For those that don’t know my history as a photographer, I’ll give you a brief rundown. I worked for a mutual fund company and got laid off. I was collecting Unemployment insurance and decided to buy a camera and take a beginner course at George Brown College. I had a friend that was willing to pay me to do a photo shoot for her makeup portfolio. For my birthday, my cousin was going to take me to dinner but changed her mind and gave me money to register a business name and get an HST number. So with that being said, becoming a photographer wasn’t my plan.
6 years later, as I’ve gone along with my photography journey, I’ve slowly collected tools and equipment to improve my operation. The first set of business cards I ever had was from a company called ICS Copy Centre. It was near my house and had good prices. They no longer have the store where I got my cards but they still have a location in the Pickering Town Centre. The unique feature on my original cards was that the back had a QR Code that you could scan and it would direct you to my website. That was when Blackberry dominated the phone market in the Toronto area.
My second variation of my card came from my friend Kyle that runs a company called Skylar Media. When he had a big job and was short staffed, I would help out. During that time, I decided to make a slight name change to my name from Degrey Images to Degrey Photography. So I wanted cards to reflect the new name. I also included a logos and my handles for Twitter and Instagram. The back also had a photo of a vintage camera that I took during a photo walk that I did along Queen St W with my friend. I had about 1000 cards printed and they were a higher quality paper than my previous edition.
Whenever I cover corporate events, I always make sure that my card wallet is full in case a potential client asks for cards. So one day I was getting ready to head out to an event and went to refill my card wallet and I realized that I was surprisingly low on cards. I wasn’t sure what to do as I didn’t have much time. I always receive promotional emails from Vistaprint and I have ordered a set of USB flash drives from them in the past and they had a sale on business cards so I ordered a set of 500 cards from them. They have a numerous amount of choices for business cards depending on what you’re looking for and how much you’re willing to spend. This latest edition will actually have my face on it. The photo is one of my favourite pictures of me. Another thing that I enjoy about it is related to photography. It was taken by the talented Justine Apple at her home studio in North York. The other side of the card is from an aerial shot that I took from a helicopter a couple summers ago.
So I’ve gone from someone that bought a camera to pass the time, to go through three different iterations of business cards. You never know what the future holds. Sometimes you go with the flow, sometimes you become the flow.
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