Garrett is a senior at Bear Creek High School in Lakewood, Colorado. We had a great time shooting his senior pictures at Corwina Park in Jefferson County. The photos came out great, and Garrett was fun to work with.
If you need senior photos taken for JeffCo schools (Lakewood, Bear Creek, Green Mountain, Golden or Evergreen), contact me today to get your session scheduled. Slots are filling up fast, and yearbook deadlines are right around the corner.
I recently had the pleasure of taking Senior Pictures for Golden High School Senior Chris K., Class of 2011. We had a great time shooting in Corwina Park outside of Evergreen.
Headshot due dates are closing fast. Contact Chester today to schedule your Senior Picture shoot for this year.
The inbox and calendar are starting to fill up with Senior Portrait requests. I am local to Lakewood High School, Green Mountain High School, Alameda High School and Bear Valley High School. Yearbook headshot deadlines will be upon you faster than you know it (indeed, I can’t believe school starts in roughly 4 weeks), so get your photoshoot scheduled today. We can do urban or mountain. Favorite locations include Red Rocks and spots along Bear Creek toward Kittredge. Rocky Mountain National Park is an option too, but additional fees would apply for travel time.
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of doing a senior photo session for Victoria, from Lakewood High School. She chose Red Rocks Park for her shooting location, and we could not of had a better day. Blue skies, mild temps and little wind made for a fun time. We captured some great images of her that her family and friends will treasure for years to come. Thank you Victoria, and good luck to you.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Slots for Senior Pictures are going fast
With the kids back in school, everyone wants their Senior Pictures soon. Slots are filling up fast, book yours today. Urban or mountain landscapes, we shoot on location for Seniors in Alameda, Bear Creek, Green Mountain, Golden and Lakewood High School’s.
Yearbook Headshot Due Dates: