So you’ll notice that our store and some of our other branding are slowly changing to “La Lune Creative”. Let me give you a little background as to why we’re re-branding and essentially “moving”. Last year was tough for H2, not because business had been slow, but because I was overbooked, overworked, and just drained completely both with design and photography. La Lune is my final solution for everything that has been my creative outlets over the last few years. Last year saw exponential growth, growth I could have never achieved without my amazing clients and my friends at Pro Photo. I really appreciate and love you all!

Sometime last year I decided that having two businesses was too much for one single person so I systematically stopped taking new clients for custom work, and completely quit photography due to some health issues and the trouble of running two whole businesses by myself was wearing on me and my clients. With the photography aspect gone, I was free to finish up my remaining clients, and I’m just now recently seeing the light to the end of the tunnel for those clients (yep I was booked that far ahead!). So with that in mind I decided to re-brand and start fresh with everything. In August we launched our first template designs in the Pro Photo store with the new name and we’ve continued to build our new brand and new direction, with the new website in tow.

The new site has a tentative launch date of August, which will mark the first year anniversary of La Lune officially. If you have any questions or anything feel free to comment, and you’ll be able to check out a teaser at www.lalunecreative.com Please join the new facebook page to keep up to date, once the new site launches the H2 Facebook page will stop being updated.

Matt -

Our newest template Metropolitan has arrived! This design features a vintage, water color themed style, it comes with all photoshop files, works with or without a sidebar, home page, header slide show and a footer. The files are compatible with current versions of Adobe Photoshop and Elements (yes even much older versions!) Metropolitan is completely customize-able like all our other Pro Photo designs. If you’re not a photographer, this design fits well with a fashion or even wedding style site.

View the DEMO.
Purchase the DESIGN.

Down Time – We will currently be away from the office from March 5th until the 12th for holiday. Limited email correspondence and any current work will be delayed until we get back, thanks!

Services – You may have noticed we took down our usual “services” link on the site that gives way to our current array of options of custom work. For the time being we’re not taking any custom design work, new or old clients for a little while. We’ll soon be transitioning into the new brand and will be making some changes as that develops, until then we’re going to concentrate on finishing up all our current custom design work, and push out any remaining templates I’m working on until the new site launches. You can expect our newest template “mod” to be arriving early this week in the ProPhoto store with 3 more coming in the weeks/months.

Pro Photo Templates – Currently we’re making room for some new templates arriving soon so “The Daily Planet” and “Magician” are now sold as limited edition numbered 20 each. Once they’re sold out, they’re gone!

We have one new template in the store this week! You can view “Mod” here.

That’s all the news we have for today!  Stay tuned for some more new template releases when we get back and finally some more news about La Lune!

Matt-

Our second template “Tang” is now available in the prophoto store for purchase as well.

We’re still working on templates up until the new site launches later this year so stay tuned for more soon! :)

Congratulations to  Shanae Jones!

Please contact us to collect your free template!

Thanks for participating for those of you who entered, and I promise there will be more contests soon and when La Lune launches we’ll be offering up a reward program for people who would like to submit ideas for new designs! :)

So in tune with Britt’s 36 in 365 mentioned in the last post, I decided to do my own list, so that my friends, family, and clients can hold me completely accountable if I don’t try to do everything on this list. I’m not totally sure if I can come up with 36 or even 33 as she did in her follow up for 2012. I think I probably have way more personal goals than business ones, but I ended up trying to even things out a bit with the most important ones.

By no means do I have any one of these in any sort of order, some of them are long term goals that have melded over from 2011…yikes.

Business Goals

1. Combine all of my sites into ONE.  I’ve heard the horrid stories about not keeping certain aspects of personal life separate but I’m willing to go out on a limb and just combine everything that is well…me, into one place.
2. Expand, I’d really like to hire out some help after the new site launch early this year.
3. Home office makeover. I’ve been needing to drive that 4 hour trip to Ikea for some time, and I’m dying to get a love seat in my office so I can make this coffee table to go along with it.
4. Spring clean the home office. Like..legit spring clean. Watching episodes of hoarding: buried alive has just made me even more not clingy with things I don’t need.
5. Expand out of my comfort zone. This isn’t something new I haven’t tried. My design type tends to be more minimalist and I’d like to step out of bounds for a bit and try some new styles.
6. Start using other means of communication. I really want to get into video chatting and skyping for 2012. I’ve offered it, but not pushed it enough. I think that should take the custom work to another level that I need to be at.
7. Video tutorials and tips. This is something I wanted to do last year, but didn’t have the means or the time to devote to it properly.
8. I want to start pushing some guest design work, articles, tips and overall more goodwill towards photographers and designers alike for the blog.
9. Finally going to order those press-printed business cards I’ve always wanted.
10. I haven’t had a laptop in about 4 years, I think it’s about time I break down and get a new one or a tablet for on the go leisure or working (is that a good thing?!)

Lifestyle Goals

11. For years I was taking pictures and getting an album printed of my chihuahua as a Christmas present to my wife.  He’s definitely the child we’ll never be able to have,  and last year he got a companion and I’ve yet to publish another book for us since 2009. I have to keep this tradition going for 2012.
12. I’ve been renting for 9 years, and moved twice. I’m ready to own something I can sink my own hands into. Buying a house should probably be numero uno on this list.
13. Take way more vacation time for me and my wife, and definitely more time for reflection and to take better care of myself, being overworked takes a huge toll on anyone.
14. I want to paint at least two very large paintings. I miss mixed art mediums.
15. Take at least one major camping/kayaking trip.
16. Visit my aunt and uncle in Alaska + take eleventy billion pictures.
17. I know my wife hates getting pictures of her taken :p but I would really like some new pictures for family and for ourselves.
18. Take more time to make friends and visit with old ones.
19.  See a Blink-182 or Angels and Airwaves Live Concert.
20.  Write, star and direct a short film.

Wow I can’t believe  in just a little while it will be Christmas! I’m wondering why I’m still working this late. :p

So the year is almost over, and with that comes great reflection. It’s time to see what I accomplished, my mistakes and weak points, and what’s to come for next year. I really enjoyed getting to read about Promise Tangeman’s idea for self reflection, along with the 36 goals of 365 project from BrittCroft. Very inspirational and definitely something to look forward to the upcoming year. I’m not one to get overly excited about new years eve or even setup “resolutions” but I do strive to improve myself and my business.

Unfortunately at the time it’s still really only me doing everything at H2, but next year I will be merging into La Lune  and working with someone that can help me push the design business in a new direction to consolidate well…everything. Here’s just a few of some important things from 2011.

Accomplishments

I’d say over the 2011 year I accomplished quite a bit, I worked with Pro Photo for months beta testing Pro Photo 4 which finally went to launch a few months ago, what an undertaking and definitely something I’m excited to continue to do! Not only that but I launched the new H2 site which was also being done in tandem with P4 to launch in the same week. I’m kinda disappointed that I have to see the design go, as the merger will have something completely new and fresh and I’m hoping to nail down the design so there won’t be much more switching from here on out. Have I mentioned it’s not a good thing for designers or photographers to keep changing branding and site designs? Because it’s not. :p I worked hard to release new templates in the months since P4 has released and continue to release them on a regular basis, I’m excited to be able to ramp that production up for next year. I also launched over 40 custom blog designs for clients this year, a huge undertaking, though I was overbooked am proud to have done so much. :)

Weak Points and Evaluation

I’ve been in the Pro Photo design business for over 2 years now, you would think I would be able to figure this all out, but unfortunately unlike photography it’s taking me longer to figure out the ins and outs of client work, which is completely different than photography clients. Plus I could be doing this until the day I die and still keep learning on how to improve and do it all better. :) I ran a photography business for 6 years until this year when health issues forcibly made me give it up just recently. There’s some good and bad to that, shooting weddings every month and doing custom designs I was overbooked and overworked on didn’t help either business in the long run. Regardless of having to quit and didn’t want to, I’m glad I’m being pushed into a direction that I’m supposed to be going and I’m happy to be moving on. :) Some of the things I learned…I way WAY overbooked myself, which is why I’m still not taking any custom blogs. I overbooked myself for months, I’ve since caught up but at this point I’m not taking anyone new to take a break. This area needs some more reflection to get figured out before moving back into it like I was before.

I also took clients that wasn’t a good fit for me or my business in the long run, on that note I think it’s super interesting to go back through my old clients sites and see where everyone is at (this will be a later topic for a post.) One HUGE thing that I have to mention…maybe email communication isn’t the best route for me or my clients any more. I knowingly am really nit picky and ocd about certain aspects of design, and I can’t always communicate what I’m needing in the design without sometimes coming off wrong when I type even though the tone my email may sound isn’t what I’m thinking it sounds like or would say in a negative tone if I was talking about it over the phone instead. I see Skype or Google Hangouts with the awesome screen sharing features being a major addition to my work flow for 2012. :)  Last but not least…I did not take one iota of a vacation in over 12 months, I have not a single time to step back away from everything long enough to feel refreshed at all. I haven’t been able to do that since after I started H2 really. This is my own fault and will make this another huge priority to do at least bi-monthly.

For the Future 

One thing about self-reflection is that it’s great to see that you can make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, and continue to thrive and push to be better, and no matter what happens and no matter how long you do it you’ll always learn something new. :) I have a very large to do list which during the year I’m going to hope that you all, hold me accountable for. The final list will be in a later post, but some of them include working on better communication for clients, getting back to doing more custom design work, taking more vacation time, sleeping more (I need this so much!), consolidating websites, posting on a regular basis again, and slimming down the social networking to an acceptable level. I’ve been so blessed and thankful for all the great clients and friends I’ve met this year and I’m super excited to see what 2012 holds for me and hopefully our growing team!

I truly hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Matt-

At first I was going to write a post about how we’re taking suggestions for new templates, but it turned into a contest instead. :) We have some Pro Photo 4  templates in the works for release before the end of the year and some new ones for next year, but I would LOVE to be able to get some suggestions on what you would like to see! So far we’ve done a few niche designs, like a few boudoir templates and the very special pet template we released not long ago, but for the next few I’m looking to expand out a bit into some different territory.

To enter in the contest all you have to do is leave a suggestion for a new template design you would like to see, by leaving a comment below!  After we’ve picked through the suggestions and finished the design, one lucky winner could win the template free when it goes on sale. :) We’ll be using the random number generator for this competition to select the winner.

Due to the great responses we’re getting, I’m going to extend this contest through January 1st! Keep submitting on what you would like to see in future designs!

Safe Travels and Happy Holidays!

Matt-

In celebration of  the holidays all current designs in the pro photo store are half off! You can now get Red Baron for $20, Mighty Dog for $40, Daily Planet for $13, and Magician for $20! Sale lasts until Cyber Monday! The store on the site will redirect you to the pro photo store, or you can click here to get to the sales! There’s no discount code needed, all prices have already been slashed!

Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving, be safe in your travels!

Matt-