I think it hit 70°F yesterday here in Lakewood, Colorado. While February and March are the snowiest months in Colorado, spring is right around the corner. And with that comes the time to start thinking about Senior Pictures for the class of 2010. If you like the work I have done, contact me today so we can start thinking about when and where we can get a start on the pictures for your Senior. If you haven’t seen my work yet, take a look at my portrait portfolio. My rates are reasonable, and I will make sure you are happy with the end result.
It’s been interesting to see this guy grow up. When I first met Garrett he was 9 years old, sitting in his mother’s garage, trying to put a bike back together. He is 15 now, and will be 16 this spring. He is as tall as me now (6′2″), and a very charismatic person. People enjoy being around him. He is also a naturally gifted athlete that could do well at anything he set his mind too. Currently that is skateboarding. He is a big person, both in height and presence. I think shooting from this perspective (down on the ground) really captured that about him.
What is the point of all this? When you are taking a portrait of someone, you are trying to get the essence of who they are. Garrett, just like other teens these days, spends a lot of time in front of the computer. But his passion has always been outside. Riding a bike, shooting baskets, riding rollerblades and now skateboards. This is who he is. It’s easier for me to interpret this about him, since he is my son (well, step-son). But as a budding portrait photographer (thanks to his sister’s need for senior pictures this year), I want to know these things about my clients so that I can capture who they are. They won’t be the same person in 5 years as they are right now. That’s why I think it is so important to achieve this. And that is probably why I have been moving into the senior picture business so slowly. But I am ready, and have a couple of kids who I will be doing pictures for in the coming months. And of course, I have the big guy lined up for next year (Garrett is currently a sophomore at Lakewood High School here in Colorado).
On 12.16.08, In Photos, By Chester
My daughter goes to an in-home preschool/ daycare with a few other kids here in Lakewood. My wife thought it would be cool for me to go over there and take some “class pictures” of them. So I took my new Homemade Softbox and went over. I think the pictures came out pretty well. But let me say this about groups of young kids (ages 3-4) – you have to have patience. When one would start to do something silly, the rest would start doing similar things and bedlam would ensue. It was all good fun though. They were excited to be in front of the camera and look nice for their parents. And thanks to Whit House Custom Color, I’ll have prints by the end of the week, in time for the holidays.
I did learn one thing though – I definitely need to get some sort of mobile backdrop system for portraits. Relying on surfaces on location just isn’t giving me the kind of background I want. Oh Santa…
On 12.12.08, In Photo of the Week, Photos, By Chester
Sadly, the local basketball team is faring better than our local hockey team (Denver Nuggets vs. Colorado Avalanche). It is also that time of the year where high school and collegiate basketball madness is getting underway. In honor of it being that time of the year, I present to you “Curves”, the photo of the week. An up close and personal look at a basketball, it is sure to be a hit for the hoops fan or player in your house. Order your print today to have a memorable gift for the holidays (just 13 days until Christmas).
On 11.05.08, In Commentary, By Chester
Last week I said that I felt like I was ready to start offering my services. Today I am announcing that I am officially in business. I am now offering my services for both portrait (senior pictures, group events, family portraits and corporate headshots) photography as well as real estate photography.
Why both?
Well, because I like both. And I have time for both, at least right now while my business is new. I decided to pursue portraits because of two things:
1) Megan’s Senior Pictures for Lakewood High School came out so well.
2) One of Megan’s cheerleading friends told me, in no uncertain terms, that she wants me to do her Senior Pictures when it’s her time. That made me feel pretty confident about what I am doing, and confidence is often the last hurdle when undertaking a new endeavor.
I also decided to pursue the real estate photography business because I think I have an eye for it. I know what sold me on my house, and I think I can help a realtor project the image of a house that will speak to people. With how badly the credit market is tightening up, I think it will be more important than ever to have the highest quality imagery for a property that is for sale.
I am not limiting it to real estate for sale though. I also intend to do resort and hotel photography too. Based on the photos I have taken at the Westin Kierland Resort and the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek, I want to offer my services to those types of properties as well.
I have added pages to this site outlining my portrait services as well as my resort/ real estate photography services. You will find sample portfolios for each service. If you are interested in either, please contact me so we can get some dates on the calendar.
On 10.30.08, In Commentary, By Chester
Like any photographer with an online presence, I wanted to be able to sell prints of my images online. I have a number of images that I think are worthy of hanging on the walls of homes and businesses (corporate art I guess), and I also have portraits that I have done of various people (mainly my daughter’s senior pictures and the Lakewood High School Cheerleaders). In either case, it is the ultimate convenience for my customers to be able to review their images online, tell me if they want any of them retouched, then be able to order the final versions in whatever dimensions or on whatever material (canvas wrap, coffee mug, etc) they want.
I took these things into consideration when I started looking for an online gallery source. I could have done it myself, using Gallery2 or similar software, but I honestly didn’t want to handle the back-end pieces of fulfillment. A one stop shop was a good idea. So I researched the different sites out there. Smugmug is widely regarded as the market leader. The there is Zenfolio and a bunch of others.
I have friends on Smugmug, and I never really liked how the sites looked. I know customization is possible, but I was hoping to avoid that. Zenfolio, however, had a nice, clean interface. The ordering process was straightforward. They let me do coupons and all that sort of stuff. The only thing they were lacking was digital downloads. This is a pretty big deal in this day and age. A number of other sites offer this. As recently as July, they indicated this was a priority and they were working on it. As recently as 10/28 though, they made it crystal clear that we won’t see it in the immediate future.
Instead, Zenfolio is putting their development focus on allowing comments on photos. I have a couple issues with this.
1. Zenfolio is not Flickr. It is a commerce site. Comments are secondary in nature to the sales process.
2. Digital downloads offer immediate $$ returns. As a photographer looking to make money from my images, this is a priority to me.
I have already lost at least one sale that I know of because I didn’t have an immediate download option available. And that was someone who took the time to let me know. How many opportunities have their been that I was not aware of?
It’s my own fault really. I have this need to be different, and give “new guys” a chance even when it might not make the most sense. I have learned my lesson though. I am signing up for my Smugmug free trial today and will start using their tools to migrate my stuff away from Zenfolio. The good news is that the “Print of the Week” entries will now be available as digital downloads, so you can use them as a desktop, print them for yourself at home, or however you want to use it. Commercial licensing will also be available if you want to use one of my images for an ad campaign or something similar. I’ll let you know as soon as this is available.
By the way – if you have found this post and are a dissatisfied Zenfolio / Flickr / Picassa / Phanfare / Yahoo / Photosite customer, go to smugglr.smugmug.com and see how you can migrate your stuff to Smugmug, and save significantly on your first year with them.
On 10.16.08, In Commentary, By Chester
A friend of mine recently had an impromptu family reunion photo shoot come up. Her background, like mine, is traditionally more of an artistic type of photography. She indicated that she had trouble switching to photographer from artist and wanted to know how I managed it.
(more…)
On 10.01.08, In Photos, By Chester
All in all I have taken somewhere around 200 pictures of Megan in the last couple of months. We did it mostly in 2 location, Golden Gate Canyon State Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Of those photos, Megan and my wife narrowed it down to 24 that they really liked. Using the guidelines set forth by the Lakewood High School yearbook staff, I narrowed the field down to 6 images I thought would be suitable for a headshot for the yearbook. I then exported these 6 from Lightroom 2 into their own slideshow online (the first time I had used this feature, and it worked pretty well).
Of the 6, the image above is the one she wants to use in the yearbook. After adjusting some of the lighting levels in Lightroom, I took it into Photoshop to apply some effects with Portraiture. The end result is pretty good, and I am sure will look great when printed at 2″ x 2″, or whatever yearbooks are printing at these days.
In the coming months we will be taking more photos. Why? Well, since the bulk of Senior Pictures are sent out in the spring with graduation announcements, party invitations and so forth, we have some time yet to get more pictures in more surroundings at different times of the year. Besides, she is going off to college next year. As her parents, we can never have enough pictures when she is out on her own.
On 09.30.08, In Commentary, By Chester
A few months ago I took some photos of a very corporate restroom, thinking (for some crazy reason) that they might make good stock photos. I put them up on iStockphoto and pretty much forgot about them. In fact , over the last several weeks, I pretty much forgot about stock photography altogether. I have been travelling for work, trying to figure out how I want to do the real estate photography thing, taking senior pictures of my daughter, taking pictures of the Lakewood High School cheerleaders, and still trying to have a family life. Yep, pretty busy, just like you.
Then I came across a blog post about fotoLibra. I checked it out. I liked what I saw. I made some uploads and then wrote about it briefly yesterday. And in that writing, I made a mistake.
I said I hadn’t made any money off of my stock photo endeavors so far. After I wrote that, I checked in at iStockphoto (haven’t done that for a very long time). Sure enough, I have had some sales. 3 to be exact, garnering me total commissions of $3.92. For the bathroom photos. That’s right – the bathroom photos. Not the pretty picture of golf carts all lined up in the morning, not the pretty cactus or the corporate biz jet. The bathrooms.
It’s kind of funny really. Some friends of mine thought I was crazy taking a photo of a bathroom, much less a few of them. But you never really know what people want (which is why I like fotoLibra), but apparently I must have at least a little bit of an eye for it. To the tune of almost $4 right now. Woohoo. I might go buy a Chai at Starbucks. That’s only enough to pay for a small though.
Hopefully this is the start of something wonderful. Hopefully fotoLibra is more successful. I really want them to succeed. But as long as my photos are selling somewhere, I guess I am happy.
Far From Dead
Yes, it has been quite some time since I have posted. I have been in a creative funk since February. Haven’t been inspired to write, haven’t been inspired to take pictures. It’s been kind of strange actually. But I am starting to come out of it. I have read three books I need to write reviews for. The flowers are starting to bloom. And my oldest daughter graduated from Lakewood High School last weekend. Naturally I had to take some pictures (the one above I think is the best).
The point I am trying to make is that this site is far from dead. Keep coming back for more, and I promise I’ll get more active again.