Senior Portrait Ambassador Reps Needed

Check out this new slideshow of a bunch of senior portraits. Just click on the image above. To see the full-sized slideshow in another window (instead of right here on the blog), just follow this link.

We're still looking for a few more Juniors to be our senior portrait ambassadors in their schools. Right now we need one more representative from each of these schools:

Dublin Coffman
Dublin Jerome
Thomas Worthington
Worthington Kilbourne
We're all set for Dublin Scioto

If you attend a smaller school, private school, or one in another town, please let us know if you're interested in this program. We have opportunities for many other schools.

This is a great way to get discounts on your Senior Portrait Session and your Senior Pictures. You also earn $10 to $15 for every High School Senior you send to us. In addition, the Seniors you refer to us will receive 16 free wallet prints. This is a great opportunity but it's also limited to a few select seniors so you need to get in touch with us right away.

Here's all the info on what an ambassador is and how to apply to become one:

What is the Squier Ambassador Program?

Squier Ambassadors are high school juniors who are chosen to represent Squier Photography to their friends and acquaintances for their Senior Portraits.

What does a Squier Ambassador do?
A Squier Ambassador agrees to:

1. Have their Senior Portraits taken by Squier Photography in April or May of their Junior year.


2. Show their Senior portraits to friends and acquaintances and tell them how much you enjoyed having your portraits made.


3. Pass out as many Ambassador Cards as you can. The more you hand out, the more chance of earning rewards! Your friends must turn these cards in for you to receive credit!


4. Represent Squier Photography exclusively.

What does a Squier Ambassador receive in return?

1. A Deluxe Senior Sitting for $50 (regularly $100): this sitting includes a variety of indoor and outdoor poses at absolutely no cost to you!


2. If you order your own senior portraits within two weeks of us posting your proofs online, you will receive a $50 credit toward your order. If you order after your proofs have been online for two weeks, you will not receive this credit.


3. Ambassador Cards with your photograph on it to pass out to friends. Your friends receive 16 free wallet prints when they return your card and have their Senior Portraits taken by Squier Photography. The cards also allow us to track how many referrals you have sent to us.


4. $10 cash for each senior that we photograph that you sent to us. If you send 10 or more seniors, you will receive $15 for each after the first 10.


5. Up to two additional sessions at times of your choice during your senior year. These can include a family portrait session, individual session or a friends session.


6. If you have a facebook account, we will provide a way for you to link your senior portrait slideshow directly onto your page.

Rewards accumulate for every referral until December 31, 2008.

How do I become a Squier Ambassador?

Just send us an e-mail or call us at 614-798-0189 and we'll send out an application. We’ll let you know if you are selected as a Squier Ambassador. At that time we will set up a time for your Deluxe Senior Portrait Session.

Baby Bonanza 2008

You may remember the post last month about the Baby Bonanza. You also may be wondering what happened, because I never blogged about it. Well, it did happen! I'm just a bit behind in my announcement posts. It took place on March 15th and it was a whirlwind of a day for us.

Not only did we have the show (where I photographed the events, too), but our son's Blue and Gold banquet for Cub Scouts was the same day. It was his last year, a crossing over ceremony, so we couldn't really bail on him. We had someone help out in the booth for the last couple hours and pack up. I drove back as soon as I could to help load up the car, then back to the Cub Scout banquet.

Anyway, the Baby Bonanza took place at the Aladdin Shrine Center near Easton. It's an interesting venue with tiered levels and lots of stairs. Thankfully, there are a lot of ramps for everyone with strollers, so that wasn't a big issue. It made it easier to load and unload the booth, too.

And while I'm on the subject of the booth, here are some pictures of it. This year we had a double booth and it was so nice having the space to talk and visit with people.
We even had a coloring table so the kids had something to do while they waited for their parent to finish talking. You can kind of see it in the picture below down on the right. Parents loved that their kids had a place to hang out instead of haning on ... to them. ;-)
One of the highlights of the Baby Bonanza each year is the Diaper Derby. Yes, that's right -- baby races. Who knew they'd be so fun? Well, if you're a parent, you can understand why they're funny, at least. Here they are at the start of the race. Off in a flash!
There was much concern when one baby didn't understand the rules. These two stopped and tried to give an explanation, not realizing that another baby was racing toward the finish line.
After the grueling race, the winner had no comment.
There were also activities for parents like how to use your stroller as a piece of exercise equipment and how to cook meals quickly that the whole family will eat.
And, of course, there was fun for parents and kids together.
That parachute looks like so much fun. I think we have a smaller one somewhere. I should go find it.
There was a lot going on throughout the entire day. And, of course, there were tons of vendors who had all kinds of things for your kids. I can't wait for next year. Though I hope that's the only thing we have to do that day. We were exhausted at the end of the day.

Snowstorm!

Starting Friday morning, we had the biggest snowfall since we've lived here. As of late last night (It's Sunday morning) our street still hadn't been plowed.

I love the blanket of snow covering everything.

55th Annual PPO Trade Show and Convention

I think the title of this post is almost as long as the post.

Lynn and I went to Dayton last weekend for a big regional photography show. We got some great new ideas and managed not to spend a fortune. We saw (and heard) David Jay speak -- always great stuff.

Here's a picture of me, Lynn, Sticky Rammel, Jim Cook, David Jay, and Camille Ackerman.

Baby Bonanza on March 15

The Baby Bonanza is Back! For the second year in a row, on March 15, we'll have a booth filled with our work -- and portraits of your kids! We'll also be offering discounts on products that we're discontinuing. Things like photo jewelry, photo bags, and photo coasters.

There will be drawings for prizes, a kids' area, and probably chocolate -- and that's just in our booth. Check out the Baby Bonanza web site to see what will be going on and who else will be there.

Be sure to print out this blog post and bring it to our booth for a gift.

Happy New Year

Wow! What a crazy last couple of months. We had our best holiday season to date. Sometime this month we'll get our Christmas cards out. For, uh, next Christmas? Yeah, we're really getting a jump on things. ;-)

This post will be a sort-of "catching up" post. We have a lot going on.

First of all, thank you to all of you who stopped by from October through December. We really appreciate every customer. We also appreciate all the referrals we received from people. That's the best kind of advertising there is. And speaking of referrals -- remember, if you're a member of Angie's List, we are listed up there so it would be great to see some comments from you.

We have a picture in the latest issue of Columbus Parent magazine. It's on page 14. We also have an ad on the facing page.



The article is about a little girl with Treacher Collins Syndrome and how the family is working through the issues. The article is online so take a look if you haven't seen the print version. Our image is also on the home page of their Web site right now.

There's a fundraiser for her at Lucé Restaurant and Cafe in Powell on January 24th. There will be a silent auction (we've donated a package) and I think a portion of meals will be donated to the family. The restaurant is located at 3499 Market Street in Powell, Ohio.

In other news, one of our pictures is in the current issue of The Perspective, the student magazine of Dublin Coffman High School.

The article is about Junior Corrinne Haynes, a very talented dancer. Her leaps and moves made for some great images. I'll need to get a copy for our archive.

Our last bit of news for right now is about our new blog contests (coming soon). Each week or so we'll be having a contest with a question. Be the first to answer correctly and you'll win one of several prizes. There will be more details in a later post so check back soon.

Again, thanks for making 2007 our best year so far.

I have time!

Well, at long last, I finally have some time to update the blog. For those of you who are anxiously waiting for your slideshows, they'll be up in no particular order. If you really want yours to be next, just send an e-mail and I'll put it in the front of the queue.

There will be more later today -- I promise.

Speaking at MOPS

A few days ago on Friday we had the opportunity to speak at the Marysville MOPS group. MOPS is an organization dedicated to Mothers Of Pre-Schoolers. We do this from time to time and it's a great way to show these moms how to take better photographs. We mostly talk about how to get the most out of your point-and-shoot digital camera. We have examples of a "typical" picture and what can be done (very easily) to make it much better.

Then the rest of the time is a Q&A session. That usually lasts a good half hour or more and could go longer if it wasn't stopped.

We also show some of our work, of course. ;-)

If you're involved with an organization that needs speakers, give us a call (or send an e-mail). We'd love to talk about it.

Here's a picture because I don't like posts without some sort of image.

End of an era

Well, we all knew it was coming. The big "ROSS" sign on the warehouse that you could see from highway 680 is gone. It's been there for decades. Soon you'll see "Abbott Nutrition" (or maybe just "Abbott") emblazoned on the side of the building. I'm not sure if the red stripe will remain -- but I kind of doubt it.

New Greeting Cards

We've just added a new line of greeting cards! You can see what they all look like on our regular Web site. As usual, you can customize the text however you want. Right now we have holiday cards and birth announcement cards, but they're all interchangable. That means you can choose any design and make it work for what you want.

Photo in Times Square

You know that press release that Abbott Nutrition put out yesterday (see blog entry just below this one)? Well, the image was up over Times Square last night. I thought that was pretty cool.

BVM Studios in Dublin Ireland

This morning I discovered that a photographer in Ireland had not only stolen our Web site design, but was also passing our images off as his own. Now, it's bad enough that the design was lifted, but representing himself with someone else's photographs is just wrong.

I was checking out some Google Alerts I have set up and one looked a little strange. It was for a page that's been on our site for a long time, and hasn't changed. I thought it was odd that it just came up so I took a closer look.

It turns out that there's a guy in Dublin, Ireland named Brian Mullowney who really likes our site and how well it comes up on Web searches. Rather than spending years getting his site to rank high, paying a designer to design it, and taking his own pictures, he thought he'd take the easy way and just copy ours. In a way, it's kind of flattering, but still, he was using our work. He copied most of the images and even this blog. From the age of the pages, it looks like it was copied a little over a year ago but was only put online last month.

He did take our logo off and put his BVM Studios logo in its place but many of the links still go to our work.

See some Screenshots: One, two, three, four.

Now, I know most of you know how much photographers, musicians, and other people in the arts hate it when our work is copied. I won't go into the whole "you're taking food off my table" speech because I hate it when people say that. But on the other hand, it is directly stealing. I don't bring it up too much, but I usually know when it happens. Whether or not I do anything about it is another subject. ;-)

In this case, the amount of copying was so absurdly blatant that I had to stop it. His site even had "Squier Photography" on all the price lists and in many of the page titles. I checked out the whois listing to see where his site was hosted. I checked my watch and saw it was the afternoon in Ireland so I called up the Web host and left a message. Surprisingly (because it's Saturday) my call was returned promptly. Once I described what was happening he asked what I wanted to do. All I really wanted was the site to come down, so he took it down.

I tried calling Brian but his phone went unanswered.

I was all set to call the PPA legal team on Tuesday (Monday's a holiday) but I'm glad we were able to take care of it this way.

The moral? Don't Steal! You'll probably be found out and it's never good to be known as someone like that.

Polyphemus Moth Found

This morning I was leaving from my son's preschool, and his teacher (who parked right near us) saw a huge moth in the parking lot. Knowing that a parking lot isn't the safest place for a moth, we take it home. At first I thought it was a Common Buckeye, because the postcard stamps right now feature a picture of it and it looked similar. Turns out, the Common Buckeye is a butterfly, not a moth, so we turned to the "Oracle of the Mighty Web" to figure out what it is. I say, "we" like I had something to do with it. Lynn found it.

It's a Polyphemus Moth and they only live a few days. The wingspan is about 7 inches across. It has little circular "windows" in the wings. I thought they were holes at first, but there's some sort of membrane in there. They emerge from the coccoon in late April and Early May (doesn't get much closer than today) after spending the winter hanging from a tree. We were trying to find out what to feed it, but they don't eat! They don't have any sort of digestive tract at all, because they only live for three or four days.

Since our boy's preschool class is doing a unit on butterflies right now (they have some that they'll release on Thursday) we'll be taking it in tomorrow morning to show everyone else. We thought it was pretty cool.

Canteen at Karrer Middle School

Last night we were photographing at the Canteen again. We've done this for every one of them this year. This was the final one of the year and we got to test out our new photo printer. Sorry, no pictures to show -- we don't have releases for them.

In the past, for "print on the spot" events, we had four printers set up. We would get a 4x6 print every 90 seconds, which is pretty slow for this kind of thing. And then having to deal with printing to the correct printers, not sending too many at once because they'd overheat, and then matching them up with the right people. It was confusing, to say the least.

With our new printer, we couln't keep up with it to put the prints into folders! It's that fast. And because it printed so quickly, matching up names with pictures was easy. This is definitley a volume printer designed for this kind of work. It's the same printer that's used in the mall for pictures with Santa or the Easter Bunny or whatever. I had always been a little disappointed with those prints -- they seemed "soft" or kind of blurry to me. I don't know what they're doing because the prints from ours look incredible. It prints at a higher resolution than most labs' printers, I believe.

Anyway, back to the canteen. We had only purchased 5x7 paper so the students last night got bigger prints than before, though I doubt any of them noticed. In the past, there were dress-up clothes and props but this time it was just the backdrop. We used our tie-dye backdrop, which is always a big hit. We had several students come back for 4, 5, even six pictures! In the two hours we were there, we printed and delivered 195 5x7 prints, all in easel folders -- by far the most we've ever done at one event.

We now feel completely prepared for other events like Christmas parties at businesses, ballroom dance competitions and showcases, birthday parties, corporate events, fundraisers, baseball games, other sports events, general promotion -- anything that requires a quality photograph quickly.

More pictures in Columbus Bride

Once again, we have a few photographs in the latest issue of Columbus Bride magazine. It's always fun to go through the magazine and see what they've picked.

First, on page 14, there's a beautiful image, highlighting this bride's dress:

Then, on page 47, there's a picture of the flowers from Kim and Brett's wedding:

A few pages later (p. 51) they pick one of my favorite flower pictures from Kelly and Allen:

Also from Kelly and Allen's wedding is a picture of their cake on page 127:

Sara and Matt also have one of their pictures, on page 138:

The next one, on page 170, is also from Kelly and Allen's wedding:

And you can't forget our ad on page 176:

Then Sara and Andy have their wedding featured on page 210 with two of their pictures:


And finally there's one more image on page 230. It's the same picture we used in our ad!:

We love getting our pictures published (who wouldn't?) and it's fun to give our couples as many magazines as they want.

Baby Bonanza 2007

Yesterday we had a booth at the First Annual Baby Bonanza in Columbus. It was down at the Aladdin Shrine Center near Easton. There were a lot more people there than we expected, which was great. People came from all over the Central Ohio area. There was a good mix of young, old, and everyone in-between. It was also great seeing some of "our" babies again. Especially when their pictures were hanging in the booth!

We were able to show off some of our new products and some interesting framing that our friend did. Everything was well-received -- especially our "year in portraits" baby book. The moms and grandmas just loved the little book. Our new bags and purses with pictures printed right on them were also a hit. We had a few specials going on and we're extending them to give people the opportunity to think about them for a while.

We were both exhausted at the end of the day, and pretty much just collapsed after we got home. We had a blast and we'll definitely be there again next year. If you missed the show, be sure to stop by soon to see everything that's new around here.

Exciting Wedding Bonus!

For a limited time, if you book your wedding with us, you will receive a 5x5 coffee table book for free. This small book is a fun way to carry your wedding photographs in your purse or your pocket. Imagine being able to show your wedding album pictures at work or when you get together with your friends without needing to carry your heavy album. Many parents appreciate having a small book like this to show off their children. Anyone eligible for this offer will be able to purchase additional, duplicate copies for only $80.00!

This is a small, softcover version of our very popular coffee table book pictured above.

Remember, this is a very limited time offer. You must contract us to photograph your wedding by Valentine's day (February 14), 2007. Contact us at Squier Photography for more information about this exciting offer.

Coca Bunny passed on

Our rabbit, Coca, died this morning. I was up with him all night making sure he didn't hurt himself. He had "head tilt" come on suddenly. That's when a rabbit's head turns and they can't keep their balance. He kept sort-of hopping in circles, losing his balance, and violently rolling trying to regain his balance. Rabbits' backs break fairly easily so he had to be watched and held.

I took him to the vet early this morning and we decided it was his time to go. He was a brown mini rex: our real "chocolate bunny." One of the most easy-going rabbits I've known -- so good with kids and loved to snuggle. When kids came in for their portraits, often the first thing they did was to run to his cage and pet him.

He was with us for over six years, which is fairly old for a pet rabbit, and will be missed by many people. These pictures were taken when he was just one year old, so they're pretty old.

On "Awesome Photographs" again

Once again, one of our images was posted to the Awesome Photographs site. This is a pretty big deal and we're excited that we were chosen again.

We'll be submitting some Baby images next so check back and see if there are any others that have been chosen.

Angie's List Page of Happiness!

We think this is really cool! You may have heard of Angie's List -- they're in a bunch of cities now. It's basically a place where you can go in and report on companies. Like if you have a plumber come out to fix your sink and he does a fantastic job, you can write a review about his company.

Anyway, there's a magazine that comes out each month. There are a few pages in the beginning that highlight certain companies that have gone above and beyond their customers' expectations. Yep, you guessed it, one of our fantastic customers nominated us and we made it to the magazine! This is huge for us -- and it couldn't have come at a better time of year. We've noticed an upsurge in calls from people who have found us on Angie's List.
What's really cool about this is that most folks don't know that Angie's List rates photographers at all, so having a spot in the magazine really helps to let people know that it's not just for roofers and general contracters and such.

Our house

So, this morning we were hanging out in the living room and I decided to open the curtains. No big deal, except that last night some people thought our place would be a good one to TP. We still can't figure out why our house was targeted -- it must be a random thing. There was TP all in our trees and bushes, and shaving cream all over our door, windows, and my car.

The windows and car needed to be washed, anyway, so that was OK. Lots of neighbors came out and helped get everything cleaned up so it wasn't too bad.

I'm glad we were able to get fingerprints off the shaving cream cans that were left and one of our surveilance cameras got a few images that should be very helpful. ;-)

Back from Minnesota

Well, we're back home from a quick trip up Nort by da lehk, doncha know? Actually we got back last Monday but we've been trying to catch up. We stayed with good friends and visited Lynn's grandfather, which was nice. Of course, it wouldn't be a trip to the Twin Cities without going to the Mall of America! These pictures were taken on the ferris wheel in the amusement park. Yes, it's all indoors, if you don't know what I'm talking about.

Surgery was a success!

Last Tuesday I (finally) had surgery on my wrist. I had injured it nearly three years ago and despite therapy and time, it was still bothering me. I couldn't really lift much with my right hand. And, you know, photographers never need to lift anything heavy, right? ;-)

So anyway, I went in early Tuesday morning and was out of the hospital by 9:00 a.m.! It went really fast and the recovery went well so they let me go. Of course, I didn't think it took any time at all, but my watch told me otherwise.

We had deliberately kept this week open with just a few things going on so I can recuperate. The bandages are now off and it's just covered with a big band-aid so it doesn't look as bad anymore. I'm able to do a little bit of work, but I can't do too much without it starting to hurt. The good news is that I should be good to go in a week, and we're looking forward to what September has in store for us.

Things are looking up, which is a great feeling!

OSP Indy

Last week we were able to take a couple days to go to Indianapolis with a great bunch of photographers. People came from as far away as Florida and Arizona to meet for some training and to get to know each other. We're all a part of the Open Source Photo forum. There have been a few OSP get-togethers over the years but this was the first one in this part of the country.

There were models hired for a bridal session and a fashion session. We didn't make it to the fashion session, but we were able to get to the kids' portrait session. There was also an engagement (!?) session in Indy's downtown. We didn't make that, either. Sorry, Candi.


We had a lot of fun, and would love to do something like it again. We made a lot of new friends and finally got to meet a bunch of folks in person.

Slideshows Right Here!

How Cool is this? I can now post a slideshow right here on the blog. Showit Web just gets better every day.

New images in Columbus Bride magazine

This is so cool! We just got our newest copy of Columbus Bride magazine and once again, we have some photographs printed in there. This is so exciting to show couples who get their images printed in the magazine. Of course, they're all going to get several copies -- really, as many as they want.

First of all there was this photograph of Sheri and Bradd at their rehearsal.

And then, later on in the magazine, there's a whole page of them in the Local Weddings section with these three pictures:


There's also a picture of Shannon with his groomsmen. The storm had just passed and the sun started shining.

Then there's this wonderful image of Wendy and Harry exiting the church. It snowed on their wedding day. Well, you know what they say about it being good luck if it rains on your wedding, right? I suppose it works for snow, too!

I can't wait to tell them all about having their wedding photos in the local magazine.

PPO show in Dayton

We were able to go to the PPO trade show in Dayton over the weekend. I love going to shows to hear the speakers and of course to get some new toys. I got this really cool rubber chicken that squawks this hideous noise from the APR booth. I bet you thought I meant toys for photography. Nope, real toys. I also got a rubber band yo-yo kind of thing. It's a ball made of rubber bands on an elastic cord that attaches to your finger. You can throw it and it comes back to you. Really low tech, but it gets people's attention. Also got some little "squeakers" for getting kids to look at me.

But the real exciting thing was hearing Mike Colón speak. Wow. What a great lesson that was. He's such a down-to-earth kind of regular guy that has these amazing ideas. We're implementing them into our business already and can't wait to tell the world about it. Yeah, you read that right. Stay tuned for a big (well, big to us) announcement.

Updated Web Site -- WooHoo! I'm so excited!!!

After weeks of decisions and finding time, our Web site has finally been updated. The general design remains the same ('cause I like it so much ;-) ) but I've added a few more sections, removed some others, and generally made it easier to find information. The first site lasted for two years -- way longer than I expected it to. There were always parts of it I didn't like, and now they're changed. I can't tell you how excited I am without sounding like a blathering idiot (no comments on that, please, ha ha).

Things that have changed:
1. Put in slideshows on most of the sections. These shows are really fun to watch -- especially if your pictures are in there! The sections that don't have them, yet, will shortly.
2. Made the galleries easier to view. Again, the sections with the "old style" of galleries will be updated soon, too.
3. Added rollovers to the headings so they highlight when you mouse over them. For some reason this makes a huge difference to people viewing sites in general. It's always been in the plan -- it just didn't happen for far too long.
4. Added sections for kids, seniors, and families instead of just lumping them all into the "people" section.
5. I lumped the "places" and "things" sections together under "other" because that's not a focus of the business any more. That section still needs a bit of work. Eventually we'll have information on our events and sports coverage and teams in there, too. But then again, maybe they need a section all for themselves. Hmm.
6. Put in a section for testimonials because so many people want to know what other people think of us before they hire us. We have a lot of comments on Angie's List and they're all wonderful, but not everyone is a member over there and even those who are, probably don't know that we're listed!
7. Made it easier to find contact information and to read our bios. Yeah, the "About" section still needs work (see a theme, here?) Once we find pictures of ourselves that we like, we'll show everyone what we look like, too (now, if we just don't scare people away with what we look like, we'll be in great shape).

Now, of course, I still have some ideas on how to make it even better than it is already. It's all about usability: Is it easy to use? Is it easy to find information? Do you need to think too hard to find what you're looking for? And probably most of all, does it make people want to call us as soon as they can to have their portraits made? :D

If you have any ideas on how I should make it better, please let me know. The site is really there for you, not for me, and if you don't like the way it works, I'll change it pronto!

The Gary Fong Method

I attended Gary Fong's seminar last Monday evening about a better way to photograph weddings. What's so cool about it is that it really makes for better memories of your day, and the wedding albums are amazing because of it. We'll have more information on our Web site shortly and you can read all about it.

What I'm excited about is that we can translate this method to our portrait customers, too. Especially our Seniors. I can't wait to show you how cool this is.

Christmas in Santa Barbara

Yeah, I know. Christmas was over a month ago. We went out to California to see family and friends. I'm just now getting around to finding the photos from then. Of course, there's a slideshow.