Beautiful Life

I am so excited about the new song on my website!! Those of you who have a tv might recognize it already...I understand that it's currently being used in a Toyota commercial and on the show Jon & Kate Plus 8. However, I just heard it online for the first time yesterday, and I immediately fell in love with it, and thought it would be the perfect song for my website. So I emailed the band, giving them the link to my site, and asking them how I could get the rights to play the song. I figured I'd have to pay royalties or a licensing fee or something, and that it would probably be totally out of my league, but I thought it was worth a try anyhow.

Within half an hour, I had an answer:

Chandra,

Your work is great. Feel free 2 use the song.
Please wait until after the 30th if you have any questions. I'm out of the country until then.

Ron Wasserman
Fisher Music, Inc.

How sweet is that?!!

So take a stroll over to my site to listen to the new song and peruse my updated galleries. And before you go, take a quick look at the lyrics, and you'll see how well they fit my site:

Hey child- up & go...
A big world is out there
Waiting for us to
Live in every day

Outside you will find
There is love all around you
Takes you- makes you wanna say

That it's a beautiful life
And it's a beautiful world
And it's a beautiful time
To be here- to be here- to be here

Yeah, the sky's blue-
Just us two
Side by side
We'll see the world
That surrounds us
Hey- seize the day
Each road- every mile's
A photograph in motion to astound us-
Carry us away

Into a beautiful life
'Cause it's a beautiful world
And it's a beautiful time
To be here- to be here

Leave all your cares behind you
The sun is rising- turn around
It's right in front of you
And it's a beautiful life-
It's a beautiful life

A busy life

This little family has been blessed with a very busy life...with 2.5 year old twins, and a 1.5 year old little girl, you can bet mom and dad are kept hopping!

New Collections

Over the last several weeks, I've been hard at work determining my new pricing structure, and building collections. I used to charge a session fee up front, then prints and boutique items were ordered a la carte in addition to the session fee. Digital files were only available as a complete set for $500.

Since I had a lot of requests for individual digital files, I decided to rework my pricing structure, so that I could offer collections that include both prints and digital files. I analyzed the orders I received over the last year, determined which sizes were the most popular, and calculated the average number of prints that were ordered in each size. Then I added in some digital files and a few boutique goodies, deducted anywhere from 15% to 40% off of the full retail value of the package components, and voila, my new packages were born! I am still offering straight forward a la carte ordering as well, if a client prefers not to purchase a full collection, but have set a $200 minimum print order in place, to cover my time and expenses for each session.

You can download the PDF file of my collection prices here, then go to my Facebook fan page (link under the blog header) to read about a special limited offer with these new prices!

Product Photography

Recently I did some product photography for a client who sells baby products. Her company is called For Baby With Love...why don't you check it out?!

Logo Fun

I have a big event coming up in the next month, and I need a good logo for print advertising. So I just made myself a new logo, and I'd love your input on it. The tree image (which I purchased, BTW, with permission for royalty-free use in marketing and such), is based on the meaning of Vanderboom, which is "from the tree". I really couldn't think of anything else that would symbolize me. :o)

Here's the print logo:

And here it is in action, watermarking a photo:

Another precious bundle

Remember this glowing mom from our Valentine's session? Well, she brought her family over for baby Paige's first session in front of the lens, and, well...I just have so many favorites that I could hardly choose which ones to blog!! In the end I couldn't possibly show you any less than these seven absolute top favorites:

One tough little man

Little Maxwell, at about 9 weeks old, still weighs less than my smallest child did at birth!! Now of course, all my babies are pretty big, but this little man started out a bit behind...that's what happens when you are born 7 1/2 weeks early! Colleen had called me back in the fall to book me for a spring maternity session, but that never took place, because Maxwell decided he wanted to come and meet his family earlier than planned. He finally came home from hospital about 10 days ago, and today was his big photo shoot. It took us 3 1/2 hours from start to finish, because this little guy was having so much fun that he didn't want to fall asleep and miss out on anything, but we stuck with it, and got some winners!

Granny is visiting from Winnipeg, and got to have some pictures done with big sister:

The whole family: