We’ve been fighting this nasty email issue for more than a month. Michael’s sister Linda stopped with Anthony for a short visit on their way home last night. It only took her a few minutes to diagnose the problem and implement a remedy. Everything seems to be working fine so far.
The studio is on short hours for the week as we try to spend some quality time with the munchkins before they head off to school. We will be returning phone calls and emails as time allows as well as finishing up some retouching on a few orders. We will be back full force on Friday. Leave a voice mail and we will get back to you.
Today, I headed down to Jeff Viere’s studio in Sioux Falls for the SDPPA’s Members in Action program. I brought the projector and screen for Cheryl Elbers to use. Unfortunately the projector didn’t play well with the Mac computers during the program. We adapted and moved on.
I am enjoying the start of my year as president of the SDPPA. I’ve been on the state board for several years now. We have had a great group over the past few years. The photographers on the board may be my competition for weddings, seniors and families, but they are my friends first. Our state organization is full of wonderful photographers. We respect our peers. We help each other out. We push one another to get better.
Thanks to Pam Karlen, Todd Buckstead, Elaine Steen and to the Melbys for all of the advice over the past few weeks as I’ve tried to figure everything out for this next year.
We started getting phone calls from California this morning asking about the Valentine makeover sessions that they saw on Fox 11. I was confused at first and then at caller number 4, I was able to ask enough questions to figure out what was going on. Norma Blaque has studio in California and was featured on the morning show, Good day LA, with a story done by reporter Gina Silva. This piece showed ladies getting makeovers for Glamor Shots type of images. Our web traffic today was off the hook thanks to this story. Everyone heard the studio’s website as blackstudios.com when in reality it was www.blaquestudios.com
Elijah and Madysen both took advantage of the birthday club this month. If you join the birthday club you get a free session and 3×6 magnet. Here are a few of their pictures and the free magnets.
Orion and Brodie came into the Studio for a suprise Christmas present for their mother. We had a blast taking their pictures and as you can see they were all smiles.
We owe a huge THANK YOU to our neighbors. Randy Carper and Denny Powell have made getting around Rutland possible. While Randy takes care of Main Street and the school, Denny has pushed snow away from the studio and alley. Without Denny, I’d be shoveling next summer.
Our piles around town and the studio are getting bigger. We still have plenty of room to park.
The cold has been brutal, but take heart: it’s supposed to warm up next week!
We are taking a break from the photography studio and spending time with family. It looks as if we are staying home this Christmas because of the impending snow storm that is forecast to drop up to a foot and a half of the white stuff on Sioux Falls SD and surrounding area. We finished delivery of wedding pictures on Tuesday and senior rave books on Wednesday.
We picked up the last presents yesterday while shopping in Madison and visiting family. Getting around is a little easier this winter with our very used 1988 Ford F250 4 wheel drive pickup. The first thing we did yesterday was to lock in the front hubs and put it into 4 wheel drive. The 460 cu. in. engine eats gas but we had no trouble on the icy roads. We refilled one of the gas tanks this morning. Seven miles to the gallon was the result. I hope we don’t have to use it too often.
The kids were out playing in the snow already. I didn’t know that shoveling snow could be so much fun.
We love the Fall with the changing leaves and the golden hues of Harvest. Here is an image of our studio taken from just NW of Rutland. Yes, the church is our studio. Where is the rest of Rutland? Behind those trees.
Melissa started yesterday as our new studio coordinator. She’ll be in training over the next few months as we gear up for another busy senior season. We want to dramatically increase the number of senior sessions available this summer so that means getting more efficient – that’s Melissa’s part: keeping us organized so that we can reach our goal and deliver better personal service than ever before.
PPA (Professional Photographers of America) affiliated print judged was held at the Northern Light Convention in Fargo on Sunday.
I entered 4 prints (which is known as a print case). Due to the weather, just getting the prints to Fargo was frustrating…the actual judging just added to it.
Print competition brings out the worst in emotions of photographers. You can pour your heart and soul into what you think is a great image only to have your hopes dashed by a print judge. Emotional attachment to an image can skew your vision.
The PPA has several “degrees” that you can earn through classes, teaching, volunteer service and print competition. To qualify for your “Master of Photography” degree, you must get a merit on a dozen or more images in print competition. To get a merit, you must score an 80 or above. You can enter 4 prints per year.
Now getting an 80 is not an easy thing.
A nice smiling portrait for Grandma isn’t going to cut it. You almost have to photograph with competition in mind. The goal is to hone your skills and become a better photographer.
The point system is used with scores from 100 to 0 as follows:
Exceptional: . . . . . . . . . . .100-95
Superior: . . . . . . . . . . . . . .94-90
Excellent: . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89-85
Deserving of a Merit: . . . . .84-80
Above average: . . . . . . . . .79-76
Average: . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75-74
Acceptable: . . . . . . . . . . . .73-70
Unacceptable . . . . . . . . . . . .69-0
You don’t see very many prints get into the 90’s. It does happen, but not very often. Even more elusive is the perfect 100 score.
Images in competition are judged using the twelve (12) elements of a merit image:
1. Impact
2. Creativity
3. Style
4. Composition
5. Print Presentation
6. Center of Interest
7. Lighting
8. Subject Matter
9. Color Balance and Harmony
10. Technical Excellence / Print Quality
11. Technique
12. Story Telling
Now I wish I could say that I had all four images receive merits. Going “4 for 4″ is great, but it didn’t happen this time. What I do have is four very nice 16×20 display prints.
Print competition is expensive and ultimately frustrating. It’s a process of growth. Like God, the print judge polishes our rough edges through trial and fire and gives us correction in our ways.
I will continue my journey of growth. Wisdom comes from good judgment. Good judgment comes from bad experience.
I am really trying to stay positive this year but…
I HATE WINTER!
This morning I was one of the speakers giving programs at the Smith/Zimmermann Museum in Madison for the Madison elementary students. I drove into Madison on icy roads. By the time the kids left at 11:30, we had major snow coming down. After a stop at the grocery store, I drove 20-25 mph all the way home to Rutland.
I made it home safe and sound but I did drag bottom most of the way home. All of our sessions have cancelled for today and tomorrow’s activities are in doubt. I have several competition prints that need to be delivered to Fargo by tomorrow afternoon for the affiliated judging at the Northern Light Convention. The interstate closed mid-afternoon today from Brookings to the ND border.
Here’s what our van looked like earlier today with the studio in the background.
Didn’t that groundhog promise 6 more weeks of winter?
We went to Albert Lea, MN this week and gave a program about our studio and projection sales to the Cornbelt PPA Guild.
It was fun showing other photographers some of fix up project that we’ve done to the studio the past few years…like the removal of the old cement steps and the replacement of the front door.
Again, it seems that winter will never leave: we drove most of the way home from Albert Lea in snow.
We’ve been wanting to redo/cleanup the basement for a very long time, but it’s one of those projects that gets put off until you have no choice. Justin has been pushing us to get a dumpster all winter so he could start at it.
OK Justin, it’s here. Go for it.
Unfortunely we can’t turn Justin loose without a little direction. Everything that we didn’t have a place for upstairs, went into the basement…for the last 13 years. We have a few things to go through.
Justin made significant headway on Saturday afternoon, knocking down the old wallboard. All of this has to go up the steps and out the back door to the dumpster. This is where the old stove sat. It was huge: two full-size ovens, 6 burners and a griddle on top.
After Justin clears out everything, we’ll have another 1400-1500 square feet to play with. We will be building a few sets with a warehouse feel to it for seniors.
It only took us 13 years, but we finally removed the old church stove from the basement. Today we realized why we had not taken it out sooner.
Justin and Hailey came this afternoon to help Mike with the great basement cleanup project. We got rid of old cupboards first. The stove was next. It was HEAVY…really heavy. The stove made it halfway up the stairway before getting stuck. We finally loaded it on the trailer for the trip to the recycler. Note the cool rust textures.
The old fuel oil tank went away too.
So we will be working off and on over the next few weeks to finish cleaning the basement and start on building our new sets for senior sessions this summer.
Tonight’s edition of the Madison Daily Leader had the back page honoring Pat Prostrollo of Madison as Dealer of the Year by Time magazine. Pat came to our studio a while back for a business portrait – the same image that was used in the Madison paper.
Selling by projection is a hot-button topic among photographers.
Traditionally, photographers have used proofs to sell their images to customers. The era of the film photographer is mostly dead and gone. We don’t have to wait any more for the film to be developed and the proofs to come back from the lab. Digital capture has changed everything and has added new options.
We’ve been selling by projection only for 4 years for everything except weddings. Most sales occur right after we finish taking pictures. We shoot, download and sell all in one session. This allows us for you to pick out your images right away saving you valuable time. With children’s sessions, we let the kids play with the toys while Mom and Dad review the images. Many times we do a second set of images as the kids relax and become more comfortable. For reunions, everyone can pick out their favorites right away, order their prints and write the check. We regularly to our projector and laptop out of the studio for onlocation family reunions.
With seniors, we pretouch all of the images before the sale so we do schedule a separate session for viewing the images.
The actual process is simple. We go through the images and get rid of the obvious bad pictures and then we put them up side by side to compare. In very little time, we help you get it down to the very best of each pose. We also can create composite images for wall portraits right away.
I just wanted to remind all the photographers that read the blog that we are only one week away from the NL Winter Seminar hosted by the SDPPA. I’ll be there organizing everything for the speaker and handling A/V needs.
Besides Mike Fulton, we have Ron Jacobson with a program on creativity.
You’ll find the registration form on the SDPPA website.
Trade show and registration start next sunday March 9th at 10 am at the Sioux Falls Downtown Holiday Inn. THe seminar contiues all day sunday and ends monday afternoon at 3 pm.
We spent the day moving furniture for family for an auction sale. So much stuff in such a small house.
We have a small addition to announce.
Melissa will be joining our studio crew next week. She’s going to keep us organized, focused and allow us to spend more time with the kids. Work smarter not harder.
You might have seen Melissa behind the counter at Campbell Supply. We are excited to have her work for us.
As photographers, education never ends. We are always trying to learn something new. We go to seminars, workshops and conventions. We share with our peers.
Last week, Mike was in Sioux Falls at Bruce Hudson’s New Directions Tour seminar on Tuesday night. Wednesday noon found him again at the Downtown Holiday Inn dor a SDPPA board meeting planning out next month’s Northern Light Winter Seminar.
Today’s adventure took us to National Camera in Golden Valley, MN. The Twin Cities seems like a long ways to go shopping for camera equipment, but local camera and consumer electronic stores don’t carry the high-end pro equipment that we use. Now we could just order over the phone, but then we would not be able to get a hands on look and get first hand expertise in the pro equipment that National Camera is famous for.
Our favorite camera salesman, Dave Johnson, was at a photoshop seminar so Brandon stepped in. So many times at local camera shops, we end up talking to someone who just isn’t up on digital cameras. This was not the case with Brandon. He really knew his stuff.
Did we buy anything?
No, we did not…not yet anyway. We will soon enough. Now that the research is done, we can just make a phone call to Dave or Brandon at National Camera and wait patiently for the UPS truck.
We headed to Madison tonight for a Lady Bulldogs game in the Madison Middle School gym.
I met Madison Daily Leader sports editor Dan Hollsworth on the way into the gym. Dan and I’ve been friends for a very long time. I volunteered to cover the game for him. Dan has a full plate ahead of him on Friday with gymnastics. Madison is poised to set a national record if they can add yet one more state title to their collection of 13 in a row.
The Lady Bulldogs took on a very tough Dell Rapids team, but never gave up.
Breanne was one of our seniors from last summer.
We’ve known Marti forever. You can see her on the front cover on this year’s senior brochure.
We receive many comments about our display prints that we have in the 2nd Street Diner in Madison.
Marti is a waitress at 2nd Street (and Skippers), plays basketball and is on the school’s powerlifting team. Busy girl for sure.
Beside the three 16×20’s of the girls, 2nd Street also commissioned us to provide images in their Party Room. There are 8 – 20×24 framed black and white art prints of the Madison area.
Chantel is one of our “Prom Girls” from last spring’s Playtime sessions.
The DSU Lady T’s have become a dominant force in college women’s basketball. Coach Jeff Dittman continues to lead a successful program year after year.
You can see how the edge in technology that DSU possesses has affected how sports are broadcast. A series of cameras covers the action for the webcast on the internet as well as the Daktronics scoreboard.
Black Studios doesn’t just do sports memory mates. We do action pictures as well. Mike started photographing DSU sports in the late 1980’s when he was a student.
We do quite a few commercial jobs these days. Now we aren’t going to post most of them, but sometimes one image comes along that’s a little more fun…like this one for a recent client.
Another home game in Rutland last night. It was a full house at the Rutland Gym as ORR took on Dell Rapids St. Mary’s.
Here’s a preview of what will probably be in the local paper come monday of one of our seniors. Chris (#41) loves basketball. His brother Cody is an assistant coach for the Raiders.
Photography is a hobby for us as well. Whenever there is a home game at the Rutland Gym, we try to get over and have some fun taking sports pictures.
Lighting in small gyms and 9 man football fields is sometimes like shooting in a cave. It’s part of the challenge to adjust to the situation and still get the great shot. For basketball, we want to ball at the end of the fingertips, feet off the ground and a great expression.
“Where is Rutland?” is a question we heard over and over today at the All Occasions Bridal Show in Sioux Falls.
Rutland is 45 minutes northwest of Sioux Falls, lying between Madison and Brookings.
It isn’t surprising that most people haven’t heard of Rutland.
Rutland is 2 blocks by 3 blocks…not counting the streets that were abandoned long ago. Population jumps when school is in session. Yes, we do have a K-12 school, but we are so small that we don’t have a bar.
We do have a convenience store that sells gas and diesel fuel. You can even get pizza and a pop there as well. The store serves as the gathering place for all of the locals: retired and just tired. It can get pretty deep in there at times and discussions about politics can be heated.
The store is run by the students of the school. A teacher serves as a parttime manager. Business students learn hands-on lessons in capitalism.
Rutland is really like stepping back in time. Green Acres and Red Green are not far off the mark. Kids here are more like kids were 30 or 40 years ago in behavior. If you haven’t lived here 4 generations, your are a newcomer. We’ve lived here almost 15 years and there are still people that walk into the store who are greeted by everyone else, yet we haven’t a clue who they are.
So how do you get to Rutland?
It’s not really that hard, but people who drive all over Sioux Falls without any problem seem to lose their sense of direction once they leave the interstate. Rule #1 – Mapquest is wrong. For whatever reason, Mapquest has Rutland a few miles off. Google Maps has Black Studios somewhere in Wentworth. We can’t figure out how to fix that one.
So to get to Rutland, you need to get off I-29 at the Flandreau exit. GO west 2 miles until you hit the stop sign. Turn right and go north 2 miles. Look for the little green sign that says “Rutland 9 miles”. Turn left and go west 9 miles. Here is where it gets tricky. You have to keep on your toes and look for Rutland after those 9 miles west because Rutalnd is still a right turn and half a mile up a county road. It’s small enough that you could easily drive by on the road half a mile to the south and nevery even know there was a Rutland to be seen. To make it easier to find, the county highway department posted signs “Rutland 1/2 mile”. Unfortunately the signage is so small you have to be looking for them to even notice.
Once you finally find Rutland, you’ll quickly notice that the Rambler Stop convenience store sits on one end of main street anf the school sits at the other end. Head toward the school and to the north just 1/2 a block up 2nd street sits the old Lake Park Church now home to Black Studios (for the last 13 years).
When you come into the studio, please park along the street to the west and enter into the west side door below the steeple.
We welcome visitors, but we are open by appointment only so please call before you come. We might be here and then we might not.
It’s crunch time at the studio. We’ve framed everything that needs framing. We’re cranking out the albums on the computer. Thanksgiving is almost here.
I thought I’d give you a taste of one of our senior albums. This is a two page spread of Zach’s Rave Book.
We love this time of year and being busy. This year’s Christmas deadline isn’t Thanksgiving or even the first of December. We can push it until the week before Christmas. If we can get you in the studio and photographed by the 17th, we should be able to fill your order. Any later than that, we can try, but it might not get delivered in time for Christmas.
So what do we like the best about the holidays?
When everyone has their orders and we can spend time with our wonderful kids. The pressure is off.
We’ve been waiting to finish the belltower for a few years now. We should’ve had it done when we shingled the main part of the church, but hindsight is always 20/20.
We found a willing contractor finally and through the assistance of a 50 ft. lift, we were able to get the belltower painted and the roof edges shingled.
It’s quite the dramatic change in looks.
There’s still three louvers to put in and some tinwork to repair where the bell used to sit, but the hard part is over.
Mike helped the contractor put in the new louvers yesterday. Lumber dimensions have changed slightly since 1892. The new boards we slightly thicker, so a little beveling had to be done…40 ft off the ground and Mike is scared of heights.
So the belltower looks great but the tin on the steeple now looks a little sad. That will have to wait for another day.
We like to get calls for weddings, but there’s one type of call we’d rather avoid: the one from a competing or new start up photographer trying to copy another photographer’s pricelist, work flow and style instead of just doing their own thing.
It even has it’s own term in the photography world: It’s called “being shopped”.
Now if you are a new photographer trying to set up your own studio, we will gladly point you into the direction of professional organizations that can cut years off your learning curve. There are great online resources to be found that can help you.
Many new photographers have been known to feel insulted when the long time pro does not take time to share everything that they’ve found out the hard way. Most of us that have been doing this a while value our free time and protect it and the truth is that we are trying to build our own businesses first.
One of the biggest problems is that it takes a long time to lay down enough knowledge as a base to learn the more advanced techniques. Time, experience and repetition are the best teachers. Directly copying someone is not a good shortcut to take. You want your peers to be your friends not your enemies.
Do you think that photographers are making a pile of money from taking pictures?
You might think so given the incredible influx of new studios springing up. The fact is that photography is just like every other business starting up out there: long hours, high risk of failure and not a very high return for time and money invested.
Why do we do it?
For ElizaBeth and myself, it was a matter of chasing a dream before we got too old to do it. We get to photograph great seniors like Mary Kate shown here and be a part of a couple’s wedding day. Each week we get to be at a big party. We also work huge hours 6 to 8 months of the year.
We are able to go to school programs, play nurse to the sick members of our family and take vacations when we want to. We have flexibility.
Now there are always wants and needs for new equipment for the business and obligations and responsibilities to the customer. We are not going to get rich but we will be able to more enjoy the life we have.
One advantage to being established as long as we have is that the big struggle is over and customers come without us marketing 24/7. We have a huge client base to get referrals from. Instead of spending all of that time and energy marketing, we can use that time to get better than ever before.
Education is never-ending when it comes to photography. There are always new techniques to learn: lighting, posing, photoshop, sets, sales…the list just goes on and on. The reason that we are good is because we work every day at getting just a little bit better.
We do many area proms, but today we decided to do something different: we are opening up the studio for all and any couples who want to come to Rutland.
We can do so much more when we are in our studio.
So here’s the scoop: come to Rutland (less than half an hour south of Brookings) go a block west of the school and turn north on 2nd St. We are in the old Lutheran Church. Come in the west side door. We’ll be available from 3 to 6 pm this Saturday afternoon – no appointment is necessary.
After 3 days of blizzard/winter storm, we were ready to get out and have some fun on Saturday. Things didn’t go exactly according to plan, but we had a good time with “Blizzard Party 2007″. We saw a bunch of snowmobiles at the Rambler Stop. The chili ran out by 1:30. The wind was still blowing 20-35 mph and it was cold, but the sun was out.
The Maher family came with a fleet of sleds. RaeLynn gave Dacey and Rachel a quick ride. They were all smiles and holding on tight.
If you’re like Kyle, a senior from Madison, you are loving the weather lately. To celebrate we are having a Blizzard Party at the Rambler Stop in Rutland on Saturday March 3rd from 10am to 2 pm. We’ll have chili cooking and a pair of new sleds courtesy of Interlakes Sport Center in Madison for pictures. If you want to bring your own sled we’ll do some action shots.
We have been busy this past month with things we don’t always get to do the rest of the year: spending time with our extended family and starting to plan out the new year.
We have a backlog of images to post and specials to tell you about.
Today’s image is a PPA Competition Print from last year. Although it did not score an 80 or above to deserve a merit, I think that it is very distinctive anyway.
Last year’s Oldham-Ramona-Rutland Raiders had an incredible season, but had the bad luck of facing Arlington in the Regional Finals. The Raiders were ahead of the soon to be State B champion Arlington team in the second quarter, but the lead did not last. Senior Shane Morris ended his high school basketball career with a loss that night.
