Birthday Weekend

Well I really stayed low key this weekend. Little bummed that I didn't get to go see Peter Tork of the Monkee's! lol But it's all good.. Spent some time with family and friends for MY Birthday!!! Funny how I always have the camera out for everyone's birthday's etc. etc. But never for my own! LOL
Spent some time looking at some new album making software. Great stuff, but I'm to the point of info-overload! I also re-vamped my wedding packages and prices. Hated to, but the cost of doing business is going up. Just some of the software I mentioned for the albums can cost hundreds, although some are free. The free ones usually are from the labs and then they get you in lab costs. Oh well. Many people do not understand everything that goes into the photography business. Even if your a freelance, like myself, there are a lot of costs involved. The most ironic of it all is that the photographer is the "artist" that is going to be charged with creating long lasting memories, and the first person to be asked to cut their price. Like I say on my website[ www.mwsphoto.com ]...Your going to eat the cake and the food, and we know where that is going to end up. The flowers will wilt and get tossed out, the candles will melt. High percentage is that you will never wear your wedding dress again. The tuxedo's will see many other weddings and proms, but the photo images will hang on the wall or be displayed in an album for generations. Amazingly, the photographer is the first person everyone wants to get a "deal" from. Last I looked, none of the other service people bargain prices. When you tell the best bakery in town that you can get a 4 tiered cake to feed 200 people for $50 cheaper down the road, they usually tell you..."Hit the road!" "oh, I don't want to spend $2,000 on that designer wedding gown. I'll give you $500, that's the price I saw one on the rack at J.C. Pennys!" Next thing you know, the clerk is taking your complimentary bottle of foo-foo water from your hands and showing you the door. The photographer has thousands of dollars in equipment...equipment that breaks down, wears out or has to be updated. They have learned an art form that turns what would be a snapshot taken by Uncle Ed, into one of the photos you dreamed about when you were thumbing through the wedding magazines planning your event. Is the baker of your cake standing by to interact with your guests? Nope, but the photographer is...or should be. (a point when picking your photographer). Then he/she or they, must go back to submit film to the lab or download hundreds of imagines to the PC. The images, once in the lab for printing, must be picked up and sorted and put into some sort of presentation. If it is an album, we are talking hours more work. Your 4/6/8 hours of wedding coverage can easily turn into 16/24 or more hours for the photographer. This is not counting that you have had all your planning for your special day come down to a single evening. A pro-wedding photographer does this almost every weekend year in year out, taking from their personal time to have weekends for them and the like. Now don't get me wrong...they know what they are getting into...but this is just one of the many things your paying for. I haven't even touched on the cost of gas, insurance, professional dues, clothes, computers, websites, printing materials, business cards, cell phone...it goes on and on chipping a few pennies away from every earned dollar.
The one thing people do understand is the joy of looking at happy memories. When a bride shows a friend the wedding pictures and the friend goes "Oh you looked so beautiful" and "Oh, that is such a wonderful picture you you & him", then without even thinking about it, the bride is happy she made the right choice in a photographer. The saddest thing to me was when I had a bride come up to me with tears in her eyes and showed me a horrible wedding album from an inexperienced cut-rate photographer. I rarely comment on another photographers work, but this was awful. Bad poses, dark under exposed shots, long shots of the bridal party at the alter where you could hardly see who was who. All I could do is offer her my apologies and be sympathetic, while underneath I was saying to myself...you went for cheap and this is what you paid for. Just a note about cheap. I will go into this more another time, but pick your photographer with other things as the priorities first. Experience, quality of the work, references, personality. Meet with the photographer in person! Then think about the price. Be prepared to pay a premium fee for a premium service. If the average price in your area is $2500 and a photographer is offering to do it for $500, find out why. All the old sayings go here.... "Let the buyer beware"... "If it's too good to be true, it probably is".
Going to head to the other side of the state toward the end of the week. A little business trip. I'll try to manage a few photos! ;}

Hope You Had A Happy Easter!

Saturday brought once again the end to weeks that seem to be getting longer all the time. I really hadn't planned to ride the cycle this Easter Weekend, instead I put in about 5 hours of yard work. I did the whole deal, mowed, edged, swepted, used the leaf blower, hedged and watered. After a little rest time under the patio umbrella, I hit the shower. Then it happen! The call of the road...and off I went. This time I headed north at ended up in a little place called Dade City. In my quest to find the off the wall, people-places-things, I spotted this little tavern called The Osceloa Tavern. It is a two-story house that has been long since converted to a bar.
Inside was odd but interesting. Most of the residential layout was still in tact. Hallways leading to rooms with a bar, another room had tables and a bar and yet another room had a sofa and some easy chairs. In the mist of this was a very tight area for a live band! Whoa...bring earplugs! Then I noticed that there was a "backyard" they called it a courtyard. OK, here is the clincher! Now mind you there entire place has posters, sports stuff, photos all over the walls. BUT...I noticed this one poster and read it and was floored! It was a concert poster for this Friday for a group called "Shoe Sueds Blues" with Peter Tork. Anyone remember him? HINT: "Hey hey we're the Monkee's". Yep, Peter of the Monkee's fame. I got to tell ya, I'm really going to try to take in this concert

This Weekends Post

Yet another stressful week at the "Real Job". Boy do I hate meetings with whiney people and people who don't have a clue. So much so, I took a little day off in the week. I have been trying to wrap up this photo project for weeks, but there is a third party involved and it's dragging out more than I like. So, ROAD TRIP!" A few of my buddies and I rode up to Crystal River, about 60 miles north of Tampa. There is some great wildlife areas there. Hawks, Ospreys, Dolphins and Manatees can be seen in the wild and on guided tours. Lot's of scuba diving and snorkling there too. We had lunch at this cool little place called "Crackers". At the back of the restaurant is an out door dinning area and a Tiki Bar over looking one of the inlets. It's a great biker friendly place to just chill and have some good food. I was so impressed that I went back today.

Yesterday was another wedding job. I traveled to New Port Richey, FL. to shoot this one. Both the Bride and the Groom are friends on mine. It was a church wedding, but Terry and Danny wanted to go to a near by beach for a few after wedding shots. The reception was pretty lively with a DJ playing Salsa, a live R&B band and traditional Latin food. It was a good time with
lots of their friends and family in attendance.

A Free Weekend

This was a nice break and it couldn't have fell on a better date. Each first Saturday of the month there is a big bike night in Plant City. It is a little township East of Tampa and is known for some of the best strawberries in the world! They even have a week long county fair and a parade dedicated to the strawberry. Anyway, with no photo jobs on the books for Saturday, I was off to Plant City. With us still in this perfect weather pattern, 80's in the daytime and 60's at night...with low humidity, it made for a packed show. There are vendors with all kinds of food & drink, and vendors for all kinds of motorcycle stuff. From bikes to leather. As a matter of fact, I got a great deal on a leather travel bag. It attaches on the backrest and will expand to allow you to pack for several days or weeks on the road! There was a live band playing, raffles, and a bike contest. This was one on the awesome custom made bikes in the show. A chopper like this one could very well cost anywhere between 50 to 150 thousand dollars...or more! Some good friends of mine, Christine and Allen owners of Santiago Choppers, were not at the show this week. Wait til I show you some of his work!! Unbelievable stuff!
There was a first at the show this month! Semi-pro wrestling. OMG...if you thought the pros were hard to swallow, you should see these guys. Lets just say I admired their physical training, but they could use a better acting coach! But I guess it didn't matter as I gazed into the audience with a foot long corn dogs or pop corn and watched as they were cheering on their man. Oh yeah, remember those food vendors? One was a guy and his wife who have a hot dog stand in downtown Tampa out side my building. Well they were at the show sell food. I got one big, gigantic, tasty turkey leg !
Hitting the sack...because we lose an hour tonight!! c-ya