New Zealand : Day 1

I'm back in New Zealand! I studied abroad at Canterbury University for one year in 2004, and have been wanting to come back ever since.

A brief note : in 2004 I had a interest in photographing signs that were phrased differently or in a funny way. I hope to be able to share some new signs.

My journey started on 29 December at SFO. I flew 13 hours to Auckland, and then another hour to Christchurch (the city that was my home for 10 months). Needless to say, I was slightly delirious which resulted in a few odd photos. My dad arrived in the afternoon (he comes down here at least once a year for work). After dinner we went to the huge botanical gardens which is in the middle of the city. I have discovered my new favorite flower : the Dahlia

My new favorite flower

Why is there a sheep on top of my head?

Red Bull is sold in bottles?!?!

The best white chocolate ever!

Awesome sign.

2009 Calendar

I have 11 2009 calendars left! Don't wait too long or you may miss out on the limited edition calendars. Here is the cover, the info page, and January thru March. Visit www.tameerenae.com/calendar for more info, more images, and a way to pay.

what i've been up to

It amazes me how fast a year goes by. I remember when a week used to take forever back in elementary school! I've been busy, doing a wide variety of things. I've been working full-time for a wedding photographer, working part-time for another photographer, designing wedding albums for yet another photographer, and second shooting on weddings with several photographers. Oh, yeah...and doing my own work! Below are a couple highlights of the last few months.

mariah

my family has been raising guide dog puppies since 1994. mariah is the 10th dog my family has raised. i took this photograph at my mom's office the week before mariah went back to guide dogs for the blind for her formal training.

another tree

Here are a few more images I created yesterday. This will definitely be a new personal project!

davis

I arrived in Davis about 30 minutes before sunset. The clouds were interesting and thought it might make for a pretty sunset. This shot was taken after the sun went over the coastal mountains, just a block from my house.

alcatraz

I went to Alcatraz this past week. I have been wanting to go to the island since I moved back to Northern California...it has been 14 years since I went last. It is so amazing. I would really love to go back on the first ferry of the day and explore the island. Here are a few photographs I created.

daffodil

Last night on my way home from work I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a small bunch of daffodils. I know everyone does it, but I felt like photographing flowers.

This was a definetly a McGiver setup. For my light source I took a small desk lamp and set it up on some boxes. My backdrop were two navy blue towels draped over my full-length mirror and the the wood frame the mirror used to be in--but it fell apart--which were leaning against the wall. I then had two sets of boxes pilled up, one blocking the light from my backdrop and the other set blocking the light from flaring my lens. And don't forget the vase that was sitting on a cardboard box. It was awesome.

For this shot, I had just moved my tripod or the flower, and was in the process of refocusing. I really liked the out-of-focus colorful shapes.

It's funny how I often go into a shoot with a particular idea of what I want but my favorite shot ends up being something completely different.

new logo

I've been designing a new logo to brand my company for the past few weeks. It's a lot more difficult to design a logo that one would expect. But I have finally settled on one! Here it is

why are professional photographers so expensive?

Here's an interesting article originally posted at Caught on Film. It gives a little insight to the amount of work that goes into producing "professional results." The author says...

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home "photo printers", when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time - How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8x10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here's why.

Simply put, you're not just paying for the actual photograph, you're paying for time and expertise. First, let's look at the actual time involved. If you don't read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:
- one hour of travel to and from the session
- two hours of shooting
- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.
- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 - 4 Gb of data)
- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive
- 3 - 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs
- 2 - 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.
- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.
You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:
- I won't bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.

Now for the expertise...

You can read the rest of the article here.

wedding promo

I've completed my wedding promotional piece. Now it's off to the presses! It's a 5 x 5 tri-fold

The front
Open the front flap,
Open the right flap,
Close all the flaps and turn it over,