Olney Studios Blog

A Conversation

Recently, a friend asked me why I include digital images with photo packages. “I think it’s a great idea,” she said, “but a lot of photographers today don’t include them – we [clients] have to buy them separately.”

In thinking about it, I guess the answer can be found back in my childhood. When I was a kid, someone always was holding a camera, and we had the photos to prove it: Album after album filled with those 4×6 prints. Framed pictures on the walls of our home. Photos of family reunions, holidays, vacations, you name it.

Had.

My Family and Disaster…

Our family — as so many families do — went through some changes. My parents divorced when I was 12 and my mom and I, along with my two brothers, adjusted to our new normal without my father in our little shoe-box size mobile home on the outskirts of town. In 2001, when I was 15, Mom met my stepdad and eventually moved us into town to live with him.

One night, she got a call that would change everything. Some neighborhood kids had decided to set fire to our now-“vacant” mobile home. Everything we had left there … ruined. I tried to look at it like a Phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes situation, a chance to throw out everything that had been bad and start fresh. But it was hard.

Everything we had was in that house. My life was in that house. And the photos were the most heartbreaking loss of all. We had boxes of photo albums, three to four in each box. My parents always got school pictures of us, and every year new ones hung on our walls. With each passing year after the fire, I realized just how precious those photos were.

A Silver Lining…

To this day, I get emotional thinking about it. And I guess that’s one big reason why providing a digital record of your images — shared with you via online gallery and also safeguarded in my records, both on my hard drive(s) and “in the cloud” — is so important to me.

While technology has changed greatly over the past two decades, I realize there still are many professional “big-time” photographers trying to adhere to the old-school practice of getting clients to come back to their studio after the shoot and choose their prints. Some sell only prints and don’t even offer a digital option. But I just can’t do it.

Why?  Because that childhood fire shaped how I do business.

When people pay for my time and my talent, they also pay for their memories … so, if some catastrophic event occurs, they never are lost. My clients will not go through what I did.

I won’t let it happen.

A Different Conversation

Recently I observed another conversation between two colleagues about this very topic. It was interesting, because one colleague was touting: “print your photos if you wish to save them,” and I read a response by another colleague that stated printing does nothing to save photos, should disaster strike. If there is a fire, a flood, a tornado, odds are the printed photos are not going to survive. I can personally attest to that…

I felt incredibly validated. So many photographers today still try to push printed images on people. Prints are amazing, I offer prints to my clients but I don’t make prints the only option. 

If you want to have even a chance to truly preserve your images, you must have the digital files.  

You can check out some of my work here: Portfolio

My most recent work and activity can be seen here: Facebook Page

Upcoming Session

I have never started and shared a blog post prior to a session actually happening, but I am SO EXCITED for this upcoming session that I just had to talk about it! 

I booked/scheduled this session based on inspiration for an upcoming ad campaign that I am going to be running. I needed a model, and my client’s dad responded.  If you were to Google “fine art child portraits” you would get a pretty good idea of what I’m going for. 

What Makes This Session Different?

I’m putting a lot into this session. 

I hired a hair and makeup artist to come to the studio and get my little client ready. That alone is completely new and something that I am looking forward to offering my clients in the future. I seriously can. not. wait. to work some magic with the artist from Nancy Rice Artistry (<– be sure to check out her work here!). 

What Next?

Well, next we have our session! I intend to possibly do a live feed while the hair and makeup is happening, and the session. If I don’t do a live feed, I will definitely be doing a recording. 

Please stay tuned on my Facebook page for more info on this upcoming session! 

I will be sharing a new post after the session with some sneak peeks!

After The Session

The session happened today! It couldn’t have went better! 

Laura from Nancy Rice Artistry arrived at the studio 10  minutes early. She was an absolute dream to work with. She was attentive and wonderful with my tiny client. She was receptive to what I was looking for (even though I wasn’t 100% sure). In the end we decided on a look and she made it happen. 

Working With My Client

I intended to have one of my client’s parents live stream the session for me, but unfortunately (in the moment) I simply forgot. I feel like this is rather unfortunate since I thin it is so important to see how artists work.

My tiny client was wonderful. Her father said that she was tired, which is probably why she was so completely OK with everything.As you can see in the pose in the featured image, this pose may not be entirely natural to some children, but she totally worked it.  

Next Update

My next update will most likely be the gallery from this session. I will be sure to share it here, and will be sure to reshare this post. <3

The Gallery (update 04/08/19)

I’m sharing the gallery here as a link. As of right now, I have only shared it on Facebook and not here on the site. The link for the Facebook gallery is HERE.

Be sure to check out the rest of my work HERE. 

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Everyone Has a Story

Part 1

My journey to the world of photography…where do I begin? I’m not sure. Maybe the beginning? Where is the beginning…?

I suppose in my case the beginning is as far back as I can remember. My family was always taking photos. We had album after album of photos full of those old 4×6’s (or maybe it was 5×7’s?). I remember photos of family reunions, family holiday parties, vacations. 

We had photos on the walls, printed photos. No canvas prints, but we did have framed, regular prints. It was the same at my grand parents home; they had their walls covered with their children and grand children. 

Every single occasion, someone had a camera. 

My History With Art

I’ve been an artist of sorts my whole life. I remember being so little I wasn’t in school yet, sitting at the kitchen table drawing and coloring, drawing the world around me (although how good this “art” was is up for debate). 

As soon as I learned to write, I was writing stories. My first short story was only about a page long (maybe closer to half a page), and it was about a unicorn. Much more than that, I can’t recall. My parents had saved it for years but no longer have it. 

During my adolescent years poetry became an escape. Poetry and sketching. I could sketch most anything I tried to, except faces. I never could sketch faces. The older I got, the progressively darker my poems got. I submitted a poem that I wrote titled Chaos to the website poetry.com when I was 14 and it was accepted and published. My family was unable to afford a copy of the book, however, so I have never seen it in it. I later learned the company was a bit scammy, but at the time, being a kid, it was absolutely amazing that my poem was “chosen”. 

Later, I applied to attend Art Instruction Schools of America. They sent a rep to my parents home to interview me and my mom. I was accepted as I was pretty good at doodling while having no formal training. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I quickly learned that “school by mail” was not for me. 

Lets Back Up a Bit

Yes, lets back up a bit. My first camera.

When I was 12 or 13 I decided I wanted a camera for Christmas. My mom took me to the store and let me pick one out. She said “I can’t promise you that I will be able to get it, but if I do it will probably be the only gift you get this year.” I assured her I didn’t care, it was literally all I wanted. And that was true. 

I found out later that my mom went back and put it on layaway and made little payments on it all year. Back then, my family was very poor. Life was hard, for reasons I won’t go into here. Just know that my mom did incredible considering the hand she was dealt. 

So, she made tiny payments when she could on this Canon Rebel X that her child wanted for Christmas. When Christmas came around, I opened my present and it was the camera. She also got me a camera bag, approximately ten rolls of Kodak film, extra batteries, the works. 

I was so happy. I followed the instructions and put a roll of film in the camera, set that sucker on auto and photographed my little heart out. I was photographing everything, not having a clue if I was even doing it right. I just saw things I loved and photographed them. 

Eventually I had about 5 rolls of film full. The details of what happened next are fuzzy, but I know I left my camera bag on my front porch. In Florida, most people have screened in porches, and our porch was no different. It had a door that locked. I’m not going to make excuses for why I left it where I left it; one should be able to leave their belongings on their own property without fear of it coming up missing (you see where this is going?). 

Yup. I immediately noticed that it was gone when I went to retrieve it. I was heart broken. My mom tried to get it back (charges were pressed, and pawn shops were visited), to no avail. It would be another 14 years or so before I had an actual camera in my hand again. 

My Photography Degree

My husband and I partly bonded initially over photography. He loved taking photos, and I did as well. I had discovered smart phones, so I was constantly taking photos and editing/manipulating them with phone apps. 

I started college right before we got married. I was pursuing a degree in environmental science. Long story short my husband got a job offer out of state, and they wanted to hire both him and I. I asked a friend for a reference and he stated that the only way he would do that is if I promised him I would stay in school. I made that promise and intended to keep it. 

I would only have time for online school, working full time at this new job. I began hunting for an online school to continue my environmental science degree, but was unable to find one. One day, while I was sitting in the Copper Mountain College courtyard (in Joshua Tree, CA) waiting for my next class, I saw an ad pop up on my laptop for a photography degree course. An Associate of Science degree. I had no idea you could get an AS in photography. 

TO BE CONTINUED….

Please stay tuned! I’ll be updating this blog post soon

2019 Seniors 

Despite the atrocious weather, never knowing if it was going to snow or rain, we were finally able to get this session on the books. It was kind of a “now or never” deal, I think, as we were running out of time. Rain or shine, it was happening. This season has been absolutely cray when it comes to the weather. 

Location: Old Towne Dayton

We weren’t sure where we wanted to shoot, but I have always wanted to do a photo shoot in old town Dayton so that was my first suggestion. My clients agreed, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. The wall behind Frankie in several of the shots says “Levi Strauss” and he was actually wearing Levi’s. It all seemed meant to be. 

A little about Frankie

Frankie, as you can see, was absolutely amazing to work with and was totally comfortable in front of the camera. Before our cap and gown shots (not included here, you will have to check out his session on Facebook to see those!) we were approached by a gentleman that we assumed owned the building we were shooting in front of. He was very kind (as Dayton people are), and I think thought we were someone else at first? We told him what we were doing, photographing a senior session and he asked Frankie what he was going to do after graduation. Frankie stated he plans to join the Air Force. I could tell he is excited to do so, and I just know he is going to make his family proud. 

I shared a few of Frankie’s photos below. As soon as I am finished editing I will come back to this post and share a link to the whole gallery. 🙂

Yup, I said it. People looking for free professional photography are jerks.

Every time I see it I cringe. “Looking for a photographer who doesn’t charge an arm or a leg” (which, mind you, are actually REALLY EXPENSIVE. Like, “$150k and up” expensive…each)

OR

“Looking for someone who is building their portfolio to take photos of my wedding/family/children/whatever-type-of-photography-I’m-interested-in who can do this for EXPOSURE (because EXPOSURE pays the bills *insert eye-roll emoji here*). 

Look, I get it. You want photos. Photos are important. Photos are literally moments in time of you and your family captured and printed for you to cherish for your lifetime. I. GET. IT.  

Just because you don’t want to budget for photography, doesn’t mean I should have to work for free.

*BUT*

It is absolutely insulting to ask a professional to work for free. It blows my effing mind that anyone would think this is OK. 

 Let me ask you this:

Question 1 – How much would you charge me if I were to hire you for 50 hours of work in your field?

Then…

Question 2 – How would you feel if I told you that what you charge is too much and I don’t understand why you charge so much?

Then:

Question 3 – What if I try to negotiate your rate to what I think you should be charging based off of my non-existent knowledge of your profession?

If the above scenario happened to you, would you not be insulted? Now imagine this happening to you REGULARLY. (I’d like to thank local pro photographer Jeramie Lu for the above illustration. Feel free to check out his work here: http://www.jeramielu.com/)

I have read a million times over from people who are not photographers that photography is “just pushing a button”. And that “if you get it right in camera you don’t have to edit the photos” (LOL).  People like myself and my colleagues here locally (and elsewhere) are not simply taking a snapshot. We are creating art, of you and your family.  We are capturing memories. We literally make time travel possible.

We take years to “perfect” our skills.  We strive to constantly improve. We continue our education continually. Literally, we never stop learning. We spend TENS of thousands of dollars OR MORE per year to run our businesses. 

And then we have people asking us to work for less than minimum wage. It is insulting, and yes: you sound like a jerk. 

I suppose this post is a bit of a rant. And I apologize for that. I haven’t written in a while, so I apologize that this is the first y’all have heard from me. 

It has to stop though….

It really does. 

I want to be clear: photography is a luxury, not a necessity. No one owes anyone photos. No one is entitled to a photographer’s services. I know that sounds harsh, but that is the reality of it.

#SorryNotSorry

What do professional photographers have to do to be respected as an industry? I suppose that is my question for you, the reader.  I want to know your thoughts. Why do people feel they deserve free photos from someone who invests thousands of dollars into their business every year? And has a legitimate business?  

I am blessed by every single client who entrusts me to photograph their big day, or their photo session. Absolutely blessed. All of my clients pay the same rate, depending on what package they choose.

And as promised, here’s how you can avoid being a jerk: stop asking professionals to work for *exposure* or less than minimum wage. It is really as simple as that.

So, let me know your thoughts. I apologize again for the rant-style post, but I don’t apologize for what I’ve said here. ♥

Shameless plug below:

Feel free to check out some of my work here: Olney Studios Portfolio