Trippy Illusions to Brighten Your Day......

Someone sent this to me in an email and thought it was pretty cool. The first one is pretty much self-explanatory in that your eyes play tricks on your to think things are moving (which is crazy), and the 2nd one is absolutely insane - I have never seen anything like it before so thought it was extra trippy.

When you get the second one, the trick is to stare at the 4 small dots in the center of the image for about 30-40 seconds (don't cheat and do it for a shorter period or it won't work!) - then look at a wall or up at the ceiling and close your eyes, and then slowly blink them...... who do you see when you close your eyes? If you haven't seen it before, it's insane - how to people figure this stuff out!?

The Value of Customer Service

In my opinion, businesses with amazing or exceptional customer service are not always easy to find. While there are some fantastic companies (large & small) out there, many think that doing business is just about the "transaction" rather than the "interaction," which I completely disagree with. As a full-time business owner, I constantly pay attention to how places treat their customers, and sometimes wonder how people stay in business. On a positive note, I've also been blown away withe the amazing service I've received at other places, and will continue to give them 100% of my business (and tell everyone I know about them).

I think my bank (which I'm not going to name right now) is a perfect example of a place giving poor service. Despite the fact that I hold 4 accounts with them and am there 2-3 times per week, I'm lucky to get any sort of a hello when I walk in the door, and often have to initiate the conversation myself to break the silence & dead air (which I hate by the way). I'm not asking for people to jump through hoops of fire when I walk in the door, but wouldn't it be nice to at least give a basic "hello" and greet a person that is choosing to do business with you? If I opted not to open my mouth, I'm pretty sure I could walk in and make a deposit without a single word being spoken to me (I actually may try this tomorrow and report back to you, haha).

While it may not be possible to 100% please every single person you come into contact or do business with, I do feel that the service we try to provide for our clients is equal if not better to the photography work that we do. I get more calls from future clients telling us they heard about what great service we provide, than calls from people that want to do business only because of the work we do. I've heard so many stories from folks we've met with complaining about other photographers that either have no personality whatsoever, or were extremely rude and treated them poorly. I'm probably sharing more than I should for the local photographers that read this blog, but I think the #1 reason people fail in business is not because they aren't good at what they do, but because they don't know how to run a business and provide the best service possible for their customers - I suppose this is not that big of a secret, right?

You're probably asking yourself where I'm going with all this (I'm beginning to ask myself, actually). Aside from already doing all we can to provide the best photography service in the Capital Region, we are also doing some extra things this year such as signing up for a Linkedin account, which will allow others to recommend our services and/or leave feedback. This morning, we also received our offical accreditation into the Better Business Bureau (not just given out to anyone these days, and expensive to be a part of), which I'm pretty excited about. Once the paperwork is finalized, we'll be displaying their official seal on our website, which is just one more symbol of our dedication to providing ethical & exceptional service.

Aside from our testimonial page on the website, you can access our new Linkedin account to link yourself and/or recommend us if interested. We should have our BBB listing up sometime next week, so save your complaints until then - haha! :)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattramosphotography

Albums, Albums, Albums & More Albums.......

It's been a crazy couple of days for us, and we've had album orders come in faster than we can keep up with. I've been working around the clock to try and crank as many out as possible. We have done 3 in the last 24-48 hours, and wanted to quickly share one from good friends, Kevin & Rebekah's recent wedding!

Of all the weddings we did last year, I'd say these guys may have taken the cake for being the rowdy bunch. Kevin & Rebekah are so much fun to be around, and to be honest are as goofy as they'll ever get (I mean that in a good way). It was like shooting the wedding of two comedians, and you'll see from some of the photos/pages in their album, I'm not lying. They have not yet seen the album yet, but I'm posting it here for all to see anyway (hopefully, I won't get into too much trouble for doing so). I've posted a few of my favorite page layouts below, and for those interested, you can view the entire album slideshow by clicking the link below:

Make sure you turn up those speakers first to get the full effect! :)

www.ramosdesigns.com/demassio

Our Latest Batch of Albums - Wow!

It seems everyone is all the sudden interested in getting their albums from last years wedding (which is a good thing before we get too crazy for the 2008 season) I've never seen so many album orders in such a short amount of time! There are so many albums I love, and I'm trying not to go broke by ordering samples of each one since I hate not having one for myself. If I wasn't holding myself back, I'd probably have orderd about 30 albums just for myself from our 2007 wedding season.

Anyway, I came home to these in the mail, and thought they just looked incredible. This is the set of good friends, David & Lydia's albums - 1 Master 9 1/2 x 13 and 3 duplicate 8x12 parent albums from Graphi-Studio. These puppies are AMAZING - I can't wait to ship them out this week and am sure they will go nuts when they see them!

Keep those orders comin' and we'll keep crankin' em out! Still procrastinating to order that wedding album? Now is the perfect time to place your orders!

Back From the Big City...

Tonya and I don't travel to the city much, but we had a blast this weekend as a part of her company retreat in Manhattan, in what may now become more of a regular occurance (if we have the time anyway). It had been years since I had been on a train, and I was amazed how easy (and surprisingly comfortable) it was to take a train down, and it sure beats the stress of driving & parking once you get there.

I can't admit to being a big fan (sorry), but we also had the opportunity to attend the Knicks game, which was a lot of fun (I can't believe they won by the way!) - there's nothing like seeing an event like that in Madison Square Garden! I lived in Japan (just outside of Tokyo) for about 2 years when I was in High School/College, however still can't say I could ever live in a city environment like that again. Despite my personal preferences, the City is truly a fascinating place on earth that's amazing to visit every now and then... overall, an awesome weekend!

I've forgotten how many emails my inbox generates after a day or two of being away from my computer..... looks like I'd better get to work! :)

P.S. Sorry for the boring & low quality photos - I had a cheap little point & shoot camera with me, and didn't have much time to snap anything good - maybe the next time.

Total Lunar Eclipse 2008........

For those that aren't aware, tonight will mark the last Lunar Eclipse until 2010. Here is my first shot of the moon from about 15 minutes ago. I'm going to attempt to create a lunar eclipse trail as it reaches the different stages and crosses the sky..... check back later to check it out (hopefully anyway :)

P.S. It's gonna be a cold night!

1 Hour later...... I don't think I can stand out in the cold anymore, but here is my compilation of the various stages of the lunar eclipse. This was my first time photographing something like this (it's not like you get a lot of opportunities to practice your lunar eclipse shooting), so I'm fairly pleased with how it came out. I obviously stiched these together a bit so you can see it's trail of transition lasting over about an hour's time or so. I'm sure I could have made this even cooler looking if I'd stuck it out a bit longer, but I'ts f-f-f-freeeeeeeeeeeezing!!

P.S. I shot with a 400mm lens with a 2X extender giving me 800mm and then cropped. Originals were shot at 21 Megapixels. Whatdya think??

Another Graphi-Studio Album.......

While it's a little nerve-racking sometimes, I love it when new albums come in. (Nerve-Racking because you want them to be perfect). There's an unbelieveable amount of blood, sweat, tears & stress I suppose that go into a wedding (from both sides), and there's nothing better than an amazing wedding album to showcase and remember the day with. Bob & Jen had to have the best (of course), and ordered a beautiful 9 ½ x 13 & 2 duplicate parent albums all in leather from our Graphi-Studio line...... I loved the album so much, I had to order one for myself to add to our show album collection. There are so many options we can do for covers on these, but really like the way this came out and how the names are debossed into the leather. For a luxury album, they are actually quite affordable, AND...... we are offering some pretty fantastic discounts on them right now for those who haven't yet ordered their album(s).

Here's a photo of my copy. I've got mine...... don't you want your own now?

P.S. We specialize in album design (whether we shot your wedding or not), and we offer these to anyone. Please feel free to contact us for details or check out our new site at http://www.ramosdesigns.com/ :)

CHW Project - Buffalo

As I mentioned the other day, I've had the opportunity to travel to Buffalo this week to work on a pretty big project for Cannon Heyman & Weiss, in which the images will be used to design their new website with. With two offices (Buffalo & Albany), dozens of employees, and a high level designer working ont he project with us, it's been a lot of fun to be a part of. Aside from shooting new, professional headshots of all employees for the firm, we are shooting quite a few environmental images showing their employees in action (meetings, conference calls, employee interactions, and some photo-journalistic stuff, etc) to give a feel of what CHW is all about.

We start leg two of the project, here in Albany, in 2 weeks, however have now completed the Buffalo portion of the shoot - there are hundreds of images to go through, but here are a quick few from the week. The new site is going to be amazing, and I can't wait to see the final product once all the images and designing are completed!

P.S. I'll post a link to their new website as a later follow up once the final leg of the project is complete.

This Morning's Session w/ Kennedy & Co.

After returning from Buffalo last night, we didn't waste any time setting the studio back up for use! This morning we had the opportunity to hang out with John, Dania, and their 6 month old daughter, Kennedy (In addition to being an adorable little girl, she has a really cool name, doesn't she?) I'm not sure Kennedy liked me too much as she wouldn't stop sticking her tongue out at me while trying to get her photo, but we managed to get some great shots of her anyway! :)

Thanks for a fun shoot today, guys - we had a lot of fun and think there are some really great shots from the session! I am still going through photos, but here's a few that caught my eye I thought I'd share.

Cool Sunset

A shot from the road..... some of the coolest sunsets are when you are driving and can't do much about getting a photo - luckily my camera was riding shotgun with me like always :)

It's good to be home... samples from the Buffalo shoot tomorrow!

All Packed & Ready to Go!

One of the least fun things to do (well for me) is pack everything before a big shoot or wedding. It's not the packing that's the issue, but more so the fear of forgetting something important and having to go over your item list over and over and over. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but it can be stressful, trust me. There are some fantastic photo equipment bags (even with wheels & a slot for your laptop like I have) that help to keep things organized when you need to, which is a big help..... as you can see, mine is overflowing a bit and I have to double stack things sometimes.

We are headed to Buffalo for a couple days to work with Cannon, Heyman & Weiss, who is having their website completed redone for both, their Buffalo & Albany offices. Since we are looking at 2 full days of shooting, headshots & environmental work, it's quite a process to prepare for.... my bag is maybe a 1/4 of the equipment we are bringing for the trip along with all of the lighting/studio background & computer equipment. (And boy do I love loading my truck & driving 5 hours in the snow, sleet & freezing rain!) All joking aside, I'm really looking forward to the project and think it will be a lot of fun. We've purchased a lot of new cool equipment this year to prepare for the wedding season, so I'm also excited to try some of it out. I'll try to post some samples over the weekend after we return!

Need to Know the Sunset Time on Your Wedding Day?

I have a group of roughly 8-10 blogs that I read every day - in fact half of them are pretty stupid (sorta like the one you're on right now), but I can't seem to pull myself away from them for whatever reason. I usually, start in the morning by checking email, going to CNN to find out when the world will most likely end, and then onto my systematic blog readings for the day. I'm sure you're all so happy to understand my morning web workflow, considering it's extreme level of importance in your life :)

Anyway, I found this great site from one of the blogs I frequently visit that is pretty cool and will end up being a big help this year in terms of knowing when it's going to get dark (this is pretty important stuff in terms of photography when you're photographing a wedding). This may or may not be useful to those planning your upcoming weddings, but I thought it was pretty cool - I'm going to try and find a way to embed it into our main website as a helfpul reference I think.

Simply type in your wedding date (or any day for that matter), your city and state, and presto! - it tells you all the info you need in regards to when the sun comes up, goes down, etc. Click the image below to check it out!

Scott & Stefanie Album Completed.....

It's going on 2:15am, and I'm suffering from another case of insomnia apparently. I decided to use my boredom wisely and threw together (I say that loosly!) the album for Scott & Stefanie. I love it when couples want to get the album(s) done not long after the wedding, because it allows us to crank through the orders we have quickly (hint, hint!)

Scott & Stefanie are a sweet couple, and we had a lot of fun at their wedding last year..... I'll never forget it, since I shattered my $1500 lens and a flash unit as well... grrrr. Anyway, they have selected one of our 20 page, luxury Graphi-Studio albums, and I think this is going to make a really nice album! For those new to the blog, we allow our couples to select the photos themselves that they'd like for the album, and then we design it from there based on their image selections. (And then they get edit sessions to have us tweak things if necessary :)

For anyone interested, you can click the link or the photo below to check out their album. Make sure you turn those speakers up!

www.ramosdesigns.com/wiley

On a completely separate note......

Please keep in mind, it's 2am right now and what I think is funny is magnified by about 12 when I'm tired, but I saw this, and laughed so hard I was crying (and almost fell out of my chair I might add) - I hope I don't offend anyone with this, but here's your laugh for the day - LOL! (literally)

Unbelieveable

Wow.... there are no words.... what an amazing upset & year in sports!

L O S T

After months of anticipation, it was awesome to finally have LOST come back for the new season tonight. It's seriously one of the most amazing shows I have ever seen, and it's stressful (in a good way) yet so much fun to try and piece it all together of what you think is happening or might be going to happen. Just when you think you've got things figured out, they throw a whole new twist at you that completely puts you back to square one again.

Tonya and I will now be glued to the TV each week to watch our favorite show. For those of you that don't watch the show, or think they are too "lost" to get into the show, I think now is a great time to jump in.

Any other Lost fans out there?

P.S. It's been a horrible couple of days for me.... I have a swolen uvula (that pendulum thing in the back of your throat), which has caused it to severely extend in length and now sits in my throat, causing a choking-like sensation. It's like having something stuck in the back of your throat, but no matter how many times you cough or clear your throat it just won't go away. It's by far the worst thing I've ever experienced, and pretty scary I might add. I spent the day at the dr's today getting x-rays, etc and am on strong meds to hopefully bring things back to normal. I hope no one ever has to get this - grrr!!!