Take 5 Photography

NEW BLOG LOCATION!!!

2008-11-29T12:42:00.000-08:00

Take 5 Photography blog has MOVED!!! Please update your RSS and subscribe to:

www.take5photoblog.com

I also have a new "look" and logo! Let me know what you think!

Hope you like it!

-Missy

Wedding on the Portland Spirit

2008-11-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting caught up on my weddings this year! Being a wedding photographer and getting married yourself makes for a very looooong summer.

I had the privilege of shooting the wedding of a great couple that I've known for quite a while through my sister Katie. The bride and my sister had been coworkers for about a year when "M" got engaged. Katie was kind enough to refer me and on August 30th I shot my second wedding of the season on the famous Portland boat.

Lighting was pretty horrible (just as I remembered from 2 months before), but I tried to make the best of it. It was a beautiful ceremony, with lots of Orange and Black for the die-hard Beavers! Great food, fun people, and perfect weather. Congratulations to the happy couple!

All together now..."Awwwww"...

2008-11-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

This little one is very close to my heart. I babysat her mommy and have been very close with the family for more than 10 years. I feel like a gramma :-)

Don't you want to just pick her up and squeeze?! Such a doll....

Congrats "C". What a beautiful baby. :-)

Senior-city!!

2008-10-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

So apparently it works better for me to post a whole bunch of stuff at once. So here goes...

Brittney & Brandon

2008-09-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

Hey there! I really am a terrible blog-poster. Ugh. So glad things are picking up around here though! I have shoots almost every day now and am taking calls and answering emails in between shoots. Yay!

Back in August, I had the pleasure of taking pictures for the marriage of Brittney and Brandon. They found me online through my friend Lindsay of linzmarie designs and from our first meeting at Starbucks I knew this was going to be one of my favorite weddings of the summer. Brittney is the sweetest thing and her and her now-husband are the nicest, most down-to-earth people you can meet (not to mention BEAUTIFUL!) :-)

Thank you Brittney and Brandon for a fabulous day of pictures, I will have all of them finished and online for you ASAP!! :-)

August 15th, 2008
Aerie and Eagle Landing

It's Senior Picture Season!

2008-08-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

....and I love it! :-)

Here are some from a couple sessions I've had lately. I've been meeting such great young adults, they give me hope for the future! Thanks to Danyelle, Anne, and Aaron for a great time, you guys were awesome.

RIP

2008-07-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

Randy Pausch (Oct 23rd, 1960-July 25th, 2008)

http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch

I worked with Randy in 2005 while I was working for Walt Disney World Photo Imaging. He was brought in from Carnegie Melon to help us market our new department. I helped him with focus groups, analyzing data, and other marketing materials and I feel honored to have had the privilege.

He was a kind, funny, and oh so intelligent man. He never told any of us that he was sick. I was so sad to hear of his passing last week, my thoughts and prayers are with his family. The world lost a great person, that's for sure.

iiiiiiiiii'm back ....

2008-07-09T10:52:00.000-07:00

and I'm self-employed!! FINALLY!!

After 2 1/2 years of trying to work full time and run a photography business I have ventured out on my own and so far it's working out great! I'm keeping busy and paying the bills....who would have known! :-)

Anyway, to catch everyone up on what I've been up to in the last 3 months, here's a summary:

Michaela's Maternity Shoot

2008-03-31T10:57:00.000-07:00

I had been working at my old job for about 4 months when I asked my coworker if she'd like to go to the Portland Beer Festival with me that weekend. She looked at me with a shy grin..."I would, but I kinda stopped drinking."

"What??" I said, surprised how those words came out of a newly 21-year-old's mouth.

She smiles again. "I'm pregnant."

Ohhhhh! Ok. That makes more sense! haha. As soon as that thought left my head the photographer in me started thinking about her maternity session.

"I get to take pictures of you in March!"

And so I did. :-)

Her baby's due ANY DAY now. Congratulations Michaela and Junior!

Twitter!!

2008-03-25T14:55:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I'm officially addicted. (Like i needed yet another distraction at work...)

Add me!

http://twitter.com/take5photo

Hayden

2008-03-17T10:44:00.000-07:00

I've known Angelique and James since the first day they met. Actually, let me back up...

It was a hot June weekend in 2006. My friend Stephanie called me up and asked me if I wanted to go camping on an island with 100-200 people. Sun, water, and *hopefully* cute boys? I'm in! (Remember this is 2006. I love you Patrick :-P). I had just met a really sweet girl named Angelique at my friend's bachelorette party a couple weeks before. We had been meaning to hang out so I invited her to join us at the island. Both of us were single, bored, and in need of some excitement so we headed on up to Kalama, WA!

After a long day of laying in the sun, drinking warm keg beer, and setting up our tent, it was time to mingle. Camp fire smoke filled the air as we walked up and down the beach...scoping out the selection for the evening. We stopped by the big bon fire. Everyone was illuminated by fire light and maybe more than a little buzzed. One guy caught Angelique's eye, and I whispered in her ear that from the way he was staring at her the feeling was mutual. Some how he ended up by her side, striking up a conversation. I took my cue and wandered off to find Stephanie, crossing my fingers behind my back for my new good friend!

So as you can guess, fast-forwarding almost three years later, things went well that night on the island. They welcomed son Hayden in November and I was honored to shoot his 3 month pictures. Here are some of my favorites.

Congratulations you guys! I'm so happy to be a part of your life. Love you!! :-)

VMG and Maternity!

2008-02-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

Wow. I am not a very timely blogger. I'll get better I promise! :-)

This last month has been a busy one -- which is awesome! I started a new group in Vancouver for moms and moms-to-be called the Vancouver Mommies Group. Check it out at www.myspace.com/vancouvermommiesgroup. It's doing really good things for moms in this area. Here's what we're about! -

Who we are

The Vancouver Mommies Group was started by 2 mommies (and 1 friend, not a mommy yet, but a children's photographer) that felt that Vancouver needed a place for moms to join together - without the drive across the bridge.

VMG is...

1. A place to vent.

This is number 1 because we feel that it is the most important. We know how frustrating and hard life can be some days with one or more little lives completely dependent on you. Your mental health is so vital to your child's upbringing. Please use this page to share frustrations, read about others' issues, give advice, and receive words of wisdom. Use the comments as a reader board or you can also message us and we'll post it as a bulletin for others to respond to.

2. A place to share.

We love love new things! Be it new ways to keep our children happy, new healthy yummy recipes, tips on how to get your figure back, or how to successfully potty train your 2 year old...post it all! Again, just leave a comment, or email it to us and we'll post a collection of tips and secrets as a weekly bulletin.

3. A place to network.

Some of you may be new to this area and don't have many friends. Or others may be young mothers and all your friends are still in the "party" stage. Whatever your situation may be, use this page to connect with others like you and gain valuable relationships! We also talked about hopefully putting together a monthly get-together at local venues or even group members houses if everyone likes that idea! We can talk more about that later though...

4. A place to learn.

Eventually (when the group grows to a good number) we're going to start featuring local companies, vendors, and publications, as well as helpful (or just fun and awesome!) links and national "mommy news". We're really excited about this aspect, to do our part in furthering the local economy and give Vancouver mothers the convenience of in-town services! Always nice! :-)
If you, family, or friends own family-oriented Vancouver area businesses let us know! We'll feature it in an upcoming bulletin!

5. Finally, we'd like this page to be a place to smile.

As we said before, your mental health is so important. For you to be able to laugh even just 5 mins a day is crucial to life as a mother. We are going to share funny, awesome, and sentimental "adult"-type material on a regular basis. After hours of Veggie Tales, boo-boo's, potty's, booties, pee-pee's, Disney movies, and "Moooooommmmmyyyyy!!!"'s.....we know you need it!!

What do you think? Pretty awesome idea huh :-)
I hope it can be a place that really helps new moms in this area. I'm going to post great deals for picture packages too! Can't wait until it really takes off. Tell your friends!

Here are some pictures from my maternity session a couple weeks ago. Kristin is due in 2 short weeks! Good luck honey!!

Your Investment

2008-01-30T13:56:00.000-08:00

The topic of money and pricing is always a hard one. Especially in this business. As a professional, you want to make sure you're being compensated fairly, and at the same time, giving your customers a great rate. I want my clients to be 100% happy with their experience with me. That goes from the time they meet me for a consultation, to the final products being delivered to their door. If they are not happy with one aspect of their investment, then they're not happy with me, and that is unacceptable.

I mention the word investment. That is what photography is. It is an investment in memories and moments in time that are otherwise gone and unable to be attained again. Your investment should have value, and the following article that my good friend and fellow photographer Erin Guedry brought to my attention explains the value of your investment perfectly. Please read and remember that professional photographers are well worth any expense, your memories are priceless.

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Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why.

Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:
- I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.

Now for the expertise.

Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.

And let's not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera - and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.

Think of it this way - the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.

What about the cheap studios at the mall?

Please don't compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won't come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.

The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you'll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you're there, you'll also spend $200 on other things. They don't have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.

Conclusion
We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shawn, Pamela & Gavin Richter
Caught on Film Photography

copied here from : http://www.caughtonfilmphoto.com/costofphotography.html

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Thank you Shawn, Pamela, and Gavin!

Brittney & Chris

2008-01-02T09:23:00.000-08:00

Here are more pictures from Brittney and Chris' wedding last summer. Helps me daydream about 80 degree weather and cloudless skies...it was such a beautiful day!

Can't wait till wedding season this year... Ok I may be a bit biased...
(I'm getting married on Sept 20th for those that don't know. So excited!)

Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday! At least it's a short week!

Welcome to Take 5 Photography!

2007-12-28T13:45:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends!

So I've finally found some time to start this blog! Yay! I will try to be better about updating this month, especially now that I'm back to the real world after a 3 month hiatus. I welcome you and invite you to take a look at our website. That should give you a background on Take 5's style and what kind of photography and services we offer.

My name is Missy and am the owner and primary photographer of Take 5. My best friend Colleen will also be updating this blog and taking pictures in NYC. The following posts will chronicle our photography experiences as well as give you a peek into what our business can do. Of course, being the creative people we are, we will add our personal flare to each message and hope that you all fall in love with our subjects as much as we do.

So welcome again to Take 5 Photography! We hope you check back often!

Here are some "getting ready" pictures from my favorite wedding last summer to start off my wedding picture posting spree. I'll post more from this wedding and others next week!

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