Hey Girl, Nice Shot

Beanbag Newborn

I'm so excited I had my first 'floating newborn' session.  It took forever for this little sweetie to go to sleep but it was totally worth it. 

My setup, I opened the blinds in the family's game room which was the room in the house with the best light.  I had my black backdrop up from some earlier pictures with mom, and I setup my big bean bag chair (from Walmart) with a black sheet over it about 8 feet from the windows.  Once baby was nicely asleep we laid her in the beanbag chair which I had formed so she would be tilted up a little to let the light hit her nicely.  I moved her legs to cover her baby parts, and pulled her hands in place.  She kept moving around but we would just give her a few minutes to settle back in and reposition her again.   Mom put her hand under the black sheet to help prop her feet up to keep them in place.  She was almost 4 weeks old which is a little late for newborn pictures so I think it would have been easier with a younger newborn who would be more sleepy.

Lena Hyde: Living with Art

Just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend (which I spent out of town), I received an email from the uber talented Lena Hyde with some pictures she invited me to share with my blog readers.  She noted that she loves to surround herself with photos of her family as that makes her happy and she was kind enough to send some pictures my way for inspiration.  I have lots of ideas of how I can start to add more of my childrens' pictures to my own home and it was great to see how she did it in her own home.  Of course, her home looks way cooler than mine - again, inspiration, right?

Her breakfast nook!

I love the green color of her son's bedroom - and those big gallery wrap canvases on his shelves.  My son's bedroom walls are blank.  Hmm....

Fun, fun, fun.  The jars of marbles and scrabble pieces are great!

The soft blue of her dining room is a color I could look at all day long and the big white matted framed pictures really keep the look of the dining room bright and fresh.

Look at the pictures on the bottom right...her son playing with an action figure.  LOVE IT!

So, I'm officially inspired and I'm ready to send some more of my candids of my kids to the lab for some prints!

In the meantime, definitely check out Lena's other project: Design Aglow!  I love their digital magazine and you can get more inspiration (and templates) from the website.  And Lena Hyde is one of the featured photographers on the Learnfest Photography Workshop I'm going to in September!!!

Learnfest Photographers' Workshop!

You may notice that the little countdown on the left side of my layout has changed (and if you are reading via RSS, you'll have to take my word for it) but in 118 days I'll be heading out to Bald Head Island, North Carolina for the Learnfest experience.  This three day workshop has been put together by some of the rock stars of professional photography:

• Audrey Woulard (OMG!  I cannot believe I'm going to meet her)
• Tamara Lackey
• Laura Novak!!!
• Lena Hyde (woohoo)

Yes, I'm a bit of a workshop junkie...I like always having one to look forward to and this one looks like it will be hard to top!  Three days on the beach AND I get to meet four awesome photographers.  Sign me up.  Oh wait, I already did!  Are you going?  Let me know!

holiday weekend

I'm posting from my cell phone as I'm enjoying a little down time but
I'll be back on Tuesday with a new post! Enjoy the long weekend!

Portrait Parties, Worth the Effort?

I've offered the option for portrait parties since I started my business but never went out of my way to really push them.  I wasn't really sure they would be worth the effort.  I was afraid folks would just buy one or two pictures and I would have spent too much time getting the images and processing and not be happy.

But, with my new pricing structure (yeah! Thanks Cheryl) I actually have much higher hopes about the prospect of portrait parties.  My ala carte prices have remained the same but my packages are completely different now.  My lowest packages is higher than my highest package was before but right around where my average orders were anyway.  And now my middle and high packages comes with session albums!!!

For portrait parties I decided to offer packages similar to my full packages but scaled down.  So they should get 10 proofs instead of 30.  And to go with that I'm offering a digital option which is 1/3 the cost of the full session digital images.  And my packages follow the same model so now the middle and high packages include session albums which would include all the 5x7 proofs in a leather album.

I had 12 15 minute sessions on Wednesday morning and I got between 25-50 pictures per 15 minute session.  I feel like I'll have 10 keepers from each session without a problem (with the possible exception of one where one of the kids was very unhappy).   I expect to get my proofs all ready for them within two weeks and then they get 7 days to place their orders.  I'm cracking down on those long order periods...I just have to.    So we'll revisit in 3 weeks and see how I feel about it.

I will say that one of my best clients started out as a guest at a portrait party and last October and I've done two family sessions since then for her so even if I get one new "best" client out of it, it is probably worth it!

ETA: You can see the sneak peek from the portrait party on my photography blog to see the variety of pictures we had.  Ecor Rouge Photography Blog: Katy TX Portrait Party

Fun New Textures

I won some really fun new textures at the Secret Workshop: Nichole V Tapestry Textures.  This filled a void I had in my texture collection for sure so I'm so excited to have them.

Here's a picture I took today of my daughter Abby today down in an more urban area:

And here it is with one of the tapestry textures applied (and I went back and did some selective burning too):

How cool is that?  I love it.  I can't wait to start really using them.

Printing, Why I'm Outsourcing

So, I was talking to someone at the Secret Workshop that reads my blog and she mentioned how much she enjoyed reading about how I do my own printing and I realized, oops, I never posted that I now OUTSOURCE my printing.

There were some really good reasons for me to do my own printing.  For one, I was totally calibrated with my printer.  I created custom printer profiles for every ink/paper combination which was awesome.  I could print pretty much whenever I wanted and have super quick turn around times.  It was much cheaper for printing on fine art canvas and watercolor papers.

So, you are thinking, why on earth would I give all that up?

Well, for one thing, my printer was huge.  It took up a whole wall.  Yes, I could print up to 44" (and on occasion I did) but usually I didn't so it was taking up a lot of space. It was noisy.  It consumed lots of power because I left it on a lot of the time so it would always be ready to print.  It took up lots of space storing all of the rolls of paper and canvas for it.  It took up a lot of room to store the paper cutter for it (which was 54" long so it could cut the 44" of paper.  I felt like I was always changing rolls of paper, cutting, trimming, and checking prints.  And I wasn't great at mounting which frequently meant reprinting and remounting (and double the costs).  And I didn't have the stuff to do my own gallery wraps.  And when I printed canvas I had to roll on the protective coating (more time, space, and the smell). 

I'm pretty sure it cost me more in the short run too.  If I was doing a LOT of big prints AND was better at mounting the prints myself it would have been handy for that but I have to say that I'm happy to pay the money to just check a box in ROES to have something show up mounted and not have to do it myself.

The interesting thing is that in this month's PPA magazine (which just arrived in my mailbox) there is a whole section about how you can now print yourself.  I found the technical side (calibrating and setting up custom profiles) to be the easy part.  It was the space and time aspect that eventually turned me off.  Maybe if I had the Epson 3800 that printed full bleed on pre-cut paper so I would just stick the paper in and it would come out ready to deliver for smaller prints) but honestly, ordering through ROES (I'm use White House Custom Color) is just so darn easy and a few days later the prints land at my house.

The biggest adjustment has been for marketing materials.  I would print custom marketing materials for special events all the time...and frequently at the last minute so now I have to plan a little further in advance but otherwise I've been thrilled to reclaim the space in my home and now I'm happy to great the UPS man who comes frequently to deliver my boxes.

In case you are wondering, I sold the printer to another photographer that specializes in sports photography and was going to use it for printing sports posters.  It think it'll be a good match!

Totally Rad Deal

So, I have not been shy about my love and adoration for the Totally Rad Actions by Boutwell Studio.  Well, they are running a special right now for $20 off the regular price AND if you download the 3 action sample set you'll also get entered in a drawing for $500 worth of stuff from Apple.  How cool is that?

So go here to find out the coupon code for the discount if you still need to buy the actions:  BlougBloug -  Save $20 on TRA.

And here is a somewhat extreme example of my use of the actions.

I took pictures of this sweet girl but had to move fast because she wasn't quite sitting up yet.  So I didn't use my reflector and her eyes were dark pits.  Poor girl.

I used several of the actions with layer masks:

And the final result which was ordered at a 16x20 gallery wrap canvas and looked awesome (except for some yellow ink that spilled on it so they are reprinting but the rest of the color was awesome).

BTW, you all rock!

I also wanted to say "HEY!" to all of my new subscribers.  I've now crossed over the 900 subscribers mark.  I have lots of posts in my head...now to find time to get them typed up.  Thanks to so many of you for sticking with me.  It has truly been excited.  It was especially fun to meet so many people at the Secret Workshop that read my blog.

Josiekat's Trunk Model Search

Just before I headed to the Secret Workshop I saw a post about a model search for the next season of Josiekat's Trunk.  Their clothes are so fun and bright.  The were looking for girls with moms that could take their pictures and well, I have a daughter that I chase with a camera so it seemed like a good match so I entered.  On my way home from the workshop I got the email that we were selected as one of eight models (it looks like the models are all different ages ranging from under 1 to about 10).  I couldn't be more excited.  So Abby will be modeling for and I'll be photographing her for their new online catalog.  How awesome is that?!