Happy Holidays!
As 2008 comes to a close, I want to thank you for your support and friendship. I sincerely appreciate all of my past and current clients and look forward to working with my future clients. Thank you to all of the photographers that have inspired me, befriended me and helped me become the best I can be.
I hope that 2009 is the best one yet.
Merry Christmas!!
Great Causes! Jingle Bell Run/Walk Donations
My daughter Gracie has really gotten into the spirit of the season - first, she donated her hair a few months ago to Beautifull Lengths for cancer patients and she was so excited that she was helping someone who needed it! (before and after pics below)
Well now she is running (or maybe walking some :)) for arthritis. She is really excited to be able to help people, and I really want to help her exceed her small goal - the run is next weekend. If you can help her out - AWESOME! If not, I completely understand…blogs sure beat going door-to-door. :)
Bells will be ringing this holiday season as thousands of runners and walkers hit the nation?s pavements, pathways and parks this winter to fight arthritis, the nation?s most common cause of disability.
I will be one of those people, tying jingle bells to my shoelaces to participate in the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis, a 5K fun run/walk to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. And YOU can help, too!
‘Tis the season for giving! Won’t you sponsor me in my effort to raise funds to fight arthritis? Arthritis affects more than 46 million Americans, including 300,000 children, costing the U.S economy over $128 billion annually. The Arthritis Foundation needs our help.
Please visit my Web page to join my team or make a secure, online contribution to help me reach my fundraising goal. The donations I raise will help fund the Arthritis Foundation?s mission to prevent, control and cure arthritis.
Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Arthritis Foundation, Eastern Oklahoma Chapter.
Here are the before/after pics from her very worthwhile haircut:
My favorite family session this year!
OK, I am a bit biased since it is my family… :)
Special thank to my great friend, Brett Rojo for going along once again to help us capture this image!
Happy Turkey Day!
Just a quick post today - I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving Holiday! I also want to thank all of my clients for a fantastic year - without you, we wouldn’t exist!
What’s new? We are going green!
We have made a lot of new changes to streamline our processes and to serve you better and faster! And an added side effect is it is helping us go green!
For starters, our wedding clients can now pay a retainer online, fill out our bridal worksheet online and even sign our contract online electronically! This streamlines everything and makes the whole process paperless!
For our senior portrait clients, you can also book your sessions online! just pick your date and time, and pay for the session - it’s that simple!
And as far as green goes, besides getting closer to being a paperless office, we have added some new green-friendly cover options to many of our books - just ask for details!.
Truth be known, my wife is actually who is over the top when it comes to going green - but as I started researching myself (and watching the Planet Green some - don’t tell anyone) I realized just how much waste we produce! As a company we didn’t do too bad - as a family (a large family) we were terrible! So I decided it’s time to stop being lazy and do our part. We now recycle just about everything we can, and we are focussing on trying to reduce our energy costs and use less resources. We are also really trying to buy locally (it’s really hard in this age of the Internet) to support local vendors and to get the edge on trying to reduce our carbon footprint.
http://www.carbonfootprint.com
Want to learn more about going green and reducing your carbon footprint? Go to http://www.carbonfootprint.com.
Photography How-To Questions
As I sit here replying to another photography question through email, I got to thinking…part of what I absolutely love about owning a photography business is all of the cool gadgets there are out there and how much there really is to learn! I never stop reading, experimenting and learning new things. I am a member of several forums and organizations and have some awesome friends in the photography business to talk shop with and to bounce ideas off of.
Well, now so do you! I already get emails asking questions, but I would love to post some on here so that other people can get the benefit of learning too…if I get enough questions maybe I will make it a regular feature on the blog!
So bring on the questions…what have you been wondering about how to take better photos with your own camera?
New Proofing System - ON THE WAY!
As a lot of you are aware, we have been having some big issues with our proofing system for a while - things have gotten worse and worse and the developer is now completely out of commission owing hundreds of professional photographers thousands of dollars! (VERY long story)
When we first chose that system, it was the absolute best proofing system money could buy - while I have been waiting for a lot of enhancements and modifications that were promised and never delivered on, a competing company has brought their system a very long ways and I now feel that it is the best system available, and from what I have seen the customer service blows my old company out of the water…
So we have purchased this new system, and the new company has already been customizing the system to integrate with my website. We are less than a week away from having the new system in place! Once it is ready, I will be transferring galleries over for those of you who have galleries that are currently active. If you have any questions or comments on the new galelry, please don’t hesitate to ask!!
New Marketing Material
We always get comments on our business cards - “You have the coolest cards I have ever seen!” is a typical comment. While we appreciate the compliment and feel great about someone complimenting our work, I just hope they don’t liove them too much to give them away to a friend who is getting married or who has a senior looking for Senior Portraits!
Well, we are updating our look and we have some cool new business cards and marketing material on the way - I love designing this stuff almost as much as I love photographing fun people! Thanks to my printer <a href=”http://4colorprint.com”>4colorprint.com</a> for listening to all my crazy ideas and making them happen!
Starting over
My server had some major issues, and my blog was wounded severely. But I have been a bad blogger and I haven’t been blogging nearly as much as I should have - so I am starting the blog over! Anyone that has any suggestions or comments, please post! Enjoy!