Welcome to the Epiphany Digital newsletter!

Weddings are booked up with me solid for the next two weeks. For as new as we are, I’m pretty happy about that and looking forward to them. I love photographing weddings. I never cry, and I never understood that really. I love using cold hard technology to create something warm and soft from a sweet piece of life.  We’re also about to start on a few new web projects… also a good thing.  I’m hoping to move into building some applications for the iPhone as well, but who knows when I’ll get around to that.

Preferred Redding, California Website Designer at WebsiteDesignersList.com

Preferred firm in the PHP Website Designers category at WebsiteDesignersList.com

We are now expanding are service area to San Diego.  With our base camp located near I5 in Redding, CA there’s a straight connect to the rest of the vertically oriented state of California.  We are also pleased to offer many of our services to Norfolk, VA and Ventura, CA excluding some of our photography services.

I was recently featured again in the June issue of Enjoy Magazine on the calendar of events page.  Both a shot of the Sundial Bridge in Redding and a ferris wheel from the Anderson Shasta District Fair.  Thank you Enjoy!  It’s always nice feeling appreciated!

I recently had the opportunity to be involved in the grand opening of the Gaia Hotel in Anderson, CA in some small way.  I’m hoping to see a few of my photos from the event around town in various marketing materials produced.  It was a pleasure working with them and of course I always enjoy photographing events in Anderson.

Having a professionally marketed dynamic website is a two part venture. The first part is building a contemporary eye-catching site that surfers will surf because they enjoy it, either for the sake of content, ease of shopping, or some other benefit. The design is your visual pitch to the prospective client.

Part two involves your search engine marketing, authority links, and general (and targeted) traffic generation. The obvious fact that a well designed, beautifully crafted, multimedia site is useless if nobody sees it.

One of the best things about having a professional portrait taken is making people look as good or better in two dimensions as they do in three. Having professional lighting for your portraits is important regardless of the end result, whether it be a portrait for the company profile or business card, a wedding portrait, or your own personal website. You stick out from the rest of the bunch, and don’t look cheap by having your kid sister take a snapshot on your WalMart point-n-shoot. Why do you think so many blogs have photos of the author?

One of our most important philosophies behind logo design is usability. Your prospective clients should be able to easily read the text and recognize the image. Your logo should always be high contrast for use in print media (including black and white newspaper advertising), magazines, and web marketing. A logo needs to be appropriate to the target audience. Don’t try to be something you’re not with your logo to try to appeal to a client who won’t get to appreciate your company for who you are. Chances are, there are enough clients out there that will like your style and offerings you can just be yourself.

Some of this has been learned by past mistakes. My very first business card used a text that was so frequently mistaken, I had lots of potential customers calling the wrong number. Since that first mistake, I’ve met other business owners who have done the same thing. There is a reason why an entire job position has been centered around fonts within the graphic design industry. The font itself can be your own personal trademark. Just think of Coca-Cola’s font, or Pepsi’s, or Lays, to name a few.

EpiphanyDigital.com will be the home of the new blog.  All of the old posts are there, we’re just not writing any new ones here.  Thanks for being so swell about this.  I’m sure we’re inconveniencing a great number of people…

We just launched www.EpiphanyDigital.com and registered the name “Epiphany Digital” with the county.  “Stop 1 Photo” is good for another four years, so we’ll just be phasing it out over time.  It’s a good name, but too many think we’re a film drop shop and we didn’t start the business with web development in mind.

We’ll be shooting all of the posed couples portraits at Win River Casino for the Anderson, CA chamboree on May 3, 2008. So dress nice and bring a date and have your photo taken!