Mike Cavaroc Discovers Photography

A little over six years ago my life changed forever. I retired a two megapixel point-and-shoot camera, took a plunge and bought a brand new 6.4 megapixel Canon Digital Rebel 300D – the very first in the series. I had been using the point-and-shoot mostly for friends and hanging out, but every now and then would look up at the sky and see something inspiring that I wanted to capture. It didn’t take me long to realize that I simply didn’t have the control I wanted in capturing what I was seeing.

The Digital Rebel began opening up all kinds of doors I never knew existed. All of a sudden I had a creative outlet flowing through me that I hadn’t been able to find in taking any other classes while in the Art program in college. I graduated with a Master’s of Fine Arts shortly thereafter, and having never seen farther west than Austin, Texas, embarked on a three-week road trip with a friend originating in East Texas and ending in Sitka, Alaska to deliver a car to his sister. The trip was nothing short of exhilarating on every level imaginable. An entirely new world had completely opened up before me and within a few months, I was packing everything I owned up and moving out to Phoenix, Arizona.

Having been raised to acquire a "real" job, photography remained a passionate, but consistently fueled and growing, hobby. Every free moment I had involved driving out into the remote mountains surrounding Phoenix and learning as much as I could about my camera. Books, internet tutorials and forums became valuable tools in learning to shoot the incredible landscapes Arizona had to offer.

Chasing the Perfect Website

Prior to discovering photography, web design was my number one hobby that was already beginning to pay off quite well in college. Naturally, upon moving out to Phoenix, I landed a good job doing web design that supported me during my time there. My website at the time was more of a conglomeration of other hobbies that I had picked up: showing off other websites I created; hiking logs; miscellaneous things I found of interest and of course, my photography. Then in 2007, everything seemed to shift in a direction that led me to believe that photography shouldn’t just be a hobby, but it should be my way of life. At the beginning of the year I graduated myself from my Digital Rebel and purchased the state-of-the-art Canon 5D. I immediately noticed my photos growing stronger and I was beginning to build a library of work that I actually enjoyed looking at (I had always been my worst critic). At the same time I also noticed that I was spending entirely too much time developing my website to handle the complex tasks I wanted and less time on photography.

Here was the turning point. Do I continue to become a web design guru and do other people’s work for the rest of my life or do I go against everything I was raised to believe and really dive into photography? Obviously, I chose the latter and never looked back. I began looking for solutions that already offered what I was trying to program. I scoured the internet for all kinds of blog services, shopping carts and hosting packages. It didn’t take me long to discover a relatively new service at the time called PhotoShelter. I gave it a little test-drive and at first glance didn’t see its value right away. However once I began getting a library online and developed an entirely new, photography-only website around the service, the advantages began leaping off the screen. I kept my photoblog self-hosted and over time, began incorporating more and more of my website around the entire PhotoShelter service. With my ever-increasing passion for seeing new places growing stronger every day, I began organizing my photos on my website by location. Over time I started to see that if a certain location was lagging in photos on my website, my desire to get back there began to grow. In a sense, my website not only became something of a travel log, but also a tool for new travel ideas.

The Rise of Social Media and Wildlife Photography

In my pursuit to be a better photographer, I’ve made one sacrifice after another, and toward the end of 2007 I made another. I quit my web design job and began working part-time jobs to devote more time to photography. At this point it became more than just a hobby and truly became something that I knew I could never abandon. My skills were improving, I was happier and thanks to PhotoShelter, my website was becoming the website I had always wanted.

In 2008 I made two trips up to the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area, having not visited there before, except briefly driving through on the 2004 trip. It was there that I had my first tastes of real, big-game wildlife photography. Both trips were completely mesmerizing and upon my return to Phoenix the second time, I felt almost as if I had tied a bungee cord between me and that entire area because the tug to get back there was growing stronger every day. I had learned by then that if you don’t go with that tug and shrug it off, you end up wondering "what if" the rest of your life and are never as happy in the long run. Naturally, I did go with it, making bigger sacrifices than I’ve ever had to make, and upon my arrival, began to see my life reaching new heights I never could have imagined.

I began capturing everything I could in continued amazement and within just a month of living in Jackson Hole, already had more images of Grand Teton National Park on my website than all of Arizona. With this new library building, I went back and completely streamlined my galleries I had on PhotoShelter. I made better uses of the Gallery Collections feature, a simple, yet highly important feature to my site. I was able to group my most visited places, Arizona, Utah and now Wyoming and Wildlife into their own Collections, doing wonders for my site’s navigation and overall user experience. In addition to that, PhotoShelter continued to make huge strides in making what was already a great service even better. The amount of customization they offered began to grow and I once again redesigned my site to take full advantage, giving it a much cleaner look with bigger image thumbnails which also aided in easier and simpler navigation.

During this same time I was also getting accustomed to the rising trend of social media, specifically via Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages. To many people, especially those who are simply more casual internet users, jumping onboard to these new platforms seems overwhelming and daunting. However call it just another stride by PhotoShelter in getting everything seamlessly connected from one site to another. Now with just a couple of clicks, I can post a slideshow of an entire gallery onto my Facebook Fan Page, my photoblog or any other number of sites. I even make a new slideshow every season filled with my favorite images that apply to that time of year and display it on my home page as well as anywhere else I can think to post it. Best part is, it’s just a few clicks to get it to scale to any size I need it to, very easily customizable and will always point back to my website.

The Verdict?

Simply stated, my site wouldn’t be anything without PhotoShelter. I’ve seen my sales grow and it’s helped me to spend more time outdoors with wildlife and less time on the computer. The core service itself saves me an enormous amount of time in not having to create thumbnails, watermarks, etc. The social media expansions help tremendously in getting necessary exposure and the efforts they’ve made in assisting with SEO are unparalleled on any other service. Now with coupon codes, I’m able to offer the discounts and promotions I’ve always wanted to. If you’re serious about photography and you’re not signed up, you might want to reconsider. If you’re content with the old website you’ve had because it’s been working well enough, you’re missing out on an enormous amount of potential sales. A current, up-to-date and modern website complete with current technology is essential in not only making sales from buyers, but also in interacting with fans and customers. It’s the new standard and it’s an absolute must if you want to be successful in "today’s economy."