All in the family

Did a quick shoot at Citrus Historical Park on Sunday for John and Jennifer. There were about 20 people for a formal group shot but afterward we stole some time to do some of their family. The two younger boys on the right play drums and piano and are in a worship band with my kids. Here are a couple of good ones. I was reminded how when you do families and large groups that there are fewer great shots..but given the time we had and the number of people...I was happy with what we came away with...now back to my lights!! :)

WOW

The woman has lights!!! I'm so excited I can barely stand it. I'm having so much fun with these guys. It is so much fun playing with them. I got them today and set them up late this afternoon. I haven't had a lot of time to play yet but I like what I see so far. I think I will have a hard time sleeping tonight cause I'll want to sneak out to the garage and take more pics! HAHA!!


Here is one more of my cat Jack...anybody want a pretty cat?? Grace is allergic.. :( Just thought I'd throw that in there... :)

Those Eyes

I have had a love affair with eyes my whole life. As a kid I would draw faces and I would always start with the eyes. I think that is what drew me into photography...capturing the life that lived in eyes.



This Saturday Constance and I had a great time getting some new headshots. Her husband Greg even got in on the act carrying around equipment for me, providing water and making Constance laugh! :) It was a great time!

California Fires

To friends and family - we are fine and far from any of the fires.

But there are thousands of people who are hurting at the loss of their property. It is a very heartbreaking situation.
We are praying for all who have lost and for the massive amounts of people who are displaced out of their homes.

(images courtesy of www.noaa.gov taken with NASA satellite)

Lets get down to business!

Learning from experience is a valuable lesson but it is also extremely painful at times. Part of the reason I began this blog was to help fellow photographers -

Most clients are wonderful people who are a joy to do business with....because of this we tend to lean toward believing or hoping that this will be true in all cases. For the rare case when it is not true. It is important that you protect yourself from being taken advantage of by practicing good business principles with ALL your clients....just in case.

So let me share with you some ways to avoid nightmares with your clients.



1. Be flexible.

In as much as your schedule allows be as accommodating and flexible as possible. This is just good customer service and shows them that they are important to you.

2. Get it in writing.

No matter how small the job, I am finding that it is critical to have the agreement in writing. At the very least an email that stipulates what you will do and for how much and when you should be paid. I will be writing up a general contact for all my clients to sign before I take one picture.

2a. Include fees for custom editing.

I am also finding that many people love the quick touch ups done by we photographers who know Photoshop well...but there are those rare few who want plastic surgery and while I am happy to do this for them...it takes a lot of time. I have spent an hour on a photo before only to have the client choose a different one in the end to purchase which leaves me feeling I did a bunch of work for nothing. So I have learned that I need to charge a fee for this kind of editing in order to place a value on it for the client.


3. Use a storefront such as exposure manager.

I use exposure manager for my storefront on the web. They process all prints and orders and mail them to the clients, in return I pay them a small fee for each transaction and yearly subscription fee. This is helpful because the client is required to purchase the prints before you spend your valuable time editing, cropping and uploading the images. It safeguards you from the client backing out of an order as well. Once they paid with their credit card it is a done deal. I learned this the hard way.

4. Deliver your orders in a timely manner.

There is nothing more aggravating than to wait months for pictures you want. Its one thing if your client waits months to order them...but if you wait months to process them...that is just bad business.

5. Be a good example.

If your client gets upset about a situation take the high road. Let them rant and rave all they want but stay focused on the business and the facts. If you made a mistake admit to it quickly and offer ways to make it up to them. If you must stand up for yourself then do so in a way that will not come back to haunt you. Be courteous, be polite but don't let clients railroad over you. (that is where the contract comes in nicely)

All of this is common sense but I know that many of us over look especially the contract when dealing with clients in favor of keeping things casual and loose. But people respect us when we have our ducks in a row. And that is all a contract ensures....respect.

Here are some links to web resources that help you with contracts and professional questions.

SAMPLE CONTRACT (very simple)
The link above will open a pdf but on the site there is also a version that you can open in word to change as needed to suit your business.

American Society of Media Photographers have some good tips for running your photography business.

There is also the professional organization WPPI that assist photographers in many ways. There are 5 different levels of membership from about $50 per year.

click here for the member benefits and make SURE you click through to the second and third pages where the really good benefits discounts on things like data recovery, insurance, equipment and software.

Liberty of the Seas

Here are the last pics I will post of the trip. Our cruise was on the ship Liberty of the Seas. It was a beautiful, very large, new ship. Now it is time to get back to the real world. If you are just checking my blog to see my photography...these last four posts have been for family and friends. I'm just sharing vacation with them!

This was the Promenade on the ship. Full of stores and eateries. This was taken at night after a parade so there were a lot of people. The windows on the sides are people's staterooms and you can see the different floors in the distance. There were 15 decks in all.


We spent a lot of time here. This was the adult spa. We could see it from our balcony as it hung out beyond the ship over the ocean. Pretty cool.



Here is a girl having a blast on the flowrider system they had. People could boogie board or surf on it.


This was the kids pool area. I played in it once.


This was the main theater on the ship.

This was the main pool area. There were three, the kid one, this one and an adult only one.

This was the sunrise the morning we docked in Miami.

St. Maartin

Here are some pics from St. Maartin. It wasn't my favorite place but that might be because we had a cranky cab driver and it was extremely hot. As you can see it was also beautiful.

This is a bay on the French side.


People shared addresses so everyone writes their names on their mailboxes in paint.


Many houses looked like this one.


Coconut anyone?


The beach where we hung out on the Dutch side.

Puerto Rico

We said good-bye to Miami. This photo was taken on the ship as we floated away. The area of dense trees is where our hotel was. THERE WILL BE MORE I promise. Sorry its taking so long to get these up.

Here are some pictures of Puerto Rico I took while we were riding buses and walking the streets.

Famous Fort that proected the island.






All the roads in Puerto Rico were made of these bricks. This photo was taken at dusk.


Here are some row houses at dusk.


This is a photo I snuck as I peered into a bar. Check out those walls.


There were cats EVERYWHERE in Puerto Rico. Here is a cool shot.



At dusk this was a dead end street where locals were hanging out.

Summer Vacation

This is a posting courtesy family and friends that want to follow our trip to the Caribbean. Our hotel is great. Old 1930's place they upgraded us to an apartment so we have plenty of room. We are right on the beach. But I have to tell you about the tour we took. K - first...we are sitting on the curb waiting for a van to pick us up for the Everglades, city tour and boat ride. This guy pulls up and says, "Everglades?" and we say "Yeah!"....and got on. Talk about annoying entertainer. This guy had this little microphone that he had to plug into his cigarette lighter and he was like, "HEY...I'm Manny Miami and THIS is your tour of MIAMI! UGH....Who said that?" I think Brian and I heard "Ugh...Who said that" about 100 times during our trip to the Everglades. We were all squished into this 15 person van and when Manny had nothing to say, he played the Karaoke version of "Superfreak" and sang for us. (I'm totally serious.)
THIS IS MANNY...He kept trying to get us back into his tour....




Luckily Brian got a phone call and this guy on the other end is chewing him out for getting into the wrong tour companies van! HALLELUIA!! So after MUCH confusion, at the Gator Park we got switched into the right tour group and we were free from the psycho tour guide. But I do have to admit...it is a great story.

THIS IS THE VENETIAN POOLS in Coral Gables.
It was made out of an old rock quarry.

THIS IS SHAQ'S HOUSE.

THIS IS A WALL IN LITTLE HAVANNA.

THIS IS US :)

We saw everything yesterday. When we got back from all the tours, I put away my camera and we went swimming at the beach and then around 9pm walked South Beach. There were these hostesses with food platters and they would walk up to you and try to get you sit and eat at their sidewalk restaurant. Like every 10 feet there was another one of them. It was crazy. We ended up eating at a little diner away from the noise and then walked to a very cool restaurant for dessert.

Great trip so far! Today we board the ship.

Crissy

Central Valley Harvest

It's a wrap. I always look forward to Harvest events outside Southern CA because the communities are so excited. 150 churches worked together to bring the event to light and many thousands of people prayed and planned for it for over 10 years. It was a great time. I got a shock on Friday when I learned I was the only photographer on staff there. I began taking pics like a mad woman for the Friday night slideshow for the harvest blog. The people in the video truck started playing "where's waldo" except it was "where's crissy." I popped up everywhere. I was SO TIRED but I had a great time. Check out the blog when you have a chance. Here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend...some are just personal shots that wouldn't be appropriate for the harvest blog.