One of my long-time friends and clients is Nate Bock. He is a wonderful daddy and husband and is highly intelligent. Even now, with his doctorate, he still has plenty of study sessions. Nate used to be my student minister at my church when I was in high school! He made a move down to Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Springfield, MO a couple years ago and has been building an excellent student ministry down there. He has two great staff members that I work with often, Julie & Erica. We all know who really runs the show, don’t we ladies?

I drove down to Springfield a few weeks back and we shot in the downtown area for some promotional photos to be used for various things. What a great little city! It just feels like home even when you visit. Here are some of my favorites from that sweltering, hot day.

Lastly, my favorite…although, not Nate’s.

Many of you may not realize that I own a busy design studio as my day job. During the day, you can find me always working on various projects (web, print and logos). I use commercial photography and illustrations daily. In fact, it is the whole reason I got started with photography to begin with. Commercial Stock Photography.

Stock photos are images you buy with the intent of using them for design (or other purposes, but primarily design). I started with iStockphoto as a buyer many years ago. Back when I started buying, photos were only a quarter each. I think they had around 1,500 images to choose from (now they have over 2 million images to choose from!).

Over the years, it grew into a real business and more talented photographers joined up. Image prices were raised and the selection and overall quality improved. I was still buying a lot. About 3 and a half years ago, I decided that a lot of the photos I had purchased, I could probably shoot better myself, so I got a digital camera and so began my game of commercial stock photography and also began my steep learning curve into the photography world as a contributor.

I grew and learned and grew and failed and grew and learned some more. Completely self-taught (wth the help and support of friends) I submitted image after image and slowly built a small library of my own work on iStockphoto. As I got better, my sales increased and my monetary income from the site began to pay for better equipment and for more time for learning.

To date: I have had over 23,000 stock image sales all over the world… I see them in use from time to time and often I am really shocked and surprised at where I hear about them. Billboards, magazines, TV shows, online ads, newspaper ads…everywhere.

Today, I am sharing a Dustin Steller image in action that I was ecstatic to find! It is of my good friend, DJ Rouse, who is a talented actor/model/singer and trained dancer who is fun to shoot with and makes a great friend as well as a model. I was flipping through my Relevant Magazine that I received in the mail. I have a subscription because I love their editorial photography and the content is great, too.

On page 19, I was shocked to find one of my images of DJ in use (available for purchase here). I shot I took specifically for the reason it was used for, describing “worship”! Cool, huh?

It has been a bit hectic lately with design work and getting some big projects wrapped up. I have done a couple fun shoots and have processed them, but haven’t blogged them yet (duh!)…so to tide you all over, I am going to share a family photo with you.

My wife is taking up scuba diving for a trip we have booked next year. I dropped by with the girls at her class at the Dive Shop. Of course i had my camera with me and the girls were ecstatic watching mommy at the bottom of the pool…for about 5 minutes. Then they were bored so we walked around and looked at stuff. They had a really colorful and well-done mural on a wall and we decided to “go swimming” like fish. It was fun! I hope you all enjoy!

By the way, no fish were harmed during the making of this post.