Arenz Photography Blog
8/1 What's wrong with people?
For those of you that don't know, I am a baseball nut. I love baseball and have so since I can remember. Anyway I am sitting here (10:45 on Wednesday night) watching the Dodgers and Giants game. If you have been living in seclusion from the sports world you may not know that Barry Bonds has 754 homeruns and 755 homeruns is the Major League record held by Hank Aaron. That is a big deal, but the bigger deal is that Bonds has been accused of using steroids and that by doing so it is said that steroids have inflated his homerun totals. He has been labeled a villan because of this but the funny thing is that the announcers on ESPN were talking about how the price of seats in right field, where Bonds would most likely hit a homerun, normally go for about $50 a seat, but when the "disgrace of baseball...Barry Bonds" comes to town the price has jumped to around $500 a seat and the record tieing homerun will most likely be sold for over a million dollars. I understand the significance of the homerun record and I would love to be there when it happens because it is history, but the ironic thing is that when Bonds get up to bat or even makes a play in the field all you hear is boos and all you see is camera flashes all around the stadium and people are paying 10 times normal prices to be there to see him play. Why would anybody pay to see something that they hate so bad and constantly rag on ? Again I ask what is wrong with people? Hypocrites, they say they hate it but they act like they love it! Me personally, I am rooting for Bonds and I will never look at him as anything other than a great baseball player. A GREAT baseball player. I will leave you with a quote that I absolutely love...
You have to be pretty good to be booed by 53,000 people --- Barry Bonds
I'll be updating with some photography stuff in the next couple of days so check back soon...
7/25 Destination Portraits...take two!
Just a little update on the destination portraits, I was a bit too excited to get the destination portrait posting up that I forgot to clarify pricing. I have the destination portrait pricing page updated now so go check that out. Otherwise below is a shot of the pricelist for that. The prices for that start at $500. The $2000 fee would be for North American travel outside of the lower 48 states. Obviously, the closer to Minnesota you are the cheaper it is. The biggest difference between a "normal" portrait session and the destination session would be the fact that you are buying the negatives along with the photo session. For example, if you want to get some family portraits done along the North Shore of Minnesota and you do not want the negatives, then I would go with the normal session fee and add on my travel expense and the total would be around $200. Actually that concept would go for anywhere in the world as well and in which case you pay all travel expenses as well as the session fee. The reason I put separate packages together with the negatives is because there are bound to be a ton of shots that you may want easy access to down the road, just like your own vacation photos that you take. One more thing on the destination portraits...to answer the question of why somebody wouldn't just hire a photographer at that location. Simple. Would you rather do business face to face with somebody or through mail and phone? Within the borders of the United States it is not a real big deal mailing and calling, but once you get outside the borders things change. Would you like some family portraits or even senior portraits taken on your African Safari? Great idea, but can you break down a language barrier to schedule the session much less place an order and receive that order? Chances are that it would be a very difficult task to do unless you know the photographer's native language or they speak English. Even more common destinations like Mexico can be equally troubling when it comes to language barriers. The other thing to consider is that not everybody in the world is honest and if you have any trouble with a business wouldn't you much rather have that business in your backyard, so to speak so that you are able to speak face to face with them or in a worst case scenario get the law involved. Many other countries don't have legal systems that are going to help people out, especially when that person is from another country. Just a few thoughts to consider.
7/22 Destination Portraits!
As promised last week I am announcing today my newest service, destination portraits. Click on that to see more details on pricing. There is now also a link to the info on destination portraits in my pricing page. What destination portraits is, is exactly what is sounds like, portraits taken at a "destination" in a similar way as a wedding. This whole concept came about because of a few inquiries that I have received about it like this,"would you come to Mexico (or where ever) and take some nice family pictures of us while we are on our vacation." or "Could you take my senior portraits at a beach in Florida?" In the past I have turned down such offers because I had no idea of how to go about it with charging and stuff, but in the past few weeks I was thinking about the concept and came up with somewhat of an add-on to any portrait session from family to child to grad/senior pictures. It is a one shot fee of $2000 and it includes one 16x20 along with the digital negatives and all travel costs. Again read more details on destination portraits in the pricing section of my site. Check out some shots that I took this last week. Early in the week I took our daughter Sofie's, 3 month portraits and I snuck a shot of our son Zakkry with his new pacifier, funny.
7/15 Karen and Doug's Big Day
Here are a couple shots from the wedding that I did at Manhattan Beach Lodge in Crosslake, MN (the resort's sign advertises Restaurant - Lodge - Sunsets...see photos below). I hope to update again at the end of the week as I have another busy one and a ton of stuff that I plan on putting up here including the unveiling of a extremely cool service that I will begin offering soon.
7/9 Apparently this is a monthly blog...
It seems that I have been getting caught up with other things that take away from my updating. As a photographer nowadays that is called slacking. Many photographers from around the world rely almost solely on their blogs to promote their business, they (mostly wedding photographers) update at least weekly with new photos that they have taken. I opted instead to update monthly, just for the heck of it. Not really, but I have been busy lately shooting and continually booking more and more stuff. In the past couple weeks, I have shot a few family reunions, a couple engagement shoots, some senior pics, and a wedding so I have been updating my site, just not in areas that everybody sees, just the proofing pages for my clients. Anyway this past Saturday I had a wedding out in Bismarck, ND. It was at least 100 degrees outside (see the photographic proof) and I even saw one bank sign that said 104! That is hot, and for anybody who thinks North Dakota is an icebox, visit there in July. It was a great wedding and one thing that made it even better was that I booked the date over a year and a half ago, just months after I shot the bride's brother's wedding. Congrats Vanessa and Luke. I feel honored that you chose me to be a part of your day. Also in my travels to good old North Dakota, I shot one engagement session and a senior session and will be shooting another engagement session before I am heading back home. Oh and we also spent the 4th of July with my family (my parents, brother and sister-in-law and my two nephews, and some aunts and uncles and cousins. Below are a few of my favorite photos from the weekend so far, including one of my son playing the slots at my uncles house with 2 of his cousins.
6/3 Kevin and Kristin's big day and my senior portrait updates...
Wedding season is slowly getting going for me. I have been having about one per month so far this year and that will pick up next month when I have three and then the fall is going to be crazy as I am almost booked for my open wedding dates. I only have 2 weeks August-October that are open. It is panning out as a great year for Arenz Photography. Anyway I shot Kevin and Kristin's wedding yesterday at Izaty's Resort on Mille Lacs Lake and it could not have been a more unique day. We started shooting while the couple and their family were getting prepared for the day. My wife, who assists me at almost all weddings, did her normal "girl coverage" while I headed over to the reception hall and found the groom in the bar eating lunch with his posse. That was when it started to get interesting, not because he was at the bar in the early afternoon, but because he had some of his relatives preparing the reception hall. His brother, Kenny, just graduated from chef's school and donated his skills to make the wedding cake. All I can say is that the guy did not have a good first impression with me because as I was taking photos of the setup operations, he came in and started yelling at me to make sure that the cake was not photographed before it was completely set up. I was almost in awe of how demanding he was about that so I finished shooting everything I could besides the cake and then I went to where the girls were getting ready to get some more shots there. The next encounter with Kenny was completely different, he turned out to be one of the most joke-around type people that I have ever met and all he did for the rest of the day was make me laugh. Now back to the wedding...the day had a pretty bad weather forecast. There was like an 80% chance of thunderstorms and the clouds at times looked nasty. The ceremony and reception were all going to be at indoor locations, but there was to be a 15 minute golf cart ride to and from the ceremony. We ended up getting slight sprinkles on us on the way back and not more than five minutes after our return the downpour started, but then it cleared up just before sunset and we even got a few shots (with creative angles to avoid the parking lot behind us) with a rainbow in the background. Check out a couple pictures from the day below. All in all the day was a blast for me and I'm sure all others that were involved. Congrats to Kevin and Kristin!
Onto the next subject...
Now that my summer preparations are almost completely done, I can give my thanks and updates on the business side of things. This past spring I shot four promo sessions with four different models for the class of 2008. I did sessions with Kelsi and Chantal from Pequot Lakes and April and Sonya from Brainerd. Two of the girls were referred to me from other business associates that I know through different business networks that I am involved with and the other two were referred by some of my past clients. I can't say thanks enough for all of them. I do not want to let my "secrets" out too much, but the basis of the sessions were to promote my business to the upcoming graduating class and I feel that the proof is in the pudding, so to speak and these girls will show their friends and they will all like what I did and that is a start for my word of mouth ad campaign for 2007. Another reason for the sessions was that is was a way to showcase my newest and definitely coolest product, a custom Asukabook with their pictures in it. Below are my favorite shot from each session. These books are available to all my clients from babies to wedding couples and I am the one of the first in the Brainerd area, if not the first, to offer these books to clients who are not getting married. I do have a few more things up my sleeve too that I will be announcing within a month or so. Keep checking back for more on that.
4/17 Overdue!!!
That heading has more than one meaning for this entry. First off sorry to the people who like to check this out every now and again. I have not been keeping up with my writing. It has been well over a month since my last post. The other meaning comes in the form of a baby. Yep a baby, more specifically, a baby girl. My wife was due with our second child on April 8, Easter and she ended up having her on April 13, that would be Friday the 13th for you superstitious people. Now the story will begin...
I was hired this past summer to shoot a wedding in Bismarck, ND on April 13, 2007. At the time I excepted the job, my wife had just found out she was pregnant and the doctor told her that he would not let her go over since our son weighed over 9 lbs at birth. Well, fast forward to April 12, 2007. It was a beautiful spring Thursday and I was stressed beyond belief that I was packing my car for a trip to ND leaving behind my (almost) 2 year old son and my (almost) 1 week overdue pregnant wife. To make matters worse, my wife started feeling contractions on Wednesday night. So I take off on my little trip with hundreds of people praying that everything would work out for the best. Well, for only God knows why, but the best seemed to be that my wife would go into labor and have a baby with me being 6 hours away. Dawn (my wife) had her mom and dad with her while I was gone and her mom sat in for me during the delivery. Anyway, I shot the wedding in Bismarck and then went to the reception and that is when I had a voicemail from my wife that we had a little girl. I could be mad at the cell company for not having good reception in a decent sized town, but it would do no good, so anyway I got a voicemail and I will probably never get rid of that voicemail. Back to the reception now. I stayed through the dinner and then I talked to the couple who knew the situation and they told me to get on the road and go see my family. So I did and ended up getting back to Brainerd between 3 and 3:30 in the morning and I went directly to the hospital to see my new little girl, Sofie Marie Arenz, born on Friday the 13th of April, an awesome end to a crazy day. Needless to say, I have been crazy busy this week with the family, photography business, and also I am again coaching baseball which is off and running (we are 3-0). Below are a few shots from Ryan and Marcy Feickert's wedding last week along with one of Sofie's first portraits and one of our son Zakkry holding her for the first time.
Here is an email I got from the bride 3 days after the wedding (I love the paragraph in bold). I have to also send out a thank you to Donovan Kruger for covering the dance for me. He is one of the Marcy's (the bride) brother and a fellow photographer.
Jon,
Thank you again SOOO much for
making it to take our pictures. I saw
them up already. Wow, do you sleep?
I feel really bad about Dawn having your little
girl while you were
here. Kristin said that a guardian angel is
born on each wedding day.
Your little angel will be our guardian angel.
You captured some AWESOME shots. Great job Jon!!
Marcy
3/7 Oh the excitement of spring is getting to me...
I'm just killing time and playing catch up at the same time, so I decided that I would update my blog. First thing is first, it is officially spring in Minnesota as in the last couple of weeks we have gotten over 2 feet of snow and the Minnesota Twins have started spring training. Baseball and snow, is there possibly any better combination? It was actually kind of nice to get out and shovel for once this year, otherwise, my poor back would have went a full winter without the stress of lifting a ton (literally) of snow . Anyway, it was cool to get out and play with our son (Zakkry) in the snow, he along with our dog Jasper loved it. To give Jasper a little more exercise, we hooked a sled to her collar and put Zakkry in the sled. I then ran around in the knee-deep snow like a clown while Jasper and Zakkry chased me. It was good fun for us all. Zakkry was all laughs and smiles the whole time we were outside. Other than the snow, in the last couple weeks we, as a family, went to Minneapolis for a training seminar that my wife attended. Zakk and I got to relax and hang in the hotel and down at the pool. This was the first time that he was able to float around the pool by himself (thanks to water wings). This week I returned to Minneapolis, without my wife and kid, to do children portraits in Richfield, a southern suburb of Minneapolis. Below are a couple photos that I took of Zakkry in the past couple weeks. I am also adding one that I took this past weekend of a chef and some of his food he prepared for a baby shower that Social Butterfly, an event choreography company, setup and decorated. Social Butterfly does wedding and event planning as well as decoratating any events such as weddings, baby showers, bridal showers, birthday parties, anniversary parties, etc. Check them out.
Coming up within the next few weeks I will be kicking off my Class of 2008 marketing campaign. 2007 proves to be another great year for senior portraits. If you are going to be a senior next year or are a parent of a kid who will be a senior next year or are just curious to see what I charge for my seniors, check out my rates here. One other thing...click on my buddy map above. Later...
2/20 Look out, there's a bat coming!
This past Saturday seemed to be potentially one of the most interesting weddings I have ever witnessed much less photographed. The day started bright and early at 8 am with the girls getting their hair done up and then it was on to the church for some wedding portraits. All was well until I got my lights set up for the formals inside the church. That is when a bat was spotted flying around the building. It really didn't matter that the bat was more or less harmless, it is that fact that there is a rat with wings flying around prior to a wedding and to top that off when I did a test shot to make sure my lights and camera were set correctly together, the bat started dive bombing us in the church. It was bad enough that the thing was flying around the ceiling (at least 30 feet above us), but when it started flying around at waist level trying to attack us (or so it seemed) we knew there would be problems. You see Tony and Ranae (the couple who got hitched) had a total of 18 attendants along with three ushers, three flower girls, and two ringbears, that adds up to 26 in the wedding party along with parents and friends also there to either watch or be involved in the photos. Can you imagine the chaos there would be if about 40 people are being dive bombed by a bat while we were taking photos, pretty interesting looks and photos, huh? We (me and the personal attendant's significant other) attempted to rid the church of this bat and our efforts seemed successful until the flying rat escaped the coat trap, but then thankfully disappeared into the cracks of the church. Thank God! The bat was gone and never did return. The best thing about this situation was that it was the only "flaw" on the day and neither Tony nor Ranae even saw the bat and I don't think that Tony even knew about the incident. The day ended (for us photo people) late into the night with Ranae's father singing Johnny Cash with the band at the reception. No lie, this man could easily sing for a Johnny Cash tribute band, he was awesome and it topped off an awesome day for the new Cosert couple. Check out a couple photos from the day below. Until next time...
2/16 Bless our troops
A while back I got an email from a guy that I grew up with. His name is Josh and he has a brother named Tom. Josh graduated high school with my older brother and Tom and I graduated together. For about the first 10 years of my life we were next door neighbors and we spent almost every waking minute together mostly getting into trouble. Well, soon after graduation, I lost touch with Tom, but still keep in touch with Josh. The reason that I lost touch with Tom was because joined the Air Force. The update on Tom is sketchy because of the limited info that he can give out. All that even his parents know is that soon after 9-11 he was sent over to Afghanistan to fight in the War on Terror. Tom is over there doing his job and does not complain about anything other than maybe that the food isn't the best. Anyway, back to my email that I got from Josh. It was a photo of Tom and his Bronze Star that he had earned. All that his family knows is that he received it "for doing my job". This sort of makes the Bronze Star Medal out to be nothing too great, but wrong. This isn't a medal that you get for showing up for your job, you have to do something great and outstanding, much more than just showing up in a warzone and doing what needs to be done. The greatest thing about this award for Tom is his humble attidude toward it. I got to thinking about Tom and his award last night when I saw a story on the news about a guy who received a Bronze Star and they talked about what a big deal it was. You get one for a heroic or meritorious achievement or service during a time of war. How great is it that a man serving you and me overseas, gets an award for a heroic or meritorious achievement or service and all he says about what he did to get it was "I got it for doing my job."? Thank you and god bless you Tom Knoll, you make an old friend proud. Below is the photo that I got via email of Tom and his bronze star (it is the top center red and blue pin on his chest).
2/9 Buddy Map!!!
Here is a cool new thing to my site, it is called Buddy Map and I have to confess it is not my original creative idea to do this, but I have to give credit to a great photographer out in Southern California, Victor Sizemore for the influence on the idea. He has one on his site and I thought it was an awesome idea, hopefully I really do have friends or I will feel stupid having a map without anybody marking their spot, hahaha. Anyway if you check this blog out add yourself to my map, it is pretty simple to do and it does not collect any personal information nor will you get any junk/spam from me or anybody else, it is to simply a fun way of seeing who is looking at my blog. You can enter as much info or as little as you want into it. Check it out above. Also up as of yesterday is my new contact page, I finally stepped up with the times and got a contact form where you fill out the boxes and click submit to send me email. I am proud to say it only took me about 7 hours to put together yesterday. Good thing it is a "slow time of year" for us photographers. Anyway add yourself to the map, just do it all your friends are doing it. Peer pressure is great...
2/5 Photography Party
It may sound like a "real exciting" concept to most, but this past Friday Biff Ulm of Wedgewood Photography hosted a party at his studio in Nisswa for a lot of the Brainerd area photographers. I can honestly say that I was expecting some sort of drama or tension to surface somewhere as there were 14 different and competing studios from the Brainerd area attending. I am pleased to say there was absolutely none that I saw and it was an awesome time. It was really neat to be able to sit around in a non-businesslike atmosphere and talk with other photographers. With the number of photographers in the area, this was a great thing to do because a lot of us had not met each other before. My wife and I went up there and we both loved it. I know that we look forward to the next time we can all get together. Thanks again to Biff and Katie from Wedgewood for putting this on. Check out their blog here to see some photos from that night and also see Biff's recount of the night. Great job guys. Oh, and to whoever cares, the Vikings did not win the Superbowl this year...
1/31 Bismarck KFYR-TV Bridal Show
Wow, it has been almost 3 weeks since I last posted. Time is going too fast. Anyway, this past weekend I participated in the KFYR-TV Bridal Show at the Bismarck Civic Center Exhibition Hall in Bismarck, ND, my hometown. This is a huge show in comparison to the Brainerd one. I haven't heard any figures yet from this years show, but in the past, the four hour event has brought in around 2000 people, with 400+ of those that are brides-to-be. In comparison, the show in Brainerd brought in about 75 brides. Needless to say we were busy at our booth. I was planning on taking a photo of my booth with people looking at the stuff there, but I not even able to get away for even a couple seconds. I tried for about an hour or so and then gave up. I did, however, get a chance to take a photo of it before the doors opened, so check that out below, it is very similar to the booth we had at Cragun's. That leads me to the next news... Obviously I didn't go to the Bismarck bridal show just for the fun of it. I am pursuing more business out there. I already have 3 weddings in Bismarck this year and I look to book at least a couple more out there for this year. My plan is to eventually add a studio/office out there in the future, whether that is next year or in five years. I plan to still be based in Brainerd, but my goal for Arenz Photography is to expand as much as possible, if there is a demand I will try to meet that demand. For now, thank you to all the couples out in the Bismarck area that have shown interest in Arenz Photography and to those who stopped by to see what the "new photographer in the area" had to offer.
1/8 Bridal Show
Well, I just survived the first wedding show of my career. It was the 2007 Brainerd Bridal and Fashion Show at Cragun's Resort. Cragun's and Wendy from Fiancee' Bridal in downtown Brainerd did an awesome job putting together the event. I also want to send out a thank you to all the future brides and grooms (that were tagging along) that stopped by my booth and checked out my work. I held a drawing at my booth in which I was giving away either a free engagement sitting with an 11x14 or 20% off any package and just for signing up the couples will receive 10% off any package. That is a really good deal as the 10% can equal up to over $400. It pays to sign your name on the line, huh? I was planning on having one winner only, but because of the overwhelming response I had with the drawing, I decided to be generous and give out two. Those two brides are Kali Romans and Ashley Bilek. I will be contacting all of the registered brides and grooms this week via email or phone. If you happen to read this and know that you did register and/or are one of the winners, feel free to contact me first. Thank you again to all that stopped by. Another thank you goes out to Paul and Zambory Video who shared my booth with me. He provided a slideshow that was played at the booth. If you are looking for a videographer I definitely would recommend him. Below is a photo of our booth that my wife took along a close up of the floral centerpiece that we had courtesy of Petals and Beans in Nisswa (those are real green roses too, they are not painted). Check Petals and Beans out at www.petalsbeans.com. I will be updating more of my site soon too, hopefully getting my wedding gallery updated tomorrow. Be sure to check it out.
1/1/2007
Happy New Year! Well, it's officially 2007, and this past Friday I had my final wedding of 2006. It seemed like a great idea to have a December wedding until about a week beforehand and we still had no snow, but fittingly Friday morning the snow came, perfectly. It was just enough to cover trees and the ground, to make it look like a real Minnesota winter. Luckily, the wedding was Friday rather than Saturday as it rained Saturday evening and melted almost all the snow away. What a crazy winter we are having. The wedding day went on with only a couple hitches. Of course, with wintertime, colds and flus are around and unfortunately one of the Bridesmaids ended up sick and was unable to stand up with the rest of the wedding party. The ceremony was flawless though other than a couple emotional parts when the pastor teared up talking about the bride, his daughter. It was a great day for Sarah and Ben and I wish them all the best in the world. Below are a couple photos from their big day. Congratulations, I hope to have one of their photos displayed next weekend at a wedding show at Cragun's Resort north of Brainerd. I also included one Christmas photo of my son opening up one of his favorite presents, a book.
12/27
I know it isn't officially 2007 yet, as I am trying this, but I have updated all my pricelists to my 2007 prices. There are not too many changes other than a few minor price increases. The biggest and most exciting addition is the option of AsukaBook that I mentioned in my last post. I have put together my first album and am just waiting on the company to finish the printing. The company of course has about 1,000,000 options and I have settled on 1. A soft cover coffee table book with 30 pages and up to 40 images. The reason I settled here is because of customer affordability and I feel the soft cover adds a touch of uniqueness to them. My other album company, Graphistudio, offers hard covers and I wanted something a little different, in price and presentation. These books will run my customers $150 and are worth every penny. Another update is that I now have a separate Senior Brochure in which I have options specifically for my seniors. Take a peek. Check back soon to see my next update, which will have some Christmas photos along with a shot or two from a wedding that I will be doing this weekend.
12/12 Monthly update...
Man time flies when you're having fun, or at least busy. That's not to say that being busy isn't fun, but it seems like 2 days ago that I last posted and it has been exactly one month. I suppose there is a lot of stuff to update and I will forget 80% of what I was planning on putting here. First, on the topic of Arenz Photography, the new portrait brochures are ready and will be posted just before the 1st of the year. The new prices will be in effect starting January 1, 2007. Not much really has changed other than my sittings will be a little bit more and that is due to the fact that I actually sat down and figured out what I am worth along with the costs to run and keep current with my business. Up until now I never really figured that stuff out. Anyway the new session fee will be $50 for up to one hour of portraits. As I did with my wedding package update, if you book your 2007 portrait session before January 1, you will be able to get the 2006 prices. I also added a few different packages for seniors with more time and the most exciting addition will be a portrait coffee table, similar to what is offered for weddings, but at an affordable price. What the book will be is a softcover book with a laminate cover and glossy pages, similar to what you would find if you bought any "coffee table" book at a bookstore. Check out AsukaBook if you want to see more, there site is geared towards photographers, but you can see online samples of some albums. These books will be only available for portraits not weddings. My wedding albums that I offer are exclusively Graphistudio.
On other news, this past weekend my wife, son and I went to Minneapolis for the weekend to "sightsee". On Friday, we went to the Holidazzle Parade along with the downtown Macy's. At Macy's they have this big area all decorated up in different themes every Christmas. This year was Mary Poppins. It almost feels like going through some exhibit at like Disney World because it has all these elaborate sets that have robotic characters that move around. It was much cooler than I expected. The parade was cool too. It is a nighttime parade with all the floats decorated up with Christmas lights. Look below at a couple photos that I took there with my wife's point and shoot camera. On Saturday we went to the Mall of America and fought the crowds to Christmas shop. Really though, the crowds weren't too bad. Finally on Sunday we went to the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul to see the exhibit Baseball As America. It is a traveling exhibit that includes like 500 items from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. I was excited to be able to see stuff like Babe Ruth's bats, a Honus Wagner baseball card (worth $1,000,000 or something ridiculous like that). It was well worth the cost of admission and the museum has a ton of other interesting things to see. The only bad part of the weekend was that our little guy got a touch of the flu and puked all over himself in the museum. Up until that happened he seemed like he was really enjoying the exhibits too, his favorite was playing with replica bats that Babe Ruth and Mark McGuire used. He feels better now though. Check out some of the photos from our weekend below. Until next time enjoy our snapshots...
11/12/06 Proud Papa
The past year and a half have been the fasted five days of my life. At least it only seems like it was five days. That is what everybody, who has kids, will tell you and I never believed it until my son was born. Well that was 18 months ago and this past Friday my wife and I took him into the studio and took his 18 month pictures. This was something I was dreading because believe it or not he is not too fond of having his picture taken. The shoot went without a hitch and we changed his outfit 3 times (including some in his halloween costume) and he did awesome and cooperated the whole time! Check them out here, if you don't want to go there look below and you will see a couple of my favorites. The next day the building that I am located in had a grand opening/open house. The Franklin Arts Center (Check that out here) opened last spring, but put off a big event until now. None of us artists that have studios there expected what happened. There were estimates of over 3000 people that went through and toured the building and studios. Thank you to all of you that attended. It was awesome to see the type of response. In all honesty, I expected like 100 people all day. I had more than that go through my little studio in the first hour that I was there! Hopefully we all left a good impression on the public and this type of traffic can continue for future events.
11/2/06 Almost Christmas
Halloween is over and you know what that means, it is almost Christmas time. Check out THE MAN, Zakkry below in his Halloween garb, he is a scarecrow, if you can't tell. It's not a professionally photo, just a snapshot from my wife's point and shoot, but it works. Also check out the mutt in the convict outfit... After only 5 houses Zakk's little trick or treat bag was half full, I wonder why!
In other news, 2006 wedding prices are now history. Check out the 2007 Wedding Brochure if you are looking to get married. There is still something for everybody, but many more options. Next up will be the 2007 Portrait Brochure and I also am going to be putting out a brochure specifically for senior portraits, which accounts for at least half of my overall business. Keep posted for those updates. One last thing, I have been getting a ton of junk mail lately, thanks to the cyberbots that patrol around the internet. To simplify the process, these little creatures search webpages for email addresses and when they find them they get your address to a bunch of pests who send out spam, and not the edible kind. Anyway, I had to enable my email screener to stop my inbox from overloading. I was getting like 100 emails a day that meant nothing. So if you email me, an automated email may be sent back to you from me telling you to reply and simply do that, you don't have to retype anything just click reply and then send and I will get the email. This is the only way that I know how to beat the junk mail senders other than changing my email address. If anybody out there knows any easier ways to combat this, please let me know. Until next time...
10/23/06 Weekly rambling...Halloween time.
I was going to go on and on about a magazine insert that I recently read about "amateurs" taking over the photography market. I changed my mind because of one reason, I don't want to sound like a bitter photographer that is frightened by competition. So I will change the topic to something completely irrelevant of photography, but relevant of my personal life...
It is almost Halloween and this is one of my favorite parts of the year. I absolutely love horror movies and during this time of the year, there are always good ones on TV, on DVD, or in theatres. Probably my favorite of all time is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was excited to see that a new version of the movie was coming out. "The Beginning", was actually pretty good by my standards. Obviously, the critics said it was no good, but what do they know. Horror movies are not typically made to be high class movies as they are mostly made for the purpose of showing blood and guts and to scare people. The way I look at these movies is to first throw out all perceptions of it being fake, 99% of the time they are really fake, but throw that out and look at it as a person who is in that situation and it is really happening. The person in the situation does not always know or even suspect that there is killer or monster around the corner. They don't always know that the stranger they meet is a bad person wanting to kill them. Do you look at all strangers as a monster of some kind? Anyway, I watched the new Texas Chainsaw and I thought it was worthy of my hard earned money. Also a "new" rental just out is The Omen. I saw the original years ago and thought it was okay, nothing real special, but this new version as a package with the DVD special features, is an excellent remake. If you don't know, The Omen is about a young married couple who have a little boy who is really not their child, but he is really the son of Satan. One thing that really impressed me about this DVD was when looking through the extras features, one can find stuff like a documentary about the number 666. It was interesting because they actually have experts in religion such as professors, pastors, and authors talking about the history of 666, which is based in the book of Revelations in the bible. Actually this whole movie is based on the book of Revelations. It is really a movie based on the writers take on Revelations which if you don't know is about the end of the world. One of the freakiest scenes was toward the start of the movie. There is a meeting with religious leaders and one guy was talking about the end of the world coming and all the signs. As he was reading biblical scripture on the signs that the end is coming he was flashing photos on a screen that represented each of the signs. All of these "signs" that were described with photos were real events that have recently happened. A couple examples of them were the attacks on 9-11 when the World Trade Centers came down and the tsunami that happened in southeast Asia that took a couple hundred thousand people. It's scary when things like that are pointed out, even if it is in a fictional movie. Anyway enough movie rambling. Happy Halloween to all. Look for a post following Halloween complete with photos of my son, Zakkry, in costume!
One thing about photography...Only a little over a week left to book weddings with the 2006 package options. A new portrait brochure is also being finalized and will be up at the end of the year. Later.
10/12/06 Home Sweet Home
I remember saying many times that I would never move back home (Mandan, ND). Everybody I would tell that to would always respond, "Someday you will be back." Well, I do feel that home is where the heart is (old Firehouse song!) and that is true, but I still don't want to move back no matter how much my heart is still there. I have been living away from the Bismarck area for almost 6 years now and everytime I return, it feels like I have never left. I do truly love Bismarck, and eventually I would like to have a studio there as well as my studio in Brainerd. That is probably a long time away though. Why all this talk? My wife and son made the long trip "home" this past weekend for business. I will be shooting a wedding of an old classmate of mine this April. Actually it will be on Friday the 13th of April. Hopefully it won't be a crazy or cursed day! One thing I love about photography is shooting in different locations. Sure Brainerd has a ton of great spots, but it sometimes gets monotonous shooting in the same 50 spots with the same scenery. Bismarck definitely has some different scenery as there are not all the lakes and trees, but mostly hills and no trees. There is the Missouri River and also I could not resist taking Ryan and Marcy downtown to do some urban shots. The bad part of downtown Bismarck...it is too clean! The cities of Bismarck and Mandan take a lot of pride in upkeep and there is not a lot of garbage or debris laying around and there is not a ton of vandalism in the downtown areas. It is a very clean and safe place to be. Anyway below are a couple different shots that I got out there (one even has trees and water just to prove all you people who think ND is a flat prairie without water or trees).
On a side note, I must admit that I was wrong about our beloved Twins, they choked. I will chalk that up to experience and a young team. Just wait until next spring. We are already a day closer to spring training...
9/26/06
Have you ever met a couple that has seemed absolutely perfect together? What I mean is perfect in the sense that there is no way that you, as an outsider, can even fathom the thought of them not being together. Well, I had the pleasure to meet a couple just like that this past year and I shot their wedding this past Saturday. Their names are Stephanie and Barry and from my perspective, along with my wife's, they mesh absolutely perfectly together, same personality and an undescribable love for each other. If I did not know that they were newlyweds, I would guess that they were one of two things, either married for 50 years and they know everything about each other and love all those things or the other extreme, they just met and are still in that phase where they can't find even the slightest fault with each other. Maybe they are just good actors, though I doubt any of it was an act. One of the most memorable parts of the experience for me was learning how they got hooked up, by a mutual realtor who was able to see past selling a house and notice that these two were perfect for each other. Congratulations to Stephanie and Barry.
On another note...the Twins clinched a playoff berth last night and I am predicting it here and now that they will win the World Series this year, the year of Kirby Puckett. If you can think of a team that can beat the Twinkies and their (young) pitching staff more than once in 4-5 games, then we can have doubts, until then those little piranas will keep eating through the competition.
One last thing, if you read this even if it is only the first time please let me know so that I will continue on with it, email me at jon@arenzphotography.com to let me know your thoughts on my blog or to just say, yes I read it.
Later...
9/19/06 Another Day in Paradise....err!
Mid-September and it is 40 degrees outside! What a year, we had like a month this summer with 95-100 degrees everyday and that was only a month and a half ago. Minnesota the land of 10,000 different climates! Anyway last week I gave my very first public presentation about Arenz Photography. It was at a BNI meeting. BNI is a networking group that I belong to and BNI stands for Business Network International. The group has definitely helped with my business and getting to know other business owners in the area. The chapter that I belong to is the largest in the world and I was privileged enough to give a presentation to the group about my business. Along with that I have been busy still with senior portraits and my child/family side has been picking up as well.
On another note, I have been thinking lately about how Arenz Photography has progressed over the past year and it is amazing. I can hardly believe that about 6 months ago I was going finish 2006 and then end Arenz Photography because things weren't going in the direction that I wanted them to. Now, I am almost where I want to be with thoughts of expanding and hiring help not too far off in the horizon. The most asked question that I get when talking about my drastic change was...how? In all honesty, as weird as it may sound to some people, the biggest change has been prayer. I'm not going to go into real details because I know many people out there are skeptical on religion, and 5 years ago I was the as skeptical as they come, but I had a life change and now I am constantly praying about God showing me direction with my business and He has definitely delivered and answered more prayers than I deserve. There is nothing like witnessing an answered prayer.
Another one of the changes that I made was that I am trying to completely differentiate myself from the competition in the area. This may be an obvious thing to do, but may people including myself follow suit on what has already been successful. I realized that I have to get inspiration from myself and photographers from far away from here. Nobody wants a copy cat, so I decided to not even look at what others around here do, what I know is what my clients tell me. There are some great photographers around here and I could possibly learn a lot from them, but I feel that if I can not be different from the competition, I will not be successful. I am currently developing a marketing plan that will be completely different than any photographer out there. Once my plans are ready I will be announcing them. The only hint that I will give out is that is has a lot to do with a passion that I have away from photography. Until next time...
9/10/06 My Birthday
Today is my birthday. My wife, son, and I went to the Twins game this afternoon where they completely destroyed the Detroit Tigers 12-1. I am a huge baseball fan for those who do not know. The Twins are having an amazing season after starting out very poorly. I think they realistically have a chance to win the World Series this year. Tough pitching staff and a team that has been hitting with the best of them. Anyway I could talk baseball and bore a lot of people with my opinions, but I will try to keep this on photography. Last night I shot a rehearsal dinner at Grand View Lodge in Nisswa, they were having a Sunday wedding and their wedding day photographer wasn't able to make it to the rehearsal dinner on Saturday night, so I was hired to do the job. Audrey and Will seemed like a great couple and very nice and laid back people, best of luck to you two. The big news of the week on the business side is that I now have my new wedding packages updated and posted. I'm going to offer all 2007 wedding couples who book with me before November 1 the choice of 2006 packages or the new updated packages. The biggest differences are the delivery/presentation of proofs and the addition of Graphistudio books to a couple of packages and the option of buying separate books. Check the new packages out here.
9/3/06 Labor Day Weekend
Another great, busy weekend. I had some family come down this weekend to visit, an aunt, sister-in-law, cousin, and nephews all came in from out of town. It is a rare occasion that we can get all my nephews (3) and my son together, so that means..."PICTURE TIME"! Also this weekend was another wedding, Keri and Keith. Good ceremony with a western flair complete with cowboy hats and guns. At one point in the day I had 10 rifles and shotguns pointed at me by the groom and all the groomsmen. Good thing they seemed to like me, huh? See the photo below, I think it turned out cool. They had a nice laid back day with a ton of photos at the century old country church and ending at a BBQ joint in a tiny town. It looks like I might have a couple days to catch up on the computer and paperwork stuff.
8/30/06 1st post
I'm in the middle of a busy time of the year with weddings and senior portraits consuming most of my time ( 12+ hours a day for the past 8 days). That is the life of running your own business though and it is definitely worth every second. Last Saturday the 26th, I shot an old college buddy's wedding in St.Cloud. They (Cody and Tara) had a flawless day with perfect weather and a great party to top it off. It was awesome to be able to provide my services to an old friend and to get to see a bunch of people that I haven't seen in a few years, some that I forgot about and others that I just lost touch with. Other than the wedding last week, I've been doing a bunch of senior portraits and some family and baby stuff lately. Also I've been busy coming up with new ideas for next years pricing (new options and such). I may be completely overhauling my wedding packages Check back to see where that may be leading to. Some very exciting ideas are flowing right now. I'm now looking forward to my next wedding this Saturday and my senior and baby shoots in between. Be sure to check out my updated pages in my bands section of the site. I just added a bunch of stuff that I did last winter and spring that has been collecting dust, in there is Anthrax, Sworn Enemy, God Forbid, and one of my favorite bands that I have shot several times, Pillar. If you haven't looked recently the wedding and portrait pages were updated like a week ago. Later...