Get the Goods: Sandy Puc 2010 Family Tour

In just a few hours I will be attending my first Sandy Puc tour! Photography friends who have attended previous tours left there amazed, inspired and filled with strategies to advance their business. I can't wait to experience it for myself! Here's the run down of what we get for an unbeatable price of $59!


Photo by Sandy Puc

The Passion for Profit, Sandy Puc' Family Tour 2010

UNDERSTAND THE FINER POINTS IN MARKETING TO FAMILIES:
Create family campaigns with a wow factor.
Get families through the door when you most need their business.
Create repeat business.
Work with charities and create fun, profitable, and philanthropic marketing that attract families.

WATCH SAM IN ACTION:
Discover the best way to conduct a family portrait session with diverse ages and personalities.
See the best poses to communicate family bonds.
Understand the psychology behind running a family session.

SEE HOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR FAMILY SESSIONS RUN MORE SMOOTHLY:
Learn Sam's timesaving tips
Get expert advice on tools of the trade.
Conquer obstacles that hinder your success.
Understand efficient studio protocols.
Develop a positive, can-do philosophy.
Create a culture of success in your business.
Be infused with unbridled enthusiasm!

An award winning photographer and proud mother of four, Master Series Portrait Artist Sandy pours her passion into creating beautiful, timeless images. The accolades she has earned in the professional arena are just as important to her as the gratitude expressed by countless clients throughout the years. "I have been given a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to capture the beauty and spirit of the people I photograph. I am so thankful you have trusted me to use my God-given talent to create an heirloom for your family."

Get the Job Done: Ringing in the New Year with a family portrait session

Tomorrow on Jan. 1, 2010, I will be ringing in the New Year with a family portrait session! My client called yesterday hoping that she, her husband and her 2 year-old child would be able to do a "quicky session" before her husband got deployed in less than two weeks. I can't wait to see dad and child dressed in some fatigues! How cute is that!

My client told me that she and her husband initially had a relative take some photos over the holidays, but the photos didn't capture what they wanted, including a noncluttered background. She became the first client to date to take advantage of one of my new gift cheques offering $50 off a $150 session fee until 12/31/09.

I've included some of my favorite in studio family portrait shots that I took this past year:

My sister, her boyfriend and my nephew


Ted and his children Jade and Isaiah


Elrie, and her sons Mike and Tyler


I think this family session is a great way to start the new year. My "quicky session" model I crafted during the senior portrait season including one hour of studio time, two 8x10s, four 5x7s and a sheet of wallets has been selling like hot cakes. It's also been a great time saver for me as well because instead of editing 50 to 200 shots that may not be purchased, I only spend my time fully processing the photos that clients choose from their proof galleries. That results in a quick turn around for them and me. Since I'm still loving my work at The Denver Post as a full time lifestyles reporter, it was important for me to develop a photography workflow that fit in my already busy schedule.

Here's my hope that your New Year brings with it health, happiness, success, and as my instructor Russ Burden always says "the best light" possible for amazing images in 2010!

This (Past) Weekend: Actor Headshots, Senior Portrait and another photo booth!

This past week weekend was another busy one for my studio. I started the morning shooting a senior portrait for Michael, graduating from George Washington High School, and head shots of his brother, Tyler, a 10-year-old actor starring in "A Raisin in the Sun" presented by the Denver Center Theatre Company. The show runs Oct. 2 -Oct. 31 and Tyler's head shot is due in August. Because their mother Elrie accompanied her sons, I decided to take a few portraits of the family as well to help them relax in front of my camera. On Sunday, I was scheduled to help Jason Peckovitch host another photo booth at one of his events, a local car show. I'll report more on that later.





Saturday's set with Michael and Tyler were the first of a two part session, including today's shots taken in studio and another hour on location outdoors. It was a great way to get to know the boys and have them feel more comfortable in front of my camera. It was great working with Elrie, who herself is a burgeoning photographer who shoots film. But after I allowed her a chance to take a few practice shots of me with my Canon 5D, I think she has definitely been bitten by the digital photography bug.

Image by Elrie Archer

The key to shooting Elrie's sons was getting genuine smiles from them. Tyler, whose favorite actor is Will Smith, was shocked and happy to learn I had met Smith briefly and shot his picture ala paparazzi with my Canon G9. Tyler wants to be a comedic actor, so I focused my images of him trying to capture his signature laugh. It was fun and very helpful to have the older brother, Michael, give Tyler suggestions on poses, as I am still learning how to shoot male models.






Though shooting in a traditional studio setting, Mike clearly preferred the more urban look of him kicking back on a bench.





Another plus was shooting tethered, allowing Elrie, Michael and Tyler to see their images immediately on my laptop. That made it easier for me to confer with them to find out what shots worked for them and what didn't and make sure we were on the same page for the type of feel they wanted in those images. In addition, the larger 17 inch screen made it easy for me to check for details and note if my images were out of focused (which is often harder to see on a tiny LCD) and recompose them. This video from Jim Talkington (who is a Canon shooter like me) explained to me exactly how to do it.

Episode 29, computer tethered photo capture from Jim Talkington on Vimeo.

Get the Job Done: Finally Shooting a Maternity Session

ⓒ Image by Natalie Norton

I just booked a maternity photo session for this coming Saturday, and hopefully my client won't go into labor before the shoot! If you remember, last month, I was all set to shoot my boss and her belly bump....only to receive a text early that same day saying she had gone into labor -- several weeks early!

My client isn't due until April, so hopefully her little boy, Ronald II, should be taking it easy, allowing his mom to have some fun in her shoot. Her excitment was infectious!

What's also cool about landing this session that I think it is directly connected to the images I have hanging up in the Heidi's Deli. My client is married to a security guard that works in the building downtown that houses the deli. The security guard checked out the display and then told his wife that I was looking for someone to shoot my first maternity session with. I don't know if I would have gotten this gig had the guard not been exposed to my work hanging up in the deli where he often buys his lunch!

I am also considering that doing a good job on these images can help "wed" the family to me as their official and only photographer, allowing me to be present at special moments in their life, from newborn pictures to senior portraits and beyond! This will be an important session for helping me create and maintain this relationship.

Get the Job Done: FREE Photography Services for Military Spouses

Picture Your World Photography is running a special offer just for MILITARY SPOUSES:

FREE -- 2 hour photo session, and (1) 8X10 (retail value: $150)

Purchase more print sizes and CDs for an additional fee. I am willing to travel to various points throughout the Denver metro for a modest fee.

While this offer will be continued throughout the year, now would be a great time to take advantage of this special just in time for Valentine's Day. Family portraits or maternity shots increase the bond even when loved ones are far away.



An artistic nude or boudoir glamour photo session is the perfect gift and sensual yet classy reminder of what's waiting for your military spouse when they return home!



During leaves, contact me for a quick impromptu family session to capture memories to help sustain you during times apart.



In order to qualify for special, spouses must show a valid Military Order of Deployment.

An Aside: Meet the New Man in My Life

A Smooch from Daddy, originally uploaded by Sheba Wheeler.

I know I promised a blog post about fine tuning my business plan on Sunday. But my sister blessed me with the best gift ever for Christmas this year that kept me busy all weekend -- a surprise visit to Denver with her son and my new nephew, 8-month old Eli! Turns out the best present had nothing to do with coveted photo equipment, but instead was time well spent with family. My sister lives in Texas, and I had yet to meet Eli (short for Elijah), so I’m sure you can understand my absolute excitement when I got the local phone call, showing that my sister was indeed in Denver with the baby.

After our mother’s untimely death in 2005 at the age of 48, I wasn’t sure if I would ever see my sister would ever truly smile again. The tragedy sparked my passion for photography, but my sister was lost, given that she was only 17 at the time, and it would take her longer to find her new place in the world. Now, there is definitely a light sparkling in her eye since she has her life to share with Eli, and I know his birth will lead to new life and meaning for my sister in other ways as well.

Now, back to the photography part of this post:
To get this image, I told AJ, Eli’s father, to just play with his son and pretend I wasn’t there snapping away like a mad woman. I love this simple image of a smooch between father and son. But I wanted to add something new to the old-standby pose. In this case, it was a cool new Photoshop action that made the photo black and white with an almost golden tint.

An action is a series of tasks that you play back on a single file or a batch of files - menu commands, palette options, tool actions, and so on. You can create an action that changes the size of an image, applies a filter to the image for a particular effect, and then saves the file in the desired format. I had fun all weekend playing with the actions.

I’m still very new to photoshop actions, but the options they present are almost infinite when you combine them with your own post processing workflow. Do a random Google search of “free photoshop actions," and download some today to take your imagery to a new level.

Get the Job Done: Creative Post Processing with Photoshop

I recently posted about getting more adventurous in my photo post processing now that I've got several Photoshop classes under my belt. Here is the final composite of the family portrait shot I took of the Newell Family at the South Platte River in Denver. I want to thank Armando Martinez, owner of the Mando-Matic retouching studio, for walking me through the steps to correct some issues I had with the original image, including a distracting background element (a bridge) and faces turned the wrong direction when I pushed the shutter.



Here is the BEFORE, RAW unprocessed image. After I carefully posed the family on the rocks near the river, Tristan got distracted and turned his head:


Here is the MID-AFTER processed shot where I copied a portion of Tristan's face from another photo looking straight ahead at me and placed it on top of the other image. This shot also includes some normal curve adjustments and portrait glamour work to even out the skin tones, brighten eyes and whiten teeth.



I carefully selected a portion of Tristan's face that included his eyes, his noise, lips and rosy cheeks, feathering the selection so the edges would blend in seamlessly and copied it. Then I dragged that selection onto the other original photo, which automatically created a new layer.

As it turned out, the new image of Tristan's face was much larger than the original, so I had to use the Free Transform mode (under "Edit") to reshape the face and fit it smoothly over the original. I combined the layers and healed the edges of the new selected face to make sure it blended with the existing head. I also replaced the bridge in the upper left hand frame with more autumn leaves.



As I thought, I still wasn't done with the image. I needed to get rid of that bridge and the more I looked at Liam's face, the more I realized that I wanted his eyes looking at me. I used the same steps to replace Liam's face. I "pulled down" Tristan's pants, so to speak using the clone and heal tool. Then I used some of the techniques I learned during Armando's Photoshop 2 class to blend aspects of images using quick mask selections and the darken mode.

Armando allowed me to use this image he took of a blue sky with puffy clouds:


1) In a new layer, I selected the background behind the family with a quick mask. I tried using the magic wand at first, but it was too difficult to select around hair. Using the brush in the quick mask mode gives you more control. I used the clone tool to copy portions of the sky into my image. Then I used the "darken mode" on the entire layer to help the sky blend in more.

2) To keep the sky in perspective to distance from the subjects, I used guassian blur to fade the sky a little bit, making it appear further away from the subjects.

I am glad I put so much effort into this image because as it turns out that is the one they want for their holiday cards! :)
To learn more about how to use Photoshop to enhance your pictures, take a class with Armando at Illuminate Workshops.

BREAKING NEWS: Baby on the way!

Guess my maternity photo session today is a bust! I have learned when babies are ready to be born, there is no stopping them! Baby Edie decided she was done with the whole womb thing and wanted to make an early debut several weeks ahead of schedule. So her Mom is busy delivering her right now!

Hopefully instead of maternity photos, Mom will let me take portraits of a newborn Edie with her parents in a few months to come.

Congratulations to Mom and Dad, and welcome to the world, daughter-to-be.

This Weekend: Editing

This weekend, I am editing photos from Kim and Michael's engagement party as well as another set of images I took on Monday of college students modeling clothing with Auraria campus logos on them.

More sessions are getting booked, including my first maternity session scheduled for next Saturday and a neighbor's family portrait session for Christmas cards.

Also on Monday, I will be meeting with a graphic design artist about creating my business logo. It's taken far too long, but I finally decided that this had to be a priority and is an important step in the management of my business. Kelli Parker, a former Denver Post features graphic designer, is the owner of the KRP Creative design firm. I worked with Kelli on numerous page layouts for section front covers at the newspaper and I value her abilities. Wish me luck!

This Weekend: Editing Family Portraits; Shooting Engagement Party

This will be another busy weekend for me with two heavy hitting projects that must be completed. All day Saturday, I will be editing photos from the family portrait session I held last weekend with the Newell family.



It was a very tricky session trying to make sure the little boys were always looking and smiling at the camera at the same time for more formally posed shots. I think I had more success capturing candid moments like this one where the boys truly came alive while playing with natural elements in the park including the river and fallen autumn leaves.



Then Saturday night, I will shooting Kim and Michael's engagement party at a Denver-area event center. Besides capturing the highlights of the night, including dancing and toasting and speeches, I will need to complete a shot list of specific guests and Colorado residents who will not be able to make the trip to the actual wedding that will be held next year in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

This Weekend: Presenting Engagement Photos; Shooting Family Portraits

Told ya things were going to get crazy! As the winter celebrations grow nearer, clients are starting to see photographs as great options for holiday cards, family portraits and parties.



This weekend, I will be presenting photos from my first engagement session to Kim and Michael. I thought the shoot was a success, and Confluence Park near the South Platte River was a wonderful location. It was important for me to be able to capture this active couple as well as some of their favorite things to do together. They spent most of their time courting while skiing and bike riding, so I wanted my shots to be able to remind them how their romance progressed.



This presentation will be the first time I use music to highlight a slideshow of the images that my MacBook Pro can create. I hope it's not too cheesy, but I've been told that music, even food and drink, can set the tone for the presentation and make it a more enjoyable experience. I also plan to have several of my favorite images already printed up in hopes that I can get some immediate sales during the presentation. I will also have a new proof book available for the couple to take with them so they can chose which images they want printed.

A few hours before my presentation, I will be shooting my first outdoor family portrait session with the woman who owns my dogs' daycare center. Cristal and I worked out a deal in which she would exchange free daycare for the cost of the photo shoot and prints. Again, I think exchanging goods and services instead of paying out money is a good idea during the troubled economy, and day care is just expensive enough that I think it's a great trade option! I loved Confluence Park so much that I suggested we shoot the portrait session there again. Cristal said she wanted to take advantage of the fall colors, and the park is bursting with reds, golds and cinnamons.

This Weekend: Time to Get Back to Work

For the last couple of weeks, I've been enjoying a lull between photography assignments, organizing my office, backing up images and shooting fun (though unpaid assignments) for myself. But the holiday seasons are upon us, and it's time for me to get back to work!

This weekend will likely be a harbinger of how hectic the next few months could be now that people are starting to think about photography gifts they can give to friends and relatives, including portraits and seasonal cards.


Roadrunner logo for Metro State College

To kick things off:
Saturday: I will be shooting a session with students modeling Auraria Campus bookstore clothing, including items with logos from the Metropolitan State College, Community College of Denver, and University of Colorado at Denver.




Sunday: I will be shooting Kim and Mike's engagement session. We narrowed down several location choices and decided to shoot along the bike paths near the REI Building and the Platte River in downtown Denver. The couple spent a lot of time there during their courtship, and I can't wait to capture some fun panning shots of them on their bikes. Here are a few images I took of the Platte River and numerous walking and bike paths which should serve as great location shots.



Meanwhile, I plan to do some bartering for my photography services with the owner of my dog's daycare center: she needs a family portrait for her holiday cards and in exchange she will give my dogs a month worth of free days. During these touch economic times, I think it makes sense to take advantage of exchanging goods or services without handing over cash. It's a great way for people to share their expertise, save time and never spend a dime. Plus, I could use some new family portraits in my portfolio and doggie daycare is expensive, so I think it's a good deal.

One of my neighbors who received my business postcard asked yesterday if they could use it for a portrait session. He wants to surprise his family with a nice photo of himself since he often shies away from the camera. "Can you make a guy like me look good?" he asked shyly? You betcha!