Lights, cameras...action!

Yesterday in fact! I love movies but what I love even more is seeing everything that goes into creating a great movie. Yesterday I got too see the real pros in action right next to our downtown studio location! 30'x40' diffusion panels, 20'x30' bounce panels, a truckfull of gobos and light modifiers (literally, it was a big stake truck packed full), HUGE light stands, million dollar cameras, generators, a crew of about 50 people...it was AWESOME!

The movie they were shooting was "30 Minutes or Less" and in between my sessions I got to kick back and watch them film.



Above is a shot I took of Jesse Eisenberg & Aziz Ansari during one of the takes. I'm just kickin back snackin on some Taco Bell when I realize "hey, I got my camera equipment right here in the back seat, why not snap a few" so ta da, here's one of them.

It was so cool, the crew was gigantic...they had one guy just for metering light. That's the first time I've EVER seen anyone (besides myself of course) using a light meter at our downtown location!

I love seeing movies in the works! A few weeks ago I stumbled onto the set of the upcoming movie "Touchback". I was driving down the road with my 3 1/2 year old daughter and saw a glimpse of a film crew and cameras, I thought maybe it was a tv commercial. Since I love anything video I figured we'd check it out plus I figured it would be fun for my daughter to experience. After taking a side street to come back around I saw about 40 people and some massive lighting...that's when I knew it was actually a movie being filmed. Very Cool!!!

Other News:

We now have the concrete parking lot and driveway completed at the Jenison studio! Now it's time to get cranking on the inside. We originally hoped for a fall 09 opening (which came and went) but I'm really thinking it will be complete late this Fall (if not I'm going to snap!).

We've been slammed with sessions and orders all summer (part of the reason I haven't posted anything since May:). August booked up solid a few weeks ago, September is a little over 60% booked but there are still openings so call us soon! October has a pretty decent amount of openings as well.

We've shot a ton of PHENOMENAL sessions this summer!!!! I can't wait to post some samples!

REMEMBER we shoot from 8AM til 12PM M-F so even though school is starting soon we can still get you in for a session! If we are booked during the week and can't get you in I'm thinking about picking a Saturday in Sept for senior sessions.

Rock On,
mb

What's New...

Still getting slammed with orders for 2010 seniors, booking 2011 seniors already, working on updating the 2011 senior website, marketing materials, construction on the new Jenison studio, updating the Grand Rapids studio, family life...this list just keeps getting bigger! What ever happened to my slow time in the spring?

I did get a nice little break this past Saturday...SuperCarSaturdays!!! My friend asked my if I wanted to drive with him to Chicago to go to a car show...let's see, 3 hour drive there, 3 hours back in a Lamborghini...uuuh, YES I'm in!!! Not to mention all of the cars I saw once we arrived! Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Mercedes, Roll Royce, Tesla, Audi...I lost 5lbs in water weight that day just from drooling.

I'm such a ding dong, I've got thousands of dollars in pro cameras and lenses, do I bring them with me? No, I didn't even think to bring my little Fuji Z5 point and shoot! So I had to resort to the whopping 2 megapixel camera in my cell phone (plus I was there as a supercar fan not a photographer). It's so bizarre to take pictures with no light meter, shooting in auto and no custom color balancing. Next time I'll bring the good stuff and get some really killer stuff.

Here are a couple pics I snapped with my cell camera:



and



Quick Note: It's not to late to get your custom designed open house announcements!! Call or email us for pricing and samples!

also, If you're a 2011 senior looking for senior portraits the sooner you book the better the deals! We should have our gallery of 2010 seniors up in the next week or so as well as some new stuff for 2011.

Rock On,
mb

Gone...just a week.

Heading off to the Latin American Photographers Conference. Back on the 15th. Mucho Bueno!!!

2010 Senior season is coming to a close (still waiting on around 16 orders...I really like a closure before the new 2011 season kicks off, but hey, at least it keeps me busy during the "slow season". Seriously though, do I ever get a slow season...it would be kind of nice...no, I'd rather be busy:)

This year is gonna ROCK!i!

We have a bunch of new stuff coming out (not gonna say what it is just yet) but it's tizight. We're doin' the stuff that our seniors want and that's all about what we do, makin' our clients happy!

I'm homesick already and I haven't even left yet, although I'm looking forward to generating some fresh ideas for things to come (and I'm going to try and pick 300 or so favorite images from the 28,656 images we shot for our 2010 seniors (which I'm bringing along on my laptop), now I know why I keep hearing "we really had a hard time picking just 75 proofs from our session", that's always been my personal goal with every session...giving every senior way more than they bargained for!).

This year is gonna ROCK!i!

Oh, before I sign off...we're getting all the details hammered out on our "get all of your images on disk" deal. That's right, ALL the images! If we shot 300 images during your session and you only ordered 6 for your print order, now's your chance to get the other 294 images (plus the 6 edited ones) to use for whatever your heart desires!!!! I got the idea as I was archiving older session and was thinking "this stinks, I seriously have about 80 images from this session that ROCK (as in I'd use any one of these for the website or brochure or for a 40"x60"studio sample enlargement), they ordered 5 poses...all the rest of these images are going to go into archive and probably never be seen again!" I'd rather offer them at a mega deal and have them be used for something, rather than have them sit unseen on a hard drive forever.

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again "I'll put any of my un-edited proofs up against our competitor's edited prints any day of the week!". I hear it all the time "the proofs are awesome, I don't know what could be done to make them better" and "these untouched proofs look better than my friend's final pictures". We don't try and take a few good pictures, we create great images, period! Our sessions aren't "tests" or "experiments", we know our clients don't have the time to "try and get a few usable pictures" from a hobby photo enthusiast. We just do it right the first time!

Did I mention...this year is gonna ROCK!i! That's all for now.

Rocko Ono (my Spanglish sign off for today:),
mb

Oooooh SNAP!!!

...just the build up!

But seriously though, this senior season has been ROCKIN!!!!

Farthest school...Cadillac.

Here's just one pic from one of this summers ROCKIN' sessions. We have thousands more but you'll have to wait to see them all!



This session was just a few days ago but we have it in our studio at 26"x 40" so you can check it out BIG! (really, the print is HUGE!) Anyone can make an image look good on the web, but when it comes to BIG prints where quality counts we Rock it Out!

We capture the real you!

"something different, something fresh, something new."

CLICKseniors.com

Cute, Cute, Cute...

4 year and a newborn session...this is a quick preview of 1 of just shy of 200 rockin' pics!


...love it!

More to come soon, just need the time to update the kids site. Any chance of a 10 day work week:)?

Check back soon for some of our 2010 senior images! I hope to post some fresh '10 stuff in the next few weeks!

Rock On,
mb

Imitation is...

...the sincerest form of flattery. We're flattered but seriously, with all the great photographers around this country why copy us?

I got an email last week alerting us to a local photographer copying one of our senior video game image concepts. This is the image we shot two years ago:



I won't even mention who the offending photographer was, it really doesn't matter. We had issues with them copying pretty much everything we did a few years ago and after calling them I thought they were done, I guess not. At least they waited a while to copy this time.

So first off I want to thank our fans who alert us to this kind of stuff! Most of the time there's nothing we can do unless it's one of our copyrighted sports composites or other specialty work, but it's nice to know. We've had a few tips this year that we did take action on, one of which was settled out of court. Any fan that provides info on copyright violations that lead to a settlement will be hooked up with free photography and/or a cash reward. If you see a copyright infringement Do Not Contact the offender, there are a couple reasons why. First, I know we have a lot of hard core fans that want to stand up for us but we need to be the ones who make contact with them. Second, if you contact them first you're giving them a "heads up" and they might remove the material before we have a chance to document all the details. Also, we're not talking about our customers, we give them permission to use images for facebook and other online services as long as the image retains our logo. We're talking about other photographers or businesses that steal our images or copyrighted concepts to profit from them.

So anyway...I call the photographer to find out what the deal is and he completely went off on me! The best way to describe it was a delusional paranoid conspiracy theory rant, it was actually pretty funny. I don't know if he was just having a bad day, week, month...but WOW!

He did bring up the fact we've been asking trespassing photographers to leave the property at our downtown studio when we see them. Yeah, I'm the bad guy for asking someone trespassing on private property to leave. It's not like I run at them waving a bat screaming "get out of here!" It's not my rule, it's the property owners policy. They don't want to get sued if someone gets hurt on their property. It's not just us, pretty much every tenant in the building is sick of it and asks photographers to leave also. It's not a public park for any photographer to come and use. I have close friends that are photographers, if I saw one of them down there shooting I'd kick them out too. I look at it this way, how would you like it if someone walked into your studio, set up one of your backdrops/props that you bought or rent and started shooting a session. Anyone who wants to shoot there is more than welcome to sign a lease and pay rent like the rest of us do. It would actually be pretty cool to have a bunch of different photographers in the building.

Thanks again to our fans lookin' out for us...You Rock!

Hope to have time soon to blog more about what's new.

Rock On,
mb

the New Studio Update...

...with a progress picture, finally. The New CLICKphotographic Jenison Studio is coming soon...



Things are coming along and we're still shootin for the Fall'09 opening. I can't wait til it's done, it's seems like it's taking FOREVER, (although spending a year and a half jumping through hoops for zoning, variances, permits, code requirements and other assorted challenges didn't help the timeline) let's just say it's been a trying experience.

Other news: Still booking sessions like crazy!!! We were thinking of doing more marketing in July but the way it's going so far this year I may actually scale back marketing for next year.

I'm MEGA excited about this years senior clients. All of the seniors who have booked with us so far this year are saying the same thing "We checked out everyone and CLICKseniors.com was our #1 choice" They love our style and creativity. They love the fact we don't play all the marketing hype games or have hidden fees. They love the great pricing, the fact that it's all listed right online and how we don't pressure clients into spending more than they want to.

Seriously, we have the ABSOLUTE BEST CLIENTS in the area!!! They love what we do and appreciate our work, what more could I ask for. I kind of feel guilty getting ALL of the great clients and leaving the rest for other photographers...not really.

This year is gonna ROCK!

If you haven't checked out our Frequently Asked Questions yet, click here to take a peek. It's packed full of answers to common questions we get everyday. If you have a question that's not in our FAQs send it to us...we wanna know what you wanna know!

Who's in the lead for top 5 school senior session bookings now?
1. Lowell
2. Hudsonville
3. Jenison
4. Grandville
5. Allendale

Where are all my Jenison peeps? Grandville!, what are you waiting for? Last year it ended up being Jenison, Grandville, Hudsonville, Lowell & Allendale. We'll see who takes the lead in the top 5 this fall. Who's my favorite? I love em all. It's kind of like my office, I've done work for Haworth, Herman Miller, Steelcase, Teknion...so I have a few furniture pieces from each of them, I really don't do favorites.

That's it for now.

Rock On,
mb

"something different, something fresh, something new." CLICKseniors.com