What do you do?

[RichardBrackin]

My kids are fed (and hobbies are supported) by my primary job as art director / pre-press director for a large format printing corporation. I've been at this same place for about 10 years. Nothing goes out the door before first coming across my desk.
Most of our clients are international Fortune 500 fleet-owning corporations but we're slowly migrating to P.O.P.
We're the Arthur Andeersen of the graphics world. You see some of our work every day no matter where in the world you are or what you're doing.

Prior to that I travelled the country for about a year as a professional decal installer with a crew of 5. We were the ones who changed out the majority of FedEx trucks from Federal Express to 'FedEx'

Prior to that I worked at a large sign company in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. We made the big signs with embossed faces, internally illuminated, neon, panaflex, etc.

---

My 2nd job is a professional decal installer. I've installed graphics on about 12,000 vehicles, boats, windows, etc.

My 2nd and a half job is as a prosumer photographer and videographer.

My 3rd job (and one I will ultimately retire from) is a semi-professional landscaper. I do subcontract work for my dad's sod farm and landscaping business. His failing health dictates that I will leave my profession to take over that business to support both our families.

My hobby is writing music of all genres in my humble home studio.

[Robt]

I am Humbled by the wonderful diversity among all you fellow members.

I left home and went into the Navy where I spent 6 years running a reactor on Polaris subs, got out, went to college as a bio major- never finished that last semester though.

Got my self a job as a journeyman electrician, later founded my own construction electrical company and ran that until I turned 50- 8 years ago. Found my then 50+ employees other jobs and quit.

These last 8 years have been good. I've actually learned enough PS to know that I don't know much so I have to get up tomorrow. I find things that I want to learn and set out for that knowledge. Right now, I'm trying to learn how to take panographs and stich them and get up to speed with CS2 and to find the perfect brine for baby back ribs...

[PatrickB]

My career in short:

Apprenticeship with social insurance facility, finished exam, then immediately quit. Stamping is not something for me to spend eight hours a day with

Strolled around some years, working as a DJ, carpenter, salesman, whatever came across. Then after DJing as fulltime did not bring enough money due to bad conditions in this business started parttime in a call-center, made it fulltime, was somehow pushed into an IT-Helpdesk, became network-administrator.

Then a boosting career from admin to technical director, went down when the big IT crash occured in 2001/2002. Jobless for a year, then started up again in helpdesk stuff until January this year.

Then I swore to never work in a basement office without any daylight and stupid bosses around me. Situation here is disastrous and being employed means being afraid of losing your income every single day, so...

Now working fulltime as a retoucher, photo-shooting-coordinator, model-scout and whatever comes around in this business

Patrick

[raniday]

This is an interesting thread. We "see" each other here in the forum but never really know anything about one another. I have a BA in literature (yeah, that's a real money maker! ) and an MA in psychology. I taught high school English for 6 years, then decided helping kids w/ problems was more rewarding than making them diagram sentences, got my LPC, and became a school counselor. I also had a small private counseling practice. Then I met my true love, married him, and quit work. He tells people I only counsel him now.

His job transferred us to Louisiana, and I used to go with him when he had week-long business meetings in N'Awlins; while he was meeting, I explored the French Quarter, and I used to stand and watch the street artists painting. One day I said, "I think I can do that." Whatever I do, I do it with all my might, and within 2 years, I was a member of an artist's gallery, actually selling a few paintings. Then I discovered digital art, and the real brushes are collecting dust.

[Rodi]

Hi,
I'm a graphic artisit working at a printshop. Been doing graphic arts since I was a kid, it is still very interesting to me. Along the way I have gone from strictly typography to 1/2 tones, veloxes, then to color and process color and process plus 2 colors drum scanning, digital printing, labels and more. At home I have more technology than my old typesetting family business. If anyone told me 20, no 15 no 10 years ago that in 2005 I would have a drum scanner, software for image manipulation and typesetting, I would have looked at them like they were from mars.

Sincerely,
Rodi

PS to Robert
" and to find the perfect brine for baby back ribs..."
A Cookshack Smoker really does the trick!

[Darren Gibson]

Over the past twenty-odd years, I have been a gardener, a bus driver, a warehouseman and a lorry driver. At present I am a senior officer for my local council, but looking at setting myself up as a property dealer. Alas, my retouching skills would not make me much money, despite being a wonderful outlet for my artistic tendencies.

[smiley guy]

Boy, oh boy! Such variety. I love it.

May as well throw my hat in the ring...

I went to school at McGill university to get my Bachelor of Music and have been a professional bass trombone player ever since: 15 or so years. I have had to have various jobs in order to pay bills and so forth as my freelance career developed. I have also been a janitor, parking lot attendent, managed a small concert all and also managed an arts retreat each summer for several years. I "retired" (at age 31, mind you) from the military 5 years ago after spending 10 years in. That also helped to pay the bills and enable me to continue playing bass trombone.

For the last five years I have lived in Cambridge, Ontario and been either a freelance bass trombonist or stay at home dad depending on which day of the week you talk to me. I really enjoy both lives but do find that if I do too much of one or the other I feel rather unbalanced.

I discovered photography about 2 years ago when I got my first SLR for my birthday. I read and photographed and learned all I could and am still learning everything I can. It is definitely a hobby and a real joy for me to take pictures. I recently inherited my grandfather's Kodak Pocket Jr. 1A camera and have taken my first steps with medium format photography today.

My interest in retouching and restoration basically started about a year ago shortly after I purchased my iMac. Realizing what kind of results I could get with basic editing of my own photos I moved on to family photos and progressed from there learning everything I could about PS and restoration and retouching in general. That learning never stops.

As of the end of August I have registered my photo retouching and restoration business, Wesmore Digital. I am continuing to play bass trombone but hoping that the business will grow to fill the gaps in my freelance schedule. Grow to fill the months between freelance seasons. And grow to when both kids are in school full time. We shall wait and see.

A big thanks to all the folks at retouchpro for the continued learning and, although you may not be totally aware of it, the incredible support in starting my new business. Kudos to you all!

[JasonLiversidge]

Hi there. I've done a few things since leaving college with a Business degree. I've worked in an amusement arcade by the sea, mending slot machines, painted a chicken processing factory floor in Wigan, England, worked in IT in a brewery, as an IT consultant in the City of London financial district working for banks and stock brokers, spent a year in DIYland renovating a house, couldn't get a job afterwards, so helped put fences up around fields, and eventually went into computers again in Yorkshire. The next plan is to *hopefully* move to Canada and open up a B&B in the Rockies.

In amongst all of that, I've just found this website and think that it's fantastic!

[byRo]

Hi there, Jason. Welcome to RetouchPRO

Painted a chicken a chicken processing factory floor in Wigan AND worked as an IT in a brewery!

Yippee!! Another geek artist on the threads!
Nice to have you around.

Rô

[Janet Petty]

I grew up by playing, going to school, going to more school. Eventually deciding that I'd had enough school, I entered the real world and the work force.

I graduated college with a degree in Family Economics and Consumer Education and a minor in weaving and Educational Technology. The weaving was supposed to have been my textiles credits; but when I transfered colleged midway through my schooling, all of those credits transfered to the art department and voila' a minor in weaving.

Over the years, I've worked as a secretary/office manager, a stay-at-home mom, a librarian (a job I hated and would never do again), a cook, and a part time teacher. One job that has been consistent and rewarding is a lot of volunteer and service work through our church and its organizations.

My children are both grown and gone. Now I'm just beginning to make a name for myself as a retoucher and digital artist. I've done a few jobs for others in the past; and the jobs are beginning to come with more regularity now.

That's it in a nutshell.

Janet

[Cassidy]

Nutshell for me, I am an IT person, self employed and moved into the retail sector (my way) roughly 9 years ago, as IT was an industry with a shocking rep. and I felt I could make a difference giving personal service, prior to that was consulting in IT and evaluating 'fitness for purpose', prior to that I was a law clerk with a fascination for computers and haunted the techies (pre pc), launched into programming. I got into photoshopping for a mental outlet and started a 'fame' board of my closest clients, to whom I did terrible things to their photos and much to my disbelief, when I disassembled the board some 3 years later, everyone wanted to keep their photos. I still strongly advise and help to implement strategies, and on this basis need to know the abilities and learn the same with various software packages. Video and photography are the next most demanding applications only superceded by games which are always pushing limits to new highs. My passion is hardware however, I have never understood that hardware gurus and software gurus don't crossover, as I cannot appreciate how a software guru can do his stuff competently without hardware knowledge and vice versa. Got into IT in late 70's pre pc.

[kschulz]

Started life as a hardware engineer right out of college in the 70's, developing "microcomputers" (pre-PC) for businesses, mainly for electronic forms processing. Anybody remember the Zilog Z-80A? Anyways, these ran the CP/M operating system, with 'MBasic' from a little startup company called "Microsoft". I think they're still around today.

Joined a startup computer company in late 1981 and took up software. Worked there as the software manager until this past June, developing graphical Human-Machine Interface (HMI) and machine control products for factory automation. Those of you in the industry might know of ScreenWare, Interact, and InteractX.

The wife has been doing part-time genealogy consulting for many years, which got me involved in photo restorations. Since June I've just been eeking out what I can with the photo work, while I figure out what I want to do next.

Cassidy, I agree with you on the hardware/software crossover deal. Seems there aren't as many of us 'lumpyware' folks as one might think.

- Kurt

[NancyJ]

I graduated from university with a Bsc Hons in Interactive Systems in Video Games Design but decided the video games industry wasnt for me - long hours, lousy pay and too much gender prejudice.
Bumed around on the dole and started messing with photo retouching, got in touch with some local photographers and did some pro bono work to build up a portfolio.
I then wrote a php gallery to showcase my work but still jobless so moved into web development. So now I'm a full time web developer, part time photo retoucher/restorer, part time freelance web developer & designer and more.... so in the end I'm working longer hours than I would as a games programmer and still have no money after paying the bills... oh well heh