HELP! The great name change debate.
Posted on May 19, 2009
So I have decided I am going to change the name of my business. Do me a favor and you’ll see why. Go google “bella photography”. See that? 8 bizmillion. Do me another favor. Type out www.bellaphotographystudio.com. It’s like a paragraph. The thing is, I’m also moving soon. So, I’m not going to change the name officially until we move. That way, I’m not changing the name and then changing the address later on. It’s just one big change. I’m slightly nervous about it just because it’s going to be hard to establish myself all over again, but my business is only 4 years old. It can be done.
Now here’s the thing. I know I want to include both of my girls in the name. But I can’t decide which name to pick. So yes, I’m going to do one more poll. I like the look of them both on the logo. I like the sound of them both. If I choose bellalily, Bella is still in the front. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. People already associate me with bella, so the transition might be easier. Bella comes before Lily in the alphabet- which is good when people are searching for a photographer. The bad part is I’m running into the problem of not being unique again with bella. Now, if I choose lilybelle, the name sounds a less redundant. I can actually get more domain names with combinations of lilybelle. But it’s putting Lily’s name first and Ava’s middle name second. I don’t know if that really means anything, and now that I wrote that, it does sound kind of silly to worry about.
So, I’d love some input. Vote on your choice to the poll to the left and feel free to comment and let me know why you chose the one you did. Thanks for your help!
Here are the two contestants:
Brainstorming change
Posted on May 14, 2009
I went to a meeting yesterday with my regional product manager for Collages.net and it got me thinking. She complimented me and told me I’m headed in the right direction with my business. I feel I’m doing pretty well for myself. Especially when you see what I’m up against. A lot of these professional photographers have thousands of dollars invested in education. They have investers and top of the line equipment. I go on amazon and drool at my wish list. I’ll get there, eventually.
So I’ve been looking around on other photography websites, and blogs and I’ve been thinking about a little bit of change. I love change. It makes me feel fresh and new and I usually feel so good about it. So, now I’m thinking about a new blog. One with my own domain. I’m thinking about a new logo. And I’m thinking about a whole new name.
I know.
Here’s the thing. Bella Photography Studio is SUPER long. It’s also over used. There are hundreds of variations of that name. Not to mention, one major company that I am often confused with is horrible. I’ve heard so many bad things about them and I’ve actually gotten a bad review on THEIR service on MY ad page on weddingwire.com. Not cool. Plus, I used the name Bella because Isabella is Ava’s middle name. I have two girls now. I need to incorporate Lily in there. (and no…I’m not having any more kids lol!) So after some brainstorming and some logo designing with some help from Todd and my sister Jessica, I’ve come up with a couple ideas for my company’s new name. What do you think? Vote on the poll to the left! And if you have any other ideas for me, shout ‘em out!
ETA: If you like Lilybelle, just post it in a comment. I can’t change the poll after someone has voted. Thanks!
Saving for a rainy day…
Posted on May 12, 2009
Can I just tell you I’m super excited about Ava’s 4 year pictures?
Bluebells!
Posted on May 7, 2009
The girls and I took a drive out to my sister, Cheryl’s yesterday for the sole purpose of hiking through someone’s backyard to see some bluebells. I was told that they would only be there for a week, so I decided to jump at the chance. I was so glad I did! First of all, I was picturing a field of blue flowers. What I got was this couple’s 12 acre backyard complete with woods, creek and the ground covered in blue. It was gorgeous. It reminded me a little of the woods that used to be next to my mom’s house, our family home before it was replaced by two cookie cutter homes. Every spring the ground was covered in these little white flowers. Now they cover my mom’s property for about a week or so in the spring. This is Ava among them when she was about 9 months old
So, I got a bunch of pics of the bluebells, of course, and Ava among them. Violet too, Cheryl’s dog. I couldn’t figure out how to get Lily in there without laying the poor thing on the ground. I can just hear Todd now, “Lily lay there like a slug. It was her only defense.” (Name the movie) So she was excluded. I couldn’t just pick a few of the pics, so I made a little slideshow. (Oh, by the way…big surprise…I heart Picasa in all its wonderful Googleness. I made this little slideshow, set to music in about 5 minutes. And it was as simple as boiling water. I’m not going to talk about all those DVD’s for brides that I made with Adobe programs and how complicated they were to make and how long they took. I won’t even mention them. I’m not bitter at all.)
Making a beautiful photograph even better
Posted on January 17, 2009
Taking pictures of 18 month old girls is hard
Posted on December 6, 2006
If that isn’t the most obvious statement, I don’t know what is. Then again, Ava is pretty good about it. But, try taking a family picture on a timer with no tripod and an 18 month old girl in the picture. Now THAT’S hard! I’d like to say I was succesful, and technically I was. But, I didn’t like ME in the picture! Figures, right? No, I’ve gained so much weight since Ava and the angle I took the picture at, my hip pretty much took up a third of the picture. Can’t have that. So, I’ll have to try again later. Hopefully Ava is as cooperative. She was running around, but she liked to sit down on the backdrop and peek in the gift prop I gave her. Which is exactly what I wanted her to do. She even went up to the camera a few times and said “CHEEEEEESE!” Ok, so who taught her that?!? I know I didn’t! Maybe it was Todd, but it sure wasn’t me! It’s cute as all getup but as a photographer, cheeeeese = completely fake smile. Lol, anyway, it’s still funny when she does it. Well, we’ll see if we get this picture out this year. Maybe I’ll have to steal a photographer friend. Wish me luck!
Abbey Road
Posted on November 25, 2006
Taking Punches
Posted on October 23, 2006
I put my heart and soul into my work. I spend upwards of 10 hours on my feet at a wedding, shooting sometimes 1200 pictures. Then on top of that, I spend around 20-40 hours on the computer going through each and every picture. That is where I work the hardest. I color correct every picture. Sometimes I crop pictures, or zoom in. If I love something colorful in a picture, often I will take out all of the other colors except for the focal point. That tends to be a favorite trick among my customers. There are some things that I do that the customer will never notice. People often blink in pictures, or children will act up, or the bride’s dress may be dirty. I’ve taken pictures where people are blinking, and taken another shot where they weren’t blinking, and replaced just their eyes with the good shot. I’ve taken beautiful smiling children out of a shot where not everyone looks good, and merged them into a shot where they were having a tantrum but everyone else looks perfect. I’ve digitally cleaned dresses and suits, taken out blemishes and double chins. Sometimes it makes me a little sad to know that they will never see what I do to make a shot perfect. But it makes me so excited to know that’s the point. When I receive the bride and groom’s prints in the mail, I take each one and insert them (wearing gloves of course) into clear plastic sleeves so dirty grubby hands will keep off their prints. I spend hours on their DVD, matching the titles with the colors of their wedding, organizing their pictures into categories and bringing life to the pictures with music. The CD’s and DVD’s and their cases are personalized to each bride and groom. If they order an album, I spend hours tediously arranging their pictures into pages that they will treasure for generations. I do all of it myself. Other than printing up the photos, I do everything. Compared to most other photographers out there, my prices are beyond reasonable. Especially for the amount of things the bride and groom receive. But, that’s because I was there. I wanted a good photographer for my wedding, but what I wanted costed upwards of $5000. It was ridiculous. The wedding photography business is full of bureaucracy and I want no part of that. I’m happy where my business is and I don’t plan on making a fortune with it. I’m just a stay at home mom with a pretty good side gig. And I love it. It’s hard and tedious sometimes, but I love it. I have gotten so many praises and so much gratitude, it humbles me. So, when a bride tells me that “These are the worst pictures I have ever seen in my life….Thank you for ruining my special day with these horrible pictures!” It’s a bit of a slap in the face. I realize I’m not an expert in my field. Far from it, I’ve only been officially doing this for a little over a year. But to tell me that my life’s work and something I’ve poured my heart and soul into is horrible is simply dumbfounding for me. This happened to me today. I cried my eyes out to my husband, to my best friend and to my mother. I looked through the pictures and I found most of them to be beautiful. I had a problem with the lighting in the church however. I’m not that great with bad lighting situations. I don’t have the thousands of dollars it would take me to be great at it. I wish I did. But, because I’m not trying to make a fortune doing this, I have to do the best with what I have. But possibly the worst thing a bride could say to me was that I ruined her wedding day. She can never get that day back and neither can I. I will never be able to do enough to make that better for her. On one hand I want to be angry because the pictures she is talking about are just a handful. The rest are wonderful. But, on the other hand, I’m hurt and embarrassed and I feel like a failure because those handful of pictures are of the most important moments of the day. I’ve never taken rejection well. Ever since I was in grade school, Jr high, and high school, rejection has been such an overwhelming shadow in my life that it has made me who I am. I try so hard to please people, I can never say no, and I can be a pushover sometimes. Sometimes I wonder why I chose this to be my calling. I can take the pictures, but I feel like I can’t take the rejection. The chance of failure is so great. What if I lose someone’s pictures? What if my camera fails in the middle of the ceremony? What if something happens to me or my daughter or my husband while a wedding is taking place? What if the pictures don’t turn out? These questions are always running around in my mind. It’s a source of stress that gives me a constant headache day in and day out. But I think the reason I chose this, most likely subconsciously, is because of the challenge. I could have a cushy job, but I wouldn’t be making a difference in anyone’s life. I would never be remembered. I’ll never cure cancer, or win a Nobel prize, or climb Mount Everest. But when people look at the pictures of the most important day in their life, they will remember me. And hopefully they will be thinking good thoughts. But, when you work so hard and someone tells you that what you did for them is crap, I can’t tell you how it hurts. I explained it to my best friend like this: My work is my baby. Other than my daughter, it’s my baby. If someone was to tell me that I was a horrible mother, when I have worked so hard to be a good mother to Ava, it’s like stabbing you in the heart. It sucks. And that’s the thing, not everyone knows that the logo of my company is Ava. It was the first professional picture I took of her. When I took that picture, everyone told me I was meant to do this. So, I took that picture, and I named the company after her, Ava Isabella. It’s all for her. So when someone tells me I failed, I feel like I failed her. I know she is too young to understand, but in my heart I feel like I’ve let her down. And while for a few hours today I seriously considered throwing in the towel, I won’t do it. Because it IS all for her. And if I stop, I will let her down. If I let one person’s negative view of my work (in contrast to everyone else’s positive view) close the proverbial doors, then I have failed her. So, I’ll take the punches. Now, let me brush that dirt off my shoulder. And if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.
Plant Hijacker!
Posted on September 18, 2006
So I’m not a green thumb. My mother-in-law gave me some herb plants and this pepper plant and I’ve been doing pretty good with them, but I started to notice my pepper plant was not doing so good in the last couple days. Little did I know it was cuz of this guy! I walked out into my kitchen this morning and saw my plant “moving” out of the corner of my eye! Of course I freaked for a second…because how many plants move? Then I look close and there is this BIG caterpillar! I’ve never seen one like this. I don’t know when the heck he came into my kitchen or if he’s been there since my mother-in-law gave the plant to me a couple weeks ago, or what. I’ve been watering them everyday too, so you would think I’d notice, but he is the same color as the leaves. Or what’s left of the leaves. Either way, I thought he was pretty, so I took a few shots of him before I evicted him. I looked him up and he’s a Tomato Hornworm. See the little “horn on his back end? It’s not a stinger, as I thought when I first saw it. I guess their pretty hamless. He didn’t seem hamless when I was trying to get him off the plant. Little guy hung on for dear life and kept “snapping” at the spatula I was using to pry him off! LOL! I guess they like tomato and pepper plants. It’s just weird to me that he’s been a stow-away in my kitchen for like 3 weeks! Oh well, no harm, no foul right? Unless you’re a pepper plant…
