About Don Orkoskey

Don Orkoskey is a professional photographer and designer originally from Wheeling WV. Don moved to Pittsburgh for college where he studied photography as well as web design, multimedia design, information science, and journalism. Since 2007 Don has owned WDO Photography. He opened WDO Photography in Pittsburgh. However, in 2025 he relocated to Atlanta with his wife Dr. Zhanna Budenkova.

Education & Training

Don attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Point Park University, and the University of Pittsburgh. His initial goal was to become a photojournalist. However, it was clear to him by the fall of 2021 that the news paper and magazine industries were failing to adapt to the internet in ways that would provide a stable career.

Thus, Don enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh where he began work on a degree in Information Science. While there Don worked as a database administrator and reports analyst for a large managed care company.

Real World Experience

In addition to his IT work Don spent weekends and evenings photographing events and assisting with commercial photography jobs. In 2007 he opened WDO Photography opting to focus full time on his photography career.

However, while working for commercial photography clients Don was asked about his website. He had designed his website himself along with the website of his full time employer. The small businesses he was doing commercial photography for became interested in having him design websites for them in addition to the photography work.

Over the years Don has built nearly 300 websites. Many of those can be viewed in our client list. That said, many of the website's he's built over the years were for food service and retail establishments. As a result, many of the businesses that he worked with didn't survive long term.

Additionally, many past clients who have survived grew too large for Don to continue managing their websites. As such, they were either bought by larger firms with their own design team or their own in-house teams.

A Commitment To Clients

Early in Don's career he worked with a marketing expert who was very focused on upselling to his clients. Many of these clients were small businesses. As such, they didn't have the any money they could afford to waste. Don was, and still is, very punctual. This marketing expert was often late. As a result Don got to spend a fair amount of time with the client.

After getting to know him these clients they would often ask if he thought the advice they were getting was worth the money. For example, one very small bar and restaurant was advised to buy radio, tv, and billboard ads. All of these would go through the marketing expert who added his fee onto all of these ad buys.

Don asked the client if they could handle the influx of customers. The client told him about recent bad reviews they'd gotten from clients who had to wait too long for food. As a result, the client was worried spending all of this money would just result in more bad reviews.

Don agreed.

At the end of the day his philosophy is simple. Help the client succeed and their success will be shared. The idea that the marketing expert he was working with was so short-sighted left a bad taste in Don's mouth. Shortly after he stopped working with him.