Hooray! I’ve been waiting quite a while to share this one with you guys, but I had to iron out the finer details first.
Way back in the spring, I began doing video work for The Michigan Animal Rescue League. The promo spot caught the attention of one of their sponsors, The Urban Dog, an all-natural dog food and supply store out of Rochester Michigan.
After a fairly lengthy amount of planning and conceptualizing, we settled on an advertising project that would include a promo video, a series of ad posters, and a collection of interviews about the store.
Then the fun started.
Probably a good 80% of the dog owners I know graciously allowed me access to their furry family members. After a couple months of video, photography, editing, audio selecting, and post processing – the project is locked, loaded, and ready for you, the loving audience.
Also, be sure to swing by TheUrbanDogStore.com to see what they’re all about. I learned a lot on this project I wish I had known years ago about maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle for your dog.
And I’d also like to mention how massively thankful I am to everyone who helped my out and let me borrow your dogs for the afternoon.
This Tuesday my golden retriever, Murphy Riley Kopacz, passed away. He is 11 & 3/4 years old.
It’s sad. The events of the last 3 weeks cycle through my head on a loop and it hurts. But that’s where it stops. Everything else is happy and, frankly, hilarious. I just have to think about who he is and not about what happened.
He pooped on a shrew at the park in February. That kind of thing doesn’t happen. He hunkered down just as the little guy popped out of its hole to see what was going on… imagine what went through that shrew’s mind. Hilarious.
We ran out of dog food one morning when he was about 5. So we gave him a can of SPAM. You ever see a dog try to eat a cube of SPAM? It’s terrific. Every time they try to take a bite it slides across the floor.
I was about 22 when I was hanging out with him on the beach. A couple of rather attractive young ladies walked past and exclaimed how “OMG absolutely adoooooorable he was and if they could PLEEEEEASE pet him.” Knowing precisely how to use my dog’s charm for my own gain I of course said that they could…. then he brought them half of a rotting dead catfish. That one was probably funnier to him than it was to me.
Here are a few of the things he was by my side for:
The end of high school
2 cataclysmic exes
The best relationship anyone could ever have (her name is Ashley and he ran to HER when he was in trouble).
– Fun fact: Ashley was terrified of dogs until she met my 100 pound, teeth filled, carnivorous beast. Now she loves dogs. Yeah – Murphy did that.
2 degrees
The entirety of the development of my career.
weight loss
weight gain
He was also the inspiration for me to undertake the longest-running project of my career.
He’s my hero.
If you knew him, you already knew how awesome he was. For those who didn’t, here’s a look at Murphy
A question I get a lot is “What have you been up to?” or sometimes “What projects have you been working on?” There are assorted variations of this question, but they pretty much all mean the same thing.
I usually respond with… OK – no. There is no usual response, because it’s so rare that I have more than one current project sharing similarities that we can just pretend it doesn’t happen. Next week I may be working with an architectural-agricultural hybrid company, a local animal shelter, a community-based restaurant, and a national organization conducting a student competition. I mention these examples because there was a week last summer where those were the open projects I was working on. (It was a busy week).
So when I answer the first question and describe my current clients, I’m almost always greeted with the same follow up question, “Oh, wow. So you’re taking pictures for ALL those? What are the pictures of?”
Ah.
This seems to be the general consensus about my company and I figured it was time to elaborate a bit on what I do.
Let me begin by saying this is a completely understandable thought process and if you glance up to the those giant words at the top of this page, you’ll agree with me. I began my company as a photographer and for all my dabbling and involvement in other forms of media, if I find myself going a week at a time without using my camera I get all shaky and my hair starts falling out… OK it’s not THAT bad, but I do find myself daydreaming about the next project in which I’ll actually get to create an image.
So, honest and true, when I’m face to face with a person and they mention that they’ve heard I’m a photographer, I don’t mine. In fact I actually get a bit of pride out of hearing that.
But when it comes to clients (we’re talking businesses, here) I regularly find that they’re trying to put out new media and have over half-a-dozen contractors assigned to as many different things… and none of them are even talking to each other.
It makes sense for each person to have their own style and that’s what gives a healthy dose of diversity to any good marketing campaign. But for the finished collaboration to come together in a clean fashion there has to be… well, collaboration.
That’s where I come in.
I may be a photographer, but I’m also a videographer, graphic designer, consultant, and advertising professional – and my client list is rather, shall we say, varied.
More than that, I work with a tight-knit group of media professionals that specializes in everything from web design, branding, and marketing to layout, copy-writing, and packaging. So when a project on a massive scale comes along or when six assignments come in at once, that are just too much fun to turn down, I can still guarantee success and some top-notch quality.
In the end, when I explain what I’m working on for a certain client, people aren’t usually expecting my answer.
So, I made this to help me explain things a bit more clearly.
You may have been on the internet recently. Heck, you may be on the internet RIGHT NOW. So in all likelihood, an internet aficionado like yourself may have noticed 1 or a few hundred thousand trends rocketing their way around cyberspace.
Ignoring “Grumpy Cat” (whose name is Tartar Sauce), Gangam Style, and Reality TV, you’ve likely noticed there is a – close to overdone – trend rocking Youtube. I am, of course, reffering to Electronic/Dubstep-soundtracked montages of things like action sports, skate boarding, or people hurting themselves.
Well, try as you might, you’ll never leave ME out of the loop!
Unfortunately I am not mind-bogglingly athletic. I am neither surprisingly, moderately, or remotely athletic. This isn’t to say I weigh in at a svelte 750, but more that if I attempted an inverted kick-flip followed by a dark-house nose-grind, I’d likely find myself in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the half-pipe, soaking in the snickering humiliation of 2 dozen overly-developed tweenagers.
But back to the point…
I don’t have an affluence of athletic ability. I DO, however, have a golden retriever.
His name is Murphy and he is possibly the coolest person you’ll ever meet.
My buddy, Carl Amyoni, has a particular set of skills… skills that make him a nightmare for people like IKEA.
Carl is one of those unique individuals that grew up not with The Rugrats or Inspector Gadget, but with the likes of Norm Abrams and Tolstoy – essentially the makings for a modern-day Renaissance Man. However, instead of a hoity-toity Palisade, Carl found enlightenment in things like raw steel, hand carved mallets, and sandpaper of varied grits.
He was well on the way to a life of hand-crafted stuff.
One day, Carl became interested in photography. (He still won’t tell me exactly what happened – it has something to do with Public Access Channels and a substantial quantity of artichoke and onion guacamole).
Anyway – after meeting him through a photography class, it became clear that Carl was more interested in building, himself, what could otherwise be purchased at any department store.
About 3 and a half years have passed and, as such, other friends and I discuss how it’s likely Carl, in the search of imagery-perfection, designed and forged his own camera.
As you may have noticed (or maybe not) I’ve been lacking a bit on getting up “the content.”
Well, sure, I’ve been busy with some jobs – BUT – more importantly…
Jon’s learning video.
Yes indeedy, folks – while I will always rock out the single shots, I’m starting to love me some 24FPS. So with no more rambling, please take a gander at my very own promo video!
Oh – be sure to watch it in HD – it’s just that much better.
sponsors, The Urban Dog, an all-natural dog food and supply store out of Rochester Michigan.
JonKPhoto 