Posts Tagged ‘canton’

Do you remember when you were a little girl? Think back. You used to spend hours with your dolls and stuffed animals, talking to them, dreaming with them, creating wonderful childhood memories. You would dress Barbie and Ken in their wedding clothes. Barbie had the dress of your dreams, adorned in beads and lace. Bear was the preacher and when you placed him in front of the couple, all of the dolls and stuffed animals became quiet. The wedding was just as perfect as Ken and Barbie were.

Reality is that you were already planning your own perfect wedding, all you had to do was find your ‘Ken’. Years later, and a few adjustments to your dream, you are finally there, planning the wedding for real. You have finally found your ‘Ken’.

Everything is going great. The plans are coming together nicely. You are having your ceremony in the church you grew up in and your favorite minister will be performing the nuptials. The reception hall is booked and you have decided on a sit down dinner with the choice of either chicken or beef. You have found your photographer and have had your engagement pictures taken. You have decided to display your favorite image at the reception. You and ‘Ken’ look so blissful in the pictures. The guests are going to be so happy for you.

Or maybe you aren’t a traditional girl. Instead of the church and reception hall, your dream is white sand and tropical breezes with your family and some close friends.

Now that everything is in place, all the contracts signed, travel booked, dress chosen and you have your favorite songs gathered for the DJ, you can settle back and enjoy the rest of your engagement. You can continue to blissfully daydream about what the future holds for you and your ‘Ken’. You can prepare for spending forever together. Right?

As photographers, we have had the pleasure of photographing memories in both of the above situations. The bride’s dreams were realized and everything went pretty much as they had planned. Both ‘Barbie’ and ‘Ken’ were able to enjoy their day with the utmost joy and happiness.

Sometimes, though, dreams can take a wrong turn and become nightmares.

What would happen if a few months or even weeks before the wedding date, something has seemed to change between you and ‘Ken’? All of a sudden he begins bickering about the details that had long since been looked after. Maybe he just isn’t around as often as he once was.

Then he goes and does it! He calls off the wedding. He is telling you that he found someone else and just doesn’t think it would work between the two of you.

What is there for ‘Barbie’ to do? You have just been crushed by the man that you had been planning your forever with, and of course you are miserable. All of the plans you have been making are shattered. Everything that you have hoped for is gone, in an instant.

After the initial shock wears off, you suddenly realize something: you had signed all of the contracts for your wedding day and now you are the one who will be responsible for them. The amounts you owe are all varying, because of the cancellation clauses in those contracts. Therefore, you may still be owing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to these businesses through no fault of your own, or theirs.

I know a situation like this sounds like someone’s worst nightmare, and thank goodness that it is rare. It does happen though. As a professional, I have seen it happen to a few clients of mine over the last seven years. It is a horrible feeling for us because we have usually had the opportunity to get to know the couples fairly well, and also come to know their story to some degree.

I decided to write this article now because it is currently happening to one of my clients. It was a very abrupt circumstance, and she didn’t see it coming. The couple in question had been together for quite a number of years, and this sudden change came as quite the shock.

I began to wonder if there was any way to help prevent the financial burden that is left in the wake of a terrible situation such as this, and also what information I would want to know if I were to find myself with the need to plan a wedding again. So I got on line and went to Google. I searched for “wedding insurance and cold feet” and found out, surprisingly enough,that there are at least four companies that now offer this type of insurance. It’s purpose is to help protect couples ‘just in case.’ There are also many plans out there that will cover almost any other conceivable reason for canceling or postponing the wedding. The cost for these plans begins at $150 and goes up, depending on the amount and size of the wedding.

I know many may be reading this and rolling your eyes thinking, “I have already spent so much money. Why should I raise my expenses even more?’. While I understand your reservations, I respond to them by saying: because unexpected things happen in life. It is always better to protect yourself than to be left thousands of dollars in debt because of something that is above and beyond control.

Think about it this way, if it makes more sense to you. We have to buy car insurance when we purchase a car, although you may never need it. However, one day, your car may be innocently parked in a driveway when disaster strikes, say, in the form of a tree falling on it. That very insurance that you’ve paid is there to write the damage off.. How would you feel if you instead had to choose between absorbing the cost of repair work on the vehicle, or having to send it off to the junk yard and getting a new car, while strapped with the responsibility of paying loans on both?

As anyone who has ever had a car accident can tell you, insurance can often be the only support that truly gets you through a difficult time. And as a car is an investment, so is your wedding day. So why not do your best to protect it, as well as to protect the money you’ve put into it? As professionals, we are not looking to take advantage of our clients, as many may assume. By providing you with a little information, we hope to assist you in guaranteeing that you protect your investment in professional wedding services, be they caterers, reception halls, or photographers. After all, not every fairy tale can end with a “happily ever after.

Contact us and we can help you attain the dream wedding that you deserve.

We had a pack of dogs, like a gaggle of geese, except these little guys were quiet. I actually think that I was putting them asleep.

Following some of our friends on Facebook, we noticed that 5 puppies were born a few weeks ago, and they were so cute – so we thought that it would be great for them to come and visit our studio. They were cute, and nosey, tired, yawning (its even catching when a puppy yawns, and I couldn’t help myself) and like young children were fun to photograph. A moving target is always offers more of a challenge then a target that just sits there.

Thank you to Chrissy, Rick, Mitchell and Madison for bringing in their puppies for their first photo shoot.  I hope that you enjoy the pictures posted here, and we will have more for you to view in a week or so.

It’s the Stark County Fair week – and we have a booth set up to display our portraits and to answer any questions that you may have about any type of photography.

Stop by our booth and purchase a gift certificate, and we will double the amount right on the spot. It’s like magic, except we tell the computer what to do.

Take a look at another special that we have going on. If you are a senior, need a family session or have some kiddos that need their school portraits done, we can help.

Both of these specials are good for the week of the Fair. August 30-September 6, 2010.

If you cannot make it to the Fair, then give us a call at our studio. Don’t worry if we do not answer our phones. Leave us a message and we will get back to you after the Fair is over, and we will honor this special – but you must call and leave us your information for us to call you back. OR you can send us an email and we will get back to you ASAP. Click Here for our contact form.

Our family pet, a Kairn Terrier (like Toto from the Wizard of Oz) was getting jealous of us photographing other dogs, so we had to bring him to the studio for his model session.

He did very well in front of the camera. The only problem that we had was that he would not smile for us on command. My fellow photographers have commented that getting their children to pose for their portraits is difficult because they use them so often as models – as we do with our children, but I did not know that this would also be an issue with our family pet.

We had this little fellow in our studio to take some baby pictures. Unlike human babies that are extremely inactive, sleep – eat – and (something else), puppies are full of energy and can give anyone a work out trying to keep them in one spot. Next time I will have to see if meaty dog treats will do the trick, as pleading with the puppy to sit still did not do the trick.

Even with an active little puppy, we managed to capture some really cute images as well as some that were great for my blooper folder.

Today’s house hunters are turning to the Internet more and more when looking for a home. What does this mean? First impression is something that you need and its only a quick click and they move on to the next house listing on any Real Estate Website. How easy is it to take a picture of the interior of a home? Grab a point and shoot camera and start taking pictures. The one thing that you want to ask yourself is – am I doing right by my clients in showing images of their home that were taken in a hurry and that does not properly show off their home to attract the most number of clients possible?

Recently I was able to help out a local Real Estate Agent, Patti Oney (from Whipple Realty), to photograph the interior of a home that she is showing in the Alliance area. The images below are an example of what I captured using a point and shoot camera, and using a professional grade camera with the skill that a professional photographer can offer.

Living Room

As you enter the house you see the living room first.

From a point and shoot camera

Dinning Room

Dining room – professional image

From a point and shoot camera

Master Bedroom

Master Bedroom – professional image

From a point and shoot camera

Bathroom

Bathroom – does it look like the tub is filled with water?

From a point and shoot camera – impossible to capture everything that was captured
on the image above this one. Is this a half bath or a full bath? It’s difficult to tell
from this image, but not from the one above.

If you are interested in finding out how we can help make your listing “POP” compared to other Real Estate Agents, and get an advantage over your competition – contact us and we will be glad to help you in selling that home for your clients.

OK – so I am a little late in posting this – but then again, I did not have this cute image to post before July 4th.

Coming back from our family vacation, which was in Nova Scotia, Canada, we had the pleasure of capturing Jazzy’s portraits, with her many clothing changes. She was such a great subject to photograph –  a little nervous upfront, but I knew that she was getting into this picture taking thing because it almost looked like she was posing on purpose. This image of Jazzy looks like she is extremely relaxed and looking like she needs to be served a doggy treat because she did so well during her photo session.

Beverly and Jazzy – thank you for coming to our studio.

We always enjoy hearing from our past wedding photography clients, especially when their family has grown by 2 feet. About 4 years ago, we photographed Cari and Shawn’s wedding day and we recently heard from Cari regarding her son’s 9 month old pictures.

Here is one image that we captured.

Cari & Shawn – thank you for allowing us to capture an image of your growing family. We look forward to capturing other important “steps” in your lives.

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

Furthering our photography education is something that we strongly believe in. That is why we continually attend seminars that feature different photographers, as well as other professionals that help us improve what we can offer our clients.

We were in Chicago for the past 4 days taking private courses as well as group courses on how to improve our photography, how to see the light when photographing and collecting information on items that our clients would love to purchase to enhance their portraits from our studio.

Below is a group image that was captured of all of the attendees, as well as most of the speakers that were present at the photography seminar. As usual we had a blast, and we also connected with some of our friends that we have seen in the past. You can see that its a little bit different then your normal group portrait – well the group that we belong too challenges all of the members to offer a portrait experience that everyone will love.