New Portrait Package Pricing, Etc...

After studying and digesting pricing packages of other fellow photographers in the market, I have developed packages for my portrait services. Here is a look.

Portrait packages include the sitting which is usually about forty-five minutes, but you get up to two hours or even more if we need to go through make-up, wardrobe changes or outdoor sittings, etc. One session last year was completed in twenty minutes and another one went for five hours! Essentially, I work until the job is done right...and I enjoy every minute of it. Oh, that five hour session?...five wardrobe changes, three make-up sessions, and the very last frame was the winner!

Anyway, here is the layout.

Package #1---------$ 160.00
50----------Wallet Size
10----------4"x6"
3-----------8"x12"
2-----------10"x15"
1-----------12"x18"

Package #2---------$ 280.00
75----------Wallet Size
16----------4"x6"
5-----------10"x15"
2-----------12"x18"
1-----------16"x24"

Package #3---------$ 385.00
100---------Wallet Size
20----------4"x6"
10----------6"x9"
5-----------8"x12"
3-----------10"x15"
2-----------12"x18"
2-----------16"x24"

Individual Portrait Prints
4"x6"----------$ 1.15ea.----------10+--$ 1.00ea.
6"x9"----------$ 4.50ea.----------10+--$ 4.20ea.
8"x12"---------$ 6.20ea.----------10+--$ 6.00ea.
10"x15"--------$15.80ea.----------10+--$15.00ea.
12"x18"--------$38.00ea.----------10+--$37.00ea.
16"x24"--------$52.00ea.----------10+--$50.00ea.
Wallet Size----$ .50ea.----------10+--$ .40ea.

Individual prints may be just what you want, you pick and choose according to your own individual needs. It is also to be used for prints beyond the package you buy...your mysterious Uncle Earl wanted some more prints of your family and you never knew he was that interested.

So, there you have it (finally!) and I hope you will consider me for your next venture in having pictures made of yourselves. I enyoy doing a variety of settings, clothing styles, lighting techniques and more...outdoors, in that new convertible, graduation...whatever, you name it...and I love working with children. After the challenges of capturing three of my own over the years, photographing kids simply does not scare me anymore! Oh, and pets, too...with you or by themselves. The last family portrait I shot back in December involved parents, seven children, and the family dog down front. The humans behaved well, but it took us over thirty frames to capture the German Shepherd without a blurr...whatever it takes.

Be sure to see the Portrait Samples Gallery over on rclinephotography.com!

Email me, call me, the cameras and lights are ready for you.

I hope everyone has a great 2011!

New Portrait Sample Portfolio

I recently told a fellow photographer that I keep leaving my blog out in the cold too long, so, back again with some news and observations.

After many weeks of portrait jobs I have finally selected samples from several of the assignments to publish as examples of my work. They, of course, are published with permission and they are to demonstrate to you various styles and approaches to capturing and presenting the human face. My sessions usually result in about 250 images (an advantage of digital photography) and I spend hours applying minor editing to best enhance the view and render the subject naturally. No, I do not like blurring, over softening effects, or digital plastic surgery, so if you desire to have a new facial identity then I am not the portrait photographer for you. I will present to you what the Nikon actually saw, but, of course you may use all the make-up you want and I am sometimes assisted by a lady who is an expert in the art. I encourage multiple wardrobe changes and I set up various poses and different locations, indoors and outdoors...more of these varieties will show up in my portfolio soon. The full portfolio as it now exists shows up on my website, rclinephotography.com. Scroll to the last portfolio, Portrait Samples, on the home page.

So far, all of my jobs have been in the regional Taos, New Mexico area, but I am willing to travel with compensation, of course. At this time, my basic fee is just $50.00 per sitting and you select the prints you want to order from a free low res DVD which I provide. Soon I will have package prices of different levels which will include everything you need under a single price minus the variables of travel and extra prints beyond what the package contains.

So, please, check out the full array of samples and contact me through the website, by direct email at rcline@cybermesa.com, or call 575-751-7223 to schedule your portrait sitting today! Thanks.

On another note, the summer, once again, was far too short up here, but the autumn has been unusually warm (in that global warming sense). This summer, I photographed plenty of thunderstorms, wildflowers, and scenics, but there is one favorite subject I have been hurridly skipping over until recently and that is architecture, particularly, capturing old buildings (houses, barns, etc.) in extensive studies. I tend to spend a lot of on site time with these subjects, hence, the busy pace of life recently has caused me to skip these treasures as I longingly gaze at them as they go by. So, I have made time over the past couple months to revive these studies and I will present a re-start of this subject soon on the website and on Fine Art America. Now that I am "kick-started" again on this subject, I will be able to continue it.

I am also beginning to link to other photographers I know in my Friends In Photography category and they will link to me, also. The first one is Daryl Black, here in northern New Mexico, a multi-talented professional who I first met on jury duty years ago. See her blog at darylblackphotographer.blogspot.com, or go to http://blackscrossing.com and enjoy her work.

Now, out to capture the peak of autumn here in northern New Mexico and schedule more portraits.

I will be back for another post next week.

Coming Soon

In my photography, the portrait business is getting under way. Having slowly gathered together enough technical support to do this (which has taken a while) I am now editing portrait samples to soon become a new and unique portfolio on the website (www.rclinephotography.com). This portfolio will be a series of portrait examples taken from recent jobs, by permission, and is intended to show a variety of subjects, settings, and styles. Another rotating, temporary portfolio will be used for clients to make their selections from their sittings for final production. The sample portfolio should be ready in early July.

Frames? I get a lot of requests for framing photos and other artwork, so some photos of my framing works will be available soon on that page of the website.

And, Images On DVD. I have recently had to get a lot of advice on this as a product offering and commit to a lot of research. The news is that I will soon be offering images on DVD service in the royalty-free category for now with an organized and pre-set price list.

So, stay tuned, as things for RCLINEPhotography get better and more complicated for me (now I have to actually think), but hopefully more clearly defined for you and easier to shop.

Thank The Great Spirit for summer! See ya through the camera!

Anticipating More Spring

It is not unusual for spring to arrive late up here in the Sangre de Christos Mountains, but this year is currently showing a different pattern. The long end of a long winter has passed with snow fall amounts much more than sufficient to keep us safe from forest fires, that is as long as the spring and summer rains bless us with their usual regularity. The Rio Fernando which runs through my back yard, through the canyon and down more than 1200' to Taos, is now a roaring torrent of snow melt run-off. It is silty and brown during this period, carrying sediments from up in the mountains along with tree limbs, sections of beaver chewed logs, and oddities like old fence posts. The large styrofoam cooler I did not appreciate and still have to pull it out from where it is, fortunately, jammed into a fallen tree. I will have to wait until the rush of water receeds before I can reach it. The Rio Fernando is usually about 10' to 12' wide, but now the widest point is over 40' as it goes through the bend, creating new temporary islands and following age old relief pathways. With brown water and no foliage yet to be seen, it is difficult to find a beautiful way to photograph the river, but the buds on the plants are ready and sprigs of green are emerging.

It certainly helps me with my attitude to come out of hibernation and welcome so much the warmer weather and the return of new life, a new dawn of activity. Perhaps, I am not so adaptable to long winters, blizzards, and being trapped by weather. A friend of mine and his wife spent the ending weeks of this past winter down in the Central American tropics, emailing me photos of waving palms, sun bathing tourists, and sailboats in the balmy sunset. I wanted so much to be there. But, I wintered here, and now prepare the wood shop and gallery for new orders and the gallery for our tourist season, short as it is. Good it is for me to make my plans to capture the coming of spring around my beautiful southwestern mountain home land and load them into my website.

As spring blossoms, stay tuned!

Back Again

Good, it is, to be back to my blog! Many hours have I spent over the past couple of weeks building an new photography website. After exhausting research, test trials, and cancellations, I ran across a photographer's website reviewed in Shutterbug Magazine who had chosen a host named Photium. It is a UK company with servers based in London and has proven so far to be the best, most polite and responsive organization I have so far worked with through a computer. Please remember that I am still digitally challenged. For one who regarded the by-gone analogue world of electronics to be sufficiently overwhelming, I have needed much help (and I click on it all the time, usually to my disappointment) in becoming digitalized. I have indeed studied the world of digitalia, as I call it, extensively since I decided to move my photographic methodology beyond silver oxide, and though I am still lost when reading forums where webmasters are discussing the details and possibilities of search engine optimization, I have been surprised in casual conversation with friends how many people are much more capable than I am with clicking and keying through complicated programs and producing beautiful and efficient work, knowing all the tricks and applications for linking Facebook to the known universe, while still being clueless as to how much RAM their computer has, why a hard drive must be kept cool, and exactly why Windows Vista tanked. Perhaps, for me, I should only skim PC World Magazine and just get more experience in front of the monitor. At least, I'm making progress.

So, the new website has slowly come together as I have continued to select and upload new photo portfolios and added on new features. I'm excited just to get any visits, period, and I have watched the counter (ticker, as the British call it) continue to increase its speed. Again, however, allow me to recall just two weeks ago as I watched the early results come in and witnessed a sudden increase from 27 hits up to 51 in just one hour, I thought I was going viral! I could just see the headliner on MSN News for the next morning..."New photo website attracts a billion from around the world over night...Google servers crash!" OK, I'm up to 260 visits and no sales yet, so Google and the universe are safe, but, again I love progress.

Thank you for visiting my new site at rclinephotography.com! I am quite tickled with it and my plans are for constant improvement of both the photographs offered and the site itself. Check it out and purchase something while you are there..I feel like tossing in something for free to the first customer.

...and much thanks to all the crew of Photium across the Atlantic for your patience, your grace, and your kind professionalism...hail ye the British!

Now, while still in the photography mode and on the technical rant, let me say a few words about Nikon which have been in me for a spell. A few weeks ago I shared on a forum concering the top cameras of all time. When I was researching digital cameras just over a year ago, trying to determine to which model and manufacturer I would contribute precious, long saved money, I could not discount the years of faithful service accorded to me by a pair of Canon SLR (single lens reflex) cameras which I had obtained in the early 1980's. The first was a Canon AE-1 followed by the addition of its upgrade, the Canon A-1. These two fine film recorders survived years of travel photography throughout the back roads and small towns of Texas from Paris to El Paso, including ten grueling expeditions through the scorching desert heat of the Big Bend National Park. I still have them today even though I dropped the A-1 off of a rock onto another rock shortly before I proposed to my wife...it still works. After having cranked thousands of feet of Kodachrome and Tri-X through those cameras and having recorded an unknown quantity of frames across twenty-five years of clicking, I did award the Canon AE-1 my personal distinction as one of the top ten cameras of all time. What a workhorse it has been!

So, I approached the digital camera world with Canon in mind, especially if my collection of fine Canon lenses could be used on these new electronic machines, but that was not to be. The early information I gleaned said that Canon digital cameras were not "backwards compatible" and my old lenses would not function. I have since heard words to the contrary, but this news, correct or not, gave rise within me to an old desire...Nikon!

The Nikon name carries a certain mystique, a romantic notion which stretches from the jungle wilderness to the high fashion runway. If Indiana Jones was, instead, a traveling adventure photographer, he would have sported a Nikon under the rim of his fedora. Even Paul Simon embraced the Nikon in "Kodachrome" and an old advertisement lauded the testimonial line of a model who said "I know I'll look good when I see a Nikon pointed at me!"

So what is it? Decades ago, Nikon took the 35mm SLR to the top of the ranks. Nikkor lenses using precision ground glass made from the finest silica on the planet plus meticulous engineering and tough standards allowed these cameras to expose film to the best light possible. These tough standards made tough cameras. I observed Nikons for a long time, borrowed a few and dreamt of owning one. I saw them with dents and body scratches. I saw them dusty and with the paint worn off their edges. I watched professional photographers work with three of them hanging around their necks, grabbing one for a shot as the other two clunked together. These cameras kept working. The sounds of the early Nikons, clicking shutters, clacking mirrors, and the whirring of the motor drives advancing the film as quickly as possible became the sounds which represented the press rooms. Sometimes you could hardly hear what the movie star or the senator was saying over the din of twenty Nikons all being held up over the crowd as photographers would shoot them blindly while hoping to grab the Times front page.

Nikons survived the Elvis tours, the Civil Rights movement, the Viet Nam War, and Twiggy. They filled the pages of "Life" and "National Geographic". They saw the barefoot children of Appalacia and they have honored the Queen; they have exposed the horrors of secret wars and they have brought home the peaceful, intimate moments as the lioness groomed her cubs. Hang medallions on these cameras for bringing the world to our eyes.

The mystique...so I bought a Nikon.

Day 2, a month later

Yes, it has been a long month since last I keyed in another entry, a long winter's month of business and busy'ness. Yes, the depth of winter still clutches the mountains of northern New Mexico as, tonight, the white fluffy stuff drifts down slowly and gently, without wind, a rarity for us here up in the Taos Canyon. The show title of the photo above is "Anticipating Spring", taken in mid March of last year. This anticipation is certainly the case for me this year as I shall welcome tomorrows' date, March the First. Temperatures, according to Accuweather are predicted to rise slightly this week, meaning, for us Canyonites, we will get daytime highs above freezing. But, enough rambling about the atmosphere.
Good, it is to take a few moments resurrect the business of writing in this blog, a pleasure, launched, and then from which, strayed. Time it is for me to set free more ramblings.
I have been working hard on the re-establishment of my persuits in photography, becoming more digitalized and studying the art in further depth along with re building the business, long neglected. Next, then, I need to talk about my practical experience with some hardware, Nikon, to be exact, so I can get months of thoughts out on "paper" and move forward with the final gathering of the necessary gear...and this time, not a month later.

Day (or evening) 1

Welcome to my blog! Here, I am taking the opportunity to express myself freely and to talk about some of my favorite topics as, of course, most bloggers do. I hope you will come along with me as I explore the expanse of my own universe and try to determine the real reasons behind the mysteries, such as, why do cameras rarely see exactly what you experienced, and just how does so much sawdust get inside your pockets. Armed with answers to these pressing questions, I'm sure your life will take a quantum leap toward fulfillment.
For now, however, I have once again, though temporarily, I'm sure, taken one small step beyond my ignorance of computers and operating systems to establish this blog and slowly key in the first post. Time for a glass of milk (got it) and bed where I will, as I drift off to sleep, plan how tomorrow's post will either interest you or confuse you.