With Gratitude
As you might imagine, after all these years of road tripping, mountain trekking, and family starting, years that produced an image archive of 70,000 images, I have a lot to share. But for this inaugural Eric Zamora Photography blog piece, I’ll keep it short and sweet. The reflection of everything I am and do can be boiled down into one value: gratitude. It’s the summary of my existence. When explanations and descriptions seem inadequate or too complicated, gratitude comes to the rescue to sum everything up.
It is with an unbelievable degree of gratitude that I have the opportunity to share these experiences and that you are here to listen, to share them with me. Each of my photographs tells a story, and, honestly, I wouldn’t do it if I couldn’t share them. Sharing these experiences is an essential part of why I do what I do. So thank you for being here.
I’d like to also thank my wife, Ellie. It will become more clear as I write these stories and share my life how essential Ellie is to my existence. I mean that in the deepest, most personal way possible. But, also from a professional standpoint, she is the bedrock from which I evolve in my enterprise. Yes, I was a photographer before her, and yes, Eric Zamora Photography existed prior to our marriage, but there is no comparison between back then and now when it comes to how I do what I do. My path is crystal clear. There are no doubts. We removed the bar and made the sky our limit knowing with absolute certainty we can achieve what we dream.
Building a professional web site is an enormous undertaking. This blog is a very important part of a professional photographer’s web presence. But it is still just a part. The web site itself is the headquarters of everything Eric Zamora Photography. I’ve been working for more than six months on my www.ericzamora.com. These last five weeks have been very challenging. Four hours a night of sleep for weeks on end will age a man quickly. I sleep from 8 pm to midnight, wake and work. When my son, Zavar, takes a nap during the day, I jump at the chance to get anything done, even if it’s just one item on the to-do list.
EricZamora.com is a fully featured, e-commerce enabled web site with 62 photo galleries and nearly 8,000 images. Each image is available to purchase as a print in nearly any size you can imagine, as a product like a on a t-shirt, as a download, or a combination of the three. Any photographer that has gone through this process knows exactly what I’m talking about. Just applying metadata to the images, despite the automation capabilities of today’s photo processing software, is a daunting task. I consider myself proficient at digital asset management, and the challenge for me was absolutely huge.
I sincerely hope you enjoy the Eric Zamora Photography blog, and by it’s extension Eric Zamora Photography. If you’ve followed my work during the past several years, or know me personally, you know that my photography and my life are interwoven almost seamlessly. Check out the About Eric Zamora page on my new web site and you will see what I mean. Although I am going to stick to photography most of the time, don’t be surprised if this blog digressed into other topics as the months and years come and go. I simply enjoy the freedom of expressing myself too much to only talk about one thing. I’m certainly not perfect and I may not get it right all the time, but I can promise you one thing – I’ll give you my all.
Thank you.
With gratitude,
Eric