Captiva Island, FL

Hello all. We are working to serve you better by attending a weeklong photography workshop in beautiful Captiva Island, FL. During our week there we will be training to better perfect our skills and techniques.

Because of this, our studio will be closed from 9/20/08 until 9/29/08.

When we return, we will be starting our Fall promotion. October is national Family Portrait Month and we will be offering reduced portrait session fees and percent-off our portrait packages.

Don’t Miss Our Special “Family Portrait Month” Promotion!

This October we will participate with an elite group of photographers around the country in a very special family portrait promotion. Throughout October we will celebrate “Family Portrait Month,” a wonderful opportunity for you update your family portrait (or portraits of your children), and at the same time help to support Operation Smile, which treats children around the world who suffer with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Along with other studio members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), we have pledged to contribute up to 50% of our Portrait Session Fees to PPA Charities, which has chosen Operation Smile as its charitable partner.

What’s more, we want you to benefit from this special offer:
Receive 10% off any portrait package of your choice.

Recording the faces of children and their families is our greatest pleasure. That’s why we believe so strongly in the work of Operation Smile. Each year this incredible organization of more than 5,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and specialized health-care professionals, perform free reconstructive surgeries for children suffering with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities. It costs only $240 to perform a life-changing cleft lip operation. More than 100,000 children are born with a facial deformity each year in Operation Smile’s 25 partner countries.

We also believe that Family Portrait Month is a wonderful way to teach children the value of reaching out to others. Even small children can understand the importance of Operation Smile’s work, and they are eager to help these needy children.

We hope you will join with us in helping to make this vital work possible. Don’t forget that the holiday season is right around the corner, so there’s no better time for a family portrait, which is always appreciated as gifts for family and friends and to send along with holiday greeting cards.

With Warm Wishes,
Ed Diaz

See you soon!

One For The Ladies

This is Dean.

Dean was kind enough to volunteer for our photographer's workshop last month. He had never modeled before, but you would never know it by the easiness in which he was able to pose, give just the right amount of eye-contact and engage the viewer of the photos.

Once again the Triple A's (see previous post) and I got together for a day of fun and learning and it went very well. We were able to photograph Dean in a variety of poses, outfits and locations.

I really had a great time being able to work with Alice, Abby and Andreia. I already can't wait until the next workshop!

Dean was a blast and we laughed and had fun with him all day. For those of you who did not see it, I posted Dean's gallery on my website and just to add even more fun to the whole photo shoot, I used an old song by a group called Right Said Fred. You may recall the song...I'm Too Sexy.? This plays in the background while you view Dean's gallery.

People can't stop talking about how funny it is. The images are all great and yet it seems like I shot them with that song in mind. (I really didn't). I thought of the song afterwards.

If you are interested in seeing the rest of the photos, go to my site and in the PROOFING GALLERY, type in the password: Dean. (case-sensitive). Then post your comments back here on the blog. I'd love to hear them. The gallery will only be there for a limited time, so don't delay.

Dean, thanks so much for being such a good sport. I got some really great images thanks to your willingness to follow my directions and suggestions. You might want to consider a career change. I think you are excellent Model material. You are a real gentleman, self confident and you have an awesome sense of humor...all great qualities. I hope you enjoy all the photos.

Beauty Discovered.

Model for a Day

In what I refer to as the "off-season", (when I'm not photographing weddings and such), in order to keep my skills honed I still like to photograph people on location.

My friends and fellow photographers, Abby, Alice & Andreia got together and held a self-help Workshop so we could teach and learn from each other.

Even though each of us have our own photography business, there is still camaraderie among us and we are able to help each other strengthen our weak points in the field of photography. I love this concept and this workshop proved that it can be very effective.

For this particular workshop, we took the lovely Daniela on location for some Commercial & Fashion Photography practice.

She was GREAT! A real natural! For someone who hadn't had modeling experience before, she was very good at following our direction as each of us took turns in posing her and creating our own unique images of her. Even when all 4 of us were shooting at the same time, she didn't buckle (although we probably were acting like paparazzi to her.)

She was a good sport too because it was pretty cold that day and we had her outside without a jacket. She endured the cold weather and didn't complain once!

This was our first attempt at getting together for this Workshop and we will be getting together again soon to provide each other with constructive criticism on our images.

What a great opportunity I have in being able to network with other photographers in my local area who also happen to be my competition. :-)

It's really nice to be able to forget the business aspect of the art we love and just for a day, get together and have some fun.

We agreed to do this once each month from now until November and we're currently looking for volunteers who would like to be our Models (in exchange for a few free prints from our session.)

If you'd like to volunteer (space is limited) drop me a line or an e-mail and perhaps we can fit you in for your very own session (15 minutes of Fame).

I had such a great time and I really want to thank Daniela for being so great. I know she was not used to some of the unique and interesting poses we experimented with and put her in. (many of which are in the other images we captured that day.)

Alice, Abby, & Andreia (I think I might start calling you the "Triple A's"), thanks so much! I had a great time!

Daniela, you are a lovely young woman and if you'd like to return for another session, you'll be more than welcomed by us all.

Thank you all & enjoy the images!

Beauty Discovered.