Lisa and Rob (Too!)

I had a blast this past weekend shooting Rob and (E)lisa's engagement session up in the North Bay! They were so much fun to hang out with and get to know, not to mention their connection is so strong it made my job a breeze! And yes, for those of you following my work for awhile, they do have the same names as Rob and Elisa! How funny is that? Plus, you gotta love facebook because now they are friends!

Point and Shoot out/tips for better photos

I can't even guess how many times I've been asked by someone who's not a photographer "What camera should I get?" I'm often at a loss because, frankly, my working camera's do everything...problem is they are huge and heavy. Recommending a camera for other Pro's is easy as we need to have the best, most rugged equipment made. But I have very different needs from the average person so I can hardly recommend my cameras. Professional cameras are tools to get a job done, considerations of form come far after function! Combine that with the fact there are 100's of new point and shoot (P&S) camera's every year which makes it impossible to keep up and recommend anything specific.
I recently purchased an awesome new camera, the Leica D-Lux4. It looks like a point and shoot camera but has the performance of a pro SLR. Well, to be fair, maybe more like a pro-sumer SLR :) But that said, I'm so impressed with this little guy that I thought I would spend a week or two with it and then write up a review.
But this got me thinking, why not start a short series of reviews and tips for the average person to take better photographs and what features you might actually need in a P&S? I don't need to review every camera out there, just tell you the features I think help a non-photographer take better images so you can make informed decisions. I will start with reviewing this and my other point and shoot which will reveal the features I think the average person needs in a camera (yeah, I'll also mention things that make a little camera good for a pro too) and then I will get more into what it takes to make better images. I'm not going to turn you into the next Annie Leibovitz but hopefully you will enjoy taking pictures more and get more keepers.
Okay, I'm off to shoot!

Winter planning and album design

February tends to be the month that I catch up on album design and evaluate where my business is and where I want it to go. My BS from Cal Poly taught me that taking a step back and looking at the big picture at regular intervals is one of the most important parts of business. 2008 was a spectacular year for Photography by Colin Michael and I want to thank all my wonderful clients for that! I had the opportunity to shoot weddings in San Luis Obispo, Carmel, San Francisco, New York City, Seattle and Santa Barbara, what a blast it was! 2009, while being a bit more volatile than previous years, is still shaping up to be a banner year for us thanks to what I believe is a high value to cost ratio for my services. I intend to continue to offer a great value in 2009 and do everything I can to continue to have the best clients in the world!

The hottest topic of conversation at the recent WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) conference and trade show I attended was (surprise!) the economy. With much consideration and evaluation, I went into the trade show with the intention of finding the highest quality products and services that are still great values. I am happy to announce that I will be offering a new line of albums for engagement sessions and parent albums that are not only a great value, but also beautifully made. I greatly respect the fact that times are tough for a lot of families out there and yet you still only have one wedding day and only one opportunity to capture the emotion and beauty of the day. Because of this, I'm offering more flexibility in how clients can pay and even offering a registry so your friends and family can contribute toward your package. Personally, I think most couples would rather have a great photographer than another bread-maker! lol

As for my day to day going's on, I just finished the design on the 7th album I've designed in the past month and a half! I think I've designed something like 300 or so pages in that time! Album design is really tricky, I spend a lot of time making sure that the overall feel of the album fits the personality of my clients as well as meshes with that of the wedding day. Some designs are more classic, some contemporary and some are somewhere in between. Here are a couple of my favorite pages from recent designs.