Aerial Photography

Offering Oblique Aerial Photography services for real estate, property owners and managers as well as corporations with large facilities that need documentation of facilities in addition to construction updates and in general sites too large to photograph from the ground.  When a building or property is so large or expansive, shooting with your feet on the ground just doesn’t cut it. Helicopters are the best as they allow you to shoot from less extreme angles. If you’re old enough like me to remember Magnum P.I. and all the fun he had with T.C.’s helicopter! Just think of me hanging out the side while documenting your property. Depending on your needs, renting a plane also offers a great value, but higher angles from which to photography your properties.

Aurora University

The first two new aerial clients to book jobs in 2012 will receive $250 off of their final invoice.

Three C’s: Church, Commencement, Chiropractic

Who said C’s aren’t good? The past few weeks have seen a rush of work and it’s been exciting to stay so busy. But don’t be afraid to check my schedule, there’s always room!

In March, I was asked for a favor. A friend’s church was looking for a new Senior Pastor and not surprisingly the photos from members weren’t really making for the best recruiting material.

Therefore I was asked to come in and take a “few” photos. I don’t have any problem volunteering, when I know there’s a good cause, and frankly, I owed my friend a few favors! Not to mention, turning down a church just seemed like bad karma!

Church Recruitment

The goal was to get a number of photos during the Palm Sunday service, photos of staff working together as well as headshots. In the end, I made two trips to the church to finish the work, as several people who needed to be photographed weren’t available during the first visit. I was able to provide images for everything from the music director, the choir, associate pastor, congregation, communion, and a variety of images for their needs. The church’s large, bright interior made for a nice setting of images and a grateful staff made it easy to work during the service.

Commencement

I have been in Aurora for several events, the 100th Anniversary of Aurora University as well as their graduation ceremonies. Always fun to be around clients and subjects who are in such good moods, whether it be the celebration of their first century in the City of Light or all the grads getting their Bachelor’s, Masters and a few Doctorates!

Aurora University Commencement 2012

Chiropractic

As a photographer, it is not uncommon to have too much gear and therefore too much hanging off your shoulders, waist, back, etc. With that comes spinal issues and for that I’ve taken to seeing Dr. Tom Bryant at Health Solutions – Precision Spinal Care, LLC. He’s also taken to me for upgrading his website and it’s images.

Nucca Chiropractor, Northbrook, IL

From corporate headshots, live event coverage, group portraits, executive portraits to images illustrating your companies products or services, I can help you upgrade your marketing and web products. Contact me for a custom quote.

We can look at this in two different ways…. is this the start of my third year or fourth year. In all reality it’s the fourth. But I can tell you, in year one, as I was coming out of newspapers and trying to find my path, all the while dating the woman I would marry, that first year was pretty unfocused and very blurry, thankfully, my photography was better!

Let me fast forward a bit to the end of 2011. I’ve decided that December, January and much of February (unless in a leap year) will always be a bit sleepy. I should really just plan vacations in January for now on!

A few things I’ve decided to change up in 2012. First is essentially dropping my food photography category as well as the motorrad (ie.motorcycles) and instead adding in Aerials and Events.  Last year I took my first job doing aerials, something I had enjoyed being able to do as a newspaper photographer. Renting the helicopter was a blast and my client was super happy with the results as was I.

Aurora University

Secondly, as I analyzed my business from 2011, a lot of it had to do with event coverage. Now, by saying I shoot event coverage, I’m not the photographer who brings a green screen background and has everyone looking like they are on a beach in Maui. I shoot these in a journalistic style and will also shoot your group photos, so if you’re looking for candid photos of your event for your marketing and public relations materials then contact me and I’ll get you a custom quote.

Day of Service

To reflect back on a few shots, I wanted to share with you a photo of Doris Kearns Goodwin. She was visiting our area and speaking to one of my clients about Lincoln and presidential politics. I had asked if I could get her for  a few minutes before her speech to make a nice portrait. I never could find the formal library setting I wanted, but the library on campus did have an exhibit on Lincoln, so I used that instead. After testing the lights quickly with a student volunteer, I made this picture of DKG. For me it was a win-win situation. I made a nice portrait of high profile author and my client has an image that they can use to promote their series. Additionally, for the same client, I was able to cover a new type of event for them when a more than a 100 of their students went out and volunteered throughout the community, from cleaning out a space underneath a bridge where local homeless people live, to cleaning up the site for a growing food pantry to painting a fence for a women’s shelter.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

March continued to Spring up new work (bad I know)  as I photographed Israel Idonije for Bank of America during the Shamrock Shuffle last weekend. If you’ve never had the fortune of meeting “Izzy” he truly defies what you might think of professional athletes. He does great work through his foundation “Israel Idonije Foundation” Not to mention as he goes out and sacks opposing quarterbacks for the Chicago Bears.

Israel Idonije

Are you looking to book a job in April or May? Mention reading this blog post and receive $100 off a job estimated at $500-$999 or $200 off a job estimated at more than $1000.

What better way to kick off your new year than to start out with new photos and savings for your business. You’ve made new hires and need to get photos of them for your websites and marketing materials. Whether you are a property management company, Law Firm, Capital Investment Fund or local CPA firm, you need quality photography. Having smart phone photos and photography shot by a staff member with their point-and-shoot company, is like coming to a business meeting under-dressed. You need to put forth your best look when marketing your company and its services and photography can both help and hurt you in that effort. Let’s make it a plus for your business!

Ready to Save, Save, Save $$$? Book by Feb. 28th and we’ll save you money and back-up your photos!

Corporate Headshots – $100 set-up fee, $75 each for the first 10 employees, $50 for each additional employee. Shot at your location, no need to stop the work of your team. Individual headshots normally $250.

Corporate Portraits – Need something more than a headshot? Shot at your office or business setting. $250 each for the first five employees, $200 for each additional sitting. Normally $350.

Marketing images. Looking for staged images of your staff working with clients or executing their job. Two settings $495, Four settings $850. Six settings $1195.

Combination of the above…ask for a custom quote!

Speaking of Saving… Back-Up and Save yourself the time, aggravation and hassle.

Late last year, there was a panicked call my mother-in-law. Her computer was dead, she’d tried to gamble and get more life out of her hard drive. She lost the bet and lost all her photos.

Here is a quick guide to avoiding the loss of all your photos, documents and files.
- Download
- Rename
- Back-Up

Download

Download your pictures from your camera’s memory card. Leaving images/files on your card is a bad bet. Loose your camera to theft, damage, or just card failure and you loose all your pics.

Rename

Rename your images. There are numerous software applications that allow you to rename your files. I use Photo Mechanic. But there are multiple options depending on whether you’re on a PC or a Mac. You don’t want to have to search for all the files that start with IMG and DSC.  Use dates, keywords to make files more findable. It can take a few minutes to get it rolling, but will save you headaches and heart aches when you’re searching for a photo in the future.
http://ababasoft.com/photorenamer/
http://www.camerabits.com/site/

or go to http://www.cnet.com/ and find a version you feel matches your needs and budget.

Back-Up

Save, Save, Save, was so yesterday. Now it’s all about backing up your files. If you’re images (and documents) are only in one place, you’re taking a big risk. How do you do it? There are numerous solutions, and a lot of it depends on your budget. I’ll start with my workflow.

TimeMachine – Is an automated software available on all Apple’s since 2007. It incrementally backs up your system and files. Allowing for both full restores and individual file recovery. This has saved my bacon after a hard drive failure as well as  recovering a misplaced file. A simple google search came up with dozens of PC compatible options like Symantec Backup and Norton’s Ghost. These are simple ways to keeping your life a bit more sane and your data safer.

A second level that I would recommend, have all your important files saved to an external drive(s). It can be as simple as an external drive. They are available in sizes ranging from 160GB to 3TB and prices from $80 to north of $300, I would recommend a minimum of 1TB. Feel like going to the better protection. Get a RAID Storage device (hard drive enclosure with multiple drives) like the DROBO or similar. It combines multiple hard drives and provides redundancy in the case of a drive failure, thus you won’t lose data.

My set-up.
9TB Drobo FS (expandable up to another 3TB) – Is my main back up
3TB G Drive (Temporary redundancy storage)
2TB Western Digital My Book (Extra drive, alternates as Time Machine home)
1TB Time Capsule (houses my TimeMachine back-up)

On a final note, if you’re thinking about cloud storage, a recent Los Angles Times article explains options nicely.  All my client selects are also saved to my www.Photoshelter.com site as well, so I have redundancy there as well.

I’ve also been busy upgrading some equipment and figuring out better than the old gear. BTW, if you know anyone looking for a Canon 1DMKIIN and a EF 70-200 USM f/2.8 I’ll have those for sale after they get back from Canon Professional Services.

That said, new photography is happening, just smaller shoots most of the time. Some baby and family photography, a little Chicago Tribune photography, as well as some professional head shots for a local businessmen as well as event coverage for another client.

As I get ready to close out 2011, I’ve seen nice growth this year with a few new clients and I continue to find better ways to do business and will continue to tweak business processes to make my business more efficient, more profitable and of course produce great images for my clients while giving them the best customer service. As with everything I continue to learn at what it means to be a small business owner.

But I’ll say something about BBQ’d eel and in this case the “Crown Royal” from Wilde & Greene in Skokie, IL… it sure does photograph nicely! I’ll shoot sushi any day along with nice daylight and a macro lens!

Crown Royal sushi from Wilde & Greene in Skokie