First of all, look at the cover photo! lol soooo adorable! Secondly I cannot thank you enough for all the spectacular...
]]>
Ultimately I retouched it to this state but I have a special skill set that allows me to do this when hundreds of other parents don't.
As we all know, I love LB and quite frankly felt I could do a better job. Many years ago I worked for Olan Mills as a school photographer so I had the picture day process down. I'm positive I can light better. I had tons of background image files to work with because I make a habit of shooting the backgrounds separately after each set I build regardless of the product. And most of all, I had beautiful landscapes of places I've captured throughout the years. Especially Long Beach!! Business was slow in the beginning of 2015 and decided to start with sports. I photographed the Middle School field and then shot the Athletes on Green Screen. The feedback was amazing and I streamlined the shooting process so I could photograph a lot of kids in a short amount of time, then composite the images in my studio to create something memorable.
As a mom in the LB school district East School was willing to accept my proposal, then West School did too... and then the fun began. I posted over 200 background choices for the PTA's to choose from. They had to narrow it down to 30 in an effort not to overwhelm the parents with choices. I'm so excited to see how it all works out and receive feedback. I greatly appreciate the local schools giving a Local business a shot over the Big Picture factories they have been using. Guess we will wait and see the outcome :)
For the parents reading this: I personally will be at every shoot as the lead photographer. Each set will be lit by me and will have a professional photographer trained by me shooting if there are more than one sets built. There is no picture factory processing your child's images. I personally process, retouch, composite and send your images to print. There will be a make-up day for each school which I will be the photographer for. I am NOT A SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHER! I am a professional photographer who lives in and loves Long Beach. If you call CTK PHOTOS - I answer! I offer custom service and high quality images at the same cost as the picture factories. My goal is for my team to photograph ALL the Long Beach schools and sports programs within the next 5 years and with your support I believe this can happen :)
]]>
I learned that I can create an e commerce website in under a week…. And it looks pretty good too - Thanks to the fine e robots at Zenfolio.
Most of all it has been reinforced that its not what you know. Its who you know! And the fine people of LB are eager to help me be successful at doing what I love to do. And thats creating beautiful images while making a decent living doing it.
So if you have any sports leagues, teams or clubs that would like to raise the image quality and service - I would be honored to receive the referral.
]]>I knew it would be difficult to capture every player on the perfect night with no wind and the sun just setting with the lights in the field twinkling just right... So I thought... I can capture amazing landscape shots. And I'm a seasoned studio photographer. I need to blend these together. Oh- I forgot to mention that I am also a photoshop expert. There is not too much I can't accomplish with photoshop and I teach Photoshop at FIT, NYC as well. Ultimately I shoot the field, gym or venue of the league. Then I shoot the portraits on green screen and composite the two together.
So I decided to give it a shot. Long Beach is the neighborhood that I live in and where we are raising our family. I started here with the leagues my children participate in. I've been very well received. Partially because I'm familiar with the parents on some of the boards and partially because people recognize that I am the author of the Visions of Long Beach book which is a book primarily on the landscape of Long Beach. Although the book was published in 2008, I have been running the Visions of Long Beach Facebook group which has over 500 local members.
So here I go - Wish me luck!
]]>