Recently, I read “The Power of Small:Why Little Things Make All the Difference”.  This was a great book enforcing one of my biggest pet peeves, do something nice for someone whenever you can.

The book gives some great examples on how small can make a big difference.  Let me share one of the stories:
• Don traveled to Morocco and was sadden by how many of their disabled poor had mobility issues and could never afford a wheel chair, like you’d get here.  These people were dragging themselves across the street to do daily chores to survive.  Don went home and came up with an idea for an inexpensive wheel-chair that could be made for only a few dollars and would give the disabled poor in third world countries the chance at mobility.  Jim’s idea turned into Free Wheelchair Mission.  To date he has donated over 670,000 chairs to eighty-six developing countries and hopes to reach twenty million.  This is just one of thousands of stories of how small ideas can make a big difference.

Why am I telling you this.  Because I believe small is really big.  Doing little things in your community can make a huge impact on the world around you.  And if everyone started making little changes, the world would be a much better place.

Gregg and I try to live by this motto.  We spend a lot of our free time volunteering at a variety of places or doing fundraiser through the studio to help places like Children’s Home Society, Alachua County Humane Society and Habitat For Humanity.  Our donation of a truck load of supplies like dish soap, towels and bleach, gives the Humane Society the chance to rescue one more animal before it meets it’s demise.  And to us, that is important.  Jeter, our dog, is a rescue and we could not imagine life without our little guy.

So now you are saying, I don’t know where to start!  Easy, peasy.  Start by letting someone in to traffic at rush hour or by holding the door for a mother with 3 kids or by buying the homeless guy outside the resturaunt a sandwich to go and giving it to him when you leave. How do these things make a difference, well, the person you let in to rush hour traffic maybe a med student running 5 minutes late for their shift and by getting there on time,  they saved a life on their rotation at the hospital.

Here is the thing you need to realize with small, a lot of the small things you do you don’t see the impact.  You’ll never know that the med student saved a life.  When you do small things, you need to know the impact is there.

But if impact is what you need, realize there is a lot of small you can do that you will see an impact.  Volunteer at a hospital once a month, clean up a neighbors yard whose been sick, go work at your local soup kitchen.  All these little things have impact you can see.  And it matters, because a lot of LITTLE things will eventually make a BIG difference.

June 12th-16th (11am-6pm) only!

Bring your dancer into our studio for this special mini-session. On a high-key white background we will document your dancer at this stage in their life. Once your session is complete you’ll view your dancers photos and have a chance to purchase both traditional prints and artistic options like collages and paintings. This special portrait session is meant to go beyond your traditional dancer portrait and make your child feel like a star. There is no session fee for this special event.

To book your child’s session please e-mail us at photography35@aol.com or call the studio at 352-371-9735.

For pricing click here

This special mini session will go way beyond your typical sports portrait session.  We start by capturing your child in their favorite sports gear in our studio.  After their session is complete, you’ll be able to purchase traditional portraits at mini-session pricing or chose your 3 favorite images and have us create a Photo Fuzion!  These special composite images are available at 30% off our standard prices for this event only.

For pricing info on our Photo Fuzion contact Angel at photography35@aol.com

To schedule your session contact Angel by phone at 352-371-9735 or at the e-mail address above.

Our fun loving chickies have arrived to frolic and play with little girls and boy for the next 6 days!  We still have opening if you’d like to join in the fun!  Appointments are 11am-6pm March 1st-6th (Sorry, Sunday is sold out).  Call the studio 371-9735 or drop us an e-mail at photography35@aol.com

Everyone has a camera on them these days – your cell phone. More and more people are going away from carrying traditional dslr or point and shoots in favor of their camera phone for pictures.  Heck, even I do it sometime.  It’s quicker to post to Facebook from my iPhone than it is to download and post from my point and shoot.

Here is the problem, in many cases the pictures & the quality are awful.  Camera phones give you very little control over apature, shutter speed and ISO which are the key components that make up a good picture. Many pictures posted from peoples camera phones are so blurry (camera shake from a slow shutter speed) or so dark you might as well have saved the time to post the pictures.
But don’t fret – I have a few tips for you camera phone enthusiasts that will ensure better pictures.  And you don’t need to be a professional to be able to do this.

Tip #1 – Shoot in bright sunny locations.  Part of the problem with your camera phone is it is picking all your setting for you (basically auto on your camera).  In bright sunlight the camera phone will pick a fast enough shutter speed for you to hand hold and get a good sharp picture.

 
Tip #2 – Don’t hold the camera out at arms length.  You are less steady and there is more of a chance for camera blur from your hand not being steady. Keep your elbows in close to your body and hold the camera close to you.

Tip #3 – Steady the camera – if you can, steady your camera up against a wall, rest it on the back of a chair, use something that is solid and not moving.  This should eliminate camera blur.

Tip #4 – Use an app.  There are a million apps out there for camera phones.  Dan Burkholder, a very good fine art photographer and author on photography.  He works exclusively with an iphone for his camera these days and makes super huge prints.  They are amazing.  But he is using a bunch of apps to get these amazing pictures.

Tip #5 – Practice!  Get to know your camera phone and what it can do.  Especially the apps.  Some apps like Hipstamatic have some pretty cool tools, but if you don’t know what they do, you’ll never get good pictures from them.

Tip #6 – Have fun!  You don’t have to be Ansel Adams to get fun memories! (If you don’t know who Ansel Adams is – google him!)

Remember, this is not your point and shoot or your DSLR, but it can be a very fun creative tool just like your camera.  If you know its limitations you can capture some amazing images.

{All of the above images were created using an iphone.}

Ronnie, her husband and her son started tearing everything out from inside the house.  It was all ruined.  Her husband and son decided to take the washer and dryer to a salvage place to see if they could sell it for parts.  It wouldn’t be much, but at this point something was better than nothing.  The neighbors across the street heard what they were doing and asked if they would take their washer and dryer too.  Heading to the salvage place, they were pulled over by a cop who asks what they are doing.  They explain the situation and the cop replies “yeah right, you must have a lot of laundry to do with 2 washers and dryers.” Ronnie’s husband said, “hear I’ll call my neighbors, you can talk to them.”  The cops response, “I ain’t got time for that, now turn around and take them back to where you found them.”  And proceeds to write them a ticket.  After following them back to there house on Weber Avenue, the neighbor comes out and yells at the cop who says, “there is nothing I can do, the ticket is already written.”  A few weeks later they’d go to court and the judge would drop the case.

Then a couple days after that at dusk, Ronnie’s family got a storage mall for what little they could salvage.  Once they started to unload they had a feeling the really small one just wasn’t enough space. So her daughter and son-in law went to go look at a bigger unit they had available.  By this time it was dark.  The storage mall’s walkway was not lit and the girl from the storage mall failed to warn them that there was a step up.  Her son-in-law fell and hurt his leg, needing to be taken to the hospital by ambulance.  The storage mall told Ronnie and her family – get out, you are evicted.  So they packed up their stuff back up and left.  Ronnie’s son-in-law is still in physical therapy.

Ronnie’s saga has not ended.  It has been over 3 months.  They had $24K in flood insurance, because that was all they could afford. Since they had gotten FEMA assistance of $5,000 back in 92′ to repair, they are not eligible for money from FEMA.  They could get rent assistance, but they have no furniture, no cloths, nothing – they wouldn’t know where to start.  So they’ll stay at their daughter’s for the time being.

There have been benefits by Bon Jovi, Bruce, etc…but they haven’t seen the money.  The federal goverment… well enough said.  They aren’t looking for a hand out, just some help.  They keep talking about a federal buy out of the homes since almost of all Weber Ave. homes were destroyed.  But everyone here is hearing 18-36 months before that will happen.  And if you do complete any work on your house to secure it or try to save it, the amount of money you invest will be subtracted from your buy out amount.

For now, the 4 of them live with their daughter in her 3 bedroom/2 bath home about 30 minutes from Sayreville.  Some morning, Ronnie wakes up, stares out the window and cries.  This just can’t be happening.  We brought a little joy and a lot of tears to her as we handed the gift cards to Bed, Bath and Beyond, Kohl’s and Target.  It warms her heart to meet so many generous people who don’t even know them, but are willing to help.

So for everyone who donated, Ronnie says a huge “Thank You” and wishes she could do something for each and ever one of you.

{The last 2 pictures are of a few of their neighbors homes on Weber Avenue}

“After the 1992 flood and we fixed the damage on our home, my husband said we should sell.  Other homes in the area were selling for $400,000.  We could buy something small and have a nest egg for retirement.”  But Ronnie had lived there so long.  She has all her friends and family around her, she couldn’t leave.

The night Sandy hit, Ronnie had gone to her daughter’s home about 30 minutes away – but her son and husband decided to stay behind with a friends row boat in the yard incase it got to bad and they needed to get out.  In the dark of night, tidal surge came from the river.    The water inside their home came rushing in.  In a matter of 9 minutes, her husband and her son were in over 4 feet of water and knew they had to get out.  So they headed to the row boat and spent over an hour rowing against the current and wind to get to higher ground.  They got past their elderly neighbors home, she was crouched on her counter top in her kitchen screaming for help.  Then they heard her fall in the water.  They knew they couldn’t get to her, the current was to strong, they needed to get to higher ground where they could call for help.

The next day, Ronnie’s family all headed back to survey the damage.  It was worse than they imagined, it was gone – all gone.  The water in front of their ranch style home at the height of the storm was 11 feet deep.  The water inside there home rose to 4 feet.  Mud, water debris was every where.  And the worse part, the foundation had collapsed in the back corner of the house. All there belongings gone, no furniture, no cloths and they used lots of bleach to salavage the little they could.

You would think that it couldn’t get any worse, well  for Ronnie’s family it did.  Read Part 2 next week….

Now I will admit, I do not like stupid for stupid sake.  The E-trade commercials are not my thing, but I will give them credit that it is a clever idea.

Now on the the few that were Super-Good.  Most of the Budweiser commercials were lame, but the one with the trainer and his horse was really touching.  The Jeep troop commercial tugged at the heart strings as well.

But by far my favorite one was Dodge Ram “So God Made A Farmer Commercial” (in case you missed it http://youtu.be/nHjV-FPMm_I).
 It is created from still images from 10 different photographers.  The commercial is based on ABC announcer Paul Harvey Speech during the 1978 Future Farmers of America convention telling the story of farm life in America.  Even thought the speech was given in 1978, ever word of it is still relevant today.

And no great commercial goes without some controversy.  Some people are complaining that the ad copied a youtube video put out by Farmers.com in 2011 (http://youtu.be/QuzhwkaNC40).   If watch both, you’ll see that Dodge commercials takes the idea to the next level using amazing still images by 10 noted photographers including National Geographic icon William Albert Allard and renowned documentary photographer Kurt Markus to document American farm life, yielding a beautiful and comprehensive catalog of farming images.  These images are used to convey a feeling of hard work, struggle and conviction, something the 2011 farmers.com video is lacking.

All and all, this years Superbowl ads were a bust.  The best I can hope for is never having to see that Go-Daddy commercial again.

Please take a few minutes and read the second half of Richard’s blog post.  It is extremely interesting and may make you think next time you ask a real professional to do it for free…

So how do we convince an engaged couple to spend $3-10k with a professional? According to Market Watch, wedding photographers are the most overpaid jobs in America, saying “Total work for each wedding is generally a sit-down consultation combined with a single day spent following the happy couple. While equipment costs and film development must be covered, thanks to digital technology such costs have been heavily reduced. Unfortunately for the consumer, photographers do not offer any reduction in price for missed photos, amateur shots, or other mediocre work product.”

So let’s talk briefly about what it costs to be a professional wedding photographer. My second photographer here was looking to buy his own equipment. Just to start off with the basics he was up to $8,000. Imagine the cost of what I carry. Oh, and I have to insure all of it. Then there’s vehicle expenses, commissions for running credit cards, equipment repairs, I spent $1200 on postage this year (postage!!!), continuing education, computer and software upgrades, hard drives, hard drives, hard drives, it costs to make albums, some of us pay staff… I really could go on. Oh wait! providing for my family? Putting food on our table and the discount outlet clothes on our back? A professional photographer doesn’t have a “real job” during the week so we have to pay our own health care for our family, save for retirement, and hope for a weeks vacation that comes out of our pocket. I did 25 weddings this year and my expenses were double the average 2 person family income in Connecticut (according to census.gov).

For the other side of the story, the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers did an awesome survey of photographers recently. I know when I started my business, everyone I knew thought I just worked weekends and did nothing during the week. We have a great lifestyle of taking photos, traveling, and partying.

Here’s reality: 70 hours a week through our 6-7 month season and 40 hours a week off season. There is no mention in here regarding time with family, charity work, and taking any time off. Only 12.2% off our time during business hours is spent taking pictures.

If I didn’t have the expenses that I have, or spend this much time getting everything done, I’d be out of business. I’d have to get a full time job and just do photography on the weekend. I’d be your Uncle Bob.

Again, huge shout out to Richard for a really well done article.  Digital is NOT free.  It actually cost my almost 2x as much as film.  Why – new cameras every few years, new software or software upgrades every year, tons and tons of time behind a computer tweeking, editting and prepping images for the lab.  Your right, I am not buying film or paying for processing – that was cheap compared to today.