Ava's Tea Party

For a while now, I've been following Sheye Rosemeyer's Blog . I am drawn to not only her fabulous photography, but her truthful and wonderfully written posts about her family, her friends, and her experiences.

If you have never heard of Sheye or visited her blog, you should check it out! When I first visited her blog, I clicked on a link called Ava and read about Sheye's Super Princess. I was touched and deeply affected by her story and many entries that I read in the archives of Sheye's blog.

That day I did a lot of thinking, some praying, and some reevaluating of my life. That day I changed my desktop photo to one of pink balloons, to remind me of the priority in my days- my own little princesses.

Today Sheye's blog is about celebrating Ava's birthday, and everyone is invited:

I intend to take time on Saturday to have a pink milk tea party with my girls. For Ava, for my girls, and for the reminder that I continually need, to treasure each moment, to live in the moment, and to make the moments beautiful.

Because I don't have photos to share from Ava's day, here's one from another tea party on Talia's birthday:

The Worth of Custom Photography

I've been using this blog mainly as a spot to share photos from recent shoots, and news about new products & things that I'll be offering. I think it's time to blog about something a little different.
A friend of mine recently suggested that I consider selling a disc including all pictures from a session. I've been considering her suggestion (I know it's something I'd be interested in if I were the consumer!), and I can't help but keep thinking that when I do manage to nail down a price, it'll be something that consumers won't understand.
I think it's common for people to assume that as a photographer, I show up at a session with my camera, shoot for an hour or two, go home, load the pictures on my computer, & I'm done.Not so! I do those things, but that's when the 2nd half of my job comes into play. It's when I pull up Photoshop & go to town, carefully selecting the best images to present to my client, correcting light, colour, & white balance before showing the proofs. Once the client has chosen the prints to order, I go further with processing the images- smoothing skin, removing circles under eyes, clearing acne, removing distracting background objects, & adding any other artistic touches (if I haven't already added them before proofing).
It is for these reasons that I have to charge what I will for files. I'm not just burning them to a disc- I have to process them before they're ready to be printed. I'm not just raising the price to compensate for lost print sales. I don't know if clients will understand these factors (if I weren't doing this myself, I know I wouldn't!), but I hope anyone who may read this will have a better understanding.
As an aspiring photographer, I love to browse the websites and blogs of other photographers- locally and all over the world. It's so inspiring to see other artists' work. One such local photographer that I was happy to discover one day is Julie Tauro. I was excited to find her website & blog because I really like her style! (If you haven't before, go check her out- she's great!)
Julie recently wrote an entry in her blog where she referred to a website called Professional Child Photographer- a new website dedicated to answering consumers' questions about custom children's photography. I think it's a great idea! If you're curious, go take a look & read some of what has been written there so far- it just may help you to get a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of a custom photographer, why prices are what they are, & why custom photography is so great!