Photographers all over the country are joining together to help our communities!  Personally, I’m helping the John 3:16 Mission.  You have to help ME in order for this to be a success, though.  How?  Just leave a comment!  Any comment, any post (just no spam) and for each one posted on my blog, one can of food will be donated to John 3:16 Mission!  I have such respect for this ministry and for the help they provide to our community.  So, join in and leave a comment!!  I’ll be updating regularly!  Last day for ‘cans for comments’ is December 20th!!

First of all, I hope you all had the most amazing Thanksgiving ever.  Our family is so truly blessed. 

One thing did try to put a black cloud on our Thanksgiving weekend.  My oldest son is battling a flare up of a chronic condition he has called ulcerative colitis.  Things could be much worse though - he was diagnosed at 3 with a severe case, and none of the meds helped him.  By age 5 his doctor was recommending a surgery to remove his colon, but I just couldn’t do it.  We were basically held hostage here at home by his disease so we had to do something - he had been hospitalized for a blood transfusion at one point, so something had to change.  I prayed, cried, researched - slept little.  I finally took a more natural, holistic approach to his condition.  Right before he started Kindergarten he cleared up, and aside from a special diet (Specific Carbohydrate Diet) he is as normal as any other kid.  He’s now 8 yrs old and in the 3rd grade.  So, though he’s having a little trouble right now, we are truly greatful for his health.  I just hope he doesn’t need steroids - they have easily worked on any minor flare ups since we started the diet, but it’s not a pleasant medication to go on.  So, we’re doing a few tricks I keep up my sleeve and hope/pray for him to pull out without the steroids!

Anyway, this has all made me just a little sad, and so I’ve not been blogging like normal.  I did have an amazing session yesterday with two gorgeous kiddos, though!  I won’t share here because mom was not comfortable with the online thing, so I will just say THANK YOU, ‘T’, for allowing me to photograph your gorgeous children!

And I’ll share a video to help get you in the Christmas Spirit!

Ok, I admit it - I’m a 24 addict.  I can’t even watch it during regular season - I just can’t wait a week in between episodes.  So, when a friend sent me this, I jumped all over it.  24 - in LEGO.

I was actually surprised by this! 

FILM VS. DIGITAL

I love my computer, really I do.  But, I’m pretty hard on them.  Mainly, I eat a lot of memory.  Lots.  Of.  Memory.

I also didn’t realize what could happen if you run out of said memory.  I found out this weekend.  300 gigs and I used it up, baby!  I have a dual hard drive system set up with RAID, which means that everything I do is automatically mirrored on another drive automatically so I don’t have to back anything up.  Yeah, right.  Well, here’s the thing - if you run out of hard drive space the computer really can’t function - it can’t save anything, it can’t write temporary files, you can’t even BACK ANYTHING UP because it needs HARD DRIVE SPACE to write temporary files! 

So, as I’m combing my computer looking for anything and everything I can delete, I’m not making much progress.  I can’t delete anything until I can BACK IT UP.  I uninstall unnecessary programs, of which there weren’t much, delete all my temp files, my internet temp files, old emails.  Wow, I freed up a GIG.  I needed at least FOUR GIGS freed up.  Sigh… at least that was according to the DVD burner that I was trying to use to back up my RAW image files so I could delete them off my hard drive. 

Finally, I found some files I could delete - evidently I had some old image catalogs backed up so I had 2 copies.  I was so excited!!!!  Now I could back up my files - yippee!  Now mind you, I’m a little bit of a techno geek who’s gone rusty.  I used to really be up on the latest technology and still am to an extent, but I never really burned DVD’s.  We had a stand alone DVD burner that died after about 6 months, but that’s it.  I’m not one to download movies or whatever.  So I  had no idea how long it took to burn a DVD. 

RAW files are huge.  Just so you know.  They are the images that come off the camera - no edits to them.  I figured out that 3 sessions would fit on a DVD.  I did the old ‘drag and drop’ and started to write the files.  Sigh of relief.  4 hours later it’s NOT DONE.  And get this - it timed out 90% of the way done.  Froze up my whole system and I had to ditch the whole thing.  I got nothing done. 

If you’re waiting on a session preview, please know I’m working on them now!  I freed up 10 gigs of space and that will get me through until I can dump some stuff to DVD, an online storage site, or something!  Thanks for being patient!! 

I was given the important responsibility of being in charge of my son’s homework project.  This is for the 5 yr old who is in kindergarten.  We had to cut out a turkey and make a ‘disguise’ for him so he could avoid being caught for Thanksgiving.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, I cut him out fine.  Whew!  So far so good.  My son wanted to make him look like Spiderman.  WHAT?  How do I make a cardboard turkey look like Spiderman???  Mind you, he was supposed to have a DISGUISE - not just be colored in.  We had 5 days for this project.  FIVE DAYS.  I started with it last night (due today of course).  I honestly about hyperventillate every time a project like this comes home because I’m NOT - repeat - NOT at all good at these types of projects.  I freeze up and every creative bone in my body turns to jelly.  I lamented over it and decided that construction paper was my answer.  Now mind you, we were supposed to be ‘creative’ about designing this disguise.  OK, fine - I used to design clothing surely I can design a paper costume for a cardboard turkey.  I thought maybe gluing a plastic spider on the chest would be fun but where was that dang spider ring that I stepped on 2 wks ago?  I almost had a panic attack at the idea of trying to find that little plastic ring.  I mean I’d surely find it if I was wanting to puncture my foot, but for a class project?  Forget it - the walls probably swallowed it. 

Then I realized we have NO red construction paper left.  WHAT??  So am I going to have to go dig through my fabric stash?  God forbid that I have to dig through that (seriously, you haven’t seen my fabric stash so don’t judge too harshly)! 

Then it hit me.

Make him a pumkin!!!!  OH MY GOSH how genius!  He’s got a big belly - just make his neck the stem, the body the pumpkin and VOILA!!!  Done!  My son thought this was brilliant!  Well, I had to coax a *little*.

I was really proud of myself. 

Until my husband came in THIS MORNING and informed me that the turkey, according to the instructions, was supposed to be an ANIMAL or CHARACTER. 

I told my son to tell the teacher the turkey was the Great Pumpkin.  He looked at me like I had two heads. 

Well, if my son fails kindergarten, it will be all my fault.

Ok, so I have a sweet tooth.  My butt is a testament to this.  I try not to have sweets around the house because I have no problem having cake for breakfast.  So, when my sweet client, no pun intended, gave me a pound of her homemade fudge as a thank you gift for doing her daughters’ portraits, I accepted graciously, even though my brain was saying NOOOO DON’T TAKE IT. 

Well, I have to say this is some AMAZING fudge.  It’s creamy smooth and luscious!   It’s even pretty to look at with the fudge swirls and chocolate chips on top.  *sigh*  I told her that my butt was upset but my tummy was soo happy.  She said, ’sorry about your butt.’ 

She sells her fudge locally at craft and art fairs!  I’m sure she’d work out something if you want to buy from her directly!  Email her!  gssev @ sbcglobal.net (take the spaces out - I don’t want web spiders to get her email address).  It’s $10 a lb and $18 for 2 lbs and SO WORTH EVERY PENNY. 

She sells:

Peanut Butter Chocolate (what I got)
Dark Chocolate Mocha
Chocolate with Walnuts
Chocolate w/o Walnuts
Cookies and Cream
Peanut Butter

*Edited* I will be coming in to this post and updating as dates disappear.  :) 

I just wanted to give everyone an update on my availability - these are filling up fast so please let me know right away if you are interested in booking a session!  The fall colors are just starting to come out and won’t last long!  I shoot outdoor sessions at 4pm starting November 1st since that’s when daylight savings ends.  Early morning shoots are also a possibility, but they have to start ‘really early’ like 7:00AM.

All Saturdays and Sundays are booked.

November 2-8 (booked)

November 9-15 (booked)

November 16-22 (booked)

November 23-29 (Monday, 24th, Tues 25th)

Thanks!

I find that I get this question asked of me and thought it might be worth posting about!  I found an excellent resource at www.professionalchildphotographer.com so be sure to go there to read more!  In the meantime, I’ll go over a few excerpts!

What custom photography ultimately is all about is choice and experience (as in THE experience). Custom photography is about finding someone who will photograph your family, give you devoted 1:1 attention without worry of the next ‘in line’ or the feeling of a crowded portrait studio. A custom photographer will typically show you a fairly extensive gallery culled to only show the good images that meet the photographers’ creative sensibilities. Often the images are fully edited images that are color corrected with blemishes and under-eye circles removed, and often have creative additions such as color pops, special black & white conversions, textures, vignettes, etc., to give a truly customized look. Custom photographers are also known as boutique studios, offering a range of products and unparalleled service. Think Lexus vs. Hyundai, think Nordstrom vs. WalMart.

Custom photography should have you, the client, and your experience in mind.

Custom photography is more of a luxury than your cookie cutter chain experience.  Custom photography, truly, is not for everyone.  It requires a level of commitment, investment in time and money, forethought and planning on the part of the subject/client and requires a larger time commitment for the photographer as well.

Clients who enjoy taking a more active role in the creation of their families’ memories have the desire to have portrait art that is truly personalized.  These more discerning clients have been known to budget and allot time for a custom photography session.  Many clients opt for it to be a once a year special experience, and some opt to have custom photography sessions done to record their child’s stages in life.  Having said this, it is clear that custom photography is not in everyone’s budget - it is something that most families save for to splurge on from time to time to memorialize their children as they really are. 

Why does custom photography cost more? 

I took this from the same website as above and it’s very accurate!

Approaching it from a time standpoint, for instance let’s imagine that you have hired a photographer who has work that you love and that is traveling to your on-location session.  Time break down:

• session prep time (30 min - 1 hour, includes equipment and back up equipment checks, battery charging,- vehicle checks)
• 30min - one hour travel time TO session
• 15-30 minutes prep time at location
• 90 minutes-2 hours with client photographing subject
• 30 min - one hour travel time FROM session
• 30-45 minutes uploading time from digital cards from camera to computer
• 30-45 minutes time spent backing up the original images
• 1-2 hours in pre-editing (color balance, image prioritization, converting to editable image format)
• 4-8 hours editing time to present you with a diverse gallery of edited images
• 1 hour prep time getting ready for ordering
• 2-3 hours time with client for ordering images
• 1 hour sorting through and checking order
• 30 minutes-1 hour prep time for delivery
• 30 minutes-1 hour getting order shipped/delivered
• any additional phone time or time needed for add on ordering, shipment issues, quality issues

As you can see, average client time for a session ranges from just over 14 hours to 19 hours.  This is time dedicated only to your session.  When the photographer charges $150-$300 for the photo shoot you are not just paying for the two hours of session time, you are paying the photographer for 14-19 hours complete time for your session. 

So as you can see, photographers don’t really make much money on session fees.  They make their money on the prints.  Now that doesn’t mean they are getting your prints at the local chain store.  They get their prints from professional labs, on the best papers, with all the bells and whistles available to them (special mountings, coatings, textures, special papers, etc.)  These labs frequently calibrate their machines and only use qualified technicians who know how to get the print colors accurately represented each and every time.  Most of these labs have minimum print orders, which is why many studios have a minimum print orders (even on re-orders).

So, the bottom line is that every single time you see a custom photographer, they are investing their time and talent in to YOU and your family!  It’s an investment that will hopefully result in the purchase of the beautiful prints that were created especially for you to treasure forever!

Photographers are violent people.  First they frame you,
then they shoot you, then they hang you on the wall.