Ian's Cap and Gown Portraits

When I'm not being a photographer, which is most of the time, I'm a youth pastor. As a fundraiser a while back, we auctioned off many of our youth as slave labor. I auctioned myself off too as a good model of expecting no more from others than I am willing to give.

I went for $60, and my task was to take some cap and gown portraits of the (follow me here) boyfriend of the oldest daughter of a lady in our church.

After shooting two graduation ceremonies for Village Photographers that day, I met up with Tallassee High School class of 2013 graduate Ian et al for the pics below. These are my ten favorite, but we got over 20 really good photos at two locations in just over an hour.We started at the Patterson Log Cabin, the oldest home in Tallassee, AL. Our second location was below Thurlow Dam, also in Tallassee.

I shot using my Nikon D70 and SunPak 522 (or just natural light in some shots).

 

It was a great experience, and I'm glad my photography skills were able to bring in some funds for the ongoing ministry of our youth group. I'm also thrilled to finally get these posted here.

Not Professional Baby Pictures

I am a professional photographer. And yes, I took these pictures of my new daughter. However, I took them with a simple point-and-shoot using available natural light coming through the window.

Here are some tips for taking similarly excellent newborn pics before you leave the hospital with your next little one.

(1) Use your bed sheet to give you a plain white background. That gives you good contrast, isn't distracting, and lets you white-balance off it in your editing software (anything from Picassa to Photoshop).

(2) Set up your "studio" right next to the window. This will give you a huge, soft, directional, natural light source. It would be best if you can shoot at a time of day when the sun is angling into your window, but mid-day is good. The pics below were taken around noon.

(3) Turn on every light in the room. This will provide you with as much secondary light as possible. If you want a higher level of contrast between light and dark areas, then turn all the lights off instead. 

(4) If your camera will let you, set your aperture as wide as it will go. (My camera wouldn't let me.) Some point-and-shoot cameras have an aperture priority mode. Any DSLR will have one.

(5) Set your ISO as high as you can without making your pictures unbearably noisy. Many cameras will claim to have huge ISO ranges, but the top two settings are useless most of the time. Typically 800 is pretty safe; the pics below were shot at ISO 800. If you can't manually adjust your ISO, then you should put on you big girl panties and go buy a new camera.

(6) Turn your flash off.

(7) Be sure you are focusing on your baby's eyes. (This doesn't apply if his/her face isn't in the picture. :P)

(8) Get low and close and take some pictures. Don't get so close that your camera can't focus.

(9) Step back and zoom in on some pictures. You will get more separation of the subject (baby) and the background by backing off and zooming in.

(10) Don't wait for a smile. Babies make all sorts of cute and amazing faces. Get your newborn yawning, crying, looking at you, looking away from you, fighting with clothes, and whatever else. You can delete pictures later, but you can't recreate the moments you missed. That's a basic rule of thumb for digital photography; when in doubt, shoot it.

We had been cleared to be discharged when we were ready to leave, and this little D-I-Y session was a bit more hurried than I would have liked. Still, we got some pretty good pics without involving either my serious gear or the hospital photographer. Personally, I would have still let the hospital photographer take her pictures, but the two times she stopped by were bad times. As it is, I'm glad we took the time we did to get the pics we did.

I hope the info above helps you get better pics, too.

Looking for a Wedding Photographer?

Anybody out there looking for a wedding photographer? Because I'm still looking for somebody to be my first full-blown wedding! (I shot a surprise wedding at my church a couple years ago, but I don't count that one because it was REALLY informal. It's a great story, even so.)

I'm penciled in for a friend's wedding in late June, and I've got a lead on one in early June and one in August. The end of April is pretty open. May is going to be pretty wrapped up with graduations, but that schedule isn't set in stone yet either. Now is the time to book me before I get enough wedding experience to justify raising my rates.

Speaking of rates, here's how I'd break it down for my first couple weddings:

$50 + $50 per hour on site + $0.555 per mile round-trip from Tallassee, AL.

That gets you whatever coverage you want of the "getting ready," bridal portraits, groomal (I made that word up) portraits, wedding party photos, ceremony photos, reception photos, etc. I take the pictures, cull the bad ones, do appropriate tweaks and touch-ups on the keepers, and deliver them to you with full printing and usage rights on a DVD or CDs. I retain the right to use the best of the best as samples here on my blog and other social media outlets.

I can arrange printing through a 3rd party service (probably Mpix), but I'd charge an extra $20 for the time and effort to set it up (might be worth it, these are wedding photos, and I haven't been thrilled with some of my recent Sam's results).

An additional $25 would get you a very basic single-angle video. The cost of a somewhat more elaborate video would depend on what equipment I am able to purchase/rent/borrow/steal if the bride wants it.

Here's some of what I've done as just a guest at weddings:

This first one, it wasn't even my camera. It was the bride's, and so I had to figure out how to make it behave on the fly. These pics were pulled from Facebook, and have not been tweaked or adjusted.

This one it was my camera, but I was without a good external flash, and it was before I got quality editing software.

These are getting close to what you might expect, but were shot on a borrowed Nikon D90.

Here's my Pinterest board of the kind of wedding photos I'd like to emulate.

Call me at 334-452-3PEC or email me at pecaspers(at)gmail(dot)com to set something up.


Here are a few shots from that surprise wedding I mentioned, just for kicks and giggles.

Trade Day Prints Going in the Mail Soon!

Trade Day Photo Booth prints have been picked up, info labels are printed and affixed, and address labels are going on as I type (thanks to my beautiful, wonderful wife). Everything looks good for those to go out tomorrow. We are short one print because of an error neither of us caught, but we'll get that one printed at Wal-mart tomorrow and be back on track.

Are you terrified that I don't get my prints done at a professional level lab? I'm only slightly ashamed of it. If I were doing a major job, then I'd probably go with MPix or maybe Shutterfly. However, every penny matters and speed is more important than print quality for this task. I undercut MPix by 6 cents per 4X6 print plus shipping costs and don't have to wait for them to ship to me before I can turn the pictures around and send them back out. Shipping large prints also gets cost prohibitive very quickly.

Back to Trade Day...

You can see unboardered and more or less uncropped images in the facebook album linked below.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.373004172783703.89603.174367212647401&type=1&l=79c641f408

Here's what the booth looked like from the outside:

It's all over but the shoutin'--as they say--as far as Trade Day is concerned. Still, I hope that there plenty of people who holler back that they want more prints or photo sessions to get me out of the red on this one.

Trade Day Edits Done!

My hope was that I would be able to run my Tallassee Trade Day pics through Adobe Lightroom, doing only minor edits and then letting it apply the boarder, and have all the images ready in a matter of minutes. Well, that didn't happen. While shooting, I wasn't as conscious as I thought I was being about leaving enough room at the top and bottom of the frame to allow for the boarder and words. That left me with a lot of shucking and jiving to do to make each pic fit the boarder, including some filling in at the edges. (I only had to punt and add solid color blocks to the sides of one picture, and that one was a freebie of my pastor's family.)

I'll be uploading the best of each group to facebook in a day or so. Prints will likely happen Saturday, mailing...probably Monday. To tide you over until then, here's my kid!

Yates Lake Trip from August 2012

Back in late August, my in-laws rented a house on Yates Lake just on the other side of Tallassee, AL. Here are some pics I took while we were there. All of the portraits were taken with either natural light only or with a little bit of flash just to fill in the shadows. These were taken with my Nikon D70, which does a great job at outdoor pics.

First, we have some shots of the cutest kid EVER, Peter.

Next we have a shot of Paw-Paw through the back windows of the house and high school senior cousin Rachel on the back porch.

And the last thing I have for you are some lake scenery shots. It's fine by me if you right-click and use the pics below as desktop backgrounds, just so long as it doesn't keep you from getting anything done by making you daydream about being outside at the lake.

Baby Bump Samples

So, like I said in a previous post, I had the opportunity to try shooting some maternity pictures a few weeks ago. The faces have been obscured, but I think you'll get the gist.

I'm glad I was able to pull this off since the power-pack for my studio lights blew when I was doing a practice run in my living room. The model lamps still work, but the flashes won't fire anymore. Therefore, I made do like any good problem solver who lacked the funds to immediately replace or repair the offending device would have.

I had a light behind the mom at almost floor level pointing at her head for hair highlights, another light shining down from above just out of the right side of the frame, and a handle-mounted flash bouncing off of a huge silver reflector directly in front of the mom. I was standing on the first step of a step ladder about four feet away.

Maternity shoot: SUCCESS!
Cost: About 4 hours
Profit: $0, but a great experience

Holiday Market Is TODAY

Tallassee's Holiday Market starts at noon today! You should come out and have your picture made before the Christmas Parade. If you do, it'll look a little something like this:

See you at the Market!

Prices and "Packages"

[This post is out dated. For the updated version click HERE.]

I've been talking with a number of people about setting up photo shoots in the coming weeks. It seemed like a good idea to explain on here how I'm going to handle pricing and printing pictures for my customers.

Session Pricing
The way I am currently pricing photo shoots is as follows:

$25 for less than an hour without regard for how big the group is. If I think I can show up, set up my equipment, shoot the pictures, and be packing up in less than an hour, then I'm only charging $25. That gets you a relatively small number of simple portraits; there won't be a lot of artsy stuff, but you'll have some good pictures and it won't blow your whole morning/afternoon/evening.

All other prices are photographer defined based on expected time and energy investment. That is to say, I will give you a price based on the amount of work I think your shoot will be. If you have a bunch of people, that's going to cost more. If you have more kids than you have adults to wrangle them, that'll cost more. If you expect me to come up with picture ideas for three solid hours, that'll cost more. If you want me to supply multiple backdrops or you want to change locations, that'll cost more. If you want to come away with a wide array of poses and options to choose from, that'll cost more. And as I gain experience at setting these up and ending up with satisfied customers, the prices will slowly go up. (However, it is my desire to stay at the budget end of the professional photography spectrum.)

Packages and Printing
Traditionally, photographers charge you a fee for the time they shoot (usually called a "sitting fee"), and then they offer to sell you prints in pre-defined "packages" with different quantities and sizes. Photographers originally did this, I think, because they were trying to be sure whole sheets of photo paper were used as they processed the packages of pictures. We don't live in that world anymore, and I see no reason to force you to buy prints you don't want of images you already paid to have taken. Therefore, I have two printing options for my customers after they've paid to have me take their pictures.

The Easy-for-Me Way: I'll pick the best images, do any necessary editing, and burn them to a CD which I give to the customer; the customer takes that CD to whoever s/he wants (Sam's, CVS, ShutterFly.com, etc.) and gets whatever prints s/he likes. The Easy-for-Me Way is included in the cost of the photo shoot because it requires no additional time on my part.

The More-Expensive-for-You Way: I'll pick the best images, do any necessary editing, burn them to a CD which I give to the customer, (here's the difference) then the customer tells me what sizes and quantities s/he wants and I'll take them to Sam's to be printed and deliver them to the customer. Because of the added time and effort, The More-Expensive-for-You Way carries a higher price per print than you would be able to get yourself. However, this is still a pretty good deal compared to what many photographers charge to print your pictures, AND you still get the CD of images to do whatever you like with in the future.

Prices Per Print for The-More-Expensive-for-You Way:
Wallets:    $1 for 4 prints
4x6:         $1
5x7:         $2
8x10:       $4
11x14:     $10
12x16:     $12
16x20:     $20
20x24:     $25
20x30:     $30



Additional Fees
The No-Logo Fee: I place a small company logo in one of the corners of each picture. If you would like all your images without the logo, it will be an extra $10 (total, not per image). That logo gets people to say, "Hey, who took this great picture?" And not having it means you are a little less likely to get the opportunity to send clients my way.


Out-of-Town Fee: If the photo shoot location is much more than a 15 minute drive from my house, then there will be some additional charge for the time it takes to get there. This is not a mileage based fee; it is based on the time I spend traveling. Expect about $5 for each additional quarter hour of drive-time.


Way-Out-of-Town Fee: For shoots at locations that are a significant distance from Tallassee, I'll expect a reimbursement for the actual mileage I drive to and from the site. The IRS Standard is currently $0.555 per mile. That's not a typo, it is fifty-five and a half cents per mile. What's a "a significant distance"? It's intentionally vague. Roughly speaking, you are Way-Out-of-Town if it's going to take me more than thirty minutes of interstate driving to get to you, but you are just regular Out-of-Town if I'm driving for an hour down county roads.

Scenery Fee: I have a number of simple back-drops which can be used with no additional cost. You are welcome to contribute your own props (think blankets, shakers, music instruments, uniforms, furniture, weapons, etc.) with no added cost. The Scenery Fee is for times where additional scenery pieces are used which I must supply. For example, you want baby pictures of your daughter on a pink fleece blanket surrounded by white feathers. That's no problem. For things I already have, I'll charge you a small fee intended to cover the wear-and-tear on my stuff and the added effort of bringing it and setting it up. But if I don't currently own a pink fleece blanket and white feathers, then I will pass on to you some (but likely not all) of the cost of purchasing those scenery pieces. Why "some (but likely not all)"? Most things I expect people to ask for are likely to be things I can use repeatedly. The some offsets my immediate cost so I'm not losing money on your shoot. I say likely because I'll expect you to cover the whole cost if it is something that I don't foresee other people asking for or that can't be used again. You want a photo shoot surrounded by  pink flamingos? Sure, but you're paying for the flamingos. More realistically, I saw a one-year-old picture where the little girl had purple icing on her face and was sitting with a giant, smashed cupcake. The fee on that would cover the cupcake and probably the cost of the sure-to-be-stained cloth she was sitting on.



I'm sure there are more things I will add to this list. @PEaCe Photography is still in its early days and I'm new to the pricing side of this business even though I've been behind the camera for over 7 years. I hope this helps.