Spring Sessions

I'm excited that the days are longer, the weather is getting nicer (well, save for the snow that appears to be on Monday's forecast), and anticipating the array of spring blooms.

I plan to update my blog soon; the blog 'drought' has gone on far too long.

Feel free to contact me about setting up upcoming photo sessions....

Winner!

I never win anything. Raffles. Contests. Radio call-ins for tickets or cash. But I keep trying.

A few weeks ago, I saw a contest hosted by thinkTank, so I went on and entered. I tried to remember to enter every few days, but since I never win, I think I only entered 3 times total, and gave up.

Today, I am shocked to find an email with the subject "WINNER!"

I knew that the winners got a prize package valued at $550 from thinkTank, but then each round another vendor/company provides an additional item for the winner. Some of the prizes from the previous rounds included a Lensbaby kit, a RODE microphone, external hard drive from ioSafe, gear to help when you're shooting tethered, and a bunch of other fabulous prizes. But I didn't know what Round Ten's vendor was until I went on the blog and checked.

I won.........a tripod from 3 Legged Thing, based out of Britain.

And what I love about finding out about 3LT is that they name their tripods after rock legends. The one that I am supposed to get is called 'Brian', named for Brian May (the guitarist of Queen).

I can't tell you how excited I am to win. I have been thinking about the purchase of a tripod for quite some time, but it's on the 'wish' (not 'need') list. Unfortunately, Brian isn't available, so now I may get Adrian, Eric, Jack, Keith, Tim, Eddie, Dave, Frank, or Tony. Props to you if you know who each of the rock legends are that these tripods are named after.

Thanks to thinkTank Photo and to Three Legged Thing. Thanks to Simon for all your help with helping me select one and for being enthusiastic with me about my win!!

Here's the screen grab from the thinkTank page today....I'm excited to be the first female to win too!

Essentials for the Business

As we near the end of our time at Hallmark, there are a few things that are essentials for running a successful photography business. This entire year, we have been trained in multiple programs, two of which we've used on a near daily basis. As students we get discounted prices on these two programs -- Lightroom and Photoshop.

Lightroom is a post-capture editing software that allows us to enhance our pictures with regards to exposure, brightness, luminance, sharpening, lens correction, vignetting, etc. We also have the ability to crop and prepare pictures for printing. But before we print, we take our optimized images and edit them in Photoshop, which is where a lot of aesthetic changes are made.

In Photoshop is where most of the beauty enhancements take place. On people we remove blemishes, fix skin tonal issues or uneven skin tones, and work with a bunch of technical sounding things like curves and masks and layers. On objects, we're doing things like using the pen tool to "strip" products and placing them on different backgrounds, using healing tools, brushes and clone stamps to enhance the products to make them the best they can be.

So.....I bought Lightroom and Photoshop and installed them on my computer last week.

Since I'm a photographer, of course I had to take a picture of what came in my package.



And for fun, here's an example of stripping a product and putting in on a new background. You may remember seeing these products in my Phase 3 work, but what you didn't see is what was captured with the camera. As I've said before, it's all about the lighting. So we have to photograph our products with lighting considered, then in post-production we make all the changes and enhancements that are needed to make the final product.*

Here's the "before"...as you can see, I am holding a "fill" card to allow the light to reflect and illuminate the silver part of the bottle, where the text is. There is also a fill card on the right hand side of the bottle. Notice how close it is to the dispenser part of the tip. And then on the left - slightly out of frame - is a large soft box. The "background" of the picture is another softbox, simply allowing the background to be white and non-distracting.



And the "after" shot with the product on a different background with drop and cast shadows, as well as design elements.



*disclaimer: As I may have mentioned, Bath and Body Works did not contact me to do any of this work. We had to select a product we wished to photograph for a student assignment.

There's so much that goes into producing a picture. I haven't shared any of my Phase 4 work, because I want to wait till it's submitted to post the pictures. But just imagine this....we need to take a total of 27 pictures...all of which go through Lightroom and Photoshop editing.

So in the meantime I am posting about other things going on at school and in life. I can't wait to share what I've been working on.

New Stationery Package

I am nearing the final version of my (already) updated logo/brand. My wonderful friend John came up with the design....then I tweaked some of the layout based on what I liked best. John, thanks for taking the time to prepare such a wonderful set of possibilities. I am hopeful to hang onto this for quite awhile.

You may have already seen part of my branding on my website, but if you've not yet checked out my website, PLEASE visit!!

So here's the front of my business card:



....and the back of my business card:



And this is the letterhead:



And finally my envelope:



I am really happy with how it turned out. There is one thing I'd like to do that I'm not quite sure I know how to do, so I may be asking John to help me out one more time.

Sarah Zimmerman Photography | Open for Business!

Some of you may have already heard, but my website has launched! I am so very excited to have my website up and running. I know there are many more images I could include, but it's been recommended that we only include pictures since we've been at Hallmark.

Sarah Zimmerman Photography

Please visit and take a peek at the site. I am using a hosting site called PhotoBiz; their customer service is incredible and they are working every day on improving their templates and aspects of their site for their customers. I know there are tiny things on the template that I wish I could change, yet I am thankful for a place where the "site" is there and I just have to customize it, because it saves a lot of hours to code a website, and although I like techie stuff, I know nothing about HTML coding.

Thanks to those of you who have already given feedback. If you have comments on the site, feel free to fill out the contact form with your thoughts, or leave a comment on this post.

I can't wait to start getting clients from hits to my site.

And I have Google Analytics, which keeps a report of the traffic to my site...here are some cool facts.

I definitely saw a rise in those visiting the site when I announced its launch on Facebook. Over 80% of the people who visited the site did so through the link on FB. The remaining 20% or so got to my site by entering it directly into their web browser.



And here's how many have visited to date (4/19):



I really would love to have more unique views of my page, so tell all your friends to go visit my site.

As I prepare my Phase 4 portfolio, I'll be adding more pictures! Be on the lookout for new pictures......

New Brand

With the help of my wonderful friend John and my instructor Pete, I've decided to change my logo/brand. If you've followed my blog, you'll remember my stationery set that we had to design for a class.

When I got my grade back, Pete mentioned he didn't know how he felt about all the circles. He said that the typeface of the font of the Sarah Zimmerman could stand alone as its own "brand". But I really liked the idea of some shape as a design element besides the type. So I contacted my friend John - who is a graphic designer - and asked if he'd help me out. John was oh, so wonderful and sent me this zip file of logos, font styles, and the working files I needed to pick and choose some of the design elements he created specifically for a look for my business. I love the design John came up with and am now in the process of creating my new business card, letterhead and envelope. Once that's done, I can create the header for my website, watermark for my images, and hopefully launch my website soon!! I've been working on it and am happy with how it looks so far.

The new design incorporates colors I love - green, blue, and brown - and a circle, in a way that makes me feel like part of me is coming through the look and feel of the new "circle".

I am very excited to share my design with you...Keep checking back for updates!

Big News....

So I put a teaser out to some people in my email that I had big news to share...

I know it may not seem all that exciting, but to me, it's another step toward kick-starting my business.

I bought a new camera...a camera that I think will really enhance my images and allow me the opportunity to capture pictures that make me proud of my work and show my clients that I have the ability to give them solid photographs.

I bought a Nikon D700 with a 70-200mm 2.8 VRII lens, and am so excited to begin shooting with it.

I took some quick pics last night as I opened the boxes, charged my battery, and held my new toy.







Just look at that lens. It's going to give me some great images.

SAZ MIA....

Sorry it has been a few weeks since I've last posted. I wrote so much in January that I decided to give the blog a break. Not really. I got sick right after the first of the month, and this week, I am FINALLY starting to feel better. I had a pretty terrible sinus infection just wipe me out - my health, energy, and time to shoot.

I'm busy working on my Phase 3 submissions, part of which is due this Monday, and the pictures due on Feb. 28th. On Monday we have to submit our career business plan, along with our stationary set (all designed by me) - letterhead, business card, and envelope.
On the letterhead we need to write a mock cover letter to an appropriate person, depending on the work we want to do once we have completed the program.

We also need to submit a net worth statement (assets and liabilities), a monthly income summary (for the months post-Hallmark), and a photographic gear inventory (showing the equipment we have in our possession that is ours personally).

And...if that's not enough, we also have to submit a promotional piece as well as a pricing list - what we'd like to charge clients who may seek to hire us.

Then on Mon., the 28th, we have due 15 different pictures....which are inclusive of portrait work and commercial work. As I think I mentioned earlier, it's not just as simple as taking a picture and calling it done....some of them involve text work (an advertisement is one of the required pieces, so think of the ones you see adorning the pages of magazines) - we have to not only take the picture but then add the text and slogan we want to make it appear as though it could run as a legit ad for a company.

To show you a sneak peek of what I've been working on, here is the rendering for my stationary set, as well as my high key female shot of a girl who allowed me to photograph her.

Letterhead:



Envelope:



Business Card*:



* FYI: The email account IS activated, but the website is NOT yet up and running, so if you go to my website, you won't find me. It's coming soon!!

Sarah:



I hope to write again soon, but if not, I'll definitely be posting after the submission of all my work on the 28th.

Now back to editing I go.....

Sigda Flower Shop

When I was planning out my Phase 2 final, I thought it would be really fun to take my environmental portrait in a flower shop. I thought the colors would be really radiant and allow my subject to stand out. BUT, then I saw that the assignment called for black and white and it changed everything.

But I kept my word to showing up at the flower shop and met Rick, the owner of the shop. He said many Hallmark students have come before and that his employees have had their pictures taken a lot. I wanted to make sure I was in and out, yet did a good job showing his shop. So Rikki came with me, we set up, and only took a few moments of Rick's time.

Even though I couldn't use this one for my final, I really liked the way it came out in color...

Thanks to Sigda Flower Shop for allowing me to come in and photograph such a nice family business.

Here's Rick:

Introducing.....Sarah Zimmerman Photography

I am proud to announce the "official" beginning of my business - Sarah Zimmerman Photography.

Our instructors have been prepping us to get our business off and running, including the acquisition of a domain name, opening up a bank account, getting an EIN (employee identification number) and starting up a QuickBooks company. I have done 3 out of the 4....I only have yet to open up a bank account.

And today I sent out my very FIRST invoice for a wedding I am doing in May. It felt so weird - but completely great, yet humbling - to know that I am IN BUSINESS!

Sadly, I don't have any business cards yet. I might make a generic one up soon, so I have something to give out. We did our self-promotion piece back in November, but that's a lot larger a promo piece than I'd like to hand out.

But, if you know of anyone looking for a photographer (for senior portraits, babies, maternity shots, families, weddings, etc.), please feel free to pass along my name.

I tried to get the domain www.sarahzimmerman.com but it's already taken, so I had to opt for www.sarahzimmermanphotography.com
I know, it's long, but relatively easy. If you try going to the site, it will lead you nowhere. You have to buy a domain, but then you have to get a host for the domain to actually put content on. But so no one buys my domain, I had to buy it. In the coming months, though, you will definitely hear some updates and that website will be active SOON!

Here's to a new year, the start of a new business, another graduation, hopefully the completion of my master's degree, and lots of other fun and exciting new adventures!!!