Justin and Mary in DC Jan 7th - Spread The Love Tour

Be there!!!

If you haven't already heard, Justin and Mary Marantz are bringing their Spread The Love Tour to DC in January!!! More info Here!
If you haven't seen Justin and Mary speak about how they approach their photography business and also how to balance that
with living your life, you NEED to be there on January 7th!
If you were lucky enough and had the great fortune to see them when they were here in 2008 on their DC Pug tour, then you will get the
opportunity to not only see their lovely faces once again, but gain even more inspiration and knowledge on how to wow
your clients, but also how to retain or create a good work/life balance.

I have to say that seeing Justin and Mary in 2008 was one of the major turning points that year which made me decide to keep my business going.
I was at a tough crossroads in my life and business, I was truly ready to throw my hands up in the air and say, "Forget this crazy business, it's too hard!"
The very night that I was going to make the decision to throw in the towel (which is what I really wanted to do), I drug myself to the PUG meeting where
I got to hear Justin and Mary share some remarkable ways to approach the "selling" of one's self and business... and what I found was it was less about
the "sales pitch"... oh, it was SO much more. It was about connecting!

You mean, we can connect with the people who we get to share in one of their most intimate days with? I mean really connect, form friendships and still
retain a strong sense of business? Well, this was revolutionary to me!
The part of this business that I tend to loath is the "selling", but when I was able to see the whole process in a different light, I felt renewed, I felt like
someone had just given me the tools and permission to really make a connection with my clients which is what I was longing to do.

So, to make a very long story short(ish), Justin and Mary's talk that night rejuvenated me and my desire to move forward.
I urge you all to sign up for this tour, I will be there will bells on! I might even be wearing my I *heart* J&M - if it doesn't make
me seem like a stalker... :D

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far and I look forward to seeing you on
January 7th!

Winter GTG - Dec 18th!

If you haven't already heard, a bunch of us will be getting together for a fun winter get together with our dear friend and Pictage photographer Shawn Reeder this Saturday in DC.

Please contact me if you will be able to join us for some or all of Friday's fun events.
sarah@blinkdc.com

Here are the details:
We will be meeting at Teaism on 8th and D St between 11:30 and 12noon for lunch.
From there we will be heading to the National Gallery of Art and possibly the National Portrait Gallery.
We will spend the day touring museums but also having fun shooting around DC.
Most likely we will pick a location for dinner that night and then I know Shawn our rural CA photog would like to do some night shooting around the city as well.

We hope you can join us!

November PUG Meeting - Gary Fong

World-renowned photographer, entrepreneur, and Original Pictage Lab founder Gary Fong will be visiting our PUG in November for another special combined DC/Baltimore event held in Savage, MD at Love Life Studios. We hope to see you there.

Fabulous Fall PUG - Monday October 19th

Fall is Fabulous! Hope you are enjoying the season and staying busy. We'll be discussing fall/winter promotions, especially family portraits and how you can maximize revenue through the end of the year. Bring your ideas to share with the group as well.

As always there are big updates from Pictage and a preview of PartnerCon in New Orleans November 3-5, including Michael Kress' presentation on Bar/Bat-Mitzvah Photography. If you haven't registered yet, there's still space available! http://pro.pictage.com/community/ppc/neworleans/

Joe Buissink coming to town

Don't miss this free opportunity to see Joe Buissink who will come and give a discussion about the psychology involved behind shooting weddings. Who we are when we shoot an event and how it shows in the work! It's another combined DC/Baltimore PUG held next to Love Life Images Studio in Savage, MD. Hope to see you all there!

New Picnic Details Announced!!

RSVP HERE!

Please check the Evite for location information and remember to RSVP! Can't wait to see you all there!

SAVE THE DATE! DC PUG BBQ ~~ July 19, 2009

RSVP HERE!

June PUG - New CEO Jim Collins is Coming!

This month’s meeting will be held on a special day, Thursday, June 11, 2009 at a location to be determined in either Bethesda, or Washington, DC. This will be another combined DC/Baltimore meeting and will feature a visit from the new Pictage CEO, Jim Collins. We’re excited to have Jim back in town after meeting him in April. We are very excited about some of the changes he has already implemented and the promising developments he has in store for Pictage in the months to come. Come meet Jim and pick his brain, or give him some feedback. I hope to see you all there!
- Geoff

Lightroom for Wedding, Event and Portrait Photographers

Here's a great opportunity for anyone interested in getting the most out of Lightroom. Hope to see you there!

Click Here to sign up.

Peter Krogh, Lightroom alpha tester, presents a day-long course on getting the most from Lightroom for the wedding, event, and portrait photographer. The program will focus on safe and efficient workflow, including getting the most from the Develop tools, and streamlining your output and integration with services like Pictage. Make your images look great, faster than you ever thought possible.

The course will cover:
• Shooting for Lightroom - how Lightroom should affect the way you shoot
• Catalog set-up and management
• Efficient Download - we'll look at ways to automate the download process using either Lightroom or ImageIngester Pro

Library Workflow
• Tagging and Grouping Images
• Using Smart Collections to control workflow
• Ratings Workflow - how the built-in keyboard shortcuts were designed to be used

Develop Workflow
• Getting Autoblacks during import
• Work -order for the develop tools
• Finding, Installing and Using Presets
• Use HSL controls to control skin tones
• Use of Negative Clarity for skin smoothing
• Use of Sync and Auto-sync to do batch adjustments
• Use of Snapshots
• Use Virtual Copies to get Color and B&W versions of your images
• Local Adjustments

Batch Output
• Export Controls
• Installing and using Export Plug-ins

Archiving
• What to do with the catalogs and images when you're done

Details
Location:
The seminar will be held in Peter Krogh Studio,
3301 Oberon St.
Kensington, MD

Date:
June 16th - 9am through 5pm

Cost:
Individuals $200
Photographer with assistant $350
Lunch (Baja Fresh) provided

Click Here to sign up.

May PUG Update

I will now be disseminating info in three ways - so I am sure to get everyone's attention. I will be sending out this email following each month's PUG as well as posting the update on our blog: dcpug.blogspot.com, and on our new facebook group page. As soon as dates are announced for upcoming meetings, I will notify everyone, but we've got an exciting summer planned our June meeting featuring Jim Collins, new CEO of Pictage, a summer outing in July, and a visit from Joe Buissink in August.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the May PUG to hear about some of the new product updates from Pictage and the great direction that the company is heading under direction of the new CEO Jim Collins. We also got a chance to hear from our friends at Critical Exposure that some of our photographers have already been volunteering with. From this month's meeting we have decided that Critical Exposure will be our official philanthropic partner.

This means a few things: First, we will be starting our own fundrasing drive to help with the wonderful work that this group does (make a donation here: http://www.criticalexposure.org/support.php).

Second, we will be starting a used digital SLR drive (thank you Nicole Wolf for this great idea) so that the students, who are currently using digital point and shoots, can improve their technique and can better capture images and tell their stories.

Third, we will make announcements about upcoming opportunities for our PUG members to serve as mentors to the young students, training them on the digital SLRs and helping them learn more about photography.

Fourth, this will also provide opportunities for promising students to tag along as assistants to learn more about possible careers in photography.

Here are some links to view some of the work that Critical Exposure has been doing:
From Books to Bottles (focusing on teen pregnancy in Alexandria):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQJJAp8wo2s

Eyes on Education (our Pennsylvania project):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcRWnQZDP8g

In addition, you can search for Critical Exposure on Facebook or go to: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Critical-Exposure/79944774450?ref=mf to see what is going on currently.

Hope to see all of you in June - date to be announced shortly.

Best,
Geoff

I'm back!!.......Again!!

Ok.....go ahead and say it, I'm a slacker. Its OK...I can take it. Yes, I said that I would be blogging about something every day and NO, I haven't blogged about something every day. But the truth is, I have been really, really busy over the past month. Probably the biggest thing going on is that I have moved myself and my business to Ashburn, VA. Getting settled has taken a while and I've been fighting an awful flu. Also, I quietly rebuilt my website and am getting good feedback on the new design. Feel free to stop by and send me feedback. Anyhow, I'm back and busier than I have been in a while. My calendar is filling up with weddings and engagement sessions and I couldn't be more pleased. OK....I could handle a little more business, but I'm not complaining. With all of the stuff thats happening in my life, I'm feeling truly blessed these days.

February PUG - Dinner Before?

Hello Folks,
I hope to see you all on Monday at the PUG meeting in the new MBK studio!
I wanted to see who would be up for dinner before hand?
If you are interested, please send me an email - sarah@blinkdc.com

Tentative plans for Monday night are dinner at Red Tomato Cafe 4910 Saint Elmo Ave in Bethesda
at 5:30.
If we get a large number of folks wanting to come to dinner we may need to change locations, but I will keep you all posted.

Thanks so much and hope to see you Monday!

Sarah

January PUG tonight CANCELLED!

OK, so I just returned from shooting a wedding in Palm Beach, Florida and am greeted with the biggest winter storm of the year! Since it will get worse before it gets better, I have decided to cancel tonight's PUG. I hope this does not inconvenience everyone - I was looking forward to seeing you all and to show off our new studio. We will now have a pre-WPPI PUG on Monday February 9th. Hope you're all staying safe and warm.

Best,

Geoff

January PUG Rescheduled for Tuesday the 27th

Hello all - 

I hope everyone had a great holidays. Ours was busy at Michael Bennett Kress & Associates as we moved to our new location - 7906 Woodmont Avenue - still in Bethesda. While we hoped to be ready today, we're still getting unpacked and settled into our new space. So we have rescheduled for Tuesday, January 27th. I hope this does not inconvenience anyone and hope to see you at the end of the month!

Best,

Geoff

Winter Get Together - Update

I hope everyone had a fantastic NYE, and celebrated 2008 going out and 2009 coming in with a bang!

I just wanted to give a quick update for those of you who are interested.
Myself Jess and Shawn will be at the Corcoran Gallery at 10am. The Corcoran opens at 10 and since Shawn is still operating on west coast time, he will be raring to go since he is quite the early riser! :D

We will view the Richard Avedon exhibit and then head to lunch.
I have two places that I love to recommend to "out of towners", Teaism and Ollies Trolly.
We can take a vote as to where we would all like to eat after the exhibit.
I believe we went to Ollie's last time and it was a big hit.

We hope that you can all join us.
If you come late, don't worry, I am sure we will be in the exhibit for at least an hour and a half, maybe more.

Please email me at sarah@blinkdc.com to let us know if you will be joining us.
And on Saturday if you need to reach one of us, you can call my cell 703 851 8463.

Can't wait to see you all!
Sarah, Jess and Shawn