Doug Box
M.Photog.Cr., CPP, API
PPA Member since 1979
Location: Caldwell, Texas

• Read his bio.
• Read his Board Spotlight interview (April 2008), featured in Professional Photographer magazine.

Bio
A professional photographer with many hats (he even owned a child care center for 18 years), Doug lives on his hobby, a 110-acre cattle ranch in Caldwell, Texas. A PPA Approved Juror and Councilor, he has been a PPA member since 1980 and has owned a studio for 35 years. He has instructed at the International Wedding Institute, 18 PPA Affiliate schools, and seminars and conventions located throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Wales, and England. On the publishing side, Doug’s articles and images have graced most professional photographic publications. He is the author of The Power of Business marketing systems and several books, including Professional Secrets of Children’s Photography, Professional Secrets of Photographing Weddings, and Natural Light Photography.

Along with serving on the PPA Board, he is currently the Executive Director of Texas Professional Photographers of America (TPPA). In the past he has served as Past President of TPPA, Executive Director of American Society of Photographers, publisher of ASP Magazine, and chairman/member of many PPA committees.


Board Spotlight, April 2008
By Angela Wijesinghe

“Never stop learning.” It’s Doug Box’s motto (really…it’s how he signs his letters), and he certainly lives up to that statement.

Doug was always learning different nuances in photography and business...even if it happened in ways one might not expect. As a teenager, he hung out at the K-mart camera department. Then he worked in the yearbook staff, where he sold his first photo (to the fraternity he photographed dressed in old-time clothes). “I was rich with that $3.50,” chuckles Doug.

He even bought a daycare center, and “cleaned up the Jell-o and peanut butter to take photos in the lunchroom,” he remembers. “After all, I had a built-in clientele!” It might sound odd, but it worked—enough to grow into a profitable photography business he could sell.

Despite his own success, he still idolizes one moment with Don Blair during a Texas School class. He had to leave early to shoot a portrait, and he went up to Don (who was teaching a class probably too advanced for Doug at the time). “I only have one strobe and an old piece of carpet for a background. What can I do?” he asked Don. With a serious look, Don replied, “Son, keep it close to the camera.”

Why is that so meaningful? Well, Don could have easily discounted him as not being professional or important enough to answer. Instead, he encouraged the young Doug Box. “He became my mentor,” remembers Doug. “I wanted to be like him as a person, an instructor, and a photographer.”

Doug still touts the need for all to keep learning—as evidenced by his motto above. What he most enjoys is teaching basics to new photographers. “They’re like sponges…it’s fun to help them soak up good, solid education.” And that kind of education is what he believes is needed today. After all, with digital it’s easy to use the back of the camera as your guide, skipping the basics of good photography. And with those basics goes hands-on interaction. Doug sees that kind of personal touch as necessary to really learning and connecting with the industry. “You can learn a lot from blogs and the Internet,” he says, “but it’s like wearing blinders.”

Where can you receive such hands-on interaction? Doug strongly believes that PPA and its affiliated organizations are the places. “I want our associations to be strong because I know how important they were—and are—to me,” he emphasizes.