Hard to think another year has passed by. I am sure this year with all my travels for PPANE it will fly by even faster! This is my holiday card for 2008. If you don't have your family photographed every year then you need to add this to your list of to do's this year. I can honestly say the mailing of this card has been very beneficial to my business for the last 16 years for a couple of reasons. First is the obvious, it keeps me in touch with my clients and is an added factor that makes us family. This small gesture has brought clients back to me year after year. No matter how many months go by and I run into a client, the first thing they say to me is how much they enjoyed my card and ask to never be removed from the list. If that wasn't reason enough to have these portraits done, the other reason is more important. It gives me the chance to walk in the shoes of my clients at least once a year. From choosing the photographer to create the image, to finding a time to pull 4 busy schedules together (the three of us and the photographer) to what we should wear. These are all the stresses that our clients go through. And that just gets you to the session. Then wanting it all to come out perfect, and the agonizing pain of picking our the final ones. Every step I take is the same my clients do. It really puts the process into prospective and helps me understand every day what my clients have gone through to walk through my door. If you think about it, we expect our clients to compensate us for the amount we do and yet many of us won't even have it done FREE. How can we truly value what we do if we don't even do it ourselves. I challenge all of you in 2009 to do a family portrait and display it proudly in your studios!PS
The images above were taken by Jay Kennedy. I worked for Jay when I was in high school. To this day his imagery still amazes me. Yes we were in a field with cows, my cat Bella and dog, Lola. These images are ONE FRAME images. No head swapping, no photoshop tricks! They are as Jay captured them.
