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

Despite a mild fear of heights and not being a huge roller coaster fan…. helicopters are completely different to my brain cells! The last time I went up in a helicopter, I was hanging out with Kansas Air National Guard members in a UH-60 Blackhawk doing night vision training while back in my Topeka days. The KANG was getting ready to deploy for a tour in Bosnia and we went out over the fields of Northeastern Kansas to see what farmers and cattle were doing.

I needed to make a few phone calls, including to my insurance agent, a few more calls to make sure I was covering all my bases, then more calls to check for availability of helicopters and pilots.

After a few weather delays, the day finally arrived, We were also waiting for the leafs to turn to their penultimate colors. In the end,  based off of referrals and the size of the helicopter I chose to rent from Sun Aero Helicopters who fly out of Lansing (IL) Municipal Airport. We’d be going up in a Robinson R44 Raven II aircraft. It was a great day to fly, lots of visibility, mild temps and a nice pilot didn’t hurt!

We arrived on scene about 25 minutes after liftoff… did I mention how cool it was to fly… with the door off my side? I guess watching M*A*S*H with my brother all those years paid off! I made some nice pictures which shows the client’s campus in perspective to their downtown area as well as a view of the Chicago skyline in the distance.

If you want aerials of your buildings or property, let me know, I’d be happy to go flying again!

The weeks have been flying by since early July when I had a seven-straight weekend assignment. It was a great challenge shooting concerts and performances in the same venue every weekend, pushing me to continue to see things differently every event. Obviously with different acts, from a string trio, a 70+ person theatre group to a 70′s icon in KC and the Sunshine band, it allowed things to stay fresh. It was a great assignment that allowed me to make a lot of great photos and meet some very nice people who both supported and funded the events. And with the exception of a few flirtations with rain and one really hot day, the weather was great for the shows. If you’re ever bored during the summers and want something to do, head on up to Williams Bay, WI and check out Music By the Lake.

Entertainment wasn’t the only theme of my Summer, while definitely slower, there continued to be some editorial work as well as a smattering of family.
One of my favorite persons that I met the past few months was Addie Davis, she won’t tell you how old she is, nor would I ask…. but she completely reminded me of my grandmother, with a big smile, quick wit, dressed impeccably and ready with a story! She was a real charmer…. and to say she could quilt is an understatement!

While not the next wedding photographer prodigy, I was asked to help a friend out with a last minute request. Her daughter had just gotten engaged and was traveling through the area from the East Coast, headed to the Left Coast for a new job, so I obliged with a quick engagement session at a local park. While not second nature doing these, I’ve picked up a few ideas by watching my wedding centric friends and was pretty happy with the results. Weather complied and the “kids” were fun and easy to work with, Giving me both an American Gothic pose and a flashback to Titanic!

Lots going on the next two months, more shoots and a move, I’ll try to be better about blogging, fell of the bandwagon for a few weeks!

Take care! Shaun