What's your story?

[HunnyB Profile Private message]

Mark - so far, all I do for my church is baby dedication and graduating senoir shows.
To tell the truth, not sure I want to do anything else.....
right now I am working on a friend's wedding rehearsal show, my 2009 family show,
and my husband's fireman retirement show.....
.............................did I say I was retired????

[KatzInAZ Profile Private messageWebsite]

I worked for a large software company for 18 years. Unfortunately I had to have some back surgery last June, which required 1 year of rehab. So... 1 month before my surgery, I was laid off! A blessing in disguise I think.

I got started into video slideshows by doing them for family - my Nephew's wedding, my sister's funeral (that was a hard one), and my folks 50th Wedding anniversary. As folks on this thread have so aptly put it, the reaction of the audience - laughter, and tears, and the rememberances and stories afterwards - got me hooked!

While I loved doing these, the software I used took a very long time for results that were less than ideal. I ran across ProShow a week ago, and LOVE IT!. I created my first slide show with the "evaluation copy" - a look back the first year in the life of my Granddaughter: http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewsho ... 9839&alb=0. Would love feedback.

I am seriously considering starting my own business as well. Currently I am in the learning phase, and have a lot of research to do on starting/owning your own business, as well as learning more about this software, and how to effectively create professional video slideshows.

I'm excited to have found this forum, and am looking forward to learning lots from all of you.

Cheers!

Katz

[scorpion Profile Private message]

Steve,
That's the American entrepreneur's dream story, isn't it? Oh yeah... ok, Canada is close enough. Sounds perfect for your situation. Are you planning a web site or just the tried and true door-to-door and word-of-mouth? Let us know how it goes as you progress.
Mark

Hi Mark,

I plan on building a website ( another hobby of mine ) for my business. It just seems today everyone needs one to survive out there. "Word of mouth" is great for a small local business but I want to reach out to the world.....yes, I know, I'm dreaming.....it doesn't hurt though. Once I get my website up and running I'll be sure to get everyone here to check it out and give me their feedback. This forum is the place to come for great advice.

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

No more stories? Too bad - we were on a roll and I love hearing what others are doing with ProShow and your plans for the future. Don't be shy. We're all family here, right?
Mark

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Mark, I'm right there with you on wanting to hear more stories. Everyone comes here from a different place, and everyone brings something unique to the table. A person doesn't have to be a professional or even beyond the newbie stage. It's the path people have taken to get here that's most interesting.

Barbara

[czali Profile Private message]

Ok, I am not as eloquent as others here but I will tell you a little.
I did my first show for my sister that got married back in 2004 with Gold. I think it took me 4 months to complete. It was a “Diapers to Diamonds” type show. As others have stated, I had such a wonderful response from everyone that I thought I could do this as a business. After creating my own website (that took forever) and upgrading to Producer I started the journey. I found Enthusiasts after the whole upset with the price change. I missed the deal by about two days I think. After searching to see what others were saying I found Enthusiasts. What a valuable tool this has been in helping me with the software and business.

After having fun and doing shows for a few years I have taken a step back. At the end of the year I completed three back to back shows and got a little burnt. I usually try to create a custom type show for each person and will spend close to 4 weeks on a show.

For the future I hope to start making shows for my loved ones. With the exception of a school show, I have never completed one for my immediate family! So I look forward to getting back to loving this art. It is really a beautiful way to showcase a life/family/love story. Even if I do not do it for a business, I will still try to keep up and check in with everyone and occasionally do a show.

I think that is it!!

Colleen

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

Colleen,
Dictionary.com defines eloquent as "movingly expressive," which your story certainly is. I too spend "too many" hours to produce a show and am trying to discover the right ratio of custom effort to a profitable fee. I imagine most of us can recall some level of burn-out in our ProShow experience. You can't go wrong in producing shows for your family. Please do remain with the forum. "ProShow Enthusiasts: A Place to Learn - A Place to Share." There's nothing in that masthead about having to be in business. Thanks for sharing Colleen.
Mark

[ChrissyC Profile Private message]

Hi Mark,
My story is...my husband worked 24 years for Intel, he was in charge of world wide operations of all Intel sites, the last few years before he retired our kids were up and out so I got to travel with him, all over the world I went taking my little point and shoot camera with me. I put all my photos in a big box and there they sat...when he retired he went into his childhood hobby of raising and racing pigeons..he had a gorgeous flock of them and won lots of races..2 years ago after a persitent back ache that would not go away I took him into the ER where they found blood cancer..Multiple Myeloma, it's been a rough 2 years of chemo, he had to find other flyers to take his birds, he no longer had the energy to take good care of them.. next month he goes in for a stem cell transplant..during this time I needed something to help me cope, take my mind off our problems and the always present fear stalking me, I started hounding my family for old pictures and made my first family show...when my family watched they didn't see the mistakes they just saw all the love I made them with..there was no stopping me after this but I was having problems moving forward..a friend directed me to this forum where I parked my butt ever since and have grown by leaps and bounds, I have made wonderful friends here.
I have achieved my first goal of making a show of my Mothers parents and grandparents and a show of all 6 of my mothers children, her grandchildren and her greats....my next goal is to haul out my picture box and organize my travel pictures...they won't be of interest to anyone but my husband and my kids but it will help keep me busy and my mind off the 3 long weeks he'll be in the hospital..I can't see him or touch him during this time so I'll need to keep myself busy.
I love this forum and this program so much, I have made my whole family happy with all the shows I have made..I made my first bit of money from it recently! I made my daughter a slideshow and a scrapbook of her trip to Greece, the other girl's loved it so much they asked me to make 3 more and they paid me for it!!! What a THRILL that was
So there's my story.....
take care, Chrissy

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

Oh Chrissy...
You sound amazing. I'm sorry for what you and your husband and family must still endure but I'm so happy you've found a home here. As I mentioned to Colleen, there's no better purpose for ProShow than family photos. You sound blessed in your family relationships. Financial rewards are fun but nothing beats the warmth of being with family and friends when you unveil a ProShow filled with memories and emotions of important relationships. May God bless you and your family and please continue to keep us "posted."
Mark

[climax Profile Private message]

Hi Mark !
First of all I must say I loved to see your picture in your avatar. It's nice to see who I'm "talking" to

My story with proshow started in 2006. And it started because of love....
I met my husband on the internet (just because I wanted to practice my english, I wrote a profile on match.com).
I was having lot os fun, talking to people from all over the world. And one day I got a message from him...
During 202 days we kept writing to each other, everyday. And sharing pictures all the time. My friends could not stand me anymore... I was always asking them to take pictures of me, so I would have something new to send him.
And wanting to keep surprising him, I purchased PSG, and made my first show in the night before we met in person for the first time in Brasil. That show was called 202 days, and had some of the hundreds of pictures that we had shared. It is still my favourite show, believe it or not...
Well, after that I kept using PSG only for my family and close friends.
And then we got married, and I had these wonderful pictures of our wedding. I wanted to make a very nice show to share with my folks. And that's how my story here in the forum started. I wanted some honest comments about my wedding show. I got surprised with all the help I got , and some wonderful advice. Got hooked to this forum
At last I had people to talk about shows and photography !!

Now I'm living in Finland, and I want to start a new profession here. After getting 2 requests for slideshows from investors companies, I made the decision to give it a try officially with the slideshow business. Hopefully soon I'll have my website, and then let's see what happens
I love Proshow, and I love this forum !

Cristina

[bellzerr Profile Private message]

Hi Cristina!
My avatar photo is from our "Italy Gang" vacation in Tuscany - a very happy time for me - as you can see in the photo.
Cristina you have some story! I guess I shouldn't keep being so surprised at how deeply rooted ProShow is in the personal lives of the members here. It is an incredible tool for drawing people into your story, or back into their own. I actually think this thread belongs somewhere on the Photodex site as a testimonial.
I imagine that "202 Days" is much too personal to share, but I'm not at all surprised that it remains your favorite. And please share that new business show you're working on when you complete it. It's great to hear from you again.
Mark

[Diane48 Profile Private message]

I have so enjoyed reading everyone's story so decided it was time to tell my own.
I trained as a teacher back in the '60's but left full time teaching when I had my family. I am also a qualified dressmaker and most of my life has involved dressmaking, mainly wedding attire, so I have had the thrill of dressing many brides over the years. Out town is on the edge of 'Outback' Australia and I began doing some relief teaching at School of the Air back in the '80's, teaching children living on outback stations and other remote places using HF radio for communication. With the advent of computers of course methods changed to using VOIP and all teaching was done using Power Point Presentations. I was only teaching a few days here and there so this process mortified me. However I soon became proficient on Power Point and decided it would be good to make a slide show of all my brides. (I have quite an extensive album having collected many photos of them over 40 years.)
About that time (2002) my niece got married (yes,I did the dress) and her photographer gave her a very basic slideshow of her photos made with Prowhow Gold. Hey it had music! So I started my journey with Gold for a few years and then upgraded to Producer about 2 years ago. I found this fantastic forum by accident at the time I went to Producer and was hooked.
I have done some travel shows and shows for family and friends. I don't think I will ever do it as a business but never say never!!
Guess what...I still haven't done my Bridal show but I am still collecting photos of my brides of many years ago.
I hope this has been of some interest and I look forward to reading more stories from other friends on the forum.
Cheers, Diane

[debngar Profile Private message]

Ok, I'll bite....

Seems like I've always had my hands in some artistic venture.

Around fall 2005, I wanted to do a slide show to music of some old family color slides and pictures era 1940's-1980's or so for Christmas gifts. I started with MS Photostory but couldn't figure out a way to burn it to DVD without spending additional money. I wasn't that happy with that outcome so I eventually stumbled on ProShow Gold which was mentioned in another forum. I bought Gold in early December 2005 for the features and started using Producer about January 2007. While learning the program, I stumbled on the Yahoo forum and the Enthusiast group which are both wonderful groups.

About Christmas 2005, I was asked to shoot my nephew's last-minute wedding which was a month away. I refused to be the primary shooter and told them to hire a pro since I had no equipment at all and wouldn't have a clue what I was doing. Before the wedding, I bought a nice point and shoot and took about 400 extra pictures during their wedding and wound up with about 90 keepers. I put a slide show together in a couple of weeks and they were thrilled with it. Their pro didn't get pictures to them for quite a while. Many of the pro's shots were at a 45 degree angle and others were taken with what looked like a fish eye lens which didn't compliment the subjects in most of the shots. I think they weren't that happy with the pro's pictures nor the time it took to get a copy of them.

I thought I might go into the slide show business but started leaning toward shooting more pictures and eventually purchased my first DLSR in summer of 2006. While I've made some shows for pay, most of my shows have been for family, friends, my church, the alley-cat rescue and the tutorials I've shared in the forum.

I've recently decided my primary niche is pet photography. Besides the usual prints, I offer large art canvases and slide shows as well.

[visimp Profile Private message]

I just watched my first show, a 2002 family trip, which I made with shareware. A very basic sequence of pictures with no music. I selected Gold to make a family show of my late mother's photos. It has music but is not a good show, my family likes it because it is memories. In 2006 I took a group of students to Space Camp in Alabama. That show also included video but is still just a sequence of pictures with music, but again appreciated.
Just before that trip I bought a point and shoot camera, the criteria was good close ups and fit in my pants pocket. Many moments were lost because the auto setting wasn't good enough so I decided to learn to use all the settings. I chose flowers as my subject, they stay put. I took pictures, checked them then changed settings. I have hundreds of pictures of flowers. I was checking Photodex's site when I decided to enter their competition and made what I consider to be my first creative show with some flower pictures, timed to music and careful selection of transitions. My family liked it, 7 minutes went by quickly.
I wanted Producer but couldn't justify the cost as a hobbyist. I bought it on the Loyalty plan. I learn best from video tutorials (thank you to all of you that make those shows) and came upon the forum looking for them. Here I have found answers to all my questions. And in watching shows I decided what I like and don't like. The "don't like" list is short but the "I want to do that" list is long. I have more ideas than time. Thanks to all who shared their shows. Masks are still my nemesis but thanks to Mark and the forum I am closer to understanding them.
I am taking another group of students to Alabama in the fall, I plan on buying a better camera but it must still fit into my pocket. The presentation I made for the parents was very creative, I watched the turorials on modifiers and have smoke following a rocket from earth to the moon. I am looking forward to creating a show for the students. In the mean time I have several projects on the go for family and friends.
Lynn

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

These stories are somehow delicate in the sense of one final thing occurring that brought this person or that person to ProShow products and therefore here. If just one event had been different, that first slide show wouldn't have been built. Looking in reverse at such events, it makes you wonder about just how random life really is.

Barbara