Boulder City Day 2

Finally, some from Cory and I's second day in Boulder City celebrating Ojii's birthday!

Enjoy!

Chris was a little bit jealous about Cory's innate ability to do the triangle face. This is his attempt.

Just can't get enough goofy faces.

Everyone was joining in on the goofy face action.

Everyone wanted their picture taken with Linda.

Cory and I had a great time in Nevada! We won't show pictures from the ride home. It pretty much would have all been pictures of the traffic in front of us!

Day 2

Day 2. I beat myself at chess. (Which is hard to do...)

Boulder City Day 1

Last weekend, it was Cory's grandfather's (Ojii) birthday. Head to Boulder City in Nevada we did.

Saturday afternoon consisted of the "younger generation" taking some time on the boat.

At the dock their were swarms of carp! Some were 3.5 feet long. I was glad no one was pushed in because I am pretty sure a carp can strip your flesh in seconds.

Here is everyone glad that they weren't eaten alive by the carp.

Pretty nice for a Saturday in Nevada.

Being on the boat was really relaxing.

Cory won the goofy face contest hands-down with the patented "triangle face."

After we got off the boat, we headed back to the house where Uncle Rob and crew had whipped up a fabulous Spaghetti dinner for us to celebrate the birthday! It was delish!

Then Ojii came out for the celebration. He received two gifts of particular note. The "Ojii is a chick magnet" shirt and a book filled with letters and pictures from friends and family expressing how much Ojii means to them.

That is all of us. As you can tell we are very intense and serious bunch!

More to come on day 2 later.

This week will be glorious. For many reasons. First off- God is great! That alone is reason enough to have a great week. Second off, I get to be with my wonderful bride a bit this weekend and it's her birthday on Sunday! (More on that later). This week will also be glorious because this week Cory and I are house sitting. Actually, we are more like palace-sitting. Some good friends of ours are out of the country for 10 days and asked us to take care of their dogs and house-sit for them. Cory and I have been very pleased so far even though we haven't had a whole lot of time to stay here. I have decided I am going to try and e-mail them a picture every day of their house/pets while they are away and so I thought that I would share those on the blog here as well!

I think their dogs miss them...

Let me know what you think about the new picture format with the logo!

The Why

First off- it is my good friend Scott Burn's brithday today! He is turning the ripe age of _____. Feel free to check out his blog and show him some love! I had a talk yesterday with a friend at work about an experience with a photographer that I would like to share with you to help me express the way I approach things in my photography business. My friend and his wife had their first child back in January and wanted to have photos to commemorate their first baby's first year. So they found a professional photographer whose work they liked and talked to him. He gave them a deal where he would do 5 or so sessions throughout the first year for a session fee of $300. Now, if you are in California talking to a pro photographer, that sounds like an outrageous deal.

However, as my friend is finding out, that $300 got him nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nil. In all actuality, the $300 he paid only gave him the opportunity to spend more money. The $300 was for the session fee and then prints were additional fee. My friend and his wife were only allowed to look at the proofs of the pictures on location at the photographer's studio (about 35 minutes away). Additionally, the photographer said that he would only hold photos that they liked from each session if they agreed to purchase them in some form or another (either directly through prints or indirectly through including those photos in an album at the end).

Here's the kicker, the price that the photographer gave them for any print 5 x 7 or smaller- $100. Ouch. Kind of hurts to look at that desk portrait of your kid when you know that you paid a Benjamin for it. I can't imagine what an 8 x 10 would cost, much less the final album at the end! The truly sad thing about is that my friend didn't learn of the print prices until after he paid the session fee and the photographer wouldn't allow him to take any kind of pricing information home.

I am really saddened because my friend thought he was getting a photographer who would take care of the process and now is finding out that, although he loves the pictures, he feels like the photographer is doing things after the fact that are shady and wants to fire the photographer.

Experiences like this have shaped the way I do my photography and how I charge. I can remember as a high school senior getting pictures taken with many of my friends and really liking how they came back in a fancy proof book only to learn that the money my mom had paid up front didn't even allow us to keep that proof book. As a result, I think my mom shilled out some hefty funds for 1 8 x 10 that may be in a frame at my parents house and some wallets that I think we sent out to the grandparents. Yuck.

It is because of this that I have decided that I would like to include the CD of all of the full-resolution, digitally-massaged images from the session to the client. As a client, that's what I would want. What happens if my precious print gets ripped? Or after a year of looking at this pose on the wall, I decide I want a breath of fresh air and want to mix it up with a new one? With other photographers-it's "pay me more money" or "sorry, you're out of luck." If those questions face my clients, I would like them to be able to take out the cd I've given them and get some prints made where they like and when they like. Honestly, I don't mean to bash on the price of the photograph that my friend was quoted. I do believe that there are photographs that are worth $100 for a 5 x 7. However, if you are that good of a photographer, why don't you tell that upfront to your clients? Why do you feel like you have to hide it? I don't understand.

I do offer prints and a lot of my packages include a print credit at my professional lab online. But I want to make that easy for my clients. My clients are given an online, password-protected gallery that they can use to proof the images (they don't have to travel 35 minutes to a studio and get an appointment) and they can easily forward the link and the password for that gallery to any family and friends that they would like to see them (I let you take the price sheet home). Anyone who wants can order right there from the site and pay with a credit card. The prints are shipped directly to them. The lab I use gives prints that are a bit better quality than Costco and so the prints are a bit more expensive but not quite $100 for a 5 x 7.

I realize that in any given portrait session or wedding, we are going to get multiple quality images and I would like the folks I photograph for to be able to enjoy all of those images. That's why I give the cd.

When I charge clients for photography, I charge for my time. I am not trying to nickel and dime then for prints. I'll charge a bit more of a session fee, but that is for the time to take and edit the photos to be able to give you a wide variety of them,edited, rather than just one for the wall.

Speaking of Scott Burns, he said that one of the things he liked best about the photos he had taken of his family was that he loved how he had a screensaver of all the photos on his computer and he really enjoyed looking at his beloved family whenever he came back to his computer.

Just thought I would share this as the way I think through things. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

Some pictures, not of us

Here are a few that I took two weekends ago when Cory and I hung out in Newport. Cory and I forgot to bring our point and shoot camera and we haven't quite perfected the "self-portrait" with my honkin 5D Canon camera. As such, just a few scenic shots. Cory and I did have a great time being away. Cory started her job as a nurse a little over a month ago and has been learning a lot but transitioning to an intense job is...intense (kind of like camping). We have both definitely realized how precious our time together is. I feel like we are taking advantage of every opportunity we have to be together because it doesn't happen as easily as it used to! I am hoping to post again tonight, but I just want to say that life is good right now! And it isn't based on my circumstances! I am just really enjoying knowing the Lord and am so blessed by the people he has put around me!

This is what I call a Saturday

Today has been a great day so far! Cory and I slept in and have taken the morning at a relaxing pace! I just purchased a new photo program this past week called Adobe Lightroom which I believe will drastically decrease my post processing time for events in the future and provide me and my clients with fresher, crisper images in less time! I am still learning it which is why it is taking me a bit wtih a couple of sessions that I am doing right now.

I have to say though, editing photos while watching March madness is the way to go. I think that there is a reason why they call this the manly month of March. I LOVE watching college basketball. The players play with heart every time and there is nothing better than the 64 best teams in the country duking it out (no pun intended) for the top spot in an all-out, cinderella filled, win or go home fashion. This truly is what Tivo was created for.

Who do you guys think is going to cut down the net this year?

Cory and I are headed to the beach in a bit and we are grabbing a night away today and we are really excited! Stay tuned for more pictures soon!

B & C

Shawn and Laura

Last Sunday Cory and I were able to shoot an engagement session for Shawn and Laura at the Beach in Orange County! Shawn and Laura are getting married on April 11th and I am so excited to be shooting their wedding.

Shawn and Laura were so natural in front of the camera and you could tell they were very natural with each other! You can tell that Laura adores Shawn and you can tell that Shawn lights up when he is around Laura. I am stoked that they are getting married!

We had fun walking around getting some really great shots! For engagement sessions my desire is to make the couple feel relaxed for their portraits and to have fun. I think that the best pictures capture natural emotion and that a truly great picture can never be completely posed. Cory and I had a great time with Shawn and Laura and I think the pictures show it!

I officially LOVE shooting at the beach. This was my first engagment session there. The colors are amazing and it just felt so cool to be there! I will definitely be going back.

Dana Point, CA (er, Laguna Niguel). Shawn and Laura, thanks for spending the afternoon with us and we are so excited for April 11th!

B & C

Jay and Janelle

If you have seen this blog before or were a follower of the ever so sporadic posts on Better Together then you know that these two are no strangers to our blog. Jay and Janelle (known by most for the celebrity couple name Jaynelle).

These two were obvious. Thinking back over the past two years it is awesome to see the Lord grooming two people to share their lives together. It was really cool to see their relationship start, as a friendship in the college group. They both are really cool people, both dig Jesus and America's pastime. Getting to know you progressed to the DTR (defining the relationship) and the SIDOR (pronounced "Sydar"-statement of interest but denial of relationship) that everyone and their mother knew was going to be short lived.

These two were meant to be JH's together (Jay and Janelle Hobbs). Cory and I have been so blessed by these two and have really enjoyed getting to be better friends with them. Jay and Janelle's "official" relationship began the day Cory and I officially got married. We have hung out with them through the cheese and the cheese wheel. Life has been great for the Blakey's and Hobbs.

So the day that Jay and I sat down at Starbucks and he let me in on the "secret" that he was going to propose to Janelle, I had seen it long coming and knew that it fit. He would have been crazy not to.

Last Saturday, Cory and I had the priviledge to shoot an engagement session for Jay and Janelle in an urban setting. We took some photos, snuck into some buildings, saw two different wedding events in progress and ended up the night at the Cheesecake Factory where I think I am still full from.

Cory and I are both in the wedding, so we won't be "officially" shooting this one, but we are so excited for June!

The future JH's together.

Oh yeah, the hounds of fun were released...

Goin' to the chapel...

Literally the only moment of the day Janelle was able to pull off her "serious" face.

The JH EP Album cover.

A Kissing Picture. We got a few of those.

Jay and Janelle- thanks again so much for spending the afternoon with us! We are honored to stand in your wedding and to put our "true dat" to something that we obviously see the Lord working together for His glory!

Can't wait to come to the Hobbs for dinner!

B & C