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!