I just finished the first draft of Jenna and Chris’ wedding album. There were so many great images, that I had a hard time decided what shouldn’t be included in the album. I guess that Jenna and Chris will have to tell me what to do next.
You can view the album at http://www.mmpix.com/Webpages/showpages/Jenna.htm
If you have not already done so, you will be prompted to install the Photodex Presenter in order to view the album. I hope you enjoy it.
I finally sorted through over 1100 pictures from Jenna and Chris’ and selected the 900 best photos for them. Now, I have the difficult task of further reducing these photos to select the absolute best ones and design the first draft of their wedding album. Here are 3 of the 9 spreads (2 facing pages) which I have completed so far.
I’m sitting here waiting for the files from Jenna and Chris’s wedding to be complete their backup and thinking back on today. It was wonderful! We could not have had a better day for a wedding. Everything was perfect. While I had mentioned that I wanted to try using mylar with the flowers, I couldn’t find any. I used aluminum foil instead. Totally cool Take a look at the results! Just wait until you see the other photos with the aluminum foil. As you can see from a very small sample of the over 1000 photos we shot, it was a great day, from start to finish!
I just completed the initial album design for Cara and Michael. This means my album design backlog is now less than a month. Currently, I have one initial design to complete and three album redesigns which were requested. Hopefully, I can knock these projects out in another couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I’ve got several office projects to complete. Including cleaning the office, completing my business plan for the upcoming year and writing some articles for the state professional photographer’s magazine.
Furthermore, I’m thinking about creating a special line of parent albums which will be orderable via my website. The parents will select a predefined number of photos and they will be placed one to a page. However, that means making some changes to my website’s on-line ordering system. The work never ends.
Finally, I also need to create a couple of new sample albums. I’ve been selected as a preferred vendor at Starved Rock and Pheasant Run resorts. I’d like to create sample albums specifically for those venues. In addition, my current samples are getting just a touch out of date. I really think that Cara and Michael’s album will make a nice sample with some minor adjustments. You can view their album
By Clicking Here
Anyway, here are two of my favorite spreads from their album
Late last week, my friend Michael Fisher from Studio West called. He unexpectedly found himself short a photographer for his studio’s Saturday wedding schedule and wondered if I could help them out. After making sure my schedule was clear, I said “of coarse!” Even though other studios/photographers are competitors, I try to help them out when I can. I do it for the couple and I never know when I’ll need a favor returned.
Anyway, our bride and groom were Kim and Mark. They were a really nice couple. The wedding was held at the Kemper Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The reception was at the Eagle’s Club, also in Kenosha. What a beautiful day for a wedding. Not too hot, not too cold and just the right amount of sun. Kim and Mark were great to work with. With the permission of Michael at Studio West, here are 4 of my favorite photos I took at their wedding.
Sometimes, I get lucky and I’m in the right place at the right time.
We were by Lake Michigan which brought back memories of my own wedding.
Notice Kim’s reflection in Mark’s sunglasses!
Even the sunset cooperated with us. All in all an absolutly perfect day for a wedding!
Jenna e-mailed me and said:
Chris and I love all the engagment photos you took! We decided to pick number nine as our engagment picture.
Jenna and Chris had scheduled their engagement session in late March. Somehow, we managed to get one of the first really nice days of the year. We had a real fun session at a local Lombard area park. The photo they picked(and shown above) is actually one of the first ones I took and it was in Jenna’s back yard! Don’t these guys make a lovely couple? I can’t wait for their wedding June 3rd!
As a reminder to my current clients, if you have not yet scheduled your engagement session, the spring time with all of the blooming flowers is a great time of year for engagement photos. Please call to schedule your complimentary engagement session today.
There’s never a dull moment when you run your own business. Today, I received a phone call from Steve, another photographer who lives in California. We have conversed many times on various forums but have never met let alone spoken on the phone. Imagine my surprise when I received a call from him. He was having some problems with some software and called for help. I try to make the time to help others. So after spending an hour on the phone with Steve, we got his problem fixed.
He also was helping me put off a task I’ve not only been dreading but putting off for months, inventory. Over the last couple of years, I’ve bought, sold and upgraded much of the equipement I use. My current inventory list, includes film cameras I sold 2 years ago. So it was time to bite the bullet and inventory everything. OK not everything but everything of significant value I wanted to make sure I had insured. Sheryl helped me with it and it took us just over an hour to finish the first part of the job. Now I have to enter it all into the computer and gather the rest of the information the insurance companies need(ie. purchase date, purchase price, replacement cost etc…).
Yesterday the creative juices were flowing! I not only started but finished Shelia dn Ricks album design. It was 52 pages with 170 images in a little over 5 hours. Here are two of my favorite 2 page spreads from the design:
A current version of their wedding album can be seen at
Click here
Once the show title appears, click on it to start the show.
Today was the last bridal show of the spring season for me. I never know what to expect at a bridal show. Some shows are so busy you can’t even take a breath and questions are being thrown at you from every direction. Other shows are a bit slower and I actually have a chance to talk to the brides and hear about their wedding plans. Today’s show was one of the slower shows.
While some of the other vendors don’t like the slow shows, I think it gives me time to give each visitor to my booth a little bit more personal attention. Part way through the show, I realized the folks at the formalwear booth across the aisle were sending the brides my way. At the end of the show we got to talking and Vince told me he could tell I really cared about my clients and paid attention to the details. I’m happy my way of business is visible to others. Now I just have to wait and see if anybody decides to book me as a result of this show.
After the show, I visited Debbie and Bob, Melissa’s parents (my January 27th wedding) to design their parent album. Just before Melissa’s wedding, I knew I needed a new sample album. Her wedding was so beautiful that I decided to use hers. I also wanted to prove to myself that I could design an album in the week following a wedding. After the sample album design was completed I let the happy couple view my new sample design. However, they wanted to see the book before going any further.
6 weeks after the wedding my new sample album arrived. This proves to me that I can deliver a client’s album within 3-4 months of their wedding! So now, while my client’s friends are just getting their proofs three months after the wedding, my clients will be getting a finished album!
When I arrived at Debbie and Bob’s house, I showed them the sample album. Debbie and Bob were so thrilled with it, they wanted to use it as the basis for their parent album. Several times Debbie mentioned that she never would have thought to have included some of the background images and used them as I did. They gave me a list of about a dozen changes to the sample album to further personalize it for themselves. I can’t wait myself to see how the finished parent’s album comes out.