JohnPark's blog

How much I enjoy photography (& coffee).

This is my fun little project.  You might say it's stupid.  But, it's all about keeping the spirit alive as an artist.  I would like to share a little part of my life that was not been told before. From this, I hope you will get to know me better.  I want people to know how much I truly enjoy photography.

Wedding Site at Oxnard, Heritage Square

Whenever I arrive at the wedding site, I take pictures of my coffee cup. 

How it all started

1. I don't drink coffee every day.  But I religiously drink coffee whenever I do anything that's related to photography. 
   • For example: If a customer schedule a meeting, I will come to the meeting with a cup of coffee in my hand.
2. I always brew fresh coffee right before I leave home for a wedding.  I drink coffee as I drive to the wedding site.
3. When I arrive at the wedding site:
   • I get out of the car with the last sip of the coffee in my hand.
   • I place my coffee cup on top of my car to stretch.
   • Then I get my cameras out.  Take the lens caps off. etc..
   • I snap a few test pictures to make sure my camera is in working order
   • When I take test pictures, the closest object I see is my coffee cup.  So I take pictures of the coffee cup.
4. I am a Canon user.  I don't know why I bought this cup at the first place. 
5. The cup is about 18 years old (maybe older). I bought it through mail-order.  There was no Internet back then.  I bought it along with a Canon cup & a Nikon cup.  The other cups were broken a long time ago.

Before I knew it, this practice became one of my wedding photography rituals. 

Each photograph of my coffee cup marks the moment I was getting ready for a full day of work.  These are my personal moments when I was by myself.  I usually have a little butterfly in my stomach.

* If you don't see a series of pictures below click here.

Photography as Fitness Activity (workout)

• Heart rate, calorie, & distant monitoring of a wedding photographer at work
• Wedding photography can be an intense workout.

VenturaPhoto.com is the first (& only) to monitor physical activities of a
wedding photographer on the job - Just for fun

I used to be obsessed about physical fitness.  I used to bench-press 225lb 5 years ago.  I still workout but I'm not that obsessed anymore.

For last 5 years, my ongoing question was "How much exercise do I get from a wedding photography gig?"  So I decided to make this my new project.

In order to do this, I had to upgrade my heart rate monitor.  The heart rate monitor I had was too old (and not fun).  I purchased a very sophisticated heart rate monitor that will transfer data to my computer.  With this, I will have a comprehensive understanding.

Heart rate monitors: Old and New

First, I wanted to know what my 9 to 5 workday was like.  So I wore my new heart rate monitor to work one day.  As you can see below, I was absolutely not getting any exercises at work.  I mean it looks like I was a hospital patient.  Below graph also shows my lunch time (between the mark 1 & 2).

My Typical 9 to 5: Burnt 637 Calories, walked 1.1miles, avg Hart Rate 66 b/m

Finally, I had my first opportunity to test my heart rate monitor at a real wedding.  I recorded my physical activities from the time I got out from my car to the time I came back to my car.  I worked 6 hours and 19 minutes total.  

Key info: June 28 Wedding: 6 hrs, 2754 Calories, 5.8miles, 112 b/m avg Hart Rate

Measuring physical activities at the wedding only takes a few seconds.  I find it entertaining to monitor my physical activity at the wedding.  I believe I am the only person in the world providing this kind of data.

If you don't see a series of fitness data below click here