Shutter Sisters

custom photo calendars

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The holiday gift-giving season is fast approaching and I don’t know about you, but I am on the lookout for inexpensive, but personal gifts to give this year. I always get a rush of creative energy every November as I read my favorite magazines and check out all of my bookmarked creative blogs and sites. I start to imagine all of the cute, crafty things I could make for my friends and family, but more often than not I run out of time or energy. However, there is one simple, yet personalized item that everyone loves to receive…a custom photo calendar. The best thing about creating your own photo calendar is that it can be as simple of a project as you choose. One of the quickest, easiest ways to create a custom calendar is by using an online service such as Snapfish, Kodak Gallery, or Qoop. These sites provide the calendar design, printing and shipping meaning that all you have to do is pick your favorite photos and upload them! And if one of these sites is already your photo printer of choice, you can choose the photos that you have already uploaded throughout the year. Super easy and super fast! And I am so excited to tell you that Snapfish is graciously providing the whole Shutter Sisters community with this awesome offer: buy one 12-month calendar of any size, and get one 12-month 8.5×11 calendar FREE! The coupon code is FREECAL08 and it is good until 11/31/2008.

Now, if you are feeling ambitious and want to try something a little more “hands on”, I have another idea. Have you seen the little desktop calendars that fit neatly into an empty (and slightly dismantled) cd jewel case? Why not create one using your own photos? There are a couple different ways to do this.

If you are a Photoshop user, I have exciting news. I took the liberty of designing a photoshop calendar template that I am sharing with all of you! Click here to download the files. Then all you have to do is plop in your own photos, print them on some photo paper or cardstock and cut them out! Now I personally would not benefit from having this photo calendar sitting on my desktop because I tend to be a little…uh messy. In fact, it would get completely buried by paper and coffee cups. So I am opting to make mine into a calendar that you can put on a bulletin board or magnet board! I went to Target and got little colorful binder clips and some magnetic clips. That way the recipient of this gift can display it in plain site. But don’t worry. If you would rather use a jewel case to hold the calendar pieces, I created the photoshop template to fit in a standard sized cd case.

If you are not a Photoshop user and prefer a more scrapbooky approach, you could always cut out a photo and stick it on a 4.5”x5” piece of cardstock (leaving the bottom blank), then use a nice pen to write out the calendar dates on the bottom. Do that 12 times and stick them in an empty jewel case! Voila, cute and crafty.

However you choose to create your photo calendar, I guarantee that your friends and family will love receiving a gift that they can enjoy all year.

 

EDITED TO ADD:

Looking for the 2011 template?? Here it is!

 

Weakness

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Organization is not my strong suit. I hate the feeling of being unorganized, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am. This trait seeps into most areas of my life until I decide I can’t take it anymore. Usually by the time I get fed up the work requires such a chunk of time that I feel overwhelmed. Cleaning my closet, organizing the mail and paperwork that is laying on the floor of my office, and straightening the basement storage are things I routinely put off until I feel totally buried. And I think I’ve hit that point with ALL THESE digital photos. They are pouring out of every corner of my computer and there are stacks of cds in my closet. It’s time for me to take control of my files and come up with a system of keeping them organized. I need help. I do keep them on an external hardrive! And I always back up my clients’ photos on discs. But beyond that, I’m clueless.

I know there must be some sisters out there that can offer me some advice. And maybe I’m not alone in my ways and you can help someone else too. So what’s your system?

Getting Started

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I get e-mails occasionally from women who are interested in starting their own children/family photography business. The most common question they ask is “What should I do first?” And while I am certainly no expert I think I can offer a few tips to get started.

1. Become comfortable with your camera. Read the manual and play with the settings until you feel like you understand its capabilities. Believe me, I don’t use half the settings or buttons on my camera but I know they are there if I need them. If nothing else it makes me feel like I know what I’m doing.

2. Practice like crazy. Take pictures every day of anything you find interesting. And if you have kids or animals use them as subjects as much as possible. Flowers and buildings are great subjects too, but they won’t prepare you for photographing a two year old. In fact, nothing will prepare you for photographing a two year old short of actually doing it. Which brings me to the next step.

3. Start building a portfolio of images. After becoming comfortable with your camera and practicing on your family you will be ready to start building a portfolio of images that will showcase your work. When I was ready I contacted some friends and let them know that I was planning on starting a photography business. Then I asked them if I could offer a free photo session of their children and a cd of the best images from our shoot. Now here’s some advice that I learned the hard way. Really pick and choose people who will value the gift that you are giving them. Even though you may feel that they are doing you a favor by allowing you to photograph their children, you are giving away your time and talent. I had a couple of unfortunate experiences with people who had gotten my name from a friend of a friend and they were only interested in getting something for free. They had been perfectly happy with Sears portraits for years and didn’t realize that wasn’t my style. If you do find yourself giving a free session to someone you don’t know, let them know ahead of time what your photography style is – that way there won’t be any surprises. Some photographers will disagree with me about the “free” part of portfolio building. They’ll say that you should still charge for the session and cd but just give a discounted rate. That is perfectly fine too, but I went the “free” route because it made me feel less nervous about screwing up. I wanted to be able to experiment and mess up as much as I needed to without worrying that people were wasting their money. The downside to that was dealing with the people who did not value my work because they hadn’t paid for it. One more important step in the portfolio building process is to get a model release signed by each party that states that you have the right to use their images in advertising or on your website. Otherwise you’ll have images that you can’t use in your portfolio. There is no set number of portfolio building sessions but I think I did six or seven free sessions before I felt ready to start fully charging and building my business.

That is how I began the process of starting my business. I hope these little bits of advice help those of you that are thinking about starting a photography business! I know that I’ve just barely touched on a small part of the “how”, but I’d be happy to answer any further questions. Feel free to leave them in the comments!

walked in fields of gold

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Everything is just so beautiful around here right now. And the leaves on the trees haven’t even changed yet. But when they do I fear my head may explode from beauty overload. We bought a house a couple of months ago and while I wouldn’t say it is in the country, it is the closest to the country I have ever lived. There are corn fields and soy bean fields less than a mile from our house and the golden colors they produce are unreal. Sometimes I stand on our deck and see swatches of colors between the neighbors houses that look like they must have been painted on. But today I drove by a combine that had just swallowed an entire field of corn and my heart sank. I know it’s necessary, but don’t these farmers know what they are doing to me?! They’re taking away these gorgeous fields of gold and soon I’ll be left with nothing but fields of gray.

What kind of colors are you seeing right now?

Collaboration

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Collaboration: the action of working with someone to produce or create something

I am lucky to have parents who have always encouraged my love of art. My dad in particular always made an effort to provide me with materials and experiences that would expand my interest. When I was five I specifically remember receiving a set of crayons, colored pencils, and markers housed in a lazy susan-like apparatus. I loved that thing, and I would sit at my little table coloring kittens and rainbows all day. My dad enjoyed drawing or coloring with me and I remember being impressed by his talent. He never took an art class or had a creative profession (quite the opposite). But he appreciates all forms of art and views them with such an open mind. In fact, I think he enjoys the fact my entry into the art world as a college student and now professional allowed him to be exposed to more art than he might have been otherwise. So it was no surprise to me that about a year ago he took up painting. He is mostly retired and was starting to feel the need to utilize his creative side more. Even though I was aware of his artistic ability I have to admit I was surprised at the quality of work he was producing from day one. He started by practicing on still lives of pears on a window sill or peppers on a table, but soon found that what he really enjoyed was starting with a photograph of a scene and painting it as he saw it. I was happy to know that he had been using many of my photos as inspiration. He said that what he struggled with the most was composition, but that he always loved the composition of my photos. So he used them as a starting point and added his own interpretation of colors and textures.

About six months ago my dad came to visit us from Illinois and we spent an afternoon driving through the country looking for old barns and dilapidated buildings. I was armed with my camera as we trespassed our way over fences and through fields of cows. We were a team, dad pointing out things that would be great subjects for his next painting and me diligently snapping away. It turned out to be a productive day. I got tons of awesome shots and my dad got some great inspiration for some of his best work.

Now, a year after he picked up his first paint brush my dad has his own Etsy shop and participated in two art fairs this summer. My walls are filled with his paintings and his are filled with my photos. I’m glad that we are able to share our creative experiences and continue to inspire each other in our art.

one year later

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A woman from the Omaha Better Business Bureau called the other day. She told me that she had recently been given a positive review of my photography business and was calling to ask if I’d like to be listed in their directory. Once I was able to get over the shock of getting a call from the BBB I heard her ask me how long I’d been in business. I guess I hadn’t thought about that question lately and it took me by surprise when I realized that I’ve now been in business for a year.

A year ago I had just moved to a new city and was reluctantly searching for a full time graphic design job. As I went to job interviews or freelanced at ad agencies my mind wandered down a different path. Photography was becoming a larger part of my life and something I wanted to be doing all the time. I was starting to feel the entrepreneurial bug and all I could think about was owning my own photography business…so I went for it. But not in a big, scary, risky way. I went for it in a gradual, steady, comfortable way. During the first few months I continued to freelance as a designer a lot, but I spent most of my spare time doing free photo sessions for friends and family, learning about small businesses, creating a logo, taking a photography class, going to photography seminars, and just generally building a business.

It’s amazing to me that a year ago when someone asked me what I did for a living I would have said I was a graphic designer…period. Today, when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I am a photographer and I hand them a business card. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have everything all figured out and I am not making much money (yet). I still do freelance design work to make ends meet. I still have tons to learn about photography, business, marketing, and money. But the point is that in the span of one year I gradually went from feeling like a bored graphic designer to feeling like an excited professional photographer. I love what I do and I love making my clients happy.

Year one of the photography business was all about starting things up and getting the basics in place. Now I feel like I’m ready to dig in a little deeper and learn more about how to run a successful photography business. I plan on reading more books, attending more seminars, getting organized, and buying more equipment. AND, I just got this Me Ra Koh kit as a gift and can’t wait to take a look at it. It should be the perfect way to kick off year two of Paige B. Photography!

I’d love to know how many of you are thinking of starting a photography business or have already made the leap. Tell us about your journey into becoming an entrepreneur. Are there any resources you’ve found especially helpful?

Golden Light

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There’s a specific time each evening when the light is perfect and everything has a beautiful golden glow. Right now it’s about 7pm in my area (I’m sure that there’s a similar golden time each morning, but I wouldn’t know because I don’t get up that early). I try to schedule all of my photo sessions to start at about 6:30pm so I can be sure to catch it. And I’ve been experimenting more lately with shooting toward the sun during this time of day. It definitely takes more thought in terms of settings and exposure, but can produce some really gorgeous results. I’ve been noticing some shots in our Flickr pool that clearly utilize this golden time of night, but I’d love to see more! Go experiment and show us your results.

don’t go

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Sigh. This is the part of the summer where I panic because it’ll be over before I know it. I start wondering what summer activities I can cram into the remaining days. I know it will still be warm for a few months, but when the kids go back to school it just isn’t summer anymore. And I don’t even have kids! But I do have a husband who’s a teacher, and in a couple of weeks he’ll be welcoming his students back to school. And my nieces and nephews won’t be as available to hang out as they have been. So I’m going to keep my camera clicking away while the grass is green, the corn is high and the evening light is golden.
Do you guys have any “end of summer” photos to share?

old school vs. new school

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How many of you remember getting your high school senior portraits taken (if you opted to at all)? Most stories I hear from people my age or older include stuffy studios, older male photographers, hideous wicker props, or an item of clothing that was forced upon them. My experience wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t fun either. I remember one particularly uncomfortable pose on a fake column that had been laid on it’s side on the floor. And then there was the ugly black sweater that I hated but the photographer made me put on. My husband told me that his senior photographer put a clip on the back of his shirt collar so it would open up more in the front. But what he didn’t realize is that he also clipped the back of my husband’s neck. As a shy, polite teenager he didn’t say anything and spent half the session with a clip on his neck.

 

It seems like seniors and their parents are looking for more these days. They want photos that show their true personalities. It’s not always easy to get natural, candid shots right off the bat with adults (as Kate just talked about), but once we both loosen up, they shine through. With me, they have lisence to be as serious or goofy as they want. You want to throw on a hoodie and a pair of ridiculously huge sunglasses? Go for it. You want to bring your Hello Kitty guitar and rock out on a park bench? Absolutely. I want these kids to walk away feeling beautiful and empowered. I want them to have an experience that they can talk about positively 10 years from now. This is a wonderful, fun, difficult and strange time in their lives and maybe these photos will help them remember it in the future. 

I would love to hear your memories of your high school senior photo session–good or bad . And a picture of it would be a bonus!

cover shot

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“Far below lay the fields green with wheat, the flat pastures grazed by horses, the darker greens of the woods.” – Richard Adams, Watership Down

I’m currently reading a book called Watership Down. It was written in 1972 and somewhat of a classic (I’ve been meaning to read it for years). If you haven’t read it, it’s a fictional story about a group of rabbits roaming around the English countryside and much of the story includes detailed descriptions from the rabbits’ viewpoints. It’s a beautifully written book but to tell you the truth, it tends to put me to sleep quicker than most books. It’s not that it’s boring, but it is written in a very soft, soothing way that makes my eyes want to close. The next thing I know I’m dreaming about bunnies.

As I was editing the above photo, I immediately thought of this book. Everything about it fits perfectly with the story; the wheat (good for munching), the angle of the photo (low to the ground like a rabbit), the soft, muted colors (much like the storyline). It could be the new cover of Watership Down. I was thinking that might be a fun little project for anyone looking for a some photographic inspiration. You could choose a book and then go out and shoot the new cover. Or you could go through old photos and match it up with a book you’ve read. If you decide to try it leave a link to your photo and then tell us which book it belongs to. I’m curious to see what you come up with!