We’ll post the link to the video, once it is online.

Link to the story.

Washington Examiner article on Shutter Tours

Andrea Farnum, correspondent for the Washington Examiner, interviewed Shutter Tours owner Terry Divyak in this article that appeared in the August 9th Issue.

Link to .PDF

Terry during Q&A segment with Producer Joan and cameraman Tom. Photo by Valentina Vitols Bello

Shutter Tours will be featured on Seattle’s Evening Magazine television program, next Wednesday
7/22. The show airs in Seattle on channel 5 at 7 PM. If you are not in the Seattle area, you can see it after the airing date via http://www.king5.com/eveningmagazine

We are pretty excited to have been chosen for this show. This speaks to our uniqueness and the great feedback we have been receiving from our customers.

For those of you in the Seattle area watch our Twitter account for an announcement on a “Tweetup” where we will be watching the show http://twitter.com/shuttertours

Hammering Man by Roger Fisher

We received this great review of our tour today from tour participant Roger who attend our tour with his family this week.

“The shutter tour we introduced our Norwegian first-time-States-visitors to, will prove to be one of the highlights of their trip. Our  guide, Valentina was obviously knowledgeable regarding much more than photography. Some of the Seattle trivia she shared was truly fascinating, even to we Seattle natives. What impacted me most about Valentina wasn’t knowledge, it was a sincere passion for experience -  the seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and FEELING of what’s happening right now. To try to capture that experience on a  stationary medium has always been the challenge to artists of all sorts, and Valentina helped us all immensely. As we continued the three-hour tour, I found myself using the freshly-learned photo tips for being inventive, expressive, but more importantly having FUN, like I did years ago, wielding the camera like a newly discovered magical toy.

My recommendation to natives to and visitors of Seattle is, make  Shutter Tours the first item on your agenda of what to do downtown.  The capturing of everything following will be benefitted by what you  take away from your Shutter Tours experience.

Roger”

Earlier this week, Kristi had a fun, private tour, with Jennifer on a perfect Seattle day. She has just posted a number of great images on her blog from the tour.

Jen, we’re glad you had a great time and thanks for sharing your wonderful photos from Seattle.

See her blog entry at Jennifer’s Journeys.

Last week, Valentina and myself had a chance to sit down and share the Shutter Tours story with Culturemob.com writer Maria  Christensen. I think anytime we get to share what we do, whether with customers who participate in tours or those who are interested in what we do, it makes us feel good that we created something others can enjoy.

Thanks Maria and you can read the article at Culturemob.com

A number of months ago, Shutter Tours Owner Terry Divyak, had the opportunity to interview Author and Photographer Dan Heller from his bay area home.

Dan has been instrumental in championing copyright laws and education the public on how to run a profitable photography business. His books have been instrumental in helping those who may be accomplished amateurs to improve their travel photography though his book, “Digital Travel Photography”.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

“For someone that is just starting out, who really wants to be a pro and focus on doing what you do as far as making money representing themselves. Would the best approach be going all web or sending out Zed or comp cards to agents? Whats the best approach for someone that wants to get started? ”

Dan’s Response

“What happened to me was just a hobby and I just did it for fun and I just participated in the internet, writing and I started taking more pictures. I understood the web and just three or four years of doing that, is the germination period at which point I started getting enough traffic and purchases that I could say “hey, this really is an income”.

So I don’t think anybody can just say “OK, I want to be a Photographer” and you just start with some expectation that in six months or a year that you will be making a living. It just doesn’t work that way. I think photography in today’s cultural environment and what I mean by cultural, is not the photographer culture. Just the culture of the internet and where content is acquired and prices and so forth, how you get seen, what makes visibility. You, to make money in photography, you have to go for local traffic. That is, you are a local service photographer. You shoot weddings, portraits, stuff in your local community or you do an international thing. And that’s the web, where you build a website that sells your product. Whatever your focus, whatever your bent, whatever your orientation, you have to approach the web very very seriously.

I think in each of those cases wherever you are starting from, depending on how much photography skills and knowledge you have and other kinds of skills and interests that you have … marketing, business, pricing, economics. Depending on where you are starting from, you are going to take two to four or five years before you are making any serious money at it. ……….”

The audio portion of this is available in two parts:

Part one is over 30 minutes, but has some great info and is worth listening to.

Part One

Part Two

Our brochures have finally arrived and we are so thrilled with the quality. This brochure was a group effort by many people including a couple of images shot by tour participants and friends of Shutter Tours.

Starting tomorrow, our brochures will be found in over 80 locations including:

SeaTac Airport (7 locations)
Both Seattle cruise ship terminals
The Seattle Convention and Visitors Center
And over 70 hotels and other locations.

If you would like to download a .pdf version of the file for your travel planning needs, please Click Here

One of the devices we love here at Shutter Tours, is our iPhones. We are happy to announce that our blog is now accessible as an iPhone friendly format. Just type in our URL and our site will automatically recognize your iPhone connection and will take you directly here to our blog. If you want to turn off the feature and see our site as a normal web experience, just turn off the mobile theme option.

We are working on getting the site completely ported over to the iPhone soon.

In the meantime, give it a try and let us know what you think.

Thanks to the folks at Brave New Code for their plugin.

After a succesful tour Photo Credit: Joseph Romain

Joseph Romain is an amazing photographer and was kind of enough to take some photos documenting one of our tours last Saturday. A graduate of the prestigious photography school the Brooks institute, along with his wife and Shutter Tours guide Kristi, he shot way beyond our expectations and I need to give him credit where it is due.

Below are photos that will give you an idea of what the tour is like and some of the locations we take tour participants to.

Post Alley Photo Credit: Joseph Romain

Lunch Dinner and the In Between Photo Credit: Kristi Romain

Shooting from different perspectives - Photo Credit Valentina Vitols

Terry explaining the power of vertical lines Photo Credit: Joseph Romain

Explaining composition concepts Photo Credit: Joseph Romain

Even the children have a great time – Photo Credit Valentina Vitols

It

Great creativity with a reflection Photo Credit: Kristi Romain

Red Shoes - Photo Credit Kristi Romain

Your Shutter Tours Guides – Kristi, Valentina and Terry