Ed Morgan About Me
I have over 28 Years of experience shooting photography and video
From Rockin Roller to Photography and Media Guru
I am Ed Morgan X Rockin roller and creative photographer and video creator. All my life I have done nothing but work in creative fields starting out as a Bass player playing professionally for over 14 years and then moving into Video production, photography and website design.
My Story
I quit high school to start playing music and at the age of 16, I was getting paid to play my bass in bands and travel around the country. At 29 years of age, i stopped playing music and got into video production learning wedding video and Tv productions and then moved on into learning photography.
It All Started With Music
Growing up as a young boy my best friend Jeff's older brother was always listening to music and that turned me on to rock N Roll the heavy stuff. By the time I was 12 years old I got my first six string guitar but quickly traded it in for a Bass guitar and started taking lessons. I started playing along to records of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, BTO, Alice Cooper and more. I started playing with a band practicing in a warehouse in Hollywood Fl and I remember one night we drove over to another warehouse and got to see Lynyrd Skynyrd rehearsing that was just amazing to me back then.
By the time I was 16 I was playing very good and was not doing well in school so my Mom took me out of school so I could start playing more and I got a job playing in a show band that traveled around playing at country clubs and fairs. As part of playing in this band, i had to learn to play walking bass lines. I played with them till right after my 18th birthday and then I got a gig playing with another show band playing a mix of country and pop music so learning the walking bass helped me get this job as many country songs have a lot of walking bass lines in them.
To keep moving on with music I got into playing funk slap bass, Rock, blues, jazz and just about any music that moved me. Over the years I had played in many bands and shows including Elvis and 50s shows, Rock bands and I was in a house band for over 4 years in the same club playing all the current music that was coming out at the time. When I could I was also giving bass lessons when in town for long times at thru bread music in Tampa.
Music has been great to me taking me places I would have never been able to go to any other way. My younger life was very much a party all the time with lots of good times and meeting lots of new friends all the time. But as I grew older I knew it was time to move on to the next adventure in my life.
Video and TV Productions
Going to the state fair got me into video production. At the Tampa State fair, they had a green screen set up so you could make your own music video dancing around to music with wild crazy keyed in video backgrounds behind you. They would sell each customer a VHS tape. I loved that concept and I did some searching and found a place that had a used setup they sold me and I started doing green screen videos at events and night clubs sometimes making as much as $500 a night it was a blast everyone loved it. Then people started asking about producing other videos for them so I got started doing that too and then went to a local Cable access TV station and took a TV production course and they let me work on local TV shows and live TV programs plus go out on large production shoots it was a lot of fun. I meet an older guy at the station that asked me if I wanted to make some money shooting wedding videos - I had never thought of that before so I went with him on a few wedding jobs he had and he showed me how to cover and shoot them. In no time he was booking me wedding video jobs at this point I was making the most money I had ever made.
I then picked up a Video Toaster system and I spent hours and hours playing with it I loved creating graphics and titles with it and then picked up some more editing decks and starting doing a lot of editing and with this system, my production capability's surpasses what even the local TV was able to do.
It was now time for me to move on my own so I moved to the coast of MS as they has started having Casinos and gambling and I could see a lot of potential business in that area. Shortly after moving there I ended up taking over a Real Estate TV show on the local ABC channel and booking a lot of wedding videos. I then started a second Real Estate show on a local Fox channel selling and producing all my own commercial spots to cover the airtime and make money. I started working on a Casino TV show idea I had and then met a guy named Jim Petty that had a radio talk show about the Casinos and he wanted to be on TV so we talked and started to work together to get the Casino TV show going plus he had all the connections with the Casinos to get them paying for it all.
We made a demo and with some help from a local Casino tabloid newspaper that ended up buying the show from us we ended up selling commercial spots to 6 of the Casinos and the show was on its way. But I needed a faster better way to edit and knock shows out fast so I got then to put money up front and I ordered the new Video Toaster flyer system a NLE editing system that just rocked. Just for reference a 6 GIG hard drive back then cost $1200 I had two of them and could produce up to three shows at a time with it the way I was doing it. As part of the Casino shows I set up a green screen area and we had a girl come over each week and do a news section of the show telling what was going on at all the Casinos. Each week we would film in the Casino shooting all the stars playing at the Casinos and doing interviews of them I was able to meet a lot of great people we also covered anything else they wanted and most of the week we stayed in Casino hotels on the road but would have to get back as it was a new show every week so I would do all the editing of the show on Sunday till it was done around 12 to 16 hours non-stop. I had to make 4 to 5 tapes to send out for each TV station we had deals setup with to air the show. Different stations would require different formats so I had 3/4, SVHS, BETA and then DVcam.
The Casino show led me into booking two more TV shows one was a Country dance TV show I did as a three camera shoot and then a Hip Hop Dance show I did as a Two camera shoot I was running one camera on a stand with my right hand and live to recorded switching with my left hand and paid a second camera guy to work for me on the three camera shoot I set up a camera up high on a stand and just aimed it into the dance area un maned. For the dance shows, i mounted my own lights up in the ceiling of the club using white halogen light bulbs to get better white color.
I then moved to Fort Walton beach Fl and started more local TV shows buying air time doing a business tv show and a wedding show. I then had a guy that was producing a local Tourist TV show that aired 7 days a week start having me do all the editing of that show for him each week. At that time I was now starting to use a Windows PC and Canopus DV REX editing system and the first version of Premier and many other just out for the first time softwares.
I then meet Craig he was a full-time photographer with a walk in photo studio in the area and he was just getting into video and I was wanting to get more into photography so we both started showing each other how to do it.
Photography
With help from my friend Craig, I was shooting weddings with a 35MM Canon and shooting with Fuji NPS Film. Quite amazing you shoot a full wedding shooting only 100 to 200 photos on film and can not see what they look like till you get them developed. It took real skill to shoot a wedding on film and really makes you a better photographer as you must understand everything about your camera and how it works or you will end up with nothing for images. Craig was a huge help in teaching me how to shoot and understand what i was doing.
One thing I remembered from video was that when I booked a wedding video job it was the last thing on their list and getting the best photographer was one of the first things brides would book first and the photographer always made a lot more then the video guy did well that was back then. It was true I started booking wedding photography jobs for two to three times as much as I was getting for video jobs and that led me away from video as I was booked so much with photography.
The First Digital cameras
All of a sudden we started to get wind of digital cameras humm! so I ended up with a OLY 2MP camera to start with and even shot a small low budget wedding with it and printed 4x6 and 5x7s on a Epson inkjet printer way back then and the images even from 2MP looked darn good at 5x7. Then I got a Oly 3mp and it made some amazingly good-looking 8x10 prints I still have today. With that 3MP camera I shot quite a lot even shooting some Karate studios selling 8x10, 5x7 and custom kids double sided trading cards I printed all on my Epson printer. I also shot a few car shows and sold prints right on the spot doing printing with the Epson.
As Digital got better so did I moving on into better digital cameras and getting into off camera lighting and website design.
I started Digi Print Store.com one of the very first of a few on-line digital printing services that you could upload your digital files to and get back real photo lab prints, I then started My Event Gallery.com an on-line event gallery system for Pro Photographers to use to show images to customers on-line. Then I started Hollywood Photo Magic selling Photoshop templates to photographers for wedding album design that then turned into a full automated control system that would control Photoshop to make wedding, high school senior and other album designs faster and easier I sold this to thousands of people all around the world. But over time the larger photo labs went all digital and had more money than I did and took most of the printing business so that ended and the photo gallery system I had was never working 100% like it should of so I ended that. Then my Hollywood Photo Magic system was being copied by so many people and being sold I just quit working on it as I was super busy shooting all the time. One well-known photographer, I will not say his name even took my system and started selling it under his name not knowing I had hidden copyright info deep in it so I know it was mine he was selling it with my name in it.
Living by the beach in Fl i started one of the first in the area websites just for family beach portraits and another website just for beach weddings so as most photographers in the area were still going after local church weddings I was booking people from out of town coming to the area to get married on the beach. My first year with the new websites we I booked over 125 beach weddings and over 90 family beach sessions and we turned down twice that much that I could not shoot. I had my wife quit her job and she started to help me in the photography business doing all the bookings and going with me doing posing of family sessions and as a second shooter on larger weddings, we worked on the beach shooting 7 days a week all summer.
Over the years we expanded the business even more with more websites and then moving into offering full wedding packages that included wedding arches made of bamboo with flowers and rented white wedding chairs and provided the wedding minister and full photography coverage. It was crazy how busy we were getting 25 to 30 phone calls a day from people wanting to book a wedding or family session.
Over this time I perfected off camera lighting and we created may one of a kind family poses on the beach that has now been copied by others for years now.
I have won many photography awards for images I have shot for weddings and portraits but I never got into entering a lot of them but one year I entered I won first second and third place.
I was also picked over and over for a few years in a row that I was entering as one of the top 10 wedding photojournalist photographers in the state of Fl. and AL.
My Qualifications for writing and doing camera and equipment reviews
If you have even read part of my information up above then you should see I am well qualified to be able to do a quality camera or any photo or video equipment review. I have been working with it and making my living with it all for years and doing a large amount of shooting more than most full-time photographers ever shoot do to the large amount of everyday customers we had each year. I have also shot outside in the best and worst conditions day and night and on the beach in wind, rain, sea mist and storms.
Digital cameras I have owned and shot with and made prints from include.
This is a starting list I need to look them all up I have had so many over the years.
Olympus C2020 2 MP camera
Olympus C3030 3MP camera
Olympus E-10 4MP
Olympus E-1 5MP
Sigma SD14 5MP
Fuji X100T 16MP
Nikon D100 6MP camera
Nikon D70 6MP
Nikon D40 still have one 6MP
Nikon D1 2.7 MP camera
Nikon D3 12MP
Nikon D300 12MP
Nikon D700 best camera ever made i have two of them 12MP
Nikon D750 24MP
Nikon 1 J5 21MP
Nikon 1 V2 14MP
Nikon D7200 24MP
New Nikon Z6
New Nikon D500
New Nikon D7500
Canon EOS 10D 6MP
Canon EOS 20D 8MP
Canon EOS 30D 8MP had two of them
Canon EOS-1D Mark III 10MP
Canon EOS 40D 10MP
Samsung NX1 28mp
Samsung NX500 28mp
Sony a6000 24MP
Sony a6300 24MP
And a few other point and shoots and I know I had a Sony of some kind a long time ago too.
Website Design and Graphics
Ater years and years of making websites for all my businesses and staying on top of SEO and what is going on with the internet I started offering website design. At one point I ran my own web server selling hosting as well but nowadays I rent server space and offer web design services and hosting for my design customers.
I offer professional full responsive website design so each site will size down for all devices. I also offer very good SEO services I have had and still have a lot of page one on Google websites.
Time To Hit The Road
At that age of 55 years old and living in a nice lake front house in Fl, I realize that life is short and I am not ready to stay still in one place. I want to see and do more before I get too old.
So we Sold everything and hit the road for a year traveling
The big bus
So to get this plan on the road after a lot of research we ended up buying a used Wanderlodge motorhome bus. This is a real bus not just a motorhome it is made by Bluebird and is rock solid it is 40 feet long all metal construction build like a tank. It's very bad on fuel 5 to 5 1/2 miles to a gallon as it is so heavy and has the tag axel. But this is our new home it has 3 roof ACs and thick spray in insulation and all real wood inside construction that is very nice.
On the road, We traveled from FL to Tx. then up to Flagstaff then Sedona AZ then Las Vegas and Reno then over into CA and then we drove up the OR coast on into Washington state for summer. Then a down CA to Palm Springs then back down to MS and then into AL.
2018 Time to go back to work
After our year long trip and a lot of fun (so glad we did that) its time to get back to work.
We moved back to the Alabama coast in Jan of 2018 and started up new versions of our business.
For Family beach portraits we are My Family Beach Portraits and for weddings, we are Sun Coast Beach Weddings.
In 2018 just starting back up. We started with the family portrait business only and booked and shot over 50 sessions in around 3 months time in summer. Now for 2019 we have the wedding business back up and running and now with more time for marketing we are all already booked for more jobs as of April 1st then we did all last year. Things are going well and we are already working on plans for 2020 for larger weddings packages.
I am not the kind of person that can just sit around i need to be creating and working.
Getting fit and thin on Keto
In June of 2018, Me and my wife started on the Keto way of eating and it has changed our lives in so many good ways.
I was 238 pounds when we started as of writing this I have dropped over 60 pounds and many paints sizes. This is the smallest I have been in over 20 years it is amazing. endless energy, Feel great and we both started working out as well.
We both have added on a lot of muscle after dropping a lot of fat. I am starting to get six pack abs at 57 years old for the first time ever. I can't wait to see what we look like in a few months in June at the one year point.
Better health by the numbers.
I was told by doctors that I was pre-diabetic and they wanted to put my on Statens for high Cholesterol.
After being on Keto for only 2 months i was not longer pre-diabetic and my blood numbers all got better. In fact our doctor told both of us that most people he sees just get worse over time and it is refreshing to see us both louse weight and get better numbers something he dose not see much at all. We have now changed how we eat so much for this long it is now 100% normal for us and easy as we do not ever buy anything that is not on our eating plan and we eat very well lots of great foods.
I have spent countless hours learning about the Keto way of eating and learning so much about health and food it is quite amazing how most doctors are so behind on what they should be telling people. For example, most people they put on Statens should never be put on them. They never seem to tell you how bad Statens are for you and that close to 50% of women that takes them get type 2 diabetes within a year or two making them sicker and having a shorter life and that leads to mental memory loss problems. Plus all the bad side effects of the Statens.
One thing they never tell you is that studies show that as you get older you need more Cholesterol and older people that have higher Cholesterol live longer and have fewer memory problems as your brain is made up of Cholesterol. The ones with lower Cholesterol live shorter lives.
Anyway - This is my story about me. I am a creative workaholic that needs to create and be doing or learning all the time. My wife Donna is a total people person she is great a booking jobs as she will talk with brides or portrait customers for hours on end like she has known them for years. So we make a great team together. And she has taken to the Keto way of cooking and we eat amazing low carb meals every day that are fantastic.