To be honest it was the image my son Cooper came home with last year. I knew I had a really sharp eye considering my occupation but I was terribly disappointed that my son wasn't represented properly. He has yellow green eyes and they look gray. The image was blurry, red and blended into the very non-descript background. I actually scanned and corrected it before sharing it with Facebook friends.

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 :)