BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

Calling Class of 2011!  We are now booking “Keeping it Real” Senior Sessions!

Rumor has it you want awesome Senior photographs. Photographs that YOU like, your PARENTS like, that will also work for the YEARBOOK.   You don’t want to have to think about “poses”… or limit yourself to just one outfit.  And maybe you want to be with your best friend, or maybe all your best friends.  No worries, we can make that happen!

The first 5 seniors to “Like” this on my Facebook page AND book a session will receive a free 4X8 7 image accordion panel book with a custom designed cover and magnetic enclosure.  The first 10 seniors to “Like” this will receive a set of 25 bookmarks (think your picture, email and phone number all in one place!).  So if you act fast, you might just get both!

Pass it on, tell your friends to “Like” my business.  Once you book, I’ll track your referrals.  More referrals mean more free stuff!

Contact me for details (via Facebook, via this blog contact form, via email).

[Check out these two... keeping it real for sure.]

I have a bad case of insomnia.  I finally got out of bed and decided to flip through the pieces of my old hard drive.  I wondered where we were this time last year and went back and found us.  We went to the Sanctuary for a morning walk and saw a few eagles.  I decided to just proof one.  This is it.  I feel like I could construct about 5 story lines to talk about what was happening.  But instead I’ll construct none and just love it for what it is.

To say I was excited to look through these images is an understatement. I had them uploading before I even let Owen know I was home. I enthusiastically encouraged him to go to Home Depot while Janey napped so I could publish this sneak peak. And I uploaded them to the blog so that I could sneak looks at them in the kitchen and write this post while pretending to make lunch for the kids.

I was really excited to include the entire family in this month’s session. I think it just adds just and awesome dimension… and let’s be honest, you all wanted to see their beautiful parents too, didn’t you? I love that these little guys have a blog following of all their own! I think it’s awesome that I show up to sessions and clients will say “so tell me more about Jack & Will… how are they doing?” Anyway, I just love the captures of the boys and their mom. She is not only beautiful, but really lovely. And I could not have been more excited about her dress. How excellent is it? Love.

I think I have mentioned that Jack & Will live on a gorgeous farm. As they get older and we explore more, you will no doubt see more and more of it. I have figured out something fabulous or our July session… and also for our November/One Year session… just need to get the wheels turning and put it in motion!

I hope everyone is enjoying their Father’s Days. Owen has done enough yard work and pool cleaning to deserve a little cocktail, and I might just have to join him (especially since I just drove by a van that had “it’s 5:00 somewhere” written on the back windshield). My kind of peeps.

Greetings on Father’s Day weekend.  I am sure that everyone is out enjoying the weekend.  I, on the other hand, am sitting in my parents basement on my dad’s laptop while Owen is home sick and the kids are trying to chill out.  And Owen is sick, because nothing keeps the Energizer Bunny from enjoying a weekend.  So when he opted out of a little party in Marblehead, I knew he was bumming.  Anyway, the time driving to Belmont gave me a chance to try to catch up on some things.

Summer Availability. My summer weekends are booking up.  I am shooting two weddings and so those two weekends are out (7/24 & 8/21).  I am also in Quogue (Hamtons, Long Island) for the Fourth and a good amount of time the first week/weekend in August and Labor Day.  So those weekends are out, unless you happen to be there, in which case:  wahoo!  book a session!  So my weekends are sort of filling up, and if you are thinking July/August beach sessions, let me know so we can get you on the books, otherwise we’ll need to look at week nights.

Weekday Schedule. Childcare is switching up for the summer, maybe fall… I can now do newborn sessions Tuesday – Friday, starting around 9AM rather than only Wednesdays & Fridays.

Fall Sessions. I will be back after Labor Day but will be out definitely one weekend in September, usually it’s the weekend immediately following Labor Day, but I will keep you posted.  The very last weekend you can book a session and still hope to get holiday cards and prints is November 20th.  All holiday orders will be due by December 5th or they will not be delivered by the Holidays.

The Entire Family. Last year I did so many amazing fall sessions for holiday cards and with every session, mom jumped in for a few… and everyone asked “where was the dad?”  It bums me out when I can’t see the whole family representing, especially if it’s just a stunning session.  So I don’t care if you are a single mom, two moms, two dads, grandparents, whatever the make up of your family, I really want to see you all.  Now of course if you are super dead set on just kids, just kids it will be… but really, when else can you get that fabulous family image with ALL OF YOU in it?  Summer snapshots aside, even I am having a family session where even I will step out from behind the camera.  So try to make it happen.  You will be happy you did.

Summer  or Fall, can’t decide? Do both.  Any client that schedules a full family session prior to September 1 will also receive a discounted Fall mini-session so can you have some current fall pictures if that’s what you want for your cards (and yes, of course the mini can be just the kids).  I love River Road, I love Wheatlands Hill, and I am looking for 1-2 more hidden locations in town that I will love just as much.  So if you are North Shore or relatively close, we’ll talk during your full session and figure it all out!

OK, now that we covered that… I wanted to show you some of the awesome frames that have come in.  These are ones that I ordered for my own home.  I have a nice triptych coming in for a favorite client, so as soon as that is installed, I’ll post it up.

These frames are amazing.  They are totally and fully customizable from the colors used, to the trim, to the width of the frame to the size of the image.  They are sophisticated, hip, adorable, preppy and shabby chic… it just depends on what you want to do with them!

Here’s one from Janey’s room.  It makes me incredibly happy every morning when I walk down the hall and see her face before I see her face!  This is a 6″ frame, pink and white, no trim… opening is 11X14, matted on masonite, fine linen texture spray, no glass.

And here is one, completely different vibe, in our downstairs bathroom. It’s brownish bronze 6″ frame with a gold bronze trim, custom sized to 14X20 width. I fit it with mirror. I have an obsession with backing frames.

I am really pleased to announce that we launched SnapShop Workshop’s first product offering Oh Snap! Quick Tips for Fab Pics.  My partner Andrea and I formulated this plan almost a year ago, and it took getting through our busy seasons, managing job transitions, children and family to move it to fruition.  But it’s out, and we are proud of what we created.  In sum, these workshops are packages that other photographers can purchase, rebrand, modify to their style, and deliver to their clients.  And as you also know, I have taught quite a few these on my own, to my own clients.

I thought I’d provide some background on why we thought this product was important and why we like it so much.

It’s all the rage for photographers to develop workshops.  There are countless workshops out there that range from teaching Moms with a Camera (MWAC) how to shoot… how to edit… how to go into business… how to brand… and so on. But not everyone has the time or effort to develop a workshop, and not everyone should.  Just like good and bad photography, there are good and bad workshops.  I spent 13 years at IBM, nine of which were in Corporate Learning.  I lived, breathed, ate and slept training.  So when I decided to “write a workshop,” it was not on a whim.  It was no different than what I have done for most of my professional life.  It just happens to focus on photography versus technology.  I think it’s important that you know that while it’s a trend, and people say “jeez, isn’t everyone doing it these days?” I have been doing this for a long time.

So the next question is why on earth would we want to teach our clients how to take better pictures?  Won’t that cost us our jobs?  And won’t that encourage people to try to go into the market and further saturate it with MWAC who shouldn’t be there?  And what if people who know nothing about teaching tackle this and just pass on bad information?  Is this just an easy way to make a buck?

We feel very strongly that our clients are smart, educated and have a good sense about them.  We are incredibly grateful for them, and we value their thoughts and opinions.  We know that our clients understand that it takes more than a nice camera and a 2-3 hour workshop to become a professional.  In fact, we spend time educating them about our journey, and our mistakes and lessons learned.  They walk out of our workshops knowing just how difficult it is to master the craft and build a profitable business.

We also think it is a GOOD THING if our clients know how to use their cameras.  Really.  We are secure with ourselves and our value add and our talent.  We don’t really feel like we need to hide what we know on an introductory level.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a client wanting to understand the functionality of their cameras that they spent so much money on.  Additionally, if they are educated on composition, perspective, bad versus good post-processing, then they are much better able to understand how to select a qualified and competent photographer when it comes to that time.  Our workshop focuses on getting it right, IN THE CAMERA, as step one.  That is something that anyone with a DSLR should be able to do.  Does it mean they will stop hiring professional photographers?  Gosh, I hope not.  In fact, I make sure I let my clients and workshop participants know that I still pay a professional full price for MY family sessions because how on earth will I ever get GOOD photographs of ME with kids and husband?

We believe that workshop or not, there are some new photographers who might be attending our workshop with hopes to start their own business.  Depending on your market, this might be inevitable and it’s your choice if you want to teach to them or not. My opinion is that there are hundreds of resources available that sell branding, pricing, actions and business plans with just the requirement of a blog or website — there are considerably more of these amazing money making resources than there are workshops to actually TEACH people how to USE a camera.  We developed our workshop so that you could communicate first hand your journey, your time and effort and participants can understand that it is not an overnight process, but can take years.   We also believe that by attending your workshop, they will begin to develop an understanding of basic skills that perhaps they were lacking even though they had already purchased all the “in a box” marketing, business, pricing and brand elements.  In this case, our workshop can actually help set expectations and perhaps stem the flow of hasty market entrants.

Our workshops are also FUN.  It’s a morning or night out, without the kids, focusing on something that we love.  Our participants get a chance to hang out, chat, and learn.  The cost is reasonable.  They get an amazing 70 page workbook as a take-away.  Is it a lot of hard work to get a workshop up and running?  Yes, sort of, it gets easier, but it’s work.  Will we make a fortune teaching these?  Perhaps not a fortune, but definitely profit.  More so if you consider the incremental clients you may gain.   And sometimes we get so caught up in being the untouchable all-knowing photographer that we forget to connect and make it real on a different level with our clients.

We would love to be able to screen every professional photographer who has purchased our workshop and make sure they understand how to effectively deliver our content and to make sure that they are “good” photographers.  If you are in business with a studio name and website, you can purchase it.  We provide you with almost everything you need to run a workshop.  We’ve been really thoughtful about this and tried to provide you with common pitfalls and how to avoid them, things you can do to prepare, and a basis of talking points for every slide.  We believe in you, as we believe in our clients.  And if you invest in our product, we will do everything we can to help you be successful.

That said, we do reserve the right to decline your purchase and refund your money if we feel that your portfolio (as displayed in the website/blogsite you provide upon purchase) is not displaying basic fundamental issues that this workshops instructs upon.

We know we are not alone in our line of thinking.  There are other photographers that have built workshops for their clients — wonderful, reputable photographers that we respect and admire.  There are even other photographers who have built similar workshops to sell to other photographers.  We have immense respect for them and we are happy that they have a competitive product that will drive us each to be better.

With that, if you are a photographer interested in seeing what else we have to say, please visit www.snapshopworkshops.com, follow us on Twitter and friend us on Facebook.  If you are client looking for a workshop in your area, please contact us at snapshopworkshops@gmail.com and we will do our best to find you someone to connect with!

Thank you!