Albums continues to grow at a manageable pace. Quality and turn around times have improved to the point where we are compared to the most established and highest quality players in the market. That is a source of great pride for me because the album business is even more competitive than photography has been.

I can say now that I have managed to succeed in two incredibly saturated businesses. I never thought the number of photographers out there was much of a problem when I did photography full time. I always seemed to get good clients and shoot my share of the best weddings. When the number of good photographers increased I saw the writing on the wall. It was going to become much harder to to differentiate myself from the heard of qualified people who were charging rates that I was not willing to work for at this point in my career.

Being adaptable and having the ability to forecast has always served me well. I was one of the first commercial fashion and lifestyle photographers to shoot weddings and became one of the people who influenced the direction of the business. When I started, weddings were dominated by a bastion of tired “traditional” portrait photographers who took the same cookie cutter images at every wedding. I saw weddings through fresh eyes like fashion shoots and a fast moving tableau I was there to document. Being light on my feet and seeing each wedding as a new challenge to push myself artistically made me stand out. Today that style is the standard and most of the traditional portrait crowd have fallen by the wayside.

Many of my best friends are other wedding photographers. Some of them I got to know at the same networking events where we were competing for the same work. I always enjoyed talking to my fellow photographers more than the other wedding vendors. That is how I decided to start a business that serviced them directly.

Photography is my life and I never want to leave this business. It was my chosen career back in high school and the only “real job” I have ever had.

Music was always part of my home when I was growing up. My mother had played piano and would sing to us. My father was an huge record collector. He literally had over 10,000 of them, mostly classical, opera, folk and jazz, in descending order. I used to sit in the basement with my portable gray player and sample different things from his collection. The folk music appealed to me the most because it had vocals. Occasionally I would find a hippy folk-rock record that he had bought by accident. Dad HATED rock so these were the choice finds for me. I once found “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” and The Beach Boys “Surfing Safari” which played until they were worn out.

Back then, a 45 was the same price as a school lunch $.45, so I would skip a meal once in a while and buy a record on my way home from school. I tried everything from Stevie Wonder to Grand Funk Railroad to Cher, discovering what my tastes were.

As soon as we were old enough to stand, my dad put us in Suzuki Violin lessons. I don’t know if he was hoping that God may blessed him with the next great prodigy or if he just wanted to nurture a love of music in us.

I never became that violin prodigy, but one thing I could always do was sing. I never really had to learn how, it just came natural. Singing was the only thing that I could do better that the other kids in school. I may have sucked at sports, but I got I the solos. By college, I was a fronting a rock band and singing classical choral music.

My good buddy John and I get together about twice a week and play cover tunes and the occasional original that John writes. We used to do the coffee houses but lately we have just been posting songs to Youtube. We go by the name Dogpatch. I’ll post some songs here from time to time.

Last night my high school class, Edison 1983, got together for an informal reunion “happy hour” at a local bar. When I got there it was still early so the regular patrons that pack the place hadn’t arrived yet. Out of 640 graduates, a group of about 20 people from the class of 83 were in a corner of the room. The sound of squealing women happy to see each other filled the air so loudly it made wince a few times. I pulled up a stool and ordered a beer waiting for the noise to calm a bit before I made the rounds. The longer I sat there the more I was thinking that I’d rather be at a dinner party that I was missing just a few miles away.

I should point out that I was not a shy kid in school. My friends used to call me the “double agent” because I seemed to know everybody and fit into any group pretty easily. This was unusual in a school that was clickish to the extreme.

However, the longer I sat on that stool, the harder it became to make the move across the room to meet with the past. With my back to the group, I could see some familiar faces in the mirrored wall across from me, mostly girls from my neighborhood, but no good friends. My glass approached half full.

A well dressed attractive woman with raven hair walked up to the empty stool next to mine and ordered a beer. As she stood there holding her wallet, a slightly faded tattoo peered out from the cuff of her stylish blouse. A remnant of her wild days in the 90’s I figured. I got a glance of her name tag and leaned forward to get a better look. I said hi and asked her what it said but I think she thought I was just some random guy at the bar trying to hit on her. We exchanged a few words as she nervously waited for the waitress to return. It was then that I realized she was my first girlfriend from when we were 14. She had been to all of the past reunions and last I knew was single with no kids.

I have this belief in life that people don’t change very much. Who we are at 14 is a lot like who we are at 44. So when I was there at the bar gauging her reaction, I assumed that she either didn’t recognize me, or she did and was somehow still bitter about our immature break-up 30 years later.

Perhaps it is just my guilt because I have to admit that I had not been the best boyfriend on my rookie outing. Our relationship consisted of her and I hanging out with our own friends most of the time. One of my best friends was her brother. I would come over to her place on the evenings when her parents were on date night. I would arrive with a Led Zeppelin LP under my arm, usually “Houses of the Holy” which I am pretty sure she politely tolerated being much more trendy than I was. She would raid her parent’s liquor cabinet as I put the LP on the console stereo. We would roll around on the sofa, rarely coming up for air unless it was time to flip over the record. In six months we didn’t talk about much of anything important which I guess is normal for boys and girls that age.

For Halloween that year, her and a group of her friends dressed up as street walkers with me as their pimp. This was all their idea. I sure wish I had a picture of that night now.

At the bar, in that moment things turned from uncomfortable to awkward. Instead of just saying her name, I held back and wondered if she was still bitter about the unceremonious way I broken up with her?

Being the new kid in the neighborhood, I began to branch out and meet people I had more in common with. I ended up spending a lot of time with a girl who I liked being around and who also happened to have the worst reputation in the school. This other girl happened to be a total sweetheart and completely misunderstood by the more popular girls. I imagine it must have looked pretty bad to be passed over for someone who appeared on the surface to be so second rate.

I had also heard someplace that her brother, my friend, had gotten involved with drugs, done time in State prison and had not lived past 30. Perhaps she was avoiding my asking about his whereabouts and the painful answer she would have to come up with.

I began to wish I had brought a date or a PDA so I could text someone and get the motivation I needed to just walk with her over to the group. I am sure I would have had a good time like I did at the other reunions but on this night I just couldn’t make that step. I finished my beer and left quietly. I went to the dinner party in time for a plate and had a great time.

As the evening wore on however, I began to regret my decision to leave the reunion.

I have been an absentee blogger for some time. It isn’t like I don’t have any good content either. This is the most exciting time in my professional life. The economy is in turmoil and yet I continue to grow my business.

I am thinking of taking this blog in a new more personal direction. Too many photography blogs are just a blur of weddings and portraits without much insight or personality. I hope you enjoy what is to come.

Tony Bisson

Oana sent me this picture from her wedding saying I should blog it. I think she was trying to tell me something.

We are getting to the tail end of what has been a fast and furious run of holiday cards for 2008.

We are now drop shipping them from the printer directly to your home to save time. Most customers see theirs in just a few days.

There is just a few more days left to order yours unless you don’t mind sending them after Christmas. It’s the thought that counts right?

This card of newborn baby Reily taken at home is one of my favorites this year:

At lunch I was invited across the street to watch the LCAD halloween costume contest and eat free lasagna. I brought my camera of course.