My First Blog Post-Introduction

Hi! Welcome to my first blog post. Why blog? It was suggested by several fellow photographers and friends that I do this to promote myself and my business, to record notes of projects and images I shoot for both myself and the benefit of others, and to have a place to discuss my favorite subject. So, why not.
A short bio would be that I am a 43 year old male who resides in Statford, CT. I have a BA in Philosophy from Fairfield University, an Associates in Culinary Arts from New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, VT and I am currently employed as General Manager of an ever-shrinking retail food-service business in Westport, CT.
I was told to get a hobby to fill up my free time so I decided on Still Photography. I had a 5 year stint doing lighting, video production, and some camera operation in the mid 1990's and learning photography seemed like a challenging lifelong endeavor and a natural leap from my previous career.
I have spent the last four years poring over every bit of information I can get my hands on about the subject and have explored almost every avenue this medium offers.
I have settled on Portraiture and Photo Restoration & Retouching. I have done 5 small weddings to get my feet wet in that arena and I will continue to do them, if asked. I had an exhibit this past Spring of samplings of many types of work and I will post about that subject another time. I also had the wonderful opportunity to shoot 6 images for a textbook my Mother wrote on Women Philosophers thus being published somewhere early on. My goals are to do this full time someday(no expectations) and to just put alot of thought and myself into every project. I really lean towards clean well lit images with lots of color and contrast. I have worked with a few " models" (non-professional) and learned alot about lighting, posing, and articulating my goals. Also, it is a great opportunity to listen to and try out other peoples ideas. Humbling.
My goal with this blog is to give back that which was so freely given to me by various artists, bloggers, and photographers vis a vis their web and blog sites. In starting this photography business I have made many decisions some good and more bad in terms of advertising and marketing, pricing, inventory, etc. I would love to share all this with whomever could benefit from it and avoid the business pitfalls I have made. Everything happens for a reason. More Later... jkd