Daily Life sessions

Are you waiting to schedule a family photo shoot until your daughter can be convinced not to dress herself just this once?  Until your toddler gets good enough at walking so the permabruise in the middle of their forehead goes away?  Or until the "haircut" your child gave them self can be salvaged into something presentable?  While in certain stages of life it might be a good idea to wait to invest in cute stylish outfits for those family portraits, consider investing in documenting one or two of those special things your family does together.

I love taking pictures of my kids being kids and having fun doing the things they love.  My daughter in her classic shorts over her leggings and stickers all over her shirt look, my son's unevenly growing hair and high water pants because he outgrows the length WAY before he ever out grows the waist, and the baby hanging out in the seat on the counter (because I ignore the safety warnings) taking in all the chaos...the look of hope that she will soon be involved plastered on her face.  Most of the time I am involved in doing these things with them, making it hard for me to take pictures.  While taking pictures (especially of my kids) ranks up there as one of my favorite things to do, it would be lovely to occasionally be in one of those candid moments.

I thought it would be amazing to offer this as a photo shoot option for my customers.   These are "daily life" sessions.  The goal will be to document some of those moments that happen in your normal every day life that are so special.  I will come hang out while you bake cookies with your kids or do arts and crafts.  While you take a family hike or run through the sprinklers in the yard.  Whatever it is your family has been having a lot of fun doing lately, I want to document it for you.  Sure, we might take a posed pic or two, but mostly I will just be there hanging out capturing the smiles, and joy, and the fun!  And that person that is normally the family photographer will finally get their share of the photo album spot light!

Here is a recent unscripted moment I caught around my house.  This boy loves his sister :)

The pricing of these shoots will somewhat depend on the activity you want to plan, but the base price is $75/hr with a minimum of 1 hour.  As I build and design this option for customers I have a couple discounted shoots to offer.

I have a few ideas I want to do and am offering these shoots to families at a discounted rate of $50.  These include:

Baking cookies together: You must have a kitchen with good lighting and be willing to let me sample the goods :).  The first family to contact me and pay through paypal will get this shoot at the discounted rate.

Hiking with the family:  Shoot will take place at St. Edwards Park.  All members of family must be able to walk (or be carried in child backpacks 1.5 miles round trip (pretty steep incline but my 2 and 3 year old can do it so it is not super hard with help).  We will hike down to the water and back up to the park.  You also must have a WA state parks pass ($30 at REI) or pay the $10 for parking at WA state parks as this is a requirement for this park.  First family to contact me and pay through paypal will get this shoot at the discounted rate.

Easter Egg coloring:  You must be able to do this shoot in the next week.  The first family to contact me and pay through paypal will get this shoot at the discounted rate.

Do you have another idea you want to do for your family?  Contact me before the end of March with your idea and you will get 20% off your shoot.

My opinion on photographers giving clients a disk of images

This photo has been floating around on facebook recently and I was inspired by it to speak my opinion on this issue.

(Photo taken by Yanman Photography)

As a photographer that includes a disk of high resolution images with my shoots you can assume that I am on board with a photographer giving their clients the rights to the images.  However, my opinions go a little deeper than that.

There is a very powerful message in this image.  Seriously, what if all of your grandparent's wedding photos were backed up on an outdated technology?  Let's go further and apply this to your childhood or to your children's 1st year of life or the most important images of the a loved one who has passed away!  What if they were locked away on piece of technology you could no longer get access to or had to pay lots of money to do so?

Hiring a photographer is wonderful, and clearly as one, I think you should do it from time to time.  But the history of your family, of you, goes much beyond a session with a photographer.  So I am going to talk about your images as a whole...the ones I may produce for you as well as the ones you capture every day.

YOU NEED TO BACK THEM UP PROPERLY!  Okay, I'm not yelling, I promise, but seriously, back those things up!  I need to preach this to myself over and over and over again.  With every session I have multiple places to back up the original files.  Throw in the 1000's of pictures I take of my own family and I am doing a lot of saving and re-saving and organizing images!

So what does all this have to do with the way I run my business and what you should do as a purchaser of custom photography???

I believe great photography should be affordable to people.  You should be able to document your family's personality beyond the walls of the Sears or JC Penny studio.  It is wonderful to be able to do a session with a professional photographer and then get a beautiful album and professionally printed enlargements from your session, but that option is just not affordable to everyone.  So then should they just be bound to cheesy mall portrait studios?  As a custom photographer I hate that idea!

So what is my end of the solution?  I give you a disk of your images AND I provide you with a gallery to order prints from.  Some people might want beautiful prints and others my not be able to afford them right now.  Sure, Costco, Wallmart, Target, etc. certainly don't make my images looks as great as a professional printing studio does, but if you get pictures you love from me instead of settling on your kid sitting next to a giant primary color painted alphabet block at Sears than I am okay with that.

But now I have to ask you...do you know your end of the responsibility?  I can't tell you how many people I know who have tons of digital images and NO prints.  I am not judging, I struggle with keeping current on my prints as well (and even more with framing them and hanging them on my wall).  But, if you have the digital files, please consider carving out a chunk of time and saving up a little money to make some real prints.  You will never regret it, but I would hate for you to regret not having printed them.

As far as technology goes...let's be real for a second.  I think we are all savvy enough by now to know that EVERYONE is using digital files for most of their images.  I am pretty certain that the makers of computer equipment are not going to do away with tools to read various backup technologies like external  hard drives and burned dvds.  BUT, those items do corrupt, or get broken or lost.  BUT, film negatives got hot or wet and stuck together, or eaten by the dog!  So no mater what, through the history of photography, you have had to take care of your data!  In the same way one could lose a roll of film one can just as easily lose or delete their image files!

I will continue giving a dvd of images and giving you the right to make your own prints because I believe it allows me to reach out to lots of different people.  Those who may not have the budget for prints or albums right now, as well as the ones who may have a much larger budget, and also want to have the files of as much of their family history as possible.  I will also continue to offer professional printing because the quality is better and I believe you should keep digital files as well as true prints of the images you love most.  This works for all those people.

If I am going to do this, you have to back up and back up and back up again.  In 30 years I hope that your only copies of the images you hire me to take are not stuck on the dvd I mail you.  I hope that you will add them to the many images you have documenting your life and move them along with you as technology advances.

Newborn photography promotion

Update: I had a lot of interest in this deal and loved meeting some new babies so I am doing it again.  Currently I am extending this deal into June 2012 so if you landed here from any links I or anyone else has posted know the deal is still good and contact me soon to book your date.

I am really exited to offer this new deal as I spend the next few months really focusing on working with newborns.

When you book a newborn shoot for your baby due between now and the end of May, 2012 you will get a free follow-up mini shoot (valued at $75) of your baby at 6 months.  Bonus is that the follow up session lands right around the time that many people get family pictures for holiday cards so you will already have that taken care of!

Over the past year I have booked quite a few newborn shoots as I have branched into this type of photography.  Newborn shoots are special.  They capture a very fleeting moment of life.  In just the short amount of time it takes for you to get your pictures back your baby will have already changed so much!

Here are a few of the pictures I have done over the last year:

Please contact me at pbarrett83@gmail.com to book your shoot.

Back

I am back from maternity leave, booking shoots, and continuing to improve the look of things for my business.

First off, I joined the world of professionalism and became pipermoorephotography.com!  Much cleaner, much nicer, much cooler!

I am also changing around some of the colors and look of my logos and this blog.  But, I cannot do that without thanking my dear friend Bethany for jump starting this blog and making it look significantly better than what I had before.  I am certain I will still be calling on her to rescue me when I reset something she created and my blog goes all crazy on me.

I also tossed out the boring about me page from the past and spiced it up with a little honesty!

And last and best of all, meet the three little people that have been getting all of my time the past few months.

I Heart Faces: Hands

It has been a while since I entered the iheartfaces challenges, but this is one of my top favorite wedding pics and it is perfect for the theme this week: hands.  I loved getting to know this couple and their wedding was beautiful.  Look closely and find the name of her love hidden in the henna art.  So sweet :)

Halloween Mini Shoots

IMPORTANT UPDATE!!!

Okay, so although a few have entered my giveaway, I never told you when I would be announcing the winner.  Sorry!  That was an oversight on my end.  Contest will run through this Friday, October 14th at midnight.  Just like all my other contests, you can win and gift the shoot to someone if you do not live locally.  It truly is as easy as following my facebook page or leaving a comment if you are already a follower.  So get on over and enter because I want to see your kid in their costume!

Also, the date of the shoot will be changing to Saturday, October, 22nd.  The time slots and location are still the same.  

(Booked time slots: 11am)

What is not to love about a kid in a Halloween costume!  So I can't think of a better first try at a mini shoot event than with a Halloween costume session.  The first session will be Friday, October 21, 2011 at South 47 Farm in Redmond, WA.  If there seems to be enough interest in this event I will add a second date, with a second location, so please let me know if you are interested but this particular date does not work for you.  These shoots require the $35 payment to be made through paypal in order to reserve your preferred time slot.  This is non-refundable.*  Each family will receive 5 edited high resolution images of their child(ren) on a disk prior to Halloween.

Now for the good part:  Want to win a shoot???!!!  I will be giving away one of these shoots (a 1230 time slot) to one family.  It's very easy to enter.  Head on over to my facebook page and like it.  Already a follower?  Just write a post on my wall to tell me you want to be entered and you are good to go.  

You can get an extra entry by making a donation to Children's Hospital and let me know you did so.  Why Children's Hospital?  Because with a day like Halloween, where we know it's just for fun but not really necessary, we can only hope that each child that is receiving help from Children's Hospital this year will be running around in their favorite costume next year!  Spread the word and tell your friends!  If the winner of the shoot has already reserved a spot your money will be refunded to you.  

*I do know I am working with kids smack in the middle of flu season, so while the payment is non-refundable I do have a heart and would prefer you not share the flu with everyone else so please contact me with special cancellation circumstances such as the flu :).  

I'm Back

Okay, I confess, I didn't go anywhere!  But, I have certainly been out of the blogging world for oh, it looks like almost 2 months now!  If you follow me on facebook you know I have been updating shoots over there, but somehow fell off the face of the earth over here.

As you can see, things are looking a little different.  My good friend Bethany helped me do a little face lift to this blog.  I have decided for the time being to consolidate my blog and website.  Mainly because my little web hosting site was expiring and I didn't want to renew it when 2012 will hopefully bring the actual hiring of a web/graphic designer and an amazing looking website (yes, I am interested in referrals for this service).  So, I consolidated, and I would say she did a pretty good job!  It is still a work in progress as I need to get my portfolio tab up and running, but for now you can see what I have been up to.

I am loving my business and where it is going!  I am thankful to have done many sessions this summer and hope everyone loves their pictures!  I am booking up my final sessions for October and maybe just that first week of November before I take a maternity leave, so if you have not already, book your session for your family portraits.

My intention was to come back and update all the shoots I have done over the last couple months, but I'll be completely honest and say that ship has sailed.  If you want to check out my recent work head on over to facebook.

Looking forward to getting up and running again on this blog and glad it is looking much better these days.

For now, here is a little story board I put together recently.  I am working on adding these as something special my clients can have me put together so I would love your feedback on it.