From my family to yours!

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

My wife & I decided we would take our five year anniversary trip a month late. Since my wife had never been to Las Vegas, we decided we would take a trip out there for a few days. While planning the trip, we realized that hotel/airfare was way cheaper during the week instead of the weekend. So we were able to save a bunch of money by taking a trip Tuesday through Thursday.

I am definitely not conditioned to walking around all day long. We flew into Vegas Tues morning/early afternoon and took the shuttle to our hotel, Excalibur. After getting settled, we walked the strip from our hotel to the Bellagio. I convinced my wife I had gotten us dinner reservations at a restraunt where we could dine with sharks & fishes. Too bad it was all part of an elaborate ruse to hide the fact that I had gotten us tickets to see The Lion King.

The next day we spent walking the strip again, this time mostly going to the hotels/casinos past Bellagio, such as The Venetian, Caesers Palace, and Treasure Island. We also had dinner watching The Tournament of Kings at Excalibur. It was cool, but not nearly as good (in my opinion) as the show in Los Angeles (Medevial Times)

After the show we headed out to the Bellagio to watch the water show in front, then headed back to the Monte Carlo to The CupCakery to eat some delicious cupcakes. Overall we spent a little bit of time in all the casinos/hotels on the stri[p from Mandalay Bay through The Venetian. I think I would rank the Forum Shops as my favorite place, while my wife hasn’t figured out what her favorite place was.

And now for the pics!  I decided I wanted to travel light and simple.  I only brought the D300 (no grip) plus the 35mm lens.

View from the backside of our hotel

Made entirely of M&M’s at M&M World.

The Atrium at Bellagio.  Yes, that is a real pumpkin

After Bellagio we decided to go visit Paris.

Our hotel from the New York – New York side of the street

Inside the Venetian now.

Some random guy offered to take our picture for us.

The biggest surprise of the trip – Lion King tickets.

The lion enclosure at MGM Grand.

The other highlight of the trip – M&M World as my wife LOVES M&Ms

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

One of my good friends (wow, I’ve known you for 12 years!!) came back to town for a few days for another mutual friends baby shower.  While she was here we had a quick photo session & also some time just playing around reminiscing about old times.  In addition I don’t know how many stories she told my wife, but I’m pretty sure none of them were true!

I titled the post, “Laura’s House” since when we were in high school, her house is the one all of us would go to hang out.  It was normal for us to have 10 people there on an afternoon, jumping on the trampoline (and getting water poured on us while on the trampoline), swimming, watching movies, or just plain hanging out.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

Well this is part two of my trip out to Bishop/Eastern Sierras.  It was still hot (95+) the entire time, and by the end of the trip I think Adam was getting a little tired of it.  He had a great time though hanging out with both sets of grandparents.

We made the best use of our time while we were out there, and visited lots of different places.  One place on our list was Erik Schat’s Bakkery in Bishop.  They’ve got some of the most delicious bread/pastries/candies I’ve had in a long time!

We also took a trip up to Mammoth Mtn area, where we spent some time hiking around & playing in the water.

This kid is crazy.  The water is freezing cold, it was windy & a little chilly, and he was as happy as a clam.  That is until he fell into the water and got soaked!

Remember, you are being watched!

On the last day of our trip we headed up the Ancient Bristlecone Forest about 20mi outside of Big Pine.  On the way we passed the remnants of this train station.

The forest is at around 10,000ft elevation, and some of these trees are 3000+ years old.

The view from the meadow looking west towards the Sierras.  Though they’re a couple hundred miles away, LA would be off to the left, and Reno would be to the right.

Mount Whitney is the tall peak on the right.  My inlaws had climbed to the top of the peak at around 10am, and headed back down.  They ended up making to the parking lot at Whitney Portal at about 5:3opm, approx 21 days since they started their hike in the Yosemite Valley.

Just like my parents, my in laws were not told their grandson was coming.  This was their reaction to the first time they saw him.

We decided that our own bed sounded better than the campsite, so we left Whitney Portal Sunday afternoon and got home around 2am the next morning.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

So from a previous post I mentioned my inlaws were hiking the John Muir Trail in Yosemite.  This is the week I’m heading up to pick them up from Lone Pine, California.  In addition to picking them up, I have ancestors who lived in Bishop California and in the surrounding towns.  So I packed up my 2 1/2 year old, and met up with my parents in Bishop who drove out from UT.  My parents had no clue that I was bringing their grandson, so they had some great looks of surprise when they saw him.

We spent two days checking out the courthouse for old records that involve my ancestors and enjoying the area.  We also took advantage of some spare time, and drove out to Manazar, which is known as an internment camp for Japanese Americans during WWII.  We also took a visit to the Laws Railroad Museum, which is a couple miles outside of Bishop on Hwy 6.  Since my kid LOVES (understatement) trains, tractors, trucks, all that good stuff, this was a playground for him.  The only thing which would have made it better was if it hadn’t of been 96 degrees outside.

We caught the tail end of a freighter as we were pulling into Escalon.  I mentioned to my son that it would be perfect if another train came through.  At that moment right before I got to the tracks the lights came on & we watched this NB train go through.

For you movie buffs, this is Engine #3, who has been in over 100 movies, TV shows, and commercials.  For people in my generation, this was the engine that was used in Back to the Future III.  It is at the Jamestown Train Museum in Jamestown, California.

We got onto a tour & Adam got to play on one of the machines that was used to check the rails & ties.  You would push/pull the front (as Adam is doing) to move it forward/backwards.

Finally in Yosemite, playing on the rocks.

We took a quick trip to Tuolomne Meadows so the kid could get in his daily dirt fix.

Caught some deer as they were crossing the river.  I was wishing I had my 70-200 instead of the 85 lens on me.  I left the big lens in the car

Don’t even THINK about taking my chapstick!

Self portrait (gotta prove I was on the trip!) of me & Adam near the top of Tioga Pass

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

So I missed out on getting the post out on Friday since I had some friends in town and we decided it was time to go to the beach.  We headed out to Palm Beach State Park in Watsonville, CA.  It was fun seeing my little guy kind of get into the water this time, though he mostly just wanted to roll around in the sand.

It was the first time my friends little girl had seen the ocean & gotten to touch it since they live in Utah.

This is the reason why he is now nicknamed, “The Sandman”

Normally at home there isn’t a pile of sand he jumps on like that.  He normally finds me lying on the ground and does the same thing, landing on my chest.  Sometimes he’ll catch me as I’m lying down near the couch, and he’ll leap off the couch and onto me.

On Saturday I decided I was going to do my first 50mi bike ride as training for my Yosemite ride next year.  My route had about 40mi of flat/basically flat pavement and 10 mi of climbing.  I rode from my house to Henry Coe County Park Headquarters, and then back home.  I felt pretty good at the top of the climb, but the major headwind on the way home almost did me in.  I did make it in 3:28, which I was very happy about.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

So the other weekend I drove to Yosemite with my mother/father in law, my wife, and our kid to drop off my in laws as they were off on a 3 week hike of the John Muir Trail.  On the drive home I got to thinking to myself, “My in laws are hiking the John Muir Trail, they (and my wife) last year hiked to the top of Half Dome.  My wife has done a trail marathon in addition to other 5k, 10k, and half marathons.  Its my turn to do something crazy like that.”  So while we were driving down Hwy 120 I decided I was going to ride my road bicycle from my house in South San Jose over Tioga Pass to Lee Vining.

According to the route I drew up in Google Maps, my friend and I are looking at an approx. 240 mile ride, climbing approx. 18,000 ft over 2 or 3 days.  It looks like I’ve got some major training to do in the next few months, since we’ve got the ride tentatively scheduled for sometime in May.

Otherwise we had a pretty good trip.  Our two year old decided after his nap he wanted to throw a big tantrum, but after he got to pet some dogs he was better.

A few random photographs from the trip:

View of Upper Yosemite Falls from the car as we were heading into the Valley.

We camped out at the Wawona campground for the night and let Adam do what he loves doing – playing in the dirt.

My in laws as they were about to leave on their hike.

Adam loves water, and this was his reaction as he saw the Yosemite falls before we hiked to them.

Yes, he climbed all the rocks on his own, I was just there making sure he didn’t fall.

In the midst of tantrum #1 from being too tired and needing to take a nap.

This little guy posed for us for a little while.  I was wishing I had my 70-200 instead of just my 85mm f1.4 lens.

And this is why he is called the “Dirt Monster”

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

We have had a pretty busy month last April!  We’ve had a couple portrait sessions, a prom, and we’ve been busy designing some new products that we are now releasing.  For the month of May, we have a couple sporting events lined up, and we will be getting a few more products ready to be rolled out.  Also early June we’ll be having a “Mini Photo Session” on June 20, 2010.  We will have more info and signup information in the next week or two on it, but you can plan on having a free 20-30min portrait session on that day.

To start off we are going to have a a portrait sale.  This sale is for any of our family, lifestyle, senior, or individual portrait session.  We are taking $30 off our sitting fee, which brings it to $150 for the session fee.  All you need to do is mention you heard about it through our newsletter.  This is open to people who have subcsirbed to our newsletter, and also those who have had our newsletter passed onto them.  Session must be booked by June 1, 2010 to get our sale pricing.

April turned out to be our “Canvas” rollout month.  The first product we are now releasing is our Tri-Canvas Collection.  This collection contains a center piece 20x24in canvas gallery wrap.  In there is a space for a nice large portrait from a family session, engagement session, wedding, or any other photoshoot that we are able to do.  We are also able to put “The Moshers”, “Jennifer & Rob”, or any other 2-3 word phrases under the photo. To compliment this piece, we have included two 10x20in canvas prints.  Each of the 10×20 prints has space for 5 images, plus an extra space for a few sentances or anything else you’d like to put there.  The price for this collection is $980, which is about 15% less than if you were to purchase the canvas pieces individually.

We also would like to explain a little bit of our referral program that we have for both current and past customers.  For each client you refer to us that books one of our sessions, you wil receive a $20 credit for products or photo sessions done by Scott Mosher Photography.  There is no limit to the amount of credit you can add up, but please note credits do expire after 1 year, unless arrangements are made otherwise.

We also love to get feedback from you, our client.  We know there are many places that you can have your photographic needs taken care of at, and we appreciate that you have chosen us to take care of your needs.  We strive to be a company that you would be willing to refer your friends and family too, and that you would also return as a repeat customer.

Please let us know what we can do for you, and remember to tell your friends/family about us!

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

We have been busy in the past month, photographing everything from a wedding and engagement photos to a bike race, trail marathon, and some commercial jobs.  We’ve also been able to head to a seminar or two as well and have gotten some ideas for some fantastic new products that we will shortly be offering.  We are currently creating some samples of those new products

As of now we’re expanding our line of canvas prints, with adding some new sizes and wall collections involving multiple canvas prints bundled together at a price which would be cheaper than purchasing each one individually.  We also have some other really cool stuff that we’re working on involving metal

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime

Another photographer friend posted this, and I thought I’d go ahead and share it as well.  All credit for the article goes to Marianne Drenthe of Marmalade Photography.  Check out her website at the Professional Child Photographer Consumer Guide.

The digital revolution has brought amazing flexibility and ability to control various factors during the image taking and making process.  Photographers, the hobbyist, the professional, the amateur all benefit from this ability to manipulate pixels.  However, with flexibility comes a price.  Digital camera equipment is still considerably more expensive when you factor in its’ lifespan, the need for additional resources for processing those images, the time it takes to get a usable image and the effort that goes into creating a work of photographic art. We all know that you can go to the local Walgreen’s and pay a $1.99 for a print – as a client you may wonder why you may pay upwards of $50, $70, $90 for a custom photography print.   Photographers hear this statement every once in awhile:

“How in the world can you charge $60 for an 8×10 if it costs me less than $2 to print at x store?”

The truth of the matter is the answer to this question is multifaceted.  Much of the cost of a photographic print produced by a professional photographer has a lot to do with the time,  equipment costs, artistic vision and reputation of the photographer not to mention expertise and the usual costs of running a legitimate business. The cost of TIME Approaching it from a time standpoint, let’s imagine that you have hired a photographer who has work that you love.  This photographer is traveling an hour to your destination to photograph your session.  Here is an example of a time break down:

• booking time: 30 minutes to one hour (client contact time + paperwork)
• pre-session prep time (30 mins – 1 hour, includes equipment and back up equipment checks + vehicle checks)
• one hour travel time TO session
• 15-30 minutes prep time at client’s home
• 90 minutes-2 hours with client photographing subject
• one hour travel time FROM session
• 30-45 minutes uploading time from digital cards from camera to computer
• 30-45 minutes time spent backing up the original images
• 2-5 hours editing time to present you with a diverse gallery of edited images
• 1 hour prep time getting ready for ordering
• 2-3 hours time with client for ordering images
• 1 hour sorting through and checking order
• 30 minutes-1 hour prep time for delivery
• 30 minutes-1 hour getting order shipped
• any additional phone time or time needed for add on ordering, shipment issues, quality issues

In this example, the time spent per client can range from just under 13 hours to 19 hours – dependent on the photographer’s level of service.  This is time dedicated only to ONE session.  When the photographer charges $150-$300 for the photo shoot (aka SESSION FEE) you are not just paying for the two hours of session time, you are paying the photographer for 12-19 hours complete time for your session.

The COSTS of Maintaining a Custom Photography Business:

Regarding equipment costs, a good quality professional camera with a selection of good optical quality lenses and digital storage mediums and computer set up can run from $10,000-$30,000 costs dependent on the photographer.  Even though you can purchase a really good quality digital SLR for about $2100 there are still other costs related to photography.  A good lens for portrait photography can run from $900 to $2500.  A dependable computer system with software loaded for business and creative usage can run $2500 to $8000 dependent on the photographer. Then come lab costs for specialty products.  A good photographer knows their professional lab is an integral part of their success.  These labs often cost more and offer a range of products that allows the custom photographer to continually offer new, innovative products for the discerning client.

Discussion on other costs of running a photography business could take awhile so we’ll skip many of the intricate details.  An overview:  the costs of running the business, taxes, studio rental/mortgage if the photographer has ownership of a dedicated studio, vehicular costs, costs of advertising/marketing, costs of sample pieces that the photographer will likely bring to your session, etc.

This is just an excerpt from her article, please click here to read the entire article.

San Jose California Wedding Photographer - Remember this day. The moments of your wedding captured to preserve your feelings for a lifetime