What a fun afternoon in Ocean City with this family. Catching a quick photo with the fall colors before the disappearing of the leaves was no easy task after Hurricane Sandy swept through our small town just a couple of weeks prior.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
{H} Family | Ocean City, MD Photographer
What a fun afternoon in Ocean City with this family. Catching a quick photo with the fall colors before the disappearing of the leaves was no easy task after Hurricane Sandy swept through our small town just a couple of weeks prior.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Once Upon a Time | Child Photographer, Ocean Pines, MD
Once Upon a Time was the inspiration behind this lovely photo session. We wanted to try something a little light-hearted, fairytale inspired and that had lighting with a little mystery to it. A dark wooded area gave us the perfect spot to take these forest looking photos. I loved the way the light was luminous against the pale pink dress. This was definitely a fun shoot to photograph!
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Falling Leaves Photos | Child Photographer, Ocean Pines, MD
Hurricane Sandy spared us a few leaves on our trees in Ocean Pines, MD. We snuck out for a few photos late in the day while the leaves still dangled from the trees behind us. Oh to be a kid again and have this kind of a free spirit! Not a care in the world <3
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Hurricane Sandy | Ocean City Maryland Beach Photography
We were bracing for the worst and our beach was spared from mass destruction. These photos were taken Tuesday evening, October 30 in Ocean City, MD. There was some damage to the fishing pier and can be seen in the photos posted.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Save-A-Limb Fundraiser | Family Photographer Berlin, MD
In honor of our son, Brayden, we have formed Team Footprints for Brayden to raise money for the Rubin Institute of Advanced Orthopedics. The Save-A-Limb Fund is set up by the hospital to help the hospital financially assist patients who cannot afford housing, transportation, physical therapy or adaptive equipemnt. It also helps the physicians offer free consultations to patients who qualify for financial aid. The fund supports the fight to save limbs from amputation and provide hip and knee replacements to patients in need both domestically and abroad. You can read more about how the funds are used here:
http://savealimbride.org/SaveALimbRide/HowFundsAreUsedSaveALimbRide.aspx
I will be donating a lot of my time and photography resources to help raise money for the fund by doing these sessions. After each mini-session I will be editing the top 12 images and delivering them to the client on a flash drive. Clients will be allowed to print the photos at a printer of their choice.
These sessions would be great for holiday cards or beach family photos when you want a handful of images to make cards or use for gifts. These sessions will not be eligible to use on newborn sessions.
Sessions must be prepaid in advance of the session and the $200 does include the session fee. A signed model release will be required to make a blog post about each session (no client names will be used). I would love to share at least one photo from each of the sessions on our blog to show the support for our team, "Footprints for Brayden".
You can read more about Brayden's story here:
http://opsoulone.blogspot.com/
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Showell Fall Festival | Ocean Pines Family Photographer
The Showell Fall Festival, as my kids have trickled through Showell Elementary School over the years, not much is anticipated quite as much as the Fall Festival. A huge halloween themed event complete with costumes to raise money for the Showell PTA. Standing on the heels of Hurricane Sandy didn't keep festival goers away from the festival. Mario was definately the costume of choice for little boys this year! The children enjoyed games, the book fair, food, a moon bounce. It was a great day for families to come out and have fun together. Half of all of the money collected went to benefit the Showell PTA.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Free Maternity Sessions! | Maternity Photographer - Ocean Pines, Ocean City, Salisbury
Yes you read that correctly! How would you or someone you know like to have a free Maternity Photo Session? For a limited time, maternity sessions will be done free of charge and include 5 images on a flash drive with a print release. You will be able to have your images printed anywhere you would like and post online. As stated in the promo flyer above, Once a newborn session has been prepaid, client is eligible to book their free maternity photo session. Edited photos will be posted for client viewing within 2 weeks and clients may choose their photos at that time. Spaces are limited, only 5 spots available at this time.
Contact me today to get your maternity and newborn sessions set-up!
Monday, October 8, 2012
Baby Girl {MM} | Baby Photographer - Berlin, Ocean City, Salisbury MD
After a lot of anticipation, the excitement of a baby girl has arrived in this house full of boys! This little girl was just a bundle of cuteness. I am sure she will have a blast growing up beside these sweet little gentlemen! I love the photo with the Bible box, it was so sweet, that was a fun photo for me to take.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Images for Sale | Professional Portrait Photographer - Berlin, Ocean City, Salisbury, MD
I have started a sale of images page on my website. I will be selling images from my personal inventory. I will not be selling client images, these are images I have taken on my own time or with the purpose of selling to the public and not from client galleries. I am excited about this added venture to the Dana Marie Photography Repertoire. Often I take photos that I really enjoy but do nothing with and this is a way to keep my creative edge outside of the normal portraits and also to help get my name out more. Look for more excited things to come! You can view images for sale here:
Hope you enjoy them!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Baby Boy Red Locks {W} | Baby Photographer - Berlin, Ocean Pines, Salisbury
This family holds a special place in my heart. I was so excited to meet this new little guy that we have prayed for for what felt like an eternity waiting for him to get here. He looks so much like his older brother when he was a baby, I couldn't believe how similar they look. Dad is a San Diego Chargers fan and Mom is a Baltimore Ravens fan. The two teams made for some fun photos. Dad is an avid surfer and while an accident earlier this year has kept him out of the water most of this summer, I bet he can't wait to teach these boys the lay of the waters. Momma sure has her hands full with these three :)
Self-Portrait
A different kind of self portrait. I downloaded Ellie Goulding's, "Lights" to my iPod several weeks ago and loved her album cover for that single. It has played in the back of my mind as a really cool photo. Then this morning I log onto facebook and saw a friend had done a unique take on a self-portrait of himself and I decided it was time to update mind. This photo really shows how I feel at the moment. "Just Breathe". I repeat this mantra more often than I would like to but right now my family is gearing up for a big chapter in our lives. My son Brayden has PFFD and will be undergoing his first round of limb-lengthening in just a couple of months and at times it has felt the weight of what is to come resting on our shoulders can be heavy. I look at this photo and it accurately depicts so many emotions right now and while I would have done a few things differently if I didn't edit it in just 5 minutes, I really appreciate the emotional climate it portrays.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The Value of a Good Print | Maternity & Baby Photographer - Berlin, Ocean City, MD MD
A picture is a picture right? Or is it. This blog post will touch on the benefits of having your photographs printed through a professional photographer and print lab rather than printing them out yourself or ordering through big box chain stores.
Which would look better on your walls? The cd you paid a lot of money for from your photographer or a lovely canvas print of your favorite image from your session? Part of my pricing strategy is to get more customers to think like this. Everyone wants the digital images but the question to ask yourself is what do you want them for? Me, personally, I like digital images. I am an avid scrapbooker and these images will be printed and cut up and collaged in my books and showed off for years to come. I can't bring myself to cut up my good quality professional print lab prints so I don't mind cutting up cheapy prints and being that they are in the scrapbook and part of the appeal is the book itself and not just the image, I am ok with the lessor quality for this. However, when it comes to prints on display, on my walls, in frames, as gifts, this is a different matter. I like giving high quality prints to show off the best of my kids and of my images. I am not going to get the same print from a local drug store or consumer print lab that I would get by going through my professional companies. The printers they use are built for commercial print jobs and meet my expectations of quality and color. Being that I am a scrapbooker and probably print about 1,000 photos per year for my books, I have been through several printing companies and each one has disappointed me for one reason or another. Color from one set of prints that looks nice can be totally orange or washed out on the next set causing me to again journey on my everlasting quest for the perfect reasonably priced consumer printing company. There are things that I like and dislike about each of the ones I have used.
The following shows some examples of prints I ordered from my pro lab, printing myself and picked up from a couple of local stores.
My professional print lab is a spectacular print. There is little glare. The quality can clearly be felt and seen when held in person to the comparison prints. All of my prints 8x10 and larger are printed with a layer of matboard to protect against dings and creases. There is a light texture to protect against fingerprints. The photo I printed myself was the closest comp but was a tad saturated. The Walmart print was contrasty and showed a bit of pixelation (not sure if that is a real word, but you get what I mean), as seen in this photo below. The Walgreens print was green tinged and looked, "dirty" to me. The Walgreens print was very glossy and showed fingerprints and creases worse than the others. The Walmart and Walgreens prints had an off balance crop as I was unable to choose my own crop.
Another example. Note the blacks came out grey/greenish on the Walgreens print. Also, around the baby was an unattractive "blue halo", especially around the hair. This was a true black and white print, one of my favorite newborn photos taken to date.
The risks of printing on your own:
Color casts. This is my biggest problem with printing companies. There is nothing I dispise more than orange photos. I once picked up a batch from a local printing company that I uploaded through online and they were completely orange. I was horrified. They were so bad I didn't use a single one of them in my scrapbooks. Another local lab I have frequented when I need something in hurry tends to fade out all of my colors to drab greys and greens. People look grey and dismal in the photos, very pale. It is quite disappointing.
Crops. Have you ever ordered a print that looked great on your computer and then when you picked it up the head was cut off? This is because the image was not sized before you sent it to the printer. Photos are taken with a certain ratio/size. My photos are generally a hair off of a 4x6 size if I don't crop or do anything special to them. Sometimes I add canvas space to them or crop a certain way to get a look I am going for but generally I know when ordering that if I am not ordering a comparable size ratio, I will need to do a little work. When you order your prints through your photographer, hopefully this is me, I resize the photos for the crop that I want to ensure you aren't getting a photo with a head cut off. Sometimes to do this, I add to a photo to make the size work or I might suggest a different size if we are doing this for a canvas. By ordering your own photos, you are jeopardizing what kind of crop you will get and your print chain will certainly not add size to your photo to make the size work without losing any of the "good stuff". Can you imagine going into a store and ordering a canvas only to pick it up and find that part of your child's face was lost on the wrap around the edges? Or that the crop didn't work for the size you wanted? Now you are out the money for the canvas and have to choose a different size and order another. I am aware of sizing and how the wrap will fall when I order and I adjust accordingly. Here is an example of different size ratios and how the same image would work with different sizes. For canvas, I would need about 2 extra inches on each side for the same effect.
Timing. Most of my professional prints come within a couple of business days. Sometimes if they are ordered with a canvas or collage, I will hold them until the order is complete and deliver at once. I have waited as much as two weeks for prints for scrapbooking before, and I also have paid large shipping fees to get my prints. I do not charge fees for shipping if orders are picked up.
So who do I recommend. I recommend mpix for printing personal photos. THIS IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY PRODUCT. I want to stress that I don't use mpix for business but I will use them for my personal photos for scrapbooking and sharing with family and friends. They do have a quality product and the prices are comparable to box store prices. They are the closest I have found for quality products at a consumer (non-professional quality) price.
The benefit to purchasing digital images from your photographer is for the archival advantage. Having the photos available to print again later. I only hold images about 60 days from expiration of galleries. This is to keep my computer running good, I need to clear these files often. Purchasing the digital images ensures you can get more later through me or your printer of choice. Just this weekend I was doing a homework project for school for my son and pulled a flash drive out with photos I wanted to use. That was convenient to print them out from home and do his project within and hour and without spending a lot on photos I will never see again. Budget-wise, I would say to splurge on the canvas or photos you will look at all the time, these are the images you will treasure and share. We have a wall of canvas photos in our living room that gets many many compliments by guests and friends. Compliments I would have never received with them sitting on a flash drive in a desk drawer. If I had to choose between the canvas or digitals, I would have stayed with the canvas.
Which would look better on your walls? The cd you paid a lot of money for from your photographer or a lovely canvas print of your favorite image from your session? Part of my pricing strategy is to get more customers to think like this. Everyone wants the digital images but the question to ask yourself is what do you want them for? Me, personally, I like digital images. I am an avid scrapbooker and these images will be printed and cut up and collaged in my books and showed off for years to come. I can't bring myself to cut up my good quality professional print lab prints so I don't mind cutting up cheapy prints and being that they are in the scrapbook and part of the appeal is the book itself and not just the image, I am ok with the lessor quality for this. However, when it comes to prints on display, on my walls, in frames, as gifts, this is a different matter. I like giving high quality prints to show off the best of my kids and of my images. I am not going to get the same print from a local drug store or consumer print lab that I would get by going through my professional companies. The printers they use are built for commercial print jobs and meet my expectations of quality and color. Being that I am a scrapbooker and probably print about 1,000 photos per year for my books, I have been through several printing companies and each one has disappointed me for one reason or another. Color from one set of prints that looks nice can be totally orange or washed out on the next set causing me to again journey on my everlasting quest for the perfect reasonably priced consumer printing company. There are things that I like and dislike about each of the ones I have used.
The following shows some examples of prints I ordered from my pro lab, printing myself and picked up from a couple of local stores.
My professional print lab is a spectacular print. There is little glare. The quality can clearly be felt and seen when held in person to the comparison prints. All of my prints 8x10 and larger are printed with a layer of matboard to protect against dings and creases. There is a light texture to protect against fingerprints. The photo I printed myself was the closest comp but was a tad saturated. The Walmart print was contrasty and showed a bit of pixelation (not sure if that is a real word, but you get what I mean), as seen in this photo below. The Walgreens print was green tinged and looked, "dirty" to me. The Walgreens print was very glossy and showed fingerprints and creases worse than the others. The Walmart and Walgreens prints had an off balance crop as I was unable to choose my own crop.
Another example. Note the blacks came out grey/greenish on the Walgreens print. Also, around the baby was an unattractive "blue halo", especially around the hair. This was a true black and white print, one of my favorite newborn photos taken to date.
The risks of printing on your own:
Color casts. This is my biggest problem with printing companies. There is nothing I dispise more than orange photos. I once picked up a batch from a local printing company that I uploaded through online and they were completely orange. I was horrified. They were so bad I didn't use a single one of them in my scrapbooks. Another local lab I have frequented when I need something in hurry tends to fade out all of my colors to drab greys and greens. People look grey and dismal in the photos, very pale. It is quite disappointing.
Crops. Have you ever ordered a print that looked great on your computer and then when you picked it up the head was cut off? This is because the image was not sized before you sent it to the printer. Photos are taken with a certain ratio/size. My photos are generally a hair off of a 4x6 size if I don't crop or do anything special to them. Sometimes I add canvas space to them or crop a certain way to get a look I am going for but generally I know when ordering that if I am not ordering a comparable size ratio, I will need to do a little work. When you order your prints through your photographer, hopefully this is me, I resize the photos for the crop that I want to ensure you aren't getting a photo with a head cut off. Sometimes to do this, I add to a photo to make the size work or I might suggest a different size if we are doing this for a canvas. By ordering your own photos, you are jeopardizing what kind of crop you will get and your print chain will certainly not add size to your photo to make the size work without losing any of the "good stuff". Can you imagine going into a store and ordering a canvas only to pick it up and find that part of your child's face was lost on the wrap around the edges? Or that the crop didn't work for the size you wanted? Now you are out the money for the canvas and have to choose a different size and order another. I am aware of sizing and how the wrap will fall when I order and I adjust accordingly. Here is an example of different size ratios and how the same image would work with different sizes. For canvas, I would need about 2 extra inches on each side for the same effect.
Timing. Most of my professional prints come within a couple of business days. Sometimes if they are ordered with a canvas or collage, I will hold them until the order is complete and deliver at once. I have waited as much as two weeks for prints for scrapbooking before, and I also have paid large shipping fees to get my prints. I do not charge fees for shipping if orders are picked up.
So who do I recommend. I recommend mpix for printing personal photos. THIS IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL QUALITY PRODUCT. I want to stress that I don't use mpix for business but I will use them for my personal photos for scrapbooking and sharing with family and friends. They do have a quality product and the prices are comparable to box store prices. They are the closest I have found for quality products at a consumer (non-professional quality) price.
The benefit to purchasing digital images from your photographer is for the archival advantage. Having the photos available to print again later. I only hold images about 60 days from expiration of galleries. This is to keep my computer running good, I need to clear these files often. Purchasing the digital images ensures you can get more later through me or your printer of choice. Just this weekend I was doing a homework project for school for my son and pulled a flash drive out with photos I wanted to use. That was convenient to print them out from home and do his project within and hour and without spending a lot on photos I will never see again. Budget-wise, I would say to splurge on the canvas or photos you will look at all the time, these are the images you will treasure and share. We have a wall of canvas photos in our living room that gets many many compliments by guests and friends. Compliments I would have never received with them sitting on a flash drive in a desk drawer. If I had to choose between the canvas or digitals, I would have stayed with the canvas.
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