Tidbits about yours truly

A little bit about ME 

• I am an insomniac and when I finally do get to sleep, I suffer from sleep apnea. Makes for very tired days.
• I LOVE Reeses Pieces but am not a huge fan of peanut butter or Reeses PB Cups.
• I love to sing karaoke. I love to sing anywhere, actually. If you ask me to sing to you, at any time, I will do so.
• My favorite album of all time has to be Depeche Mode's Violator and Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine.
• My favorite color is green but I never wear it. Looks horrible on me. 'Cept for my EYES!
• The first time I ever performed on stage was when I was about 6 years old at a church picnic. I sang a song called Sentimental Ole You.
• I read all the Twilight books in less than one week. I hated all the movies. 
• If I had a private place to swim in the summer, I'd swim every single day.
• My daughter was a preemie, born at 28 weeks and was only 2 lbs. 
• I am a rare breed of women who have experienced what is considered a true spinal headache. 
• I am extremely disorganized. Thankful for computer files or my house would be littered with paper everywhere.
• I collect Swarovski crystals - the flowers w/ touches of color, mostly. 
• My sister is my best friend. She never listens to anything I tell her, though. She should. 
• I SERIOUSLY love my friends. If you are my FRIEND, I LOVE YOU! 
• When my moms passes on, I don't know how I'll breathe. She drives me CRAZY but she is one of my best friends. I am quite certain I'll have a mental breakdown.
• My favorite perfume is Burberry London. 
• My favorite SMELL is rain, cut grass, firewood burning, the mountains (pine), bread baking and my grandmothers house.
• I am pursuing a degree in Human Services with a focus in Alcohol & Substance Abuse. I should be finished in the fall of 2014. 
• I met my husband on the internet. It was when the movie "You've Got Mail" just came out. Everyone thought I might get killed. Instead, I got married. *insert joke about which would have been more painful here* JUST KIDDING! 
• I will never forget Mrs. Vatterott, my 3rd grade teacher. I loved her.
• I will also never forget Mrs. Pully, my yearbook teacher, but definitely not for the same reasons you normally would remember a teacher.
• I love to take drives to just about anywhere. At any time. However, I must bring someone if the drive is longer than an hour, b/c I will fall asleep driving any longer than that.
• I have INSANE dreams. I was told I have psychic abilities. I don't believe in psychic's, however. 
• I am sarcastic. Though, not in a mean way. 
• I say really witty things... in my head... long after a conversation is over.
• One of my favorite towns is Hannibal, Missouri.
• My favorite state is Utah. 
• My whole family would have died in a snow storm in 2008 had it not been for divine intervention.

That's all for now... I like doing things like these. Maybe I'll do one every few months! 

Tell me some things about YOU! 

Winner! Winner!

I am so grateful that I can do photography... not just as a business, because I have to be honest, that is not why I started and that is not why I do it now. I do it for the love of creating. I love creating images, whether it be something I take for myself and my family, something I find interesting or for my own artistic expression... or creating images of YOU and your loved ones to keep forever. That being said, I decided it was high time for a fun contest on my page and after contemplating which kind of contest I should do, I decide to go with the CUTEST KID CONTEST!   

(I will have more contests in the future! In fact, I'm having a BOUDOIR contest right now on my boudoir page Black Book Boudoir)

Every. Single. Kiddo that was entered was so cute! It was quite a challenge for some of you to get your friends and family to come "like" the business page, also. I understand how that is. I tried to make it as clear as possible in the rules, though. 

I want to THANK YOU ALL FOR PARTICIPATING by giving ALL of you who entered a code for 40% OFF a regular session* fee!  That is more than my usual family and friends discount! Woot Woot! If you leave your email address as a comment on this blog post, I'll send you the code to use when you book a future session!

The winner actually had 73 votes on her photo and 32 likes to the page, so 32 of the 73 votes counted. The 2nd place person had 37 votes, but 31 likes to the page! It was very close b/c I was going by BOTH of those things being done for a vote to count. 

Without further adieu.... CONGRATULATIONS LAUREN! You are the winner of the Raq A Bye Photography's Cutest Kid Contest! 

Please, Lauren's mommy or daddy, contact me w/in 72 hours to set up Lauren's FREE MINI SESSION!!!



* does not apply to wedding, newborns or boudoir sessions.

Let's talk a little about price and trust

I know we all think it, photographers, but we don't say much about it. People contact us about our prices, we either direct them to a place that has the prices listed and hope they respond kindly and say they want to book. Or we send them back an email w/ prices OR we try to avoid the talk of prices altogether. I've tried various approaches. I was wondering to myself, "oh my gosh, will they book w/ me? Maybe I should send them an email and give a discount!" This is where I've been all over the map. I started out doing sessions a bit cheaper, but once I raised my prices as my quality got better, I did book some very high end clients. The type of clients who value photography, not just snapshots of the kids. They wanted custom portraits and I delivered just that.

So, what makes some people willing to pay your asking rate and some not? It has to come down to two things.

1. The NOTS: They simply can't see the forest from the trees.

They see the price tag alone and not the value of the images. These are the clients who will go to Sears and be completely happy with their images and post them all over facebook, white vignettes and all. These are the clients who can not see that they spend money every single day on unnecessary items and if they sacrificed a few things here and there, they could afford custom portraits that look like they belong in a gallery. They could have amazing pieces of art to pass down to future generations and grandchildren. However, these type of clients just want photos, lots of them if possible, they want them now and they could care less about the editing process.

2. The Customers: They love your work and want you. Period.

If a potential customer loves your work, they are going to book with you. It may not be right away. They truly may not have the money at the time, but you can bet they are thinking of ways to make it work! They are looking at your images, hoping the time arrives that they can book. They are putting it into the budget. They understand the time that goes into custom photography. They realize you don't just shoot the images, go home and throw them on the computer ready to print or *cringe* put on a disc. They know you are going to retouch every.single.photo. you choose and they trust your talents. That's it! They TRUST in you! The clients that come to me, I usually will ask them a few questions, and ultimately, most of them say "I just love your work, I trust your vision." These are the clients you want, the clients that you will make happy.

I used to be afraid of people paying me. Can you believe that? I feared having paying clients because I feared letting them down. I feared them trusting me and them not delivering. Can you see where I'm going with this? Your price, regardless if it's $75 a session or $500 a session, is still your work! If a client is not happy, it's not going to be about the price. They know going in what your work looks like, what you usually produce and if they don't, that means you either don't have a big enough portfolio and maybe shouldn't be charging yet at all, but focusing on building that, OR they didn't look at your work, they only looked at the price. You need to consult with them before taking that session fee and make sure your WORK is what they want, NOT the price. I've sent clients to other photographers before because of this. They asked me to do things with images I don't do to my images, so I was happy to refer them to someone else who would (good example- selective coloring).

I'm not afraid anymore. I've set the price and while I may make adjustments here and there, I see that there are clients, my clients, in the population who will book with me based upon my work alone. The dollar amount is to cover my costs and not much more at this point. I have bills to pay, loans to pay off for school and occasionally, when I do get a bit extra (I should put that towards the loans), I will invest some more into photography with some new backdrops, a new piece of needed equipment, etc. ultimately making the experience for my client better because it will improve their images or give them more options.

That is my thought for the afternoon...

Pieces of art for your head

Had some lovely ladies do some portraits and product shots. The Little Lamb shop sent me some pieces to try out and photograph. I highly recommend her work! The quality is much better than most head pieces with flowers I have ordered in the past.

Photo sessions in the cold and other things

My WEBSITE Raq A Bye Photography

I finally got that done in the last couple of months. I still need to add quite a bit to it, especially galleries of my work.

I'm plugging along. Opened up my studio so I can do custom portraits in my home. I've been working on doing boudoir, infant photography or newborn photography, and would like to start adding high school senior reps to my portfolio because I LOVE Senior Photography!

I'm in school Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's tough b/c I'm getting burnt out. I think I may take next fall off. In fact, I may have to anyways b/c there might be a move in process.

Here are a couple images from my most recent session. It was freezing cold outside, but we managed through it. I keep telling myself "we're not back in the 1800's, tough it out, don't be a baby! Be grateful I'm only out in the cold for an hour or so and not walking the plains like settlers had to do!"

Whatever it takes, right?

My friend from high school recently had a baby...

I love how the whole time she was just texting casually. haha

To see the birth story video, click HERE

Not all illnesses are seen....

My friend, Erika, of Wonderfall Photography did a very special tribute to those suffering w/ depression and mental illness.

I thought it would be nice to share it here.