RB Photo and Design

We are going out tomorrow to shoot newborn pics of Kourtney. We shot Jason and Kimmy's wedding last year and now we get to shoot their first baby! Pics will be up as soon as I can get them edited tomorrow night....

This past weekend I spent a lot of time in front of the computer watching Jasmine Star explain how to build up a wedding photography business. I absorbed as much of the information as I could and have started implementing some changes in how I present my work and my sites. If you haven't already noticed, the blog has a new look, so does the website. More changes are in the works. Hopefully when it all said and done everything will flow together better and the branding will be stronger. Keep your eyes open for all the upcoming changes.

I found this on a forum I frequent, its from a post by Matt McGraw, his contact info is at the end of the post. There is a lot of great information in this article, some of which I am going to start using myself. 1. Vendors vendors vendors, vendors are important: From reception people to cake makers… I do a pre-questionnaire for my brides and grooms. In that questionnaire I find out who I am working with from DJs to Florist to cake people to ministers to reception places etc. I obtain all the contact information for these vendors. After the wedding I compile a list of photos that each vendor would find interest in. I splash my logo on the photos and email them the pictures and say if you would like any of these photos in high res and without my logo let me know I can email you those photos. For reception places: if it is somewhere I have never worked I'll send them a 20X30 print with my logo splashed all over it and 4X6s of the same photo with my contact info to pass out to poten...

This is something I have been struggling with ever since I decided to start charging for my work. Especially since the area I live in is not one of the wealthiest areas in the state. I recently have been watching Jasmine Star on www.creativelive.com and she gave a lot of insight on how to build up a successful wedding business. She also mentioned a forum she frequented whn she was starting out, www.opensourcephoto.net While I was on that site I discovered a link to "The Greatest Pricing Guide Ever" As the name suggests its a guide to helping you establish your pricing. I haven't read it all the way thru yet, but what I have read of it, its awesome! I highly suggest taking a look at it if you are having problems with your pricing. You can find it here.... Pricing Guide

Once again we had the chance to shoot Draven's pictures, and as usual he was a ton of fun! This time we set up inside and used a backdrop and a few props and just let him do whatever. I knew when it was time to stop when he threw an egg at me! lol....Here are a few from the series.

A lot going on this weekend, we have a birthday party to go to on Friday for a friend of ours baby's 1st birthday and then picking up my daughter...Saturday is my wife's birthday and her nieces baby shower. Saturday is supposed to be a nice day so I may go out and shoot some pics while Jeannie and Chrissy are at the baby shower. Today is also our baby girl Bella's birthday...she is a year old today!

A lot of videos actually, lol. And the one thing they all hit on is defining who you are as a photographer. To look at your images and see if you can tell what makes your images special. So I did just that. I took some time to look at my images and see what my style is and see if I could point to the things that make my images unique. Here is what I came up with. 1. I like to keep my images simple. I don't like cluttered backgrounds. 2. I dislike blown out skies so I use flash a lot out doors. 3. I dislike using textures and selective coloring. I want my images to stand out on their own with out a lot of effects. 4. I love black and whites & vignettes. 5. I shoot a lot in portrait orientation, probably 90% of the time. 6. I dislike shooting with a tilt. 7. I like my images to be contrasty. 8. I like longer focal lengths, I use my 85mm 1.8 a lot for portraits and here recently I have been using my 70-210mm f4 a lot. 9. I love shooting portraits wide open, especiall...