Turning Back to Spring this Week

Happy Friday all,

Fall is here and the Western PA area is starting to feel like it a little bit. It hasn't been too bad thus far, but you can definitely feel a slight chill in the air and the leaves are beginning their transition. With that, I decided to focus this weeks blog on a few shots I snapped during the late spring and early summer to get our minds off of the upcoming cold weather.

This first image is a late afternoon shot of a farm landscape near Bedford, PA. My son and I were returning from our annual Red Sox baseball trip from a game in Baltimore on Memorial Day and we stopped off quickly to snap a few photos (he was also captivated by the windmills in the distance so he made me stop there too.) I loved the way that the late day sunlight played off of the silos and surrounding fields in both the foreground and background. The shapes created within the farm buildings and telephone wires, along with the rolling curvature of the distant hillsides all brought a nice touch of visual elements to the photo also. Anyone that knows me should also know that I have an affinity for our disappearing farmlands as well.

The next set of photos I took randomly during the spring and summer. I've always enjoyed Alfred Stieglitzs' Equivalents series from the 1920's and 30's, (if you are unaware of his work, check it out!) and figured I'd take a crack at my own "cloudscapes." The main reason I was attracted to these scenes was not because of the form within the clouds, but more of the deep rich colors and tones of the sky. 

As always comments, questions, suggestions, and critiques are welcome! Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!    

    

A Few Things I've Been Up To

Happy Saturday everyone,

This will be a rather short blog this week, but I'll give readers an idea of a few things I've been up to recently.

It's been a little hectic the past 2 weeks. Last week, and into the beginning of this week, I finalized images for the Heather Habura Studios event for them that I shot a few weeks ago. On Friday of last week I had the pleasure of photographing a Westinghouse and United Way event in Wilkinsburg in which employees helped to beautify a local high school, and also gave a wonderful career panel discussion to students. I also worked feverishly to best present my 10-minute Keynote Presentation to my BNI Circle of Gold chapter this past Wednesday at Rivertowne Pourhouse in Monroeville. Members and guests seemed to thoroughly enjoy it, so I'm guessing it hit its mark. 

Another large chunk of time was dedicated to a special LinkedIn discount that my partner, Eric Pensenstadler of Video Horizons LLC and I are offering to real estate professionals. Eric has just completed his certification training to fly his drone commercially. This can help to give realtors a unique view of their properties for aerial photo or video tours they can offer to potential clientele. We are also offering a 15% photo/video package discount for local realtors willing to try us out for their properties! Realtors that I am connected to via Linkedin can expect a message from me in the next few days. Check my LinkedIn page to learn more. Also, I will be helping Eric out with video in a few short hours for a wedding. This will be my first "video only" wedding gig and I'm looking forward to it. Have a great weekend, all! 

As always comments, questions, suggestions, and critiques are welcome on the Drakulic Photography blogs!     

Toiling Around the House This Week

Happy Friday everyone,

The title for this blog kind of sums up this week for me. If you look at the definition of "Toil," it can mean 1 of 2 things, "1. working extremely hard..." or "2. moving slowly or with difficulty." Admittedly, BOTH have been the summary of my week. 

One of the beautiful things about owning your own business (also one of the downfalls) and being a photographer, is that you spend many, many, hours working from home doing editing and other business duties such as replying to emails, archiving photos, research, paying bills, blog posts, etc. I look at it mostly positively though because I get to spend a lot of time taking care of my son and handling other personal things. However, it IS easy to "take a break" and get sidetracked by the other stuff.

With 3 separate jobs on the table to finish, I've spent a good portion of the week craned against the computer screen editing the jobs that I need to get finalized for my clients. I've also found myself dilly dallying (definition 2) a little too much. No worries though, I'll still have my jobs completed ahead of schedule and as creative as possible! With that being said, I have still managed to shoot a little iPhone photography around the house that I have shared below. The images were taken as I "toiled" around the house but I'll leave it up to you to decide which definition they fall under, ha ha!

As always, comments, questions, and critiques are always welcome!  

This Weeks in My Photography Business

Hi everyone,

Anyone reading this that knows me, even a little, knows that I'm sort of obsessed with photography. It's what I absolutely love to do for a profession, and it doesn't really matter what kind of photography it is, I'm ALWAYS trying to learn more to better myself. Whether its portraiture, wedding, product, food, fashion, documentary, abstract, or landscape photography I want to try and dabble in all of it. This week I also had a chance to try something new...a television commercial. 

In the past week, I had the pleasure of photographing the 2nd Annual Showcase Pageant and Charity Event for Heather Habura Studio, and shooting still portraits and sunrooms for a television commercial for Pro Home & Sunroom! Although both events were a huge amount of work, they were both a blast to shoot! I want to thank Rick Edwards of Pro Home & Sunroom and Heather Habura both for the business and the honor of allowing me to be a part of your important projects.

Both events also allowed me the privilege of working closely with my good friend Eric Pensenstadler of Video Horizons LLC and seeing the magic he creates through his videography and see how a commercial/web videos are created. Parts of the commercial and customer testimonial interviews took us much longer than anticipated but it will all be worth it in the end. Eric's such a perfectionist...I admire that.

Attached to this weeks blog are a few images I shot from the Pro Home & Sunroom commercial and the 2nd Annual Showcase and Charity Event. Have a great week everyone. As always, comments, questions, and/or suggestions are always welcome! 

Intro: Assistant Ashley on the Blog

Hi everyone, 

This week I want to introduce Ashley Klimek to the blog. Ashley joined my team about a month or so ago and has been doing a fantastic job behind the scenes assisting me with multiple tasks. As a small business owner, it's often very difficult to continuously keep up on everything on your own and I'm grateful Ashley has accepted this part time role as my "Executive Assistant." She's been a tremendous help and is a very driven, goal oriented individual who isn't afraid to think outside of the box, this also works well with my goofy eccentricities as a person and business owner. With that, heres Ashley's blog...

Introducing...ME! 

Hello everyone, I'm Ashley Klimek, Executive Assistant at Drakulic Photography LLC. I'm very excited to be on the blog this week, and first and foremost would like to thank Bobby Drakulic for allowing me this opportunity to introduce myself to you...thanks Bobby! 

Some of you may already know me as your friendly neighborhood bartender at Ski's and Nick's Lounge Inc., where you'll find me 3-4 days a week slinging cocktails and helping make memories. If you haven't been there, stop by sometime to visit me (it's like Cheers, but better!) When I found out that I'd be doing the blog this week, I couldn't help but brainstorm what sort of business related topics I could discuss with you ( I have a few, but we'll save them for future posts.) After much deliberation I decided I will just give you a little about my background and how I came to be here, working for a photographer. 

Last month Bobby gave me the opportunity to branch out and try something new, to get out of my comfort zone, so to speak. I've spent the last 12 years in the service industry and while it's a job I really enjoy and am pretty darn good at it, I needed a new adventure and challenge. This challenge also had to fit around my other most important job, being a mother to my 2 beautifully awesome children. They are my heart and soul and the reason for my being. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade 12 episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse a day or playing "find the sippy cup" with my kids for anything in the world. However, I was missing something, something intellectually stimulating that I'd had in college 6+ years ago. I needed to dive back into the intellectual pool head first, no matter how daunting or scary it seemed at first. 

So, this is what I've done. In spite of not having any prior professional experience in marketing, web design, or SEO marketing, these are some areas I've been focusing on trying to find new ways of helping Drakulic Photography maintain current business and grow to reach its fullest potential, and at the same time this helps me reach mine. As it turns out, I have a knack for this sort of thing. I believe in what I'm doing, I believe in the Arts, and photography is one of the most important artistic commodities we have available to us. A photograph, if properly taken, can tell us a story, show us the essence of a person, increase business sales, give us a glimpse into the history of a building, or help us to remember someone special. For most of us, I'm certain photographs have captured the most important milestones of our lives; births, vacations, family or big corporate events, weddings, and many other special moments in between. And to this end, Bobby Drakulic is exceptionally skilled at this. He has the talent, desire, education, and most importantly, the PASSION for his work. This allows him to always over deliver for every job or project he takes on. He truly loves what he does, and that is inspiring.

So this is me in a tiny nutshell. Someday very soon I will be returning to school to combine my passion for helping others and their business, and hopefully build a career out of what I love. In the meantime, I'm doing work that I'm proud of on all 3 fronts. I enjoy every single second watching my kids grow, and the rare date night with my wonderful fiancé, Josh. All in all, life is pretty good right now and I'm looking forward to whatever new excitement the future brings. Thanks for reading and I'm sure you will hear more from me soon. 

Sincerely,

Ashley Klimek

Executive Assistant

Drakulic Photography LLC

The Print-Photographys Grand Finale

Hi all,

Despite todays obsession with digital imagery, the print usually stands as the finality of a photographic job. All of the meeting, negotiating, contracting, shooting, uploading, and editing culminates into these final prints. The final photographic print, if done well, is like an epic cliffhanger ending to a movie or book!

I emphasize the importance of the print to many of my clients. To hold, touch, hang, and examine a well balanced, properly color corrected photo print is a far more superior visual experience than just viewing the same digital image on a tablet, phone, or computer screen any day. Once the client decides on the images they'd like to order is when I feel the true magic begins. There are times it can take hours to get the correct print I feel is deserved to hang on their walls or frame. It is all worthwhile in the end though to see their reactions when handing over these final prints!

All of my wedding contracts (and really any job I shoot) have archivable print options that can include, metallic prints, enlargements (as big as they'd like to go,) canvas wraps, and customizable albums or books. If the print hanging on your wall for the next 40 or 50 years or more is of importance to you, choose a photographer that understands the complexities of printing and won't just hand over a cheap print that is not color corrected or will fade in a few years.

I've added a few sample images of prints I recently gave to a client to this weeks blog. Although, I also have several pretty sweet metallic prints that are being mounted right now that I'll share in the future. 

Thanks for reading and as always comments, questions, and critiques are always welcome!          

Delivering the Goods

Happy Friday everyone,

This weeks blog post discussion is regarding the final image delivery to clientele. To start off this topic, ask yourself (from a customers perspective) have you ever received more or a higher grade of a product or service than you initially paid for? Did this make you more likely to use the product or service again and satisfy your overall experience with the business? 

I'm willing to bet most people enjoy getting MORE of something, as long as the quality of that service or product is not lacking. When I contract out a corporate event, family shoot, or wedding, there's a specific number of final edited high resolution images that's agreed upon. I always over deliver to my clients!

Most of my weddings have their entire day photographically covered from start to stop. Why wouldn't I take the extra time to ensure my clients get to cherish as many of these moments as possible? It may take a few extra hours on my end of cleaning up, color retouching, or implementing other editing techniques but I'd rather take that time to make my customers happy with the final results. There are several clients of mine right now who will be receiving more than they paid for over the next few weeks. I guess the cats out of the bag if they read these blogs, haha!

Find a photographer for your event that will not only produce wonderfully creative images but also go the extra mile to assure you get more than what you paid for. Next week, I'll discuss final prints and present a few preview images from the latest wedding.

Have a great weekend, and as always comments, questions, and critiques are encouraged!