Album Designs : Wedding & Photography

For the longest time I have been thinking/planning/analyzing/designing exactly how I want to make my albums look.  And I think I’ve got a start…

The albums I work with are simply perfect for my style for a number of reasons…

1. Easy to work with.

2. Very fast results.

3.  Amazing quality work.

4.  Durability.

5.  MANY OPTIONS to make your album a one of a kind.

Now the best part about it from my side is, I let the bride and groom pick their images that they want to be in their album.  They get to pick as many images as they want, though I do advise you to stick to four per page.  Of course the bigger your album the number of images may appropriately increase.   For brag books (4×6, 5×5, 5×7, and 6×6) I strongly advise you to stick to one image per page.  That way you will be able to see the image clearly, it won’t be too small to see, and it’ll be a much better brag.

The album layouts that are available to choose from as of now: These specific designs were made for a 10×15 album.

Simple.  Modern. White.

The gutter (album middle crease) is barely visible, so one image on a spread (two pages) is available.

Simple.  Modern.  Black.

Modern Borders.

This is one image on a spread (two pages) with a border.

Contemporary.  (Very similar to the Simple.  Modern. but with a see-through line)

This is an example of how I would design a page with more than one or two images.  Like I’ve mentioned before, please stick with four per page.

More designs are coming and keep in mind that each wedding is unique, therefore I will be designing for each couple slightly different than the other.

Engagement albums are available as well as Lifestyle.

Happy Monday!

Harrisonburg Wedding : Sneak Peak

So I’m in a rush…  As you can see I didn’t even have the time to logo my picture…  But there are more important matter’s to attend right now!  My sister’s 25th birthday!!!  YAY!  So I will leave you with this….  Enjoy!

 

 

FAQ : Bride & Groom

I have been getting numerous people ask me specific questions about their wedding day, their collections, what’s included, etc. Instead of me writing paragraphs and paragraphs of this information, I thought it’d be easier to make a FAQ blog post on that.

Q: ARE ALL THE PHOTOS ON THE DVD EDITED?

A: Yes! Some are more than others but every single image is either enhanced with color, contrast, or a bit of my photo shop actions. I don’t make you or the image look fake, I simply try to bring out a little more out of every picture.

Q: DO YOU GIVE US COPYRIGHTS TO THE PICTURES?

A: Yes! You can print as many of the same picture you want. You cannot sell, edit, or advertise with the photo. Along with the full resolution DVD comes a web file DVD that can be used to put images online or send them in e-mails. If you would like to use the images for other the reasons I do allow, please contact me and I will be happy to figure something out with you.

Q: DO I HAVE TO ORDER AN ALBUM NOW OR CAN I DO IT LATER?

A: This doesn’t just go for albums, this can be extra DVD’s, canvases, etc. I recommend you order them as soon as possible, as soon as you have made a decision with what album you choose to go with. If for some reason you can’t decide, you’ll have three months after the wedding date to place an order.

Q: HOW MANY PHOTOGRAPHS DO YOU TAKE EVERY WEDDING?

A: Every wedding is different… Some couples will dedicate three hours to picture-taking, while others won’t even find a half hour for them… Obviously the more time you dedicate to it, the more images you will have at the end on your DVD. With two photographers we end up shooting anywhere from 500-2,500 pictures. After that they are narrowed down to only the best (blurry, closed eyes, other mistakes). I simply can’t give you an exact number of pictures because I never delete a good image. So you’ll be expecting anywhere from 500-1,200 pictures.

Q: HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU BELIEVE IS RIGHT TO DEDICATE FOR FORMAL FAMILY SHOTS?

A: Depending on the size of your family it can range anywhere from 30-60 minutes, sometimes longer if people don’t cooperate.

Q: WHAT ARE YOUR COLLECTIONS/PACKAGES?

A: I don’t have collections or packages. Every wedding is different and unique, but at the same time every wedding needs the same amount of dedication and time. Therefore I state the starting collection price and you can add to it as much as you want. You may add Handmade, custom designed, leather bound albums, Canvases, extra DVD’s, slideshow DVD’s, Photo booth, Rehearsal dinner, and so much more, you just ask… So no two collections will ever be the same.

Q: HOW DO YOU ACCEPT THE PAYMENT?

A: Personal checks, cash, or PayPal.

Hope that answers all of the questions… If not, just ask.

Happy Friday!

“The kids are alright.”

Last week I had the amazing opportunity to go visit my beautiful nieces and my handsome nephew…  I’ve never thought about how blessed I truly am to live only ten minutes away from them and be able to visit them everyday.  When I hear other’s talk about how much they miss their family and can’t see them only but once in half a year, it makes my heart cry to think what if that happens to me.

Kids grow up so fast and I almost feel obligated to visit them at least once a week.  Play, walk outside, or simply read a book, they don’t care what you do together as long as you’re with them.

There’s something about this one that makes me freeze every time I see it…  Makes me remember my young days.

 

I purposely made these warmer than what I usually shoot in, for a special warm and fuzzy effect…  Hope you enjoyed!

Happy Thursday!

Wednesday Wise Words…

A while ago, a friend of mine told me one of the wisest statement’s I’ve ever heard.  He said that if you have famous/popular friends and you use their names in your blogs, Facebook, or Twitter to get more recognition on yourself, you are using them.  When you use people, they don’t fall into the “friends” category anymore, if a friendship matters, keep their names in privacy.  Unless you became friends for the purpose of using them in the future, you should reconsider if the friendship is worth it.

Same goes to giving out your friend’s number to someone…  Instead of just giving it to the person asking, you can do vise versa.  Give the number of the person asking, to the person they’re asking for.  That way they will know who is asking for them and they will have a choice to converse with them or not.  It’s simply respect…

Now in other news for today….  I picked up my business cards yesterday!  Boy oh boy, am I excited to finally have them in my hands to touch, feel, and smell!  They looked great on my computer screen, but in person they’re so much better.  Even though they’re not nearly as fancy as some people have theirs, for me they’re juuuuust right!

Since these are my first actual business cards, I decided to only order 500 because most likely I will have to change the design after a few weeks… You know me I’m pretty indecisive.

I don’t even have to watermark these pics…  It’s got it in the picture already!  Lame I am, I know.

Happy Wednesday!

“Weekend Warrior”

Though as much as I hate to admit that I simply couldn’t afford to fly to Las Vegas for the WPPI convention, there’s nothing else I can say that will make the statement more true.  Even throughout the year I had to make myself stop thinking about it -coming up in February-  not to get my hopes up high.  Vitaliy promises me we’re going to make it next year, so maybe this year I won’t have to strangle those thoughts during the year.

WPPI is a “Wedding & Portrait Photographers International” convention centered in Las Vegas every year on February.  It is the largest photographers convention in the world which got organized in 1978.  ”The organization was formed in response to industry-wide demand for an organization devoted solely to the special interests and needs of wedding photographers.

“Hy Sheanin and his son, Steve, saw the organization as serving important needs of an often-neglected segment in the photography industry.   Back in those days wedding photographers were known as “weekend warriors”.  They were part-timers who were on the low end of the status scale.  Yet they worked hard to improve their craft and they were a viable force in the marketplace, purchasing equipment and consuming film and paper at ever-increasing rates.

“The Rangefinder braintrust saw these weekend warriors as a well defined niche.  None of the porfessional photographic organizations had the wedding photographers’ interests at heart, so the time for “WPA” had arrived.  The name later got changed by Monte Zucker because WPA reminded him too much of the fabled Works Project Administration of the Great Depression era.  (WOW)

“Steve threw his heart and soul into this new organization, developing as many personal relationships with working wedding photographers as he possibly could.  He called upon the the likes of Bill Stockwell, Monte Zucker, Don Blair, Leon Kennemer, Laverne Freezon, Ed DeKroce and Donald Jack and would invite these people to put on seminars, usually done in conjunction with local or regional labs.  Here, the technique and artistry of wedding photography were presented and diagnosed – these seminars soon became extremely popular.

“In 1980, WPI held its very first convention and trade show in Las Vegas, at Caesar’s Palace.  Steve recalls ‘we had 24 booths -12 sold and 12 given away.  But we had in excess of 2500 people attend at $10 a head.  We would do anything to get attention for our group.  At Caesars we had Monte and the late Rocky Gunn put on the gloves and get int he ring with Bill Stockwell as the referee.

“Realizing that many of WPI’s present and future members were involved in both wedding and portrait photography, Wedding Photographers International because Wedding & Portrait Photographers International on January 1, 1995.

“WPPI recently completed it’s 30th annual Convention and Trade Show, drawing over 12,000 attendees and 365 exhibitors to its new convention space…  The MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas!

So while everyone is on the other side of the country having the most incredible experience of their lives right now, I’m stuck here for another year.

 

And since any post is incomplete without a picture, I’ve got one from last week…

Happy Tuesday!

Monday Madness strikes again!

Monday!  The worst day of the week!  But somehow without it, the whole week wouldn’t be so fulfilled.  To make my Monday’s a little better, I try to focus only on the good things, because Friday is a good day to think about your worries!

I want to start out with an incredible overview-look at the body of a MacbookPro.  I find this video amusing every time I see it and I hope you will too.  Enjoy!

Continuing, I’d like to share an inspirational video of a Woman-Evangelist. I meant to post this earlier, but kept forgetting!

 

And finishing, I’ve got a row of amazingly incredible blogs that I do hope you enjoy…

[The woman from the video above is the creator/owner of this blog.  If you found the video interesting, check out her blog!  I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I did.]

In The Name of LOVE

 

 

[Now for any of you wanting to start a free blog, but don't know where, and don't know how Shabby Blogs will give you all the right stuff to make it as much "YOU" as possible...  Check it out...]

 

Shabby Blogs

 

[For those of you who know KNOW me, I LOVE food!  ESPECIALLY when it's cupcakes and all different sorts of sweets...  You'll know why I liked the next blog so much.]

 

Kevin and Amanda

 

[And last but certainly not least, another fashion/shopping blog...  The title grabs every girls attention because that's exactly how they feel...  Although I found a better hobby then shopping!]

 

I’d rather be SHOPPING!

 

Happy Monday!  Hope this helps to make it that much better!

A little something teal, with ribbon, and damask.

I’m simply thrilled to “announce” the new blog look that I have been waiting on patiently.  Though I do not have the exact date of it launching, I can have you guys anticipate along with me, until it’s ready to go!  Because I just can’t hold my tongue between my teeth for this anymore.

It’s teal, has ribbon, and damask!  It’s got all the amazing stuff on it, and it’s sure to make you want to come back to it more often then this plain white one, even if it’s not the stories and pictures that capture your eye.  This has been something that a dear friend, amazingly talented, and the most down-to-earth girl has been working on for over three months.  Then we handed the project over to the oh-so-talented, intelligent, wonderful friend to finish off and make it work on the web itself.  So it has been a long process which will hopefully have an awesome end.  And a little sneak peak, without ruining the whole surprise.

 

For some unknown reason even to me, the colors faded when I cropped the image…

I’ll finally have an “Archives box”! =]

 

 

Happy Saturday!

Forgotten Fotos Friday!

Wow…  I feel like I’m brilliant for coming up with such a clever title…  The title speaks for itself, unless of course some of you might not know the last word because it’s “misspelled”.  But overall these are pictures that are worth sharing, that I simply forgotten to share them with you, and now that I finally remembered about them, I’ll share!

On Valentine’s day, well a few days late…  We got this amazing card from our dear friends.  And on this card there was an exact copy of our dear Subie…  DRAWN!  At least Subie get’s to know what it feels like to have a cartoon drawing of herself.  That instant I went back to look for that picture that I took of her with the red bow and squealed, because it was a perfect copy!  Judge for yourselves…

A few weeks ago, when our small county in Northern Virginia got hit with somewhat of a “blizzard”  we spent the days outside.  We built a deformed snowman…  I mean V built it, I watched…  I had a perfectly good reason not to help.  I didn’t bring my gloves!  And the snow was cold.  Plus, I was the one taking the pictures.

Then the morning of the “blizzard” I went to visit my lovely sister and her beautiful kids.  We ended up driving to mom’s and almost getting stuck!  Wait I believe I mentioned that story…  HERE!  Though I did post pictures of that day, I missed some of the most memorable ones…

So Ann had this sweet idea of snapping a close up of the kids’ eyelashes…  Well it was harder than we had hoped…

Polly’s Eyelashes…

Walter’s…

Now the next two should have been uploaded a LOOOOONG time ago…  November long-ago!  But since they have been put off for so long, they’ll go on now just because they’re priceless!

Happy Friday!

Harrisonburg Downtown Engagement : Liya & Andrey

Good morning!  I’ve had this blog post ready to be blogged yesterday morning.  But since yesterday was Valentine’s Day, I couldn’t resist blogging about LOVE.  So this had to wait…  I hope that their “Sneak Peak”  held you in strong anticipation, and that you couldn’t wait till the full thing…

The weather that morning was just terrible!  Windy, freezing, and cloudy!  They were such troopers, you couldn’t even tell they were cold!  Some of you may know that with every engagement blog post, I blog about how they met, or how he proposed…  Well this time I’ll let you guys ask them yourself… Enjoy!

Not a shiver is seen…

Liya!  You are simply stunning!

My angle…

Vitaliy’s angle…  Angles.

My angle…

Vitaliy’s angle…

One of my absolute favorites!

Too cute!

Rawr!  So fierce!

Be sure to watch their slideshow!