Archive for the ‘About Us’ Category

High School Senior

Our latest promotion is for 2012 high school seniors to introduce our one session fee – 3 different session choice. Postcards were sent out recently, but do not worry if you did not receive a postcard, we have the postcard below to show you what the mailed promotion looks like.

The Senior Promotion

This promotion is very flexible. We want to photograph your senior and if you purchase your All-Access Senior Pass this month, you can use it at any time up till 3/31/12. If you decide to do your session early and order in the months of July to September – you can save up to an additional 15% off of your order (some requirements apply).

Making it easy and affordable for their senior year

We make it easy to contact us – give us a call (330-821-7714) or send us an email. This is the year that your son or daughter will be a senior – let us make it memorable with images that will capture their personality.

Networking – Business After Hours

Three local businesses in Alliance had a Business After Hours last night. What is a Business After Hours? Its an event for the local business owners, and some of their employees, to get together.

The social networking was held at Uptown Auto, 330 Car Salon and Autozone.

Who attends these events? Politicians, small business owners, clergy people and employees of small businesses. Its a time to relax and socialize and network with businesses in town. Sharing tips and also exchanging business cards is but one way to help each other with business. And if another business can refer someone from their town – its much better then seeing the business go elsewhere.

Smile – Picture Time (simple business picture)

The people pictured in the image below are the owners of 330 Car Salon, Autozone manager, and co-owners of Uptown.

If you would like to host a business after hours, get a hold of us or Mark Locke at the Alliance Area Chamber of Commerce and we can help you organize one.

Thank you for inviting us – Great Business After Hours.

Last week we attended a benefit dinner in support of Lindsay Kieffer. She was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, underwent chemo treatment for several weeks. Friends and family members joined forces and came up with a benefit dinner to help the family with some of the upcoming bills.

To date they raised over $55,000 through auctions, raffles, 50/50 drawing. The winner of the 50/50 drawing donated 1/2 of her winnings back to Lindsay – so it was really a 75/25 drawing. During this 50/50 drawing, several ladies and plenty of firemen said they would get their head shaved if certain goals were reached. Lots of hair was removed that night, but everyone took it well and everyone came prepared with caps, hats of scarves to cover up in the cold weather.

We were there because we photograph the children of one of the “bald by the end of the night” ladies – Sarah. In the group picture she is the one to the far right – sporting a scarve.

Ladies – it took a lot of guts to have your air removed, but you did it for such a great cause.

To Lindsay and her family – we are praying for you, and wish you a speedy recovery from this illness.

To hear from Lindsay and her sister and close friends check out the story online at FOX8 News. Click here

We are currently in Niagara Falls, Ontario looking for Santa Claus. Rumors are that he hangs out in a place that is cold and full of snow – well that would be further north then Niagara Falls, maybe I can ask my photographer friend in Sudbury, Ontario if he has seen him yet. James – any sign of the big jolly fellow?

Just kidding – its Bruce’s 40th birthday, and we decided to go to Niagara Falls to check out their water park, and its not too bad. They have some great slides, and there is lots of water (kind of the main ingredient for a water park, I guess). The only problem with being in the water for over 4 hours is that all of your skin starts to look like a prune. Or maybe its the age?

If anyone knows of the whereabouts of the jolly red fellow – tell him that he is needed at the Carnation City Mall to greet the children on November 20.

Today was our second day photographing at a local preschool.

We love photographing at preschools, because you just never know what will happen. How silly do we have to be to get that good smile from the little one that is in front of our camera? Can we crack the rough exterior of the biggest frown on a little one – you bet. Photographing at a preschool gives a whole new challenge on what to do when children do not want to smile.

What do we do during a Preschool Photo Session? Check out this video, where we let the children use our self serve option. Just a gag by the way – we do not have enough insurance to cover our photography equipment that will be handled by the preschool children.

This year we will be offering a variety of different Christmas cards while we are photographing Santa Claus.

But you don’t have to wait to come and see Santa Claus to have these ordered. Come in to have a family session done and we will show you a sample of what your card can look like.

Don’t forget – we print on site, so you don’t have to wait weeks for your images. You select them, we print them, and you go home with them. What could be better?

I hope that everyone will remember to set their clock back 1 hour tonight. An extra hour of sleep – who can complain about that?

This little fellow will surely have use of that extra hour.

We are attending a seminar just below Toledo – and boy did we learn some new techniques in photographing.

Brian Little and Clem Kutzli hosted a Super Monday Event through PPA. We belong to PPA (Professional Photographers of America) because not only do they offer great classes to improve photographer’s techniques, but they have some of the best insurance coverage that can be obtained by a professional photographer – and that is something that protects both the photographer and the photographer’s client.

OK – back to topic at hand. Today we spent some time going over studio work, which I found refreshing. As with all areas, there is always room to improve one technique. However, I was more interested in outdoor photographing using natural light, which both Brian and Clem are great at. Here are a few portraits that were captured – one with each instructor.

Well we are on vacation, as some of you may have found out if you attempted to call our studio (all calls and emails will be answered ASAP).

The first image is of our children taken at Point Michaud Beach – this is the beach that Nicole spent many childhood days playing in the sand and in the surf as well. She did not start playing in the surf until late July, August or early Sepetember as the water of the Atlantic Ocean can be a little on the chilly side in Cape Breton. Believe me I speak from experience, as I was standing in about a foot of water when I took this image.

This next image is from our day at Fort Louisburg – the largest rebuilt settlement in North America from the period of the 1800′s. This is something to see. Not only can you look through what life was like back in the 1744 but they have people there that play the role of many of the inhabitants of that period. They say that questions are welcomed, and they will answer any question that you think of. As I was entering the gate of the Fort, I was questioned about my camera – to them it looked like a weapon, but they let me pass anyway.

The final image is of a sunset taken place in Antigonish, which is located just south of Cape Breton. We left Fort Louisburg and  stopped for the night at a spot near the Atlantic Ocean. This was our view as we settled down for the evening.

During the seminar that both Nicole and I attended, we signed up for a shoot-out. What is that? It very similar to a cook off, except whoever gets the best picture wins.

The shoot-out consisted of 5 photographers, 5 digital retouchers – we were not aware of what we were going to photograph before we were thrown into the mix. As I entered the room, I was the first victim on the photographer side of the shoot-out, I saw that I had a female model, an old wooden golf club and an orange plastic truck. And I only had 5 minutes to capture an image that I could use for my digital retoucher, which I was very fortunate to have Tabitha Norris (from The Metropolitan Gallery) do my digital retouching. From this effort we received the most number of votes from our peers, of approximately 1,000 members, on a website that ideas about anything that involves photography is shared.

Nicole and Dawn Sheree (from DS Photography) came in second place with their effort.

Here is the image that took first place:
Photographer – Bruce Nicol
Digital Retoucher – Tabitha Norris

Here is the image that took second place:
Photographer – Dawn Sheree (DS Photography)
Digital Retoucher – Nicole Nicol