Monday, August 29, 2011
Brianna - Central HS Class of 2012
Brianna came in for her senior portraits on Friday! She had a great look, red hair with spirit to match! Can't wait to show her the final images!
Friday, August 26, 2011
1st Annual Hope Floats for 2011 DiGeorge/VCFS/22q Awareness Week
We were extremely honored to be asked to come out and photograph this wonderful event to raise awareness for children with DiGeorge Syndrome! Hosted by Missing Pieces Parent Support group, children with DiGeorge Syndrome, their parents, and others in the community came out to Panther Creek Park in Owensboro for the free awareness event that included picnics, a bounce house, magician, face painting and a balloon release. Chicago Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster's Family Foundation Awareness tour bus was also part of the event. One of the event coordinators, Ashlee Hamby, says, "The Dempster Family Foundation has done an awesome job on raising awareness and helping families with 22q."
I'll be honest -- I didn't know what this syndrome was. So, I read up on it and talked with Ashlee (whose daughter has DiGeorge Syndrome). I learned that DiGeorge Syndrome (also known 22q and VCFS) is a genetic disorder, caused by defects in the 22nd chromosome, and affects an estimated 1 of every 2000 births. This results in poor development, and medical problems such as heart defects, poor immune system function, a cleft palate, and more. Because the number of problems and the severity of each problem associated with DiGeorge Syndrome vary, this can be dangerous for little ones. And as I learned at this event, 22q is not a rare thing, it's rarely diagnosed due to the vast number of symptoms. To know this, and to see these children being able to be children....well, let's just say it's inspiring how little ones can be so resilient.
Kentucky was the first state to have the proclamation for 22q/DiGeorge Syndrome/VCFS awareness week, which they have had for the past 3 years. Dr. David Watkins, the local state rep in Henderson, helped acquire the proclamation for the state. Since then Colorado has taken Kentucky's lead and now has their own proclamation.
To learn more about DiGeorge Syndrome, and for ways you can help raise awareness, visit the Facebook pages for the Missing Pieces Support Group or the Dempster Family Foundation.
I'll be honest -- I didn't know what this syndrome was. So, I read up on it and talked with Ashlee (whose daughter has DiGeorge Syndrome). I learned that DiGeorge Syndrome (also known 22q and VCFS) is a genetic disorder, caused by defects in the 22nd chromosome, and affects an estimated 1 of every 2000 births. This results in poor development, and medical problems such as heart defects, poor immune system function, a cleft palate, and more. Because the number of problems and the severity of each problem associated with DiGeorge Syndrome vary, this can be dangerous for little ones. And as I learned at this event, 22q is not a rare thing, it's rarely diagnosed due to the vast number of symptoms. To know this, and to see these children being able to be children....well, let's just say it's inspiring how little ones can be so resilient.
Kentucky was the first state to have the proclamation for 22q/DiGeorge Syndrome/VCFS awareness week, which they have had for the past 3 years. Dr. David Watkins, the local state rep in Henderson, helped acquire the proclamation for the state. Since then Colorado has taken Kentucky's lead and now has their own proclamation.
To learn more about DiGeorge Syndrome, and for ways you can help raise awareness, visit the Facebook pages for the Missing Pieces Support Group or the Dempster Family Foundation.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Unplugging Your Wedding
I've been seeing a lot of great blogs lately, and in the coming weeks I'll be sharing some of my favorite posts with you in hopes that you will find them as informative (and sometimes entertaining!) as I do.
This blog is from a site called Offbeat Bride. It's a blog that's dedicated to things that are not considered traditional in today's weddings. The following blog post can be found at http://offbeatbride.com/2011/06/unplugged-wedding.
The unplugged wedding: couples tell guests to put down their devices
Wedding trends By on June 13, 2011 So there you are at the altar, gazing into the eyes of your beloved, saying your vows. You turn to sneak a glance at your wedding guests, all your favorite beloved friends and family… and are greeted by a sea of down-turned faces staring at their LCD screens.
When your photos come back from your wedding photographer, all your guest shots include your favorite people staring at their favorite devices. People are smiling, but they're all staring at little screens.
Welcome to the era of the over-documented wedding, where, even if you've hired someone to take photos, every guest has a camera and an iPhone and is tweeting the whole event. They're there with you, but are they really present?
Be nice, turn off your device
As a web nerd who spends the majority of my life plugged into my laptop and smartphone, even I think it's critical to take a few moments to be truly present. Smell the air, look around, feel the texture of the world around us. A wedding ceremony is exactly the kind of fleeting, important moment when it's especially valuable to really be present, rather than relating to the world through a small LCD screen. When you discourage devices at your wedding, you encourage your guests to look up and drink in the world. Let's call it "in-the-moment matrimony."As a web nerd who spends the majority of my life plugged in, even I think it's critical to take a few moments to be truly present.While many churches have no camera policies, I'm hearing more and more from nontraditional secular couples that they're considering an unplugged wedding — at the very least, asking guests to turn off their devices during the ceremony.
Now, let's acknowledge that a fully plugged-in, hyper-documented wedding makes perfect sense for some couples. Micro-budget brides sometimes skip professional photography, opting to rely on guest photographs — so of course guest cameras make perfect sense in that context. If you're a digerati who announced your engagement via Facebook, had an iPad-wielding officiant, read your vows off an iPhone, and live-streamed your ceremony, then there's no reason you should unplug your wedding. I'm certainly not here to dictate that anyone needs to have less tech at their wedding.
If, however, you and your partner are looking for a few less beeps and a bit more face-to-face connection with your guests, an unplugged wedding could be a good fit for you.
Don't experience our wedding through a viewfinder: the bride perspective
Philadelphia resident Kathleen Harbin, 27, is considering going unplugged for her June 2012 wedding in Antalya, Turkey. "My ceremony will be very short (perhaps 15 minutes)… it could fly by while someone tries to figure out whether their memory card is full. How can I connect with my guests when I can't even see them through the cameras they're holding up?"How can I connect with my guests when I can't even see them through the cameras they're holding up?Carrie Kilman, a 35-year-old planning her August 2011 wedding in Madison, WI, has personal experience with the distraction factor. "As a photographer myself, I know how the act of being behind the lens can distance me from the energy of the moment — I become an observer and interpreter, and no longer a true participant. We want our guests to experience our ceremony in a way you typically can't do when you're staring through a viewfinder or fiddling with your iPhone."
She goes on, "Philosophically, I don't like the way digital cameras and camera phones have encouraged the sense that we need to 'capture' everything in order for it feel complete. I'd rather people simply watched and clapped and smiled and cried — and really listened and remembered, not from the photos they downloaded onto their computers, but from their own memories."
Dealing with Uncle Bob: the wedding professional perspective
Wedding officiants are starting to get more requests for unplugged ceremonies, as well. Celebrant Jessie Blum, of New Jersey's Eclectic Unions
said, "I've had a few couples who have requested that NO photos be taken at the ceremony. Often times, when the request comes from the officiant, guests will take note and respect the couple's wishes. Guests get so bogged down in taking photos sometimes — it's nice to be able to step back, and just enjoy the moment!"Wedding industry insiders even have a name for the aggressive amateur photographer at weddings: Uncle Bob.Perhaps the strongest proponents of unplugged weddings are professional wedding photographers, who sometimes experience significant challenges working around guests trying to capture the event for themselves. Seattle wedding photographer Jenny Jimenez
observed, "Too many wedding crowd shots these days include distracted people checking cell phones and camera LCDs… especially during the processional and recessional." Wedding industry insiders even have a name for the aggressive amateur photographer getting in the way at weddings: Uncle Bob. You don't have to look very hard to find a million rants about how Uncle Bob has ruined professional wedding photos with the flash from his camera, photobombing gorgeous poses, kneeling in the aisle blocking the view of the vows, and even standing on pews.
Some wedding photographers will even show their couples photos of an Uncle Bob ruining a wedding photo, as a way to encourage their clients to ask guests to put down their cameras.
Apparently, shortly after this photo was taken, the officiant turned around and firmly told this guest to go sit down. Photo by Joe Sanfilippo Photography, used with permission.
Is unplugging right for your wedding?
I want to clarify again: I'm certainly not saying that all weddings should be unplugged, or that guests are doing anything wrong when they have their cameras and phones out. If it doesn't bother the couple, then it's not a problem. As with all things Offbeat Bride, ultimately this wedding decision comes down to what feels right to each couple.That said, I do think that in this era of 24-hour connectivity, where there's an iPhone in every pocket, a Facebook status update in every encounter, and a digital hobbyist photographer in every family, it's important to carefully consider the issue. Digital devices are ever-present in our daily lives; what role do you want these devices to play at your wedding?
If you're considering an unplugged wedding, we've got copy 'n' paste wording ideas and printable signs you can post at your venue.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Burn, Baby, Burn series - Part 1
I recently came across another photographer's blog that has a series of posts called Burn, Baby, Burn. It discusses, from the consumer and photographer stand points, the pros and cons of booking a session with a shoot-and-burn photographer versus booking a session with a professional, as well as how the decision you make of which photographer you choose impacts you as the client. Hope you find it to be useful information! :)
Step 1: See photographer page on Facebook. Notice she is in your area. Notice that several people have posted ooohing and aaahing comments on some of her pictures, so she must be awfully per-fesh-uh-nul. With a name like Sassy Snapper Photography right up there on the top of the Facebook page in Scriptina font, of course she’s professional, right?
Step 2: Schedule session with photographer. Meet her at the park at noon, after your baby’s morning nap. Give her a check for $150 – that’s to cover the picture-snappin’ and the digital files. Feel a little surprised when you ask for the “total, with tax” and she says “Oh just the $150 is fine, and could you just make it out to Janie Doh please, not Sassy Snapper Photography? Thanks.”
Step 3: Feel even more surprised when, after the session, Janie Doh tells you to come over to her car with her so she can give you your digital files. What? Right here, right now? Apparently so. She says it will just take a few minutes. So you stand in the parking lot and bounce the baby on your hip and sing the theme song from Yo Gabba Gabba while the photographer downloads the images into her laptop, burns them onto a CD, writes your name on the CD with a black Sharpie marker, tucks it into a paper sleeve and hands it to you.
Step 4: Once home, put the CD into your computer. Open a couple files. Find that the files are at some bizarre size – 22 inches by 28 inches, what in the world do you do with THAT?, and what does 72dpi mean? – and furthermore, about half of them won’t open at all. On the images that open, notice the dark circles under your baby’s eyes, lots of blinks, lots of awkward positions, plenty of crying shots when she fell down, a bunch of images that are really dark, a bunch of images that are almost completely white, a nice series of images where your baby was smiling but the photographer focused on the trashcans in the background that appear to be sprouting from your baby’s head, and a couple halfway decent shots – IF you can figure out what the heck to do with a picture sized at 22 inches by 28 inches at 72dpi. They sure look weird and distorted when you try to resize or crop them.
Step 5: Call photographer and tell her about the files that won’t open. She says that’s a shame, but she doesn’t know what in the world to do about it because it looks like she didn’t save a copy on her laptop and she already deleted the pictures from the card. She tells you that there were about 300 pictures taken, so it’s too bad you lost some but there should still be a whole bunch left to pick from. Ask photographer about the size of the images. She doesn’t know why they’re sized that way, sorry. They should print just fine. Ask photographer what can be done about the dark circles, the awkward positions, the dark images, the white images, the trashcan-is-the-focus images. She doesn’t know, sorry. She can tell you what SHE does, which is to get on this free online site for picture editing and play with them there.
* * * * * * * * * *
So, how do you feel after reading that? Whether you’re a consumer or a photographer, I hope that little series of events makes your skin crawl. I hope you’re upset and annoyed about every aspect of the transaction, because if you’re a photographer you’d best not be doing *any* of the things listed up there, and if you’re a consumer you deserve better than that. Better treatment, better quality, better respect for your memories, better EVERYTHING.
The steps outlined above represent a hypothetical, but ENTIRELY possible, transaction by a new breed of, *ahem*, ‘photographic workers’ let’s call them. This particular species of photographic worker is commonly described as the Shoot & Burner. If I may stereotype for a moment, the typical Shoot & Burner you are likely to encounter is either A) a MWAC (mom with a camera) or B) a GWAFTJ (guy with a full time job). Now before you go all whackadoodle on me for those stereotypes, let’s remember please folks that I did not make up the term fauxtographer, and similarly I did not make up the term MWAC. (I did, however, make up the term GWAFTJ, which I will elaborate on in a moment. I have to admit as an acronym it is sort of unruly, but as a descriptive term it’s highly accurate. )
So who are the MWAC and the GWAFTJ, and why do they Shoot & Burn? And how is what they do different from a Professional Photographer who offers digital files for sale? This big unruly topic is going to be discussed in several parts. Right now you’re reading Part 1, wherein I am describing the general appearance and actions of the typical Shoot & Burner. Part 2 will compare and contrast the Shoot & Burner to the Professional Photographer who offers digital files (because they are NOT the same species!), and in Part 3 we’ll discuss digital files and printing, up and down and inside out.
To finish up Part 1, let’s look at the MWAC and the GWAFTJ individually.
A) The MWAC. For the record, I don’t even like the term MWAC, because I happen to be one. A mom that is. With a camera. And being a mom has made me a WAY better photographer than I would have been without kids. That little sixth sense I have about when, exactly, your baby is going to turn and have the cutest look in the world on his face was honed by watching my own kids. I’m more comfortable with newborn sessions than I would have been had I not handled my own newborns. And my incessant silliness and joking with my own kids has made me completely unselfconscious about being a goofball with my little clients (“Ok, everyone say BOOGERS!) Most of my Professional Photographer friends are also moms. With cameras. So don’t think I’m just against all people who have given birth and purchased a Nikon. I’m using the term MWAC as it’s defined all over the internet – Mom With A Camera: Member of the skyrocketing group of amateurs-turned-wannabe-pros who start part-time photography businesses shooting mostly children and babies, who make extra cash by undercutting real pros.
The MWAC is generally a Shoot & Burner because that’s all she’s got time for. She doesn’t want a full time job. She wants a flexible job she can do pretty much from home, without a lot of hours involved. Maybe she used to work, and misses having a job and being in the ‘adult’ world. Maybe she’s missing the extra income she used to have, and likes the idea of bringing in a couple hundred extra bucks a month for a small amount of work. She figures offering low-cost photo shoots and just handing over the digital files is a reasonable way to make that couple hundred extra bucks a month. Since the MWAC is interested mostly in a flexible, low-hours job, her photography skills are self-limiting. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Anne Geddes didn’t become Anne Geddes with just an hour here and there of dabbling in the darkroom.
B.) The GWAFTJ. The Guy With A Full Time Job tends to have a typical 9-5 schedule. That leaves his weekends free, and he decides to spend a Saturday here and there earning some extra dough shooting weddings. He’s a Shoot & Burner because that’s the level of involvement in photography that he prefers. He knows that brides have budgets, and sometimes amongst all the decisions on dresses and and DJs and decorations, memorializing the event gets overlooked and underfunded. With just $500 or so left in her budget, she’s pretty much limited to an inexpensive shoot & burn photographer.
Professional Photographers who cover weddings regularly know that there’s a LOT more time involved in comprehensive artistic wedding coverage than just showing up to shoot the wedding. I’ve only covered a couple handfuls of weddings myself, but my estimation is that I spent an average of 40 hours per wedding. This included the consultation to ensure that I documented the couple’s day as they preferred, pre-ceremony coverage, the ceremony, wedding party images, the reception, processing the images, creating a slideshow and proof album for the couple for easy decision-making, and another studio appointment for album design, then of course the actual album design time and ordering. Shoot & Burners don’t do any of that. They generally show up just before the ceremony starts, shoot for a few hours, then hand the couple a CD of a couple thousand largely unretouched images to wade through.
So now we’ve taken a peek at the way two types of Shoot & Burn photographers operate. Stay tuned for Part 2!
___________________________________________________
Burn, Baby, Burn – Part 1: The Shoot & Burn Photographer
© 2011 Take Off Your Mommy Goggles - Original Post can be viewed here.
Step 1: See photographer page on Facebook. Notice she is in your area. Notice that several people have posted ooohing and aaahing comments on some of her pictures, so she must be awfully per-fesh-uh-nul. With a name like Sassy Snapper Photography right up there on the top of the Facebook page in Scriptina font, of course she’s professional, right?
Step 2: Schedule session with photographer. Meet her at the park at noon, after your baby’s morning nap. Give her a check for $150 – that’s to cover the picture-snappin’ and the digital files. Feel a little surprised when you ask for the “total, with tax” and she says “Oh just the $150 is fine, and could you just make it out to Janie Doh please, not Sassy Snapper Photography? Thanks.”
Step 3: Feel even more surprised when, after the session, Janie Doh tells you to come over to her car with her so she can give you your digital files. What? Right here, right now? Apparently so. She says it will just take a few minutes. So you stand in the parking lot and bounce the baby on your hip and sing the theme song from Yo Gabba Gabba while the photographer downloads the images into her laptop, burns them onto a CD, writes your name on the CD with a black Sharpie marker, tucks it into a paper sleeve and hands it to you.
Step 4: Once home, put the CD into your computer. Open a couple files. Find that the files are at some bizarre size – 22 inches by 28 inches, what in the world do you do with THAT?, and what does 72dpi mean? – and furthermore, about half of them won’t open at all. On the images that open, notice the dark circles under your baby’s eyes, lots of blinks, lots of awkward positions, plenty of crying shots when she fell down, a bunch of images that are really dark, a bunch of images that are almost completely white, a nice series of images where your baby was smiling but the photographer focused on the trashcans in the background that appear to be sprouting from your baby’s head, and a couple halfway decent shots – IF you can figure out what the heck to do with a picture sized at 22 inches by 28 inches at 72dpi. They sure look weird and distorted when you try to resize or crop them.
Step 5: Call photographer and tell her about the files that won’t open. She says that’s a shame, but she doesn’t know what in the world to do about it because it looks like she didn’t save a copy on her laptop and she already deleted the pictures from the card. She tells you that there were about 300 pictures taken, so it’s too bad you lost some but there should still be a whole bunch left to pick from. Ask photographer about the size of the images. She doesn’t know why they’re sized that way, sorry. They should print just fine. Ask photographer what can be done about the dark circles, the awkward positions, the dark images, the white images, the trashcan-is-the-focus images. She doesn’t know, sorry. She can tell you what SHE does, which is to get on this free online site for picture editing and play with them there.
* * * * * * * * * *
So, how do you feel after reading that? Whether you’re a consumer or a photographer, I hope that little series of events makes your skin crawl. I hope you’re upset and annoyed about every aspect of the transaction, because if you’re a photographer you’d best not be doing *any* of the things listed up there, and if you’re a consumer you deserve better than that. Better treatment, better quality, better respect for your memories, better EVERYTHING.
The steps outlined above represent a hypothetical, but ENTIRELY possible, transaction by a new breed of, *ahem*, ‘photographic workers’ let’s call them. This particular species of photographic worker is commonly described as the Shoot & Burner. If I may stereotype for a moment, the typical Shoot & Burner you are likely to encounter is either A) a MWAC (mom with a camera) or B) a GWAFTJ (guy with a full time job). Now before you go all whackadoodle on me for those stereotypes, let’s remember please folks that I did not make up the term fauxtographer, and similarly I did not make up the term MWAC. (I did, however, make up the term GWAFTJ, which I will elaborate on in a moment. I have to admit as an acronym it is sort of unruly, but as a descriptive term it’s highly accurate. )
So who are the MWAC and the GWAFTJ, and why do they Shoot & Burn? And how is what they do different from a Professional Photographer who offers digital files for sale? This big unruly topic is going to be discussed in several parts. Right now you’re reading Part 1, wherein I am describing the general appearance and actions of the typical Shoot & Burner. Part 2 will compare and contrast the Shoot & Burner to the Professional Photographer who offers digital files (because they are NOT the same species!), and in Part 3 we’ll discuss digital files and printing, up and down and inside out.
To finish up Part 1, let’s look at the MWAC and the GWAFTJ individually.
A) The MWAC. For the record, I don’t even like the term MWAC, because I happen to be one. A mom that is. With a camera. And being a mom has made me a WAY better photographer than I would have been without kids. That little sixth sense I have about when, exactly, your baby is going to turn and have the cutest look in the world on his face was honed by watching my own kids. I’m more comfortable with newborn sessions than I would have been had I not handled my own newborns. And my incessant silliness and joking with my own kids has made me completely unselfconscious about being a goofball with my little clients (“Ok, everyone say BOOGERS!) Most of my Professional Photographer friends are also moms. With cameras. So don’t think I’m just against all people who have given birth and purchased a Nikon. I’m using the term MWAC as it’s defined all over the internet – Mom With A Camera: Member of the skyrocketing group of amateurs-turned-wannabe-pros who start part-time photography businesses shooting mostly children and babies, who make extra cash by undercutting real pros.
The MWAC is generally a Shoot & Burner because that’s all she’s got time for. She doesn’t want a full time job. She wants a flexible job she can do pretty much from home, without a lot of hours involved. Maybe she used to work, and misses having a job and being in the ‘adult’ world. Maybe she’s missing the extra income she used to have, and likes the idea of bringing in a couple hundred extra bucks a month for a small amount of work. She figures offering low-cost photo shoots and just handing over the digital files is a reasonable way to make that couple hundred extra bucks a month. Since the MWAC is interested mostly in a flexible, low-hours job, her photography skills are self-limiting. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and Anne Geddes didn’t become Anne Geddes with just an hour here and there of dabbling in the darkroom.
B.) The GWAFTJ. The Guy With A Full Time Job tends to have a typical 9-5 schedule. That leaves his weekends free, and he decides to spend a Saturday here and there earning some extra dough shooting weddings. He’s a Shoot & Burner because that’s the level of involvement in photography that he prefers. He knows that brides have budgets, and sometimes amongst all the decisions on dresses and and DJs and decorations, memorializing the event gets overlooked and underfunded. With just $500 or so left in her budget, she’s pretty much limited to an inexpensive shoot & burn photographer.
Professional Photographers who cover weddings regularly know that there’s a LOT more time involved in comprehensive artistic wedding coverage than just showing up to shoot the wedding. I’ve only covered a couple handfuls of weddings myself, but my estimation is that I spent an average of 40 hours per wedding. This included the consultation to ensure that I documented the couple’s day as they preferred, pre-ceremony coverage, the ceremony, wedding party images, the reception, processing the images, creating a slideshow and proof album for the couple for easy decision-making, and another studio appointment for album design, then of course the actual album design time and ordering. Shoot & Burners don’t do any of that. They generally show up just before the ceremony starts, shoot for a few hours, then hand the couple a CD of a couple thousand largely unretouched images to wade through.
So now we’ve taken a peek at the way two types of Shoot & Burn photographers operate. Stay tuned for Part 2!
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Kyah's Back!
Little Miss Kyah came in for her 6 month session today and, as usual, she was totally adorable! She's getting so big and sitting up on her own (and even trying to crawl)! It's hard to believe that it's been six months since we first photographed her as a newborn! The first one I absolutely LOVE!! Needless to say, it's probably going up in the studio so everyone can enjoy all it's cuteness! :)
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Burn, Baby, Burn - Part 3
In the final part of the series, Take Off Your Mommy Goggles discusses how clients and photographers feel about digital files, and to what extent digital files are good for printing. If you are considering digital files, or have already purchased some, this is good information to read, as it also talks about care of your digital files and media!
Back before digital, wedding photographers sometimes sold their negatives, and brides liked the insurance of owning the originals. But traditionally, portrait photographers never sold their negatives. You bought the prints you wanted at the time of your session, and that was that. Ten years ago, heck even *three* years ago many Professional Photographers like myself wouldn’t have dreamed of selling their negatives or digital files. Even after digital media became the norm in portrait photography, most of us just didn’t sell our session files.
I fought the concept of selling portrait files very vigorously – mainly because I know how steep the learning curve is for working with digital images and learning to print them effectively. If it’s a lot for me to handle, as a full-time Professional Photographer, can my clients really ensure the safekeeping and proper printing of these digital files? I worried about distortion from improper resizing. I worried about people not taking care of the CDs. (Come on now, tell me the truth, do you regularly make backup copies of all your digital images? I thought not.) I worried about clients trying to make enlargements without the knowledge of what’s involved to make a 20×24 look great.
And, ok, yes. It’s true. I worried about my clients taking my carefully retouched images and creating a god-awful collage with high-key and low-key images mixed together, or maybe even doing their own selective coloring and adding bright blue eyes to their baby – and then displaying something ugly on their wall and telling everyone it was my work.
But eventually, you’ve got to either change with the times or be left behind. Everyone wants the digital files these days. Many people assume that a Professional Photographer’s session fee *includes* digital files. (It does not!) So I started offering them a couple of years ago. And while I do understand the desire to own the digital files, and respect the insurance against loss that they represent, digital files in and of themselves are not the answer to people’s imaging needs.
Oh yeah, you guessed it – that’s one of those Really Important Sentences that I’m going to repeat and put in some asterisks and stuff to emphasize – *Digital files, in and of themselves, are NOT the answer to people’s imaging needs.* The fact is, the ONLY way to ENSURE preservation of an image is with a professional quality archival print. Oh my, can you believe it?, that’s *another* one of those Really Important Sentences – *THE ONLY WAY to ENSURE preservation of an image is with a professional quality archival print!* CDs can fail. Hard drives and external hard drives can fail. Those images can be trapped forever on a non-functioning piece of plastic or machinery and be unrecoverable. *So don’t rely on digital media 100%. A professional quality, archival print is the safest way to store your precious memories.* *Whew*, there are a LOT of asterisks in this paragraph. Think I feel strongly about this? You bet I do.
This is why, in my photography business, I simply do not offer digital files without an accompanying professional print of that image. If you purchase the digital files from your session with me, the disk of images will not come all by itself. No way. You’ll also receive an archival print of that image, created at the professional lab that I use. It’s peace of mind for ME. This way, you not only have a ‘hard copy’ of the image which will remain beautiful for many decades (assuming proper storage!), you’ll also see how the image is supposed to look when printed out. So if you take your disk to a drugstore to print copies for the grandmas , you’ll be able to compare that drugstore print to the professional print I supplied for you and clearly see the difference. (p.s. – Of course I don’t want you to have crappy drugstore prints! With each file purchase, I include recommendations for an excellent consumer printing lab that you should use.)
If I had to guess, I’d bet that at least half of the people who purchase digital files from their Professional Photographer never do anything with the files. They plan to print more copies but never do. They know they should make copies periodically, store them safely, and update to new technology as it becomes available – but they just don’t do it. It’s on the never ending to do list, and we all know it’s impossible to cross everything off that list. They figure, “I have the CD, everything is fine.” And maybe it will be. I’ve got CDs of images from ten years ago that were stored in the heat of my Florida attic and they still work fine. On the other hand, I also have CDs of images from 6 months ago that were stored in my air-conditioned office safely ensconced in archival sleeves which don’t work at all. CDs are an unstable media in some ways, and you cannot rely on them 100% for preservation of your images.
So what’s the answer?
The answer is, if you want the digital files from your session, and it’s something your photographer offers, then purchase them. But know this:
1 – They will not be cheap. It is not about ‘the cost of the CD’ any more than buying a print is about ‘the cost of the paper.’ When you purchase that CD on print, the photographer knows that you won’t need to buy any prints from him. Since the photographer must make a profit to stay in business and feed his kids, and since the only ‘product’ you are buying from him is the digital files, they will be priced so that the session is profitable for him. Commercial photography has been run this way for years – and commercial rates are HIGH for this exact reason.
2 – They will need care. Not as much care as a kid, or even as much care as a low-maintenance houseplant. But you do need to make sure you a) make at least one copy right away to store in a separate location, to protect against loss by fire, etc, b) make high-quality prints of all of the images on the CD right away, if copies were not provided by your photographer, c) store the CD safely, out of extremes in heat and cold, d) make copies of the CD periodically (I recommend once per year) to prevent against degradation of the media, and e) be sure to upgrade to new media when the CD goes the way of the cassette tape.
3 – They might not serve all your portrait needs. Many photographers, myself included, provide high resolution files that are designed to make prints up to about 11×14 in size. Small prints are what most people plan to produce with their digital files anyway, but more importantly larger prints require more attention and care, and are best printed by a pro through a professional lab. Yes, the consumer can find a lab that will print a large canvas for them – but please trust me, you don’t want to do this. After 9 years in business, I honestly still agonize over every large wall print. I go over the file with a fine tooth comb. I spend extra time making sure everything is perfect, and I know what things won’t show up on an 8×10 but will be obvious on a large wall portrait and require extra attention. The difference between an excellent quality large print or canvas and a crappy quality one is very, very obvious. You really want to have those big wall prints made by your photographer, and use the digital files to make small prints to your heart’s content.
I thought this was a great series, and I hope that you have found it useful and informative. If you have additional questions about digital files, please shoot me an email at heather@heatherslaterphotography.com.
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Burn, baby, Burn – Part 3: The Ins and Outs of Digital Files
© 2011 Take Off Your Mommy Goggles - Original Post can be found here.
Let me say right now that in this digital age, when everyone wants their images on their Facebook page and their iPhone, digital files are a hot commodity.Back before digital, wedding photographers sometimes sold their negatives, and brides liked the insurance of owning the originals. But traditionally, portrait photographers never sold their negatives. You bought the prints you wanted at the time of your session, and that was that. Ten years ago, heck even *three* years ago many Professional Photographers like myself wouldn’t have dreamed of selling their negatives or digital files. Even after digital media became the norm in portrait photography, most of us just didn’t sell our session files.
I fought the concept of selling portrait files very vigorously – mainly because I know how steep the learning curve is for working with digital images and learning to print them effectively. If it’s a lot for me to handle, as a full-time Professional Photographer, can my clients really ensure the safekeeping and proper printing of these digital files? I worried about distortion from improper resizing. I worried about people not taking care of the CDs. (Come on now, tell me the truth, do you regularly make backup copies of all your digital images? I thought not.) I worried about clients trying to make enlargements without the knowledge of what’s involved to make a 20×24 look great.
And, ok, yes. It’s true. I worried about my clients taking my carefully retouched images and creating a god-awful collage with high-key and low-key images mixed together, or maybe even doing their own selective coloring and adding bright blue eyes to their baby – and then displaying something ugly on their wall and telling everyone it was my work.
But eventually, you’ve got to either change with the times or be left behind. Everyone wants the digital files these days. Many people assume that a Professional Photographer’s session fee *includes* digital files. (It does not!) So I started offering them a couple of years ago. And while I do understand the desire to own the digital files, and respect the insurance against loss that they represent, digital files in and of themselves are not the answer to people’s imaging needs.
Oh yeah, you guessed it – that’s one of those Really Important Sentences that I’m going to repeat and put in some asterisks and stuff to emphasize – *Digital files, in and of themselves, are NOT the answer to people’s imaging needs.* The fact is, the ONLY way to ENSURE preservation of an image is with a professional quality archival print. Oh my, can you believe it?, that’s *another* one of those Really Important Sentences – *THE ONLY WAY to ENSURE preservation of an image is with a professional quality archival print!* CDs can fail. Hard drives and external hard drives can fail. Those images can be trapped forever on a non-functioning piece of plastic or machinery and be unrecoverable. *So don’t rely on digital media 100%. A professional quality, archival print is the safest way to store your precious memories.* *Whew*, there are a LOT of asterisks in this paragraph. Think I feel strongly about this? You bet I do.
This is why, in my photography business, I simply do not offer digital files without an accompanying professional print of that image. If you purchase the digital files from your session with me, the disk of images will not come all by itself. No way. You’ll also receive an archival print of that image, created at the professional lab that I use. It’s peace of mind for ME. This way, you not only have a ‘hard copy’ of the image which will remain beautiful for many decades (assuming proper storage!), you’ll also see how the image is supposed to look when printed out. So if you take your disk to a drugstore to print copies for the grandmas , you’ll be able to compare that drugstore print to the professional print I supplied for you and clearly see the difference. (p.s. – Of course I don’t want you to have crappy drugstore prints! With each file purchase, I include recommendations for an excellent consumer printing lab that you should use.)
If I had to guess, I’d bet that at least half of the people who purchase digital files from their Professional Photographer never do anything with the files. They plan to print more copies but never do. They know they should make copies periodically, store them safely, and update to new technology as it becomes available – but they just don’t do it. It’s on the never ending to do list, and we all know it’s impossible to cross everything off that list. They figure, “I have the CD, everything is fine.” And maybe it will be. I’ve got CDs of images from ten years ago that were stored in the heat of my Florida attic and they still work fine. On the other hand, I also have CDs of images from 6 months ago that were stored in my air-conditioned office safely ensconced in archival sleeves which don’t work at all. CDs are an unstable media in some ways, and you cannot rely on them 100% for preservation of your images.
So what’s the answer?
The answer is, if you want the digital files from your session, and it’s something your photographer offers, then purchase them. But know this:
1 – They will not be cheap. It is not about ‘the cost of the CD’ any more than buying a print is about ‘the cost of the paper.’ When you purchase that CD on print, the photographer knows that you won’t need to buy any prints from him. Since the photographer must make a profit to stay in business and feed his kids, and since the only ‘product’ you are buying from him is the digital files, they will be priced so that the session is profitable for him. Commercial photography has been run this way for years – and commercial rates are HIGH for this exact reason.
2 – They will need care. Not as much care as a kid, or even as much care as a low-maintenance houseplant. But you do need to make sure you a) make at least one copy right away to store in a separate location, to protect against loss by fire, etc, b) make high-quality prints of all of the images on the CD right away, if copies were not provided by your photographer, c) store the CD safely, out of extremes in heat and cold, d) make copies of the CD periodically (I recommend once per year) to prevent against degradation of the media, and e) be sure to upgrade to new media when the CD goes the way of the cassette tape.
3 – They might not serve all your portrait needs. Many photographers, myself included, provide high resolution files that are designed to make prints up to about 11×14 in size. Small prints are what most people plan to produce with their digital files anyway, but more importantly larger prints require more attention and care, and are best printed by a pro through a professional lab. Yes, the consumer can find a lab that will print a large canvas for them – but please trust me, you don’t want to do this. After 9 years in business, I honestly still agonize over every large wall print. I go over the file with a fine tooth comb. I spend extra time making sure everything is perfect, and I know what things won’t show up on an 8×10 but will be obvious on a large wall portrait and require extra attention. The difference between an excellent quality large print or canvas and a crappy quality one is very, very obvious. You really want to have those big wall prints made by your photographer, and use the digital files to make small prints to your heart’s content.
__________________________________
I thought this was a great series, and I hope that you have found it useful and informative. If you have additional questions about digital files, please shoot me an email at heather@heatherslaterphotography.com.
Burn, Baby, Burn - Part 2
In this part of the series, Take Off Your Mommy Goggles talks about digital files. How shoot-and-burners handle them versus how professional photographers handle them, and how the difference affects you when you take them home!
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Burn, Baby, Burn – Part 2: The Digital Difference
© 2011 Take Off Your Mommy Goggles - Original Post can be viewed here.
Alright, moving right along with Part 2 of the Burn, Baby, Burn series – today we’re discussing The Digital Difference – how Professional Photographers handle digital files vs. how Shoot & Burners do. Before diving in to today’s discussion, please read Part 1 of Burn, Baby, Burn first, so you know the characters and can follow along.In Part 1, we took a look at a portrait session conducted by a Shoot & Burner, and discussed how the Digital Files were given to the client. It went something like this:
*Shoot & Burner Photographer (hereinafter referred to as S&BP) conducts session. S&BP downloads images onto a CD and hands to you. No outtakes removed. No resizing. No cropping. No artistic work. No retouching. No color correction. No instructions. No keepsake or protective packaging. S&BP is unable or unwilling to assist with any questions or concerns you have about cropping or printing the images. After she hands you that CD, her work is done.
So NOW what do you do? You’re a mom. You have a household to run and a baby to take care of, and maybe even a job yourself. You don’t know anything about photo editing, and you don’t have any interest in learning photo editing. So the odds are what you do is….
…..you take that CD, and you put it in a drawer. And every time you think “Oh, I should try to do something with those pictures from Sassy Snapper”, it just seems like such an overwhelming task that you don’t have time to deal with.
Now let’s compare that with a typical process of receiving Digital Files from a Professional Photographer. We’ll do this by rewriting your portrait experience from Part 1, as conducted by a pro.
Step 1: See photographer page on Facebook. Notice she is in your area. Do some more research, and find that she has photographed a neighbor’s child. Call the neighbor to ask about the experience, and be delighted to learn that the lovely grouping of canvases that you admired in the neighbor’s entry were produced by that photographer. Look her up online, and find on her webpage that she’s got her legal information posted on the site so you know she’s a legitimate business. See that she’s got a nice assortment of images in her galleries, and she offers a number of different products, including the Digital Files you’d like to have.
Step 2: Schedule session with photographer. You are asked for and pay retainer or session fee, plus tax, at the time of booking, and receive an emailed invoice on her company letterhead. At her request, you meet her at the park at 9am on session day. The morning is comfortable, the light is soft and beautiful, and your baby is in a great mood since it’s early in the day.
Step 3: After the session, you schedule a viewing appointment with the photographer. She might do an online preview, or you may see the images for the first time at the ordering appointment. The appointment might be at her studio, your home, or even a local Starbucks – but whatever the location, she’s got a laptop or projector for you to view the images, and samples of different products for you to see. You’re delighted by the number and variety of beautiful images of your baby, and you’re glad the photographer is there to talk you through the decision process, because it truly would have been overwhelming to do on your own. With her help, you decide on several larger prints for your home, but you also very much want the Digital Files from the session because you’d like to make multiple copies of small prints for your extensive family, and you feel better having the originals archived for the future as well. You place your order.
Step 4: When your order arrives, you’re thrilled with your prints and can’t wait to hang them in your home. You’re excited to get copies of the images for family members too – so you open the beautiful, custom CD case with images from your session printed on it. Inside, you find a card with detailed instructions about the files you’ll find on the enclosed CD, as well as printing instructions and recommendations on where to print to get the best results from your files. When you open the files, you find she’s included both full-size files for printing, plus websize files for online use, so you can easily share the images on Facebook. Each image is beautifully cropped and retouched, just as she showed you at the ordering appointment, and sized at a standard size that you can easily have printed. With these lovely files and careful instructions, you’re able to order prints for your family without any problems. You’re so happy to have the information on how to make copies of the CD, and safely store them, to ensure you’ll have them for your family as years go by.
The difference is clear – the Professional Photographer in this version of events is concerned with quality and customer service. She wants to make sure that your experience is great, and the Digital Files you’ve chosen meet her artistic standards and are in a format you can easily use to make copies of the images and archive them. She put a lot of time, thought, and energy not just into your session, but also into the final selection of images, the cropping and retouching of the images, and the presentation and user-friendliness of the Digital Files she delivered to you. She knows that working with Digital Files is not something you do every day, and she wants the process to be easy for you so that you’re thrilled with your purchase. It takes a lot more time, education, and talent to deliver this level of product – but that’s what Professional Photographers believe in.
I touched on this in part 1: unlike Professional Photographers who have chosen to offer Digital Files, the Shoot & Burners I’m referring to are generally people with lots of other things to do in their lives who “take pictures for some extra spending cash.” Professional Photography is not their career. It’s not what puts food on the table. It’s not paying the mortgage. It’s something to do on the weekend – it’s a couple hundred extra bucks for spending 4 hours shooting someone’s wedding and handing over the files. These folks are not interested in spending time at the computer cropping and artistically editing your images, preparing a slideshow you can share with friends and family, helping you order enlargements and flush-mount albums and gallery-wrapped canvases. They just want a quick few hundred bucks for a couple hours of shooting. The focus is on images that are ‘good enough’, not fantastic. Notice how I said ‘a couple hundred bucks’ more than once? That’s because that’s what Shoot & Burners charge, as a general rule. That’s the facts, as they pertain to the vast majority of Shoot & Burners.
So, while you might luck out and find yourself a Shoot & Burner who is actually a skilled photographer, I have to be a realist here and tell you that it’s pretty darn unlikely. It takes a lot of time, education, and experience to become truly proficient and able to produce a cohesive portrait session or wedding coverage for a client. And it takes a lot of mistakes – you don’t just walk in there and *nail it* the first time you ever shoot a newborn or a wedding.
We’ve now covered the types of Shoot & Burn Photographers, the way they generally operate, and how that compares to a Professional Photographer offering Digital Files. Please check back for Part 3, where you’ll learn more about those Digital Files – including why (and IF) you need them, what to expect if you purchase them from a Professional Photographer, and how to safeguard them.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Ladies Day Out!
We're so excited for the Ladies Day Out event in about a week and a half! We're working on the finishing touches for our booth, and we've put together hundreds of dollars of prizes that we'll be drawing for!!
Also, we'll be booking sessions at half price - $15 per session - during the event! You can book any regular portrait session that we have available between Aug 29 and Dec 23rd...we'll book your session right there at our booth! To receive the discounted session price, you must book in-person at the event.
There will be a little something there for everyone, with all proceeds from the event booth rentals and concessions going towards scholarships for college-bound high school ladies in our county participating in the Distinguished Young Women of Webster County competition (formally Jr Miss). Great cause and should be a great time!
- a $25 gift card - good towards anything we offer in the studio
- 3 sessions: Winner of each session will be able to choose which type of session they would like to from a child session, a family session, or a senior session. Each session will come with an 8x10, (2) 5x7s, and 8 wallets of the winner's favorite image.
- 2 - Family Plan Memberships (these will not be available for purchase until November!)
- GRAND PRIZE: Wedding Photography! The grand prize consists of 4 hours of shooting time, a custom DVD slideshow and case, 30-day online gallery, and 10% off additional wedding items and prints.
Also, we'll be booking sessions at half price - $15 per session - during the event! You can book any regular portrait session that we have available between Aug 29 and Dec 23rd...we'll book your session right there at our booth! To receive the discounted session price, you must book in-person at the event.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Why do photographers charge so much??
It's an often-asked question. Why do professional photographers charge so much for their work? After all, it's just taking pictures, right? You click the shutter, take the picture, and send them on their way. Well....there's a bit more to it than that (or at least there should be). I decided to take my own work and pricing as an example. I don't think I'm all that expensive (though I'm sure there are those that think so), but here's a breakdown, on average, of what I make based on a single portrait session.
Session Fee: $30
Average Portrait Order: let's say $200
So, I just made a decent amount of cash, right? $230 for about an hour's worth of work? That rocks!!
Hmm...keep reading. Here's what's involved, time-wise, per session.
So, for a single session, we've already invested a minimum of 6.5 hours of our time and talent. Now, let's do the math.
With the session fee and order, the client has paid $230. I order my prints from a professional lab, where they are carefully corrected (if needed, which is rare), printed, mounted and shipped (usually using FedEx). On average, let's say I spend $75 to place the order. Out of that $230, I now have $155 left. That may still seem like a good bit of money, but let's not forget the time invested in these portraits. We'll put aside about 30% for us to pocket, since the rest needs to go towards running a business...website, marketing, equipment, props, drops, classes (yes, I take classes from nationally recognized photographers in order to better myself and my work) etc. So, of that $155, only $46.50 of that will actually go towards something non-business related, like helping with household expenses or maybe an occasional evening out.
So now you might be thinking....why do it all then? Well, a couple of reasons. I truly love what I do. Yes, like any other job, it drives me up the wall at times, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Two, it allows me to be flexible with my time with my family. When my children were younger and I worked outside the home, I often felt that other people were raising my kids. It was not a feeling I cared for. Three, I love sharing what I do with others. There is no better feeling for me than for a client to email me or send me a thank you note saying how much they loved their images or that Grandma cried when she opened the gift that held an image of her grandchildren.
I hope this has given you a bit of insight on what goes on behind the scenes of a portrait session. We're not all shoot-and-burners (we'll be posting a series on those next week), who hand over a disc of images and wish you the best as we drive off into the sunset. At our studio, we actually take the time and care to help our clients, who often times come to be considered friends. We want to make sure that you are taken care of and satisfied with everything from beginning to end. And with the way customer service is in a lot of places these days, wouldn't you agree that you, your time, and your images worth more than just a plastic disc?
Session Fee: $30
Average Portrait Order: let's say $200
So, I just made a decent amount of cash, right? $230 for about an hour's worth of work? That rocks!!
Hmm...keep reading. Here's what's involved, time-wise, per session.
- Booking the session: Half an hour (after discussing session dates, clothing, locations, packages, etc)
- Preparing for the session: Selecting drops and props, setting up, selecting poses.....about an hour
- Shooting the session: anywhere from an hour to an hour and half on average, sometimes longer
- Editing the session: We sort through all the images taken and pull out roughly 20-25 of the session's best images to edit. At around of 5 minutes per image (since we do retouch, color correct, etc), plus the time to sort them, that's about two and a half hours.
- Viewing and sales session: about an hour
- Uploading sneak peeks/galleries to the website: half an hour
So, for a single session, we've already invested a minimum of 6.5 hours of our time and talent. Now, let's do the math.
With the session fee and order, the client has paid $230. I order my prints from a professional lab, where they are carefully corrected (if needed, which is rare), printed, mounted and shipped (usually using FedEx). On average, let's say I spend $75 to place the order. Out of that $230, I now have $155 left. That may still seem like a good bit of money, but let's not forget the time invested in these portraits. We'll put aside about 30% for us to pocket, since the rest needs to go towards running a business...website, marketing, equipment, props, drops, classes (yes, I take classes from nationally recognized photographers in order to better myself and my work) etc. So, of that $155, only $46.50 of that will actually go towards something non-business related, like helping with household expenses or maybe an occasional evening out.
So now you might be thinking....why do it all then? Well, a couple of reasons. I truly love what I do. Yes, like any other job, it drives me up the wall at times, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Two, it allows me to be flexible with my time with my family. When my children were younger and I worked outside the home, I often felt that other people were raising my kids. It was not a feeling I cared for. Three, I love sharing what I do with others. There is no better feeling for me than for a client to email me or send me a thank you note saying how much they loved their images or that Grandma cried when she opened the gift that held an image of her grandchildren.
I hope this has given you a bit of insight on what goes on behind the scenes of a portrait session. We're not all shoot-and-burners (we'll be posting a series on those next week), who hand over a disc of images and wish you the best as we drive off into the sunset. At our studio, we actually take the time and care to help our clients, who often times come to be considered friends. We want to make sure that you are taken care of and satisfied with everything from beginning to end. And with the way customer service is in a lot of places these days, wouldn't you agree that you, your time, and your images worth more than just a plastic disc?
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Brooke - UCHS Class of 2012
We had a great time photographing Brooke's senior portraits! Thanks for choosing us, Brooke, and I can't wait until you see the rest of your images!
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