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! :)
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