Merry Christmas! :)

Christmas (and the holidays) are always such a special time, and no matter how old you get, Christmas Eve seems to make you feel a bit like a kid all over again in some ways. I'm a bit behind on my blog updates as of late, but wanted to drop a quick line to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas this year. Spending your first holiday season with your new spouse is a really cool feeling, and I hope all the newly married couples of 2007 enjoy it..... these are the memories you'll cherrish most in 20-30 years from now :)

P.S. I'll keep ya posted on whether or not I get that Red Rider BB gun I've been wanting.... I leave you with a few shots of our tree this year!

More Christmas Snow...

This is what I woke up to this morning in the back yard (no, I didn't sleep there, but you know what I mean - lol). It's starting to look a lot like Christmas around here :)

P.S. Lesson of the week: Let's just say you have a leaking roof from ice build up (hypathetically) - it's always a good idea to not forget about this over the summer to prevent it from happening again the following year. Stay tuned for more stupidity and life lessons.... it's going to be a very expensive week!

Ramos Designs - Professional Album Designing

It's 2:30am, and I'm having yet another one of those nights where I can't sleep to save my life and my mind is racing (oh the joys of being ADHD!) I've kept it quiet until now, but have been working on a new website and extension of our business that I'm very excited to announce! It's funny how ideas can sometimes come to you in dreams - most of them are just passing thoughts, and rarely do they become a reality (at least for me).

We obviously, do quite a bit of album designing for clients as a part of our business, and during a nap I had a dream about a great business idea (I know I'm weird, trust me). This was two days ago, and I immediately began to get the wheels in motion and impliment something that I think is not only very exciting, but also a service that many can take advantage of.

"Ramos Designs" is 100% dedicated to designing custom fine art, and/or luxury albums for couples (or families for that matter), that would like to have a custom album designed and built for them from their digital photos. Many photographers don't include wedding albums as a standard with their packages (we do! ), and maybe the couple didn't have the money or the patience to worry about it at the time of the wedding. As a few years pass people often regret not getting something special like that, and then it's simply too late for the most part to have something professional done - this is where we come in :)

The cool thing about this new adventure is not only being able to service clients from around the country that maybe we didn't have the opportunity to work with on their wedding day, but to also be able to provide these service to other photographers needing help designing albums for clients, etc. (trust me, it's a lot of work!!) We offer some absolutely amazing albums, and we are offering free designs and edit sessions included with all album purchases to ensure 110% satisfaction.

I'm still finalizing the site, but as usual, was too impatient to share this with you. While this service will clearly be catered towards wedding albums, we will also be designing various other types of albums as we have in the past such as: baby albums, families, corporate albums, etc. If you know anyone that may be able to take advantage of this service, you can tell them they now have an option to consider! :)

Here's a link to the new business & website:
http://www.ramosdesigns.com/

P.S. Congrats to Rebekah DeMassio for making the cut as the website "covergirl!"

Alex & Maria's Album(s)...

We received a Graphi-Studio album set (Master & 2 Parent) today for Alex & Maria, and was so pleased with how amazing they look, I just had to post a photo! I only took a shot of the outside of them, but the entire album, inside and out, is just incredble. For those deciding what album(s) they'd like to get come wedding time, I can't emphasize enough, how amazing the Graphi-Studio line is.... they can be done in Leather, Silk, Metal, Mirror Polish, or Transparent Fiberglass like the ones you see here - We have several available to show for anyone interested.

P.S. We are also getting into album designing even for those who's wedding we did not shoot. If you know someone who got married, didn't get an album, but has their original files, you can let em' know! :)

Senior Portraits!

Tonight I had the opportunity to not only shoot with the new camera for the first time, but also work with Lindsey for her senior portraits. I don't shoot many Seniors, however as our portrait side of the business is quickly growing during the wedding break, I hope to become more involved as I think they are a lot of fun.

Today reminded me of when I had my senior portraits done (I was in Japan at the time), and it was basically 2 photos and then on to the next person in line.... definitely not a fun experience, however if I were in the states, I probably would have enjoyed doing a session. It seems like yesterday, I was a senior in high school myself.... it's hard to believe I'm now in my thirties with a house, wife, business, etc - where does the time go and how did I get to be so old!?

Anyway, here's a few shots from our session, which I really liked - as you can see, Lindsey's a really pretty girl and photographs extremely well! :)

Meet the 21 Megapixel Canon 1Ds Mark III :)

Some of you that keep up on the blog probably remember me mentioning a few months back about how we were very excited as Canon had announced a new technology-breaking, 21 Megapixel camera that was due to come out towards the end of the year. At $8,000 a pop there are not a lot of these laying around, and as Canon released their extremely limited first batch worldwide last week, I'm extremely excited to be one of the first to get my hands on this puppy! I've been anxiously awaiting and have made dozens of phone calls all over the place trying to get it first, and after months of waiting, and a few sleepless nights this week (from excitement), it finally paid off. I damnear tackled the UPS guy today - lol.

For those that enjoy photography, you may have heard of this camera, and I will post some information below for those interested in learning more about it, and why it's such a big deal. Aside from being 21 megapixels and the quality it can produce in HUGE sizes, it has so many amazing new features that no other camera in the world has - I'm really going to enjoy shooting my first wedding with it next year, and am sure you couple's getting married will appreciate it more when you see what it's capable of doing :)

Again, for anyone that cares or is into photography, you can check out some of the stuff below to learn more about it - I feel like a 6 year old on Christmas morning right now.... be sure to check back for some sample photos later in the week (if I have time)!

What the?

As you can see, I have a bit too much time on my hands this morning!

I get a couple of these each year and always think they are pretty funny, but have never tried it for myself until now. The dogs crack me up the most - LOL.

Click Here to see how ridiculous we dance!

Happy Monday :)

Leather Engraved Master DVD Cases...

We are now offering custom, engraved leather Master DVD cases for those that are interested (it's a nice way to protect your images, and showcases them in a professional/elegant way). We are throwing these in (an $85.00 value) for free now on all newly ordered, regular priced Master DVD purchases, and have updated this option for folks to see them in their online ordering events. For those that have already received DVD's, we can also order this for you if it's something you want!

Here's a shot I just took of the one we had made this week for Tom & Jenny, above.

365 Days Ago Today......

This year has absolutely flown by (hence my speed photo), and it was exactly 365 days ago that I made one of the biggest decisions of my life - to resign from a successful career after 8 years with a Fortune 500 company so I could follow my dreams to become a professional photographer and run my own business. It seems like an eternity ago, and it's hard to believe that a year ago tonight, I was pacing back and forth all over the place trying to decide whether I was truly making the right decision or not. Making the decision to become self employed, and giving up a consistent healthy salary, company car, as well as 8 years of blood, sweat & tears is probably one of the scariest things I could have done..... yet, I kept telling myself "no great reward comes without sacrifice (and some risk) first." Here's a link to my blog entry exactly 1 year ago today - December 6, 2006.

So much has happend over the past 365 days, and we've worked so hard to push our business, service, and photography to a whole new level (and continue to!) - while I've definitely made and learned from some valuable mistakes this year (both business & photography wise I suppose), it has truly been one of the best years of my life to be able to have this incredible opportunity. We've been so blessed to have worked with so many amazing clients and now good friends this year - there's definitley been times I wanted to pull my hair out, but at the end of the day, it's all been more than worth it, and something I will certainly never take for granted.

I know there are quite a few people that keep up with our blog (I'm not sure why to be honest - I'm pretty boring, lol), and sincerely thank you for your business, friendships, and helping our business to grow the way it has over the past year. No matter what your aspirations are in life, I challenge you to grab life by the horns and go for it..... you have one life to life, and there's a saying "you regret more things in life you don't do, than the things you do" - I completely agree with this statement!

Anyway, this is my cheesy thank you note to everyone. We have some very exciting new things happening for 2008, including new services we will be offering, new products, extremely upgraded equipment, further company growth, including beginner SLR photography/photoshop classes for those interested, and more aspects of the business that we are now starting to venture out into (you'll have to stay tuned I guess to see what I'm talking about). Thanks again for one of the best year's of my life..... I wish you only knew how fired up I am about 2008!!

P.S. Still waiting for the new "toy" - stay tuned to see what it is! :)
What on earth could it be???

Future Ladies Man!

Today was an extremely busy, yet awesome day! Two fun shoots this morning, met one of our 2008 wedding couples for the first time, bought my first snow blower (whoo hooo), and went to my first auction out in the middle of nowhere (and was too shy to bid on anything by the way since I had no idea what I was doing).

Since we're on a nice break from the wedding season, we've been doing tons of portrait sessions lately, and really enjoy being able to shoot fun stuff without the pressure of 200 people watching my every move like at a wedding. One of the shoots today was that of good friends, Pat, Nancy, and the future ladies man himself, little Luciano. Working with babies and young kids is extremely challening. Luckily for me, Luciano is like a 15 year old boy trapped in a 3 month old's body when it comes to smiling on que when I need him to! I've worked with a lot of kids, and can't say I've seen many that laugh and smile as much as Lucci - such a cute kid!

Anyway, here's a few shots from the day I thought I'd post - again.... there's still plenty of time to get in your portrait session with us and prints will be delivered in time for the holidays!

P.S. Our print sale ends in about 15 minutes, but wanted to thank everyone for their orders.... we've been processing out about 10-12 orders a day since we started the sale, and will continue to crank through the rest on Monday for those that just placed orders - I'm glad so many were able to take advantage of the sale - thanks again!

Quick Reminder.....

I didn't want to send out another email since I know the online system sends out enough as it is (by the way, we don't control those :) - but wanted to just give a quick reminder that our holiday 30% sale is ending at Midnight on December 1st. We always get calls & emails a week or two after the sale ends asking if we can extend it, and hate having to say no - as politely as I can possibly say it, please be sure to get your orders in by the deadline so we don't have this issue :)

We've also had a lot of people asking about the holiday card ordering process since it's not 100% clear on the proofing sites. There's still plenty of time to order this type of stuff, so I figured I'd make a few adjustments to make things easier. At the bottom of the event pages, you will find a product section - there is a new option that says "Custom Thank You/Holiday Cards" that you can now click to place an order with.... whether you want thank you's or holiday cards, this is the same item you would place in your cart for purchase. Once the order is complete, you can simply email us (or put in the notes of your order) with the images/text you'd like us to use and we'll design a custom card for you depending on which type of card you are ordering. It's a super-simple process and we email you with a sample of the design before the order is placed.

I'm off to put air conditioners in the attic (uggggh) and get out the Christmas stuff for wifey - don't forget to place your orders before the deadline, and email or call with any questions if you need help! :)

P.S. If anyone has any great Christmas present ideas this year, be sure to email me..... I'm sorta hitting a wall right now - also we have a new "toy" coming in next week that I'm very excited about.... be sure to check back to find out what it is! (you're welcome to guess but have to post it below!)

More Fun Family Photos for the Holidays!

It's been a slower week, and to be honest, I'm enjoying the time to catch up on all projects, etc. With the holiday print sale going on, we've been filling 10-15 orders a day trying to keep up and get everything out to folks well in time for the holidays. Tonight, we had fun hanging out with Chris from Cool Cat Entertainment, his sister, Lisa, and their families for a quick holiday portrait session - we even shot a few with the dogs, which was tricky, but fun. (By the way, Chris is one of our favorite DJ's to work with, so highly recommend checking him out if you are still looking for one!)

For anyone interested, we still have availability for these types of sessions and plenty of time to not only do the session, but also get everything done and ordered in time for Christmas. Thanks for a fun shoot everyone - we'll hope to have the photos ready for you in a day or two!

Congratulations to Danielle Lanuto!

I first met Danielle almost a year ago, who had huge aspirations of becoming a successful model and wanted to get into pageants, etc. With her sister, Angela, running the show for her, they were on a mission to thrust Danielle's modeling career forward quickly. We've had the chance to work with Danielle twice now, and you can clearly see the progress she is making to enter these level of pageants. She's a beautiful girl and has so much potential - you can see one of the sample photos we did this year for her to be submitted to the judges above (as well as the one in the paper there) - click the image to read the article if you like.

I got an email today from her manager (Angela), with a newspaper clipping, letting us know that she has now been selected as a finalist for the for the Miss NY USA Pageant, which I think is so awesome! It's great to see her do so well, and know that the shoots we've done are helping her career a bit... I'm so excited to see how she does - it would be so amazing to see her on tv in the Miss USA Pageant next year, and the way things are going for her, it just may happen!

Congrats, Danielle.... you totally deserve this! :)

Congratulations, Josh & Margaret!!

We officially closed 2007 and the last wedding of the year last night with Margaret & Josh at the Glen Sanders Mansion. I hadn't shot a wedding in nearly a month, so I'll have to admit I was a bit anxious about this one..... no matter how many you shoot, you never really lose the butterflies before the wedding - I suppose it's the stress of wanting to do a good job. We have one wedding in January, and then don't have much for wedding action again until April, so I'm going to enjoy some time off I think :)

We shot so many weddings this year in the brutal heat, it was actually nice to work in the cooler, brisk weather and we had a beautiful day to do so. Margaret & Josh were probably two of the most calm people we have ever worked with on their wedding day..... if they weren't dressed in a gown & tux, you would have never known it was their wedding day to be honest.... I wish it could be that easy for everyone! We got some great shots from the day, and are excited to share them all in about two weeks, when completed. Those that attended this event are welcome to click the link below to pre-register their emails to receive notification of when images go live:

http://mattramosphotography.instaproofs.com/enterEvent.php?id=36194

A big thanks to not only Josh & Margaret for allowing us to capture their wedding day with them, but also to all of new clients & friends we've made this year! I think the job & stress that a wedding photographer goes through is probably a bit under-estimated sometimes, but despite everything - it's an amazing thing to take part in. I've seen some some great things this year, from cake in the face smashings (even a groom smashing cake in his own face), a bride showing up 45 minutes for the wedding, a bride falling on the alter, people dancing with cardboard-photo signs (hilarious by the way), groomsmen throwing up all over the parking lot, cool bonfires, amazing venues, insane bride & groom, choreographed dances (including Mr. Roboto), and i'm sure a dozen other things that I can't think of at the moment...... these are the things that make weddings so special.... and for me, glad to be a part of! :)

I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving this year, and enjoys the company of not only their immediate familes, but their new ones as well. I'm thankful for the opportunity to spend time and get to know so many of you this year, and wish all the couples of 2007 a happy and prosporous marriage!

30% Off Thanksgiving & Pre-Holiday Sale!

Most of you that have an online event already registered with us received an email notification, but for those that did not, I wanted to announce that we have just launched the biggest sale of the year, by discounting everything to 30% off!!

While we do offer sales throughout the year, this is our absolute biggest and a great opportunity to order prints for the holidays, or even just to take advantage of a great deal for those prints you've been putting off ordering. The sale will go from November 17th through December 1st at midnight, and have guarenteed delivery of on or before December 15th! (Unfortunately, this sale will not be extended, so be sure to take advantage right away!)

All past and present events for the year have been activated, and you can find your event by clicking the link below! For those not wanting to use a ccard, feel free to call us directly, and we'll be happy to process your order via check, etc. Please email us with any questions!

http://mattramosphotography.instaproofs.com/

Enjoy :)

Holiday Family Portraits....

We wrapped up the day today by shooting some family portaits in the studio with Jennifer, Michael, and the two little ones, Amanda & Brad. Getting a 1 year old to look at the camera in perfect sync with everyone else looking at the same time is about the same odds as winning the lottery I think.... I'd say we got 3 numbers and the powerball on this one :)

We're going to be designing some custom holiday cards on these (or we have card templates for those that like them). As yet again, we are getting ready to do a major sale on prints, etc, so if anyone is interested in getting some new family portraits for their cards, we'll be happy get them done quickly for you.

Not a lot going on this week, but we will be shooting our final straggler wedding of the year next Sunday with Josh & Margaret, so stay tuned for some samples. The print sale email should go out around Thanksgiving, so keep an eye out, and all events (even expired events) will be reactivated for the sale!

Engagements with Kimberly & John!

We ventured out into the cold air this morning (well compared to Atlanta anyway), to hang out with Kimberly & John and shoot some engagement photos. It's hard to believe that this late in the year, we still have all these amazing colors in the trees, but we certainly took full advantage of them. Kimberly & John are just so natural, and they sorta just fell into place on their own with every thing we did, which was awesome. I can tell already, this is going to be one of our favorite couples of 2008, and if it was this easy working with them for their engagement session, I can only image how low stress and fun the wedding is going to be. Thanks for a fun session today guys, and will hope to have all the rest of the images for you within a couple days. Here's a few samples from our shoot.

Bob & Jen Album Completed....

Bob & Jen were without a doubt, one of our favorite couples to work with this year. Both are really fun to hang out with and have such great senses of humor. We are on a mission this week to get last minute wedding albums completed and ordered, and though I would share that of Bob & Jen, which is going to look amazing in a leather-bound, Graphi-Studio set!

My second shooter and right hand man, John a.k.a. "Jamaica" did this one and think it came out awesome... click the link to check it out if you like!

http://www.mattramosphotography.com/woodfield3

Amazing Conclave w/ Denis Reggie.....

Now that we are back from Atlanta, I'm more excited than ever.... and all because of the inspiration given by Denis Reggie this week. For those that don't know of Denis, he is an amazing person and photographer...... many have called him "the best wedding photographer of our generation," and many other high level remarks that he certainly deserves. Denis has single handedly shaped the world of wedding photography by defining the word "photo journalism" which was done back in the 80's (by the way, I mean literally define as in he created the word). Denis has shot more high profile weddings and has more award wining and photo of the year images than I think he can even count...... just while sitting in his house, he received calls from both Rudi Guliani and John Kerry, who's weddings he's shot (unbelieveable, right?) A small, multi-billion dollar company called Canon (maybe you've heard of it) has even allowed Denis to co-design and have heavy input in their camera equipment, which thousands of photographers around the world use today.... simply amazing to me. (by the way, I don't even have that kind of pull over my wife - lol)

Now that I've built him up a bit (not that he needs it), you can image what an experience and chance of a lifetime it was for me to spend 3 days with him in his home for a private conclave with 8 other photographers from around the country. (It's equivalent to someone really into golf hanging out with Tiger Woods at his house for a few days). Our work is pretty damn good in my opinion, but Denis picked me apart at the seems and was quick to point out all of the things that can be improved...... while slightly hard to hear, it was an honor to have someone of his experience give me the feedback, tips & training that I really need to take our quality of work and business to the next level. In addition to doing some hands on training/shooting with Denis, we also got the opportunity to hang out with some of the top guys from both Canon & Adobe (George & Fred), and test out some of the new cameras and software not even available to the public yet.... I should have worn a bib to control my drooling :)

In a nutshell, I'm so excited of this experience that most other photographers would do anything to be a part of, and with the new shooting, lighting, business, etc techniques we learned from this workshop..... all I can say, is it's going to be a great time to have your 2008 or 2009 weddings with us as I know our work is about to take a huge jump to the next level. We are completely revamping things this week, including some new exciting products, and albums, upgraded equipment, as well as a completely re-structure fee schedule with some absolutely amazing options for clients of all levels & budgets. We'll also be taking a very hard look and making a few adjustments to our shooting style, which I think our current and future clients are going to love compared to what we are currently doing! (Don't worry, you'll still get the stuff you see on the site too!)

Denis, if you're reading..... thanks for what I know is going to be a life & business changing experience - words can't describe how thankful and excited I am of what we're about to do with the knowledge you've given us.

P.S. The bottom shot from above is one I snapped of Denis while messing around a bit.... hopefully, he won't mind me posting.

Back from Atlanta......

We arrived back home, late last night from our trip to Atlanta, and had such a great time .... I had not been to Atlanta before (other than the airport), and have to say it's definitely an awesome city. Everything from the food, the weather, things to see, and "southern hospitality" were awesome, and I wouldn't mind living there to be honest! We went down a day early for our photo journalism conclave so we could get situationed, check out a few places around the city, and relax a bit.

I hate feeling like that cheesy tourist when I go places, but we had a great time checking out the Georgia Aquarium, new Coca-Cola Museum, and even had lunch at CNN, which was kinda cool. I wasn't allowed to take my good camera into these places (nor would I), but snapped a few shots with our P&S while we were there. I thought the Coca-Cola museum would be somewhat boring, but was amazed at how insane it was.... you can actually watch bottles of Coke being made and all the little robots doing their thing, right down to them being capped. They had this room with something crazy like 75 different types of Coke products that you could sample as many as you wanted.... I think we tried around 30 or so, and then spent the rest of the day trying not to belch all over the place - lol.

I'm going to post some highlights and info of the real reason we went down to Atlanta in my next blog post, and am really excited about it..... even though we were heavily on the go, we really enjoyed our time there and hope to get back sometime soon.