To help you get on top of all of your holiday shopping, I’m offering holiday mini sessions in the Boise area.  All the details are in the flyer below, but put simply, it’s the best way to update your family portraits, get your holiday shopping over and done with, and to preview what my photo sessions are all about (aka fun and relaxed!)  You know the grandparents would LOVE a framed portrait of your kids as a gift this year!

We are offering our custom holiday cards printed on premium bamboo matte paper and your fine art prints are printed on archival quality photo paper and delivered to you ready-to-frame and beautifully mounted.  Here is the selection of 2011 Holiday Cards exclusively from my studio this year.  They are flat cards, front and back and there are 5 designs shown below…

Christmas Lights (I’ll be sending out this one from my family!)

Christmas Trees

Christmas Stripe

Modern Tree

Modern Ornament

I am so excited to be able to offer these beautiful cards to my Holiday Mini Session families. The sessions are only available on Saturday, October 15, and 22 at the above locations. They are limited to the first 20 families to book, so if you’d like to reserve your spot, please contact me via email (katie@amandakphotography.net) with the title, “Holiday Mini Sessions” as soon as possible.  To ensure that all the participating families receive holiday orders in time all orders must be made by November 10, 2011.

I can’t wait to see you then!

This week starts the new blog series that I’ve come up with for my new site…Today I’m going to talk about these new series but FIRST let’s announce the winner of the mentoring session giveaway from Friday!

I wish sooo bad that everyone could win, because as I read the emails that were sent, I was taken back to almost 5 years ago when I was looking for information, answers, help; anything I could get.  I knew before anyone entered that it was going to be a tough decision and one I couldn’t make myself.  So I handed it over to the person that I view as my mentor.  I still talk to him almost every day- in fact, just yesterday I wrote him for advice on some business issues I was struggling to make a decision on.  Ultimately Simon has become my friend, and someone I totally respect in the industry.  So who else but him, would I have trusted to make such a big decision with me for this giveaway; and be totally impartial about it?  After reviewing all the entrants stories, background and viewing their websites, Simon chose Marcie Franich of MarcieLynn Photography to be the winner!  Congratulations Marcie!!!  I’ll be in contact soon to figure out a time that will work for you to get started!  To everyone else who entered, I’m so proud of each of you and the steps you’re taking and trying to work out to further your business!  There will be something special in your inbox soon! (UGH, that was way harder than I thought it would be!)

Now on to my Monday ramblings!  Part of the new site includes some regular series that I’ll be inserting in between featured weddings and lifestyle sessions.  You can obviously see that today is Monday Musings, and I make fun of myself a little bit, because yes- I do admit it- I tend to ramble a lot. Online and in person, and I’m sure there’s more than a few people, who have started hearing “blah, blah, blah” instead of my intended message.  I’m trying hard to be more succinct, really I am…so without further ramblings, here are the series that will be making an appearance around here in the near future:

They won’t be happening every week, but I hope that they’ll be able to bring some fun and informational topics to my little corner of the internet.  They’re pretty self explanatory, but here’s a little synopsis of each…

Monday Musings: Obviously my ramblings on random stuff

FAQ: I’ll be answering any questions I get via email, on my Facebook page or even in person that I think can help people out (clients or photographers)

Before & After: Periodically I’ll be featuring a photo straight out of my camera and the process I go through to my end vision and result.  This sometimes helps people see that work really does go into those images you see in your albums, books, prints on the wall or fine art.

Behind The Photo:  This is going to be one of my favorite series.  I haven’t seen it done out there yet and I’m excited to talk about the stories behind my photos.  I’ll choose a photo and talk about my thought process behind the pose, location, shooting and editing.

Feature Friday:  I’m going to be using this fun platform to feature a lot of different things.  Products  I love, Photographers I think you should know about, Vendors and Venues I think are awesome, Products I carry, and the list goes on….

I’m really excited about these series, so if you think you’d be interested in reading, remember to subscribe to my blog in your blog reader for updates or stay tuned to Twitter and Facebook, as I have it set up to notify on there too.

Lastly I want to leave you with a random quote that entered my life yesterday.  I wrote it down and now have it posted by my desk.  We all have periods of time where we feel overwhelmed, maybe a little manic and like we don’t know where to start to move forward.  In the past few months I’ve felt that way.  I’ve thought to myself, “who was the crazy lady who decided to move in the middle of wedding season, start  TWO new projects with CRAVE (Boise and CRAVE Spa), still shoot weddings and totally rebrand?”  I’ve learned to breathe and to take it one day at a time.  Lists have become my new best friend.  I have to put blinders on and focus on one thing at a time.  This is what was said yesterday.

“Am I committing my time & energies to the things that matter most?”

Really just a simple phrase, but something that caused me to reflect and think a little more deeply about my life and my business.  I hope we can all think about things in our personal lives or business and use that quote to re energize and re focus.  I know that as the year winds down for me and I reflect on what I want my life and business to look like in 2012, I’m going to keep this in mind.  Have a great Monday friends!

Can you believe it’s Friday already?  Today is my last and final giveaway to celebrate the first week of my new blogsite launch.  I’m giving away a mentoring session through my studio valued at $675!  I thought long and hard before restructuring my mentoring sessions.  I thought about something I would have loved to have when I was just starting my business and I thought about something that I thought was lacking in the industry today.  Most mentoring sessions I see, range from a couple of hours at lunch or meeting to one day with the photographer promising to be an open book.  I don’t know about you, but fitting in a whole lot of mentoring information into 1 day seemed kind of impossible.  It didn’t leave much room for questions, clarification, implementing ideas and then the whole process of questions again.

My mentoring session lasts 3 weeks.  In that 3 weeks, we communicate either in person or via online outlets like Skype.  We will go over EVERYTHING that has worked for me in my business and work out an action plan for you to start working on and implementing immediately.  This includes contracts, pricing, client interaction, business set up, workflow practices, time management, etc.  Most people I talk to, feel like they’re struggling in business because they just don’t know where to start or what resources to take advantage of.  We’ll also be staying in touch after the 3 week session so that you feel like you have someone you can bounce things off of or just to check in to make sure you’re still on track.  Read below on how you can win this…

So here’s what you need to do to win this….READ CAREFULLY AND FOLLOW DIRECTIONS so you can make sure you can be considered!

1.  Tweet:    ”I want to win a mentorship session with @amandakphoto, you can enter here http://bit.ly/oH0F87″

2. Comment below that you have tweeted and why you want this mentorship

3.  YOU MUST email me with the following information: website/blog address, or Facebook business page where you communicate with your clients so that I know you are actually in business, how long you’ve been in business, what you shoot, and your #1 thing you think you need help with as well as any other information you think I need to know.

All 3 of these things must be done in order to be eligible to win.  I’m going to have MY mentor select the winner (no names will be given, just stories), so give me your best story on why you need this mentorship.  You have until Sunday night to enter and I’ll announce the winner on Monday morning bright and early!  Good luck!

Can you believe there’s only 2 more days of giveaways?  Today’s giveaway is one I’m super excited about!  I’ve been using Totally Rad Actions since I started my business.  I was just drawn to them because of the ease to customize.  I can control how the actions affect my image and mix actions to create the affect I want on an image.  Well, this past summer Doug Boutwell outid himself again!  I was lucky enough to beta test his new creation “Rad Lab”…….I know a lot of other people have said this already and I’ll have a complete review of Rad Lab up here soon, but quite simply- photographers are VISUAL people.  We like to visualize and see things.  Rad Lab does that for us!  It’s a script for photoshop, you bring the image into Rad lab and can see, immediately how the image is going to look.  You can adjust different things with sliders, and then save your “recipe” as a favorite for next time.  When you’re done, it makes your adjustments as a nice little layer mask, that you can tweak and use other actions like Pro Retouch, or whatever else you need to do.  Here’s a screen shot of a recent photo session I was working on.  You can view your before and after and to the far right is your sliders to work with.  My favorite affect is Divine Light

SO!  I want to share this with someone else today!  Here’s the details:

1.  Tweet (the entire tweet below including the “please RT):

Please RT to win: I want to win @gettotallyrad RadLab from @amandakphoto enter here http://bit.ly/mTjNTw

That’s ALL you have to do ……….if you don’t have a Twitter account, why not?  Sign up and start tweeting to win!

Continuing with our weeklong celebration of the new blogsite launch, today I’m giving away a free Lifestyle Session with 25 holiday cards and a complimentary 11×14 photo!  The holidays are coming very soon and we all need that fun photo to put in our cards!  My studio will be offering mini sessions later this fall, but we also have custom cards to choose from!  I only offer these during the holidays, so be sure to enter so you can get your full session and custom cards for free!  My Lifestyle sessions are fun and relaxed and capture your family interacting and doing something you love!

So here’s details on how you can enter and more info:

1.  This is open to anyone, but you have to be willing to travel to Boise if you enter and win the session.

2.  The winner will receive one full Lifestyle Session, 25 custom holiday cards and a complimentary 11×14, as well as a free design consultation to learn more about showcasing YOUR family’s art in your home! (valued at $415)

3.  The session must be scheduled and completed before November 24 so that you can receive your holiday cards in time (sorry!  I take December to January off to be with family and enjoy the holidays!)

4.  FINALLY…..to enter, please leave a comment below on WHY you need this family session!  I will only consider entries that leave a comment here.  Then I will randomly select a comment through random.org for the winner and we’ll announce it tomorrow!  So get to posting and have a great Wednesday!!!

I went to Twitter and there were 12 out of the 21 comments on the blog who retweeted…..then used Random.org to generate a random number between 1 and the 12.  As you can see above 6 was the lucky number and @gwinnclan won!  Congratulations!  Send me your info and your pack will go out on Friday!

So just a little overview of the rest of the weeks giveaways.

Tuesday:  Today I’ll be giving away 2 trial memberships to one of my favorite professional photo forums online

Wednesday: A family session here in the Boise area

Thursday:  A copy of Totally Rad Actions new Rad Lab!!!! (or one of their other products if you’d prefer, but seriously friends, Rad Lab is, well…..rad!

Friday: I’ll be giving away 1 mentoring session with me

So stay tuned here if you’d like to win any of these prizes!

Today is the giveaway for IPPN (International Photographers Network).  I’ve known Simon for a while now.  I met him on a forum in the first few months of my business and over the years he’s become a great friend of mine.  His network, is much more than a “forum”.  It’s a great network of professional and aspiring professional photographers from around the world.  It’s a small and growing group and I’d love to share that with any of you.

So all you have to do today is leave me a comment on why you think you need a professional group like this in your business.  You’ll get a 3 month trial to come in, get to know some people and get some awesome support for your business!  Because it’s a closed community and by invite only, people are comfortable sharing with each other to build our businesses up.  I hope to see you inside!

I could go on and on gushing about the people that helped me get here today, but I won’t.  I just want to publicly thank Lanne, Alyson, Simon, David and Gary for your invaluable feedback, suggestions, opinions and the time you took to give it all to me.  I value each of you as friends and thank you so much!  I also wouldn’t have been able to have them help me if it wasn’t for The B School, IPPN, and yes even Facebook.

There’s going to be lots of exciting things happening in the coming months!  I have some brand new blog features I’ll be implementing and yes even some video blogging will be happening…EEEK!  I can’ wait to share!  Feel free to look around and explore.  I’m celebrating this entire week with giveaways!  Today I’ll be giving away a set of four Shootsac covers.

I’ve had my Shootsac since I started my business almost 5 years ago.  It’s my go to bag for weddings and I don’t think I could live without it.  It fits perfectly into my style of shooting.  I don’t like to carry a lot of gear around, I like to quickly be able to switch lenses in and out and shoot what I love!  These are my all time favorite covers and I want to share them with you!  Listed below is what you need to do to win all 4 of these covers…..I’ll be announcing the winner Tuesday morning at 8am MST.  Follow the directions below to enter:

1.  Leave a comment on this blog post about what you like most about my new site and why you need these Shootsac Covers

2.  Please follow me on Twitter if you don’t already and Tweet this (just copy and paste the ENTIRE line below):

Please RT: @amandakphoto just launched her new blogsite and I want to win some @Shootsac covers! Enter here to win http://bit.ly/qeu8Zi

That’s ALL you have to do!  Remember to leave a comment AND tweet  Have a great day!!!!

Have you wondered about me?  I’ve been away for quite a while but I’m back and I have something very exciting to share!

Amanda K. Photography is thrilled to introduce our new Lifestyle Sessions!  These are the perfect session to capture your family life- how you are living it.  Do you always hang out on Saturday mornings watching cartoons and making pnacakes?  Do you love to go hiking on the weekends?  Do you picnic and fly kites on the beach or bake on Sunday afternoons?  These sessions document a couple of hours in your life and show your unique way of spending time together as a family.  These are the images you will remember and treasure forever.

I am looking for four families to work with, to showcase these types of sessions.  Does your family know how to enjoy each others company and have fun?  I want to hear from you!  The chosen families will have a free Lifestyle Session by Amanda K, to be held by the end of April, a $500 print credit towards a wall collection grouping, and a special new product I’ll be offering this year that will be a surprise!  I’m looking for families of all types, that preferably have at least one child older than 3 years old, and some with teenagers.

I’m looking for families who are willing to show me how you have fun and what you like to do.  All family’s chosen will need to sign a model release for images to be used on my blog, website and in marketing materials.  Is this you?  Your friends’s family?  Here’s how you can get a chance to participate:

1.  Send  an email to katie@amandakphotography.net  with a description of your family (names, ages and what you do to have fun).  Please include your zip code and a description of your favorite way to bond as a family that you would like documented, along with a contact phone number. (REMEMBER- think of something that is unique to your family!)

2.  Go to the Amanda K. Facebook page, like us, and leave a comment below the Lifestyle Casting Call announcement there.

What are you waiting for?  Submissions will be accepted until March 7, 2011.

December Studio Schedule

December 1 All 2010 Galleries are open with Holiday Pricing at 12pm PST thru December 18

***Get those last minute prints for the holidays at 20% off using the code MERRY at checkout.***

December 15 Studio will be closed until Monday, January 24

I’ll be enjoying December with my family and then traveling to London for SWPP at the beginning of the year.  If you’d like to schedule a session I’m accepting bookings now for late January.

2011 Pricing Update

Pricing for 2011 has been kept the same for the most part.  My studio is committed to providing the best service and  quality custom products to my clients.  Coverage prices have remained the same for 2011 with the exception of Elopements and Non Traditional Wedding coverage, including LDS Wedding Coverage.  This coverage will be $1,200 for up to 3 hours of coverage effective January 1, 2011.

Digital Files are now $85/file to cover file preparation and packaging.

We have also added some digital collections for clients who may want more than one digital file, but not the entire CD of images.  Options will be listed in your price sheet once a session is booked.

In 2011 Amanda K. Photography will be offering simple wall collections for clients who would like inspiration on how to display images in their homes.  These collections have over 30 options to display your images with sizes, layouts and one simple price.  Again this will be included in your new client booking packet once you’ve booked your session or coverage, and also discussed in the pre session consultation.  Remember, design consultations in your home, are always complimentary and included with your session fee.

If you have any questions about pricing or coverage please don’t hesitate to contact me.

So that’s about it.  I hope that you and your friends and family have a great holiday season and that you take time to think about what is really important to you.  Although this time of year is fun and exciting, I always like to reflect on what’s most important in my life, and that’s my family and relationships I have with my friends and loved ones- take time out to enjoy yours.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

All photo galleries will be open for holiday pricing starting December 1!

1.  Peace

2.  Merry & Bright

3.  Oh What Fun

4.  Magical

5.  Holiday Cover

6.  Joyful