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

I really feel like I am beyond fortunate because of my clients.  I really feel like I am meant to meet them.  It really starts with initial correspondence.  Small chit chat over email or the phone.  We just kind of connect.   That saying, you never know who you really are going to meet — for all they know I am some strung-out on caffeine crazy woman who texts while driving and runs 10 minutes late for everything.  Yet time after time I show up, and there they are.  A beautiful family, great personality, making my job so easy.

I spent about an hour moving through the Public Gardens with Sonya, Ali and Sophia.  It felt like I was catching up with friends I hadn’t seen in a while.  It was that simple, that comfortable, and that fun.  It was a gorgeous day, the flowers were in bloom, and the hundreds of school kids on last minute field trips just added to the really nice energy.  These guys are leaving Boston and wanted some images to document their time here, and to say farewell.  I hope I was able to provide them with a lovely reminder of how beautiful they are as a family, and how wonderful a city that Boston really is.

Enjoy your vacation and your last weeks here.  We will miss you!

Sometimes I am not entirely sure Owen gets what I do.  I mean I know he gets it, but he doesn’t always GET it.  Like he is a little foggy on why I race home from a session, upload and then just STARE at the images, transfixed.  He is not always clear on why I obsessed with looking into a child’s eyes, magnified to 100%, taking over 12″ of my screen.  And sometimes he’s not sure why I make him look at how I tried to capture a connection between two people.  I don’t mean it in a bad way, he’s just not into it like I am.  And on the occasions where I have given one of his friends a gift certificate to me, he’s sort of thought “but do they want that?”  Again, not in a bad way…. just not sure.  However, one day he came home and he said “You know my friend Malcolm that I have told you about?  They guy that likes photography like you do?  He’s having a baby and we could give them one of your newborn sessions!”  I was beyond elated.  Elated that someone was having a baby, elated he thought of me as a gift he could give!  Yay!  Success!

I finally got to meet this new baby and she (and her parents) are lovely.  She is very little, which of course I am familiar with as Janes is still such a peanut.  And she is still very new, at three weeks.  And she loves to be swaddled and snuggled up tight and held by her awesome parents.  And she is very much a beautiful gift to two very kind, gracious and deserving people.  I truly enjoy the time I get to spend with new parents.  I love watching them as they figure it out together, as women instantly become mothers, knowing what to do even if they don’t know what to do… and dad’s take over just at the right time and fall in love with their little babies.  It gives me immense pleasure to watch this, and to document it.

Malcolm and Lauren, thank you so much for a lovely morning.  You are truly blessed.

How do you get them?  My belief is that you get them by doing the right thing, which is often, just treating them the way you would want to be treated.   You put policies in place that are necessary for your business, but you bend them if it makes sense.  That’s sort of basic Customer Service 101.

However, I also believe that you can get customers for life when you have made a mistake and you feel like you’ve lost them.  I think sometimes fixing something what was broken, and making everyone feel really good about it, can almost be more effective them being really awesome from the start.  It builds a camaraderie, and a sense of “we are in this together, we are invested, we are willing to work together for a great outcome.”

I had sort of a bad experience at the gym yesterday.  I typically don’t blog about bad experiences or post about them because I really don’t like to throw vendors under the bus.  I wouldn’t want someone to do it to me, even if I had really screwed up.  But since I am really happy right now, I’ll tell you a little bit about it.

There is a guy who works at the gym who was trying to enforce a policy.  He is a very nice guy and it is an important policy.  But by enforcing it, and not bending it for me, it royally screwed up my day.  On any other day, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.  But it was a big deal yesterday.  I have worked so hard to lose weight and force myself to run and exercise.  I was looking forward to going to the gym like Christofer looks forward to riding his new bike.  I had the timing planned precisely so that it would line up with getting home for naps, a client visit and a peaceful rest of the day.  I pretty much spent my morning screaming at my kids… any day that I do that is a bad day.  But I have about 4 galleries to get out, I am about to be late on one (sorry Newman family and Alexis and Lisa), and am launching our workshop product.  I kept saying “calm down, not their fault, just make it until 10 and you can get to the gym, run out this anxiety and everything will be SO GOOD!”  In past months I think I would have bailed on the gym totally and forced early naps.  So I am about to leave for the gym, kids are ready, and I realize I haven’t packed snacks.  I pack them up.  While doing that, Janey takes her shoes off.  I put them back on.  She poops.  I take them off, I change her diaper, I put them back on.  Christofer has to poop.  This takes 20 minutes.  Janey takes her shoes off.  Christofer finishes.  Janey’s shoes go back on.  We get in the car.  Janey unbuckles her car seat (yes, she can do that).  I pull over and buckle her back in.  We get to the gym at 11:10.  I drag them through the parking lot, and it IS dragging since Janey won’t hold my hand (and it’s kind of raining).  I get in, I pay for child care, I get them to childcare.  I am down to about 45 minutes to work out.

But I can’t work out because I don’t have my lisence to leave my kids in child care.  And this is the new policy.  Must have lisence.  [Go ahead, all you people that are wondering why on earth I'd be driving without my lisence... I HAVE a lisence now, it just wasn't on me].

Again, any other day I would have been very happy for the exercise to not work out.  In fact, in the parking lot I had briefly contemplated getting Starbucks and going to Monkey Joes.  But I really needed it and I.WAS.MAD I couldn’t work out.  I was probably short.  That said, on my Scale of Bitch, I was about a 4-5… not the 8 or 9 I would have been a few years ago.  But I was still ticked.  I had an unpleasant conversation with one of the staff who probably thought he was doing the right thing, but it came across 100 wrong to me, everything about it.  No way he could have known about my morning, but the lesson learned there is that if a mother is on the edge, don’t push her over.  Bend the rules.  Let it go.

So I left.  Angrily.  And complained.  And I stewed over it for about 3 hours.

Last night I received one of the most pleasant emails I have ever received from a company I complained to [although to be honest, I think I've only complained to about 2 companies over email].  It was dead on with apologies, but also still underlined the policy.  It didn’t make excuses, it didn’t disparage the employee… or me.  It was just right on.  And I received another apology today.

The net of it is that I caught someone on a day when they had probably been given direction and was fed up with people trying to bend the rules… and he caught me on a day when I needed a “no questions asked, just bend them” response.  But prior to that, I had been thinking I would cancel my membership.  I was pretty happy working out outside and was thinking that it would be easier just not to belong to a gym.   Yesterday afternoon Owen and I were trying to figure out where I’d go if I joined somewhere else.  But by last night, after reading the response, and again this morning, I can tell you now that I wouldn’t dream of canceling, I will probably be a customer for life.

So if this gets to that one guy, I am sorry there was such mis-communication between us.  If it gets to Dave, you are doing your company right in building a really great brand and customer loyalty.  And if it gets to Christian, thank you, I will take you up on that offer if for no other reason than it gives me NO EXCUSE to not get there 3X a week for the next month.

And if it gets to anyone on the North Shore looking for a gym, you are crazy not to join: http://www.latitudesportsclubs.com/

I am a bad blogger.  Not from lack of want, from lack of time.  But things have been a little crazy here at Casa de Young [who am I kidding?  it's always crazy here].  Anyway, I had a rock star of a Friday morning because I got to spend some time at Joyful Noises photographing a little visit with an Officer of the Law [happily, not the one I met at traffic court, yes, I was worried].  Next I scooted into the city to meet an awesome couple.  Then I wrapped it up with a hair visit to my friend who I had not seen in a long time.  Finally, I had drinks with Mary Poppins [a.k.a. Mrs Fellows].  Banner day, just banner.

But back to Milo.  Milo’s mom’s friend from back home just knew that Milo would be a delicious little baby… so missing her friend, and wanting to see Milo ASAP, she searched the internet, found me, we chatted, she decided on a gift certificate, and voila!  What a great friend is that?  Maybe I will have to hook up and meet HER when I head out to Erie (hopefully this summer).  The great thing about it all is that when I got to Susan and Andy’s home, I realized I really liked them and I was pretty psyched that by chance, they ended up as clients!  You know me, within 5 minutes in the door it’s all “oh, so you grew up where and know who?” and then “oh, you work less than 1/4 mile from where my parent’s live and  I live within 5 miles of where your parents live?”  And so my life goes.

Back to the boy.  Milo really was awesome.  Once he had a full belly he just slept and slept!  Then he got to hang out with Dewey and his ‘rents in his new hood, meet some new neighbors, chill in the city… the good life.

I hope you guys enjoyed your Friday as much as I did.  You are totally keeping it real as parents and I love that.  Enjoy your little boy!

Let me preface this by saying that I know Before & Afters are all the rage on photog blogs, so clearly I am not original in posting this.  However, I thought it was timely as I prepare for upcoming workshops.

During my workshops, often the question of Photoshop comes up and people ask me how much I have to do.  Many people assume I spend hours “photoshopping” images so they appear their best.  It’s almost assumed that the “Photoshop” part of it is the biggest component of a great image.  And so during my workshop, most of the images I show are Straight out of Camera (SOOC).

I am a minimalist when it comes to Photoshop.  I always believe less is more, and usually better.  I have heard other photogs say “you would have to pry my SOOC images out of my dead hands before a client saw them…” or “I can’t wait until I get my hands on that in Photoshop.”  And while that is all well and good, my firm belief (and I think this is the norm among most professionals) is that if it’s not awesome SOOC, it’s just putting lipstick on a pig if you use Photoshop to make it better.

That said, I do “process” every image in Photoshop, so what’s the difference?  Here’s the deal… most cameras come with image presets that set saturation, contrast, and sharpness.  They aren’t set at a crazy number, but they definitely add “oomph” to SOOC images.  And if you shoot JPEG, your entire image is compressed and all those presets are applied.  So if you shoot JPEG with great exposure, your image is 90% there.

I shoot totally flat RAW images, meaning every preset is 0.  I don’t sharpen in the camera because I find it adds “artifacts” into the image (little speckles of noise).  So when my images come out, they are properly exposed, but everything is incredibly flat.  I minimally process each image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) –typically I recover whites to 10-15 and I adjust white balance, which is usually close to accurate.  When I bring the image into Photoshop, I run an action that increases contrast, adds yellow (that is a personal preference), flattens the image and very lightly sharpens.  I also use a mask to tell me if my image has bright spots brought on by my action.  This step is critical because although sometimes bright images are just fine on the web, they won’t print well — and if they won’t print, I won’t show it.   I don’t mess with eyes… and that includes whitening eyeballs.  To the question “What do you do to make the eyes look like that?” — the answer is “I use light.”  If there are obvious temporary blemishes (or food), I will “Photoshop” those off.  And yes, on an occasion, I have “swapped a head” (usually at the mom’s request)… but that is not the norm.  I prefer to ensure I nailed composition and expression in the camera rather than spending time altering in Photoshop.

Now there are some images that require more editing.  Specifically shooting sunflare.  Typically those images require a strong contrast curve to jack down the blacks.  In those instances, it is what it is, but it’s still just basic processing.  And if you just HAVE to move an awkward object out of the background in an otherwise great image, you do it.  And I clean up boogies and newborn acne.  Sometimes, usually about 1X a month, I get a wild and I add crazy processing to an image.  That said, they are usually my personal images and not client images because I like to stay consistent on those.

Landing the plane… this “getting it right in the camera” is the primary reason why I have structured my workshops the way I have.  I believe if you can learn to do this (get it right with composition and lighting), then Photoshopping your images should be a secondary skill that comes much after you have learned about light, composition, and manual exposure (Manual Exposure & Post-Processing are the main components of Snap Camp).

Here’s an example of how much “Photoshop” I typically do to a properly exposed image.  In ACR, I upped the whites to 30 for her tank.  That’s it.  I ran my standard action in PS, then I erased back anything in her tank that was too bright – and by erasing back I mean that I brought it back to the SOOC state.  I flattened and lightly sharpened.  Voila.

If you found tips like this to be helpful, please let me know and I’ll start a category where I can share them!