Thoughts from Worth A Thousand Words Photography

Why Wedding Photographers Prices are “Wack”

2012-01-26T21:12:00.000-08:00

My husband sent me this, and I am in awe of this photographer!!!! Well said! This is being posted just as an insight, not as a rant. Many say that I am too expensive, and not think about all that is involved with our pricing.
Why Wedding Photographers Prices are “Wack”

Going...

2012-01-26T12:34:00.000-08:00

So, last night I was showing my daughter, who came home to live for a little while, my photo video montages that I created of my work. It was actually really neat for me to rewatch the videos. My goodness, my work has evolved so much since I started. This I find to be a VERY good thing! It means that I have been working on how to perfect my art. I look at the photos and I think "you know what I could have done?"

So, for the next few days, I am going to share my videos of old work, and then I will make a new video, of NEW work. I would love to hear what people think and the differences of my changes!

Tipping Your Photographer

2012-01-24T12:44:00.000-08:00

Since I have been a professional photographer and before the Groupon happened, I have gotten one tip. I was surprised and happy! But it made me think if it was proper to tip a photographer.

I have worked at places that gives services such as delivering, serving, or making, all which in my opinion you should tip for. You give good service, and people tip you. However it is not an obligation by any means!

As far as photography goes, I think it is appropriate to tip for a service well done. Being a photographer, it is a physically demanding job, not to mention mentally taxing! We stand, sit , kneel and bend in weird positions to get the right angle of our subjects. We have to think how to be creative and original with our compositions of our subject. That in itself is very challenging!

For me personally, I am constantly thinking how to change up my style to make my clients feel unique in my art. Not an easy task I might add! But I do it for the sake of my own satisfaction of knowing I gave it my all.

So, if you ever wonder if you should tip your photographer, I say YES, if they did a job well done!

2012 and Reflections

2012-01-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

Here we are at 2012. I am still not where I want to be, but for some reason, my instincts tell me to not give up. To keep moving forward and not lose heart for the art that I love creating! I created a photo montage of my husband and I's career. When I watch this video, it brings me to tears and appreciate my career choice. More than that, I think about all the people I have met, and knowing that they would be disappointed in me to walk away! Including my husband! I hope you enjoy the video!

The Start of Groupon

2011-02-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

In all the years of being a photographer, I have never been brought to tears. Today we started a groupon deal with a salon. To our great surprise, a GREAT SUCCESS! But one of the buyers was in a time bind. She called and asked if she could schedule an appointment today. She gave me a story about how she was in going in tomorrow to have her left breast removed. Me being skeptical decided to ride this one out and say yes.

When I arrived to the salon to fix up my mini studio, the girls were talking about their concern if this woman could be scamming us. I told them either way, I am not worried.

The woman arrived in her hat, and I immediately knew she was telling me the truth. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and after a year of chemo therapy, more lumps grew. Everything happened so fast for her, and she finally decide to be brave on the last minute and have her photos taken to remember how she looked with her breast.

During the session, she showed me her scars. All the while telling about all the things she went through. I came to conclusion that she is a brave woman with positive attitude.

At the end of our session, she asked to do one last photo. She wanted one with a pink feather boa wrapped underneath her breast. I took 2 shots, but the last one I knew IMMEDIATELY it was the one. The photo was the epitome of my company's name. Her photo was truly worth a thousand words. And with that thought, I had to step out. It brought me to tears. I will never forget her!

February 22, 2011 Update:
The brave woman has consented for me to use the very image that brough me to tears.

Never To Be Taken For Granted

2011-01-21T00:53:00.000-08:00

Transformer Barricade

The link I have posted is from my DeviantArt account. As promised, I am retelling old stories from my previous blog.

This photo was taken a lil' over 2 years ago. It was a calendar project to raise money for the "Make A Wish Foundation". Needless to say it fell through, but the experience and lessons were greatly earned!

This project was a two day photo shoot with Mustangs and models. I had to learn real quick about shadows and reflections! Posing a model with cars is not as easy as it seems.

Day one: COMPLETE FRUSTRATION! I was given some experienced models and models who knew nothing about being a model! I was also given wannabe models. Oy, what headache! I am sure if you have experience with models, you would know that if you have to pound out photos and the model is not listening to your directions, you are not going to use her very often! This poor model looked like I was going to kill her with my camera!

Day Two: This day truly tried my patience. I set a time and it is not a time of day I care for, but I am where I was suppose to be at 5am! 2 hours later, the models and everyone else shows up! I am a bit disgruntled at this point!

At 8am we leave finally to our location of photo shoot. This part was actually fun for me. Most models that day knew what to do and how to do it. HOWEVER, I did get a wanna be model! I did my best to make her look good, but to be honest, she is past her prime and she refuses to admit to it! I know that may seem harsh, but I am being honest and realistic. I am shooting a hot all girl calendar with sexy cars, not cougars with sexy cars!

At the end of the day, I was dead beat tired. Unfortunately, I had to get cracking on the photos. Editing photos can be a lil' gruesome. After quite a few hours, I was done.

I had delivered the images, only to be told that they decided to not go forward with the calendar. Not only that, but they demanded me to hand over my images so that they can do as they please with them. First of all, that WAS NEVER in our agreement. I made it PERFECTLY clear about rights to my images. They claimed they understood and was ok with it!

In the end they claimed they contacted a lawyer, and when I hear those claims, I actually do talk with a lawyer. I was assured they had no case. I did what I was suppose to do to protect my images. Oh what a sigh of relief!

I think what upset me the most is that for 1) I gave a big discount rate since it was for charity. 2) Their claim for business ethics, and how they have been taken for granted. 3)All who were involved got SCREWED!

I learned a great deal from this, but the best lesson I took more then anything is never be taken for granted!

2011

2011-01-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

Since I have become a professional photographer, there have been so many ups and downs. Every once in a while, I go through my portfolio and see how far I have come. Such a big difference from then and now! There are times that I can't believe how much I have learned and changed. To me, all of it is truly amazing!

Yet even though I do find all of this to be amazing, I am still frustrated. I am not where I want to be in my career. I am constantly looking for ways to breakthrough and be noticed. Sometimes I get close to a glimmer of hope, but it quickly fades away. I am hard to encourage and easily discouraged.

I put 2011 as the title because this is going to be my year! So many random opportunities have come to me that will help make me shine since the 1st of this month. I pray and hope that it will continue to reach my goals. And even if doesn't, I will never give up. I have come to far to ever give up! This is my life, my love and joy!

A new beginning...

2011-01-17T19:32:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, we had blog with word press. And we have decided we no longer like it. With a little research, we decided to go with blogger.com! It is so much easier and simpilar! Which makes it easier for us to return to blogging about our adventures, or even news about products that can be useful for any level of photographers!

We hope our stories will be inspiring or even found to be amusing. At this time we will try to update everyday with our past posts from our previous blogs!

We would love to hear from you about your adventures with photography or your experience with a photographer! Until then, we will keep capturing wonderful moments!

~Kitty & Doug