New Beginnings 2009: What’s Up for the New Year…

Hope you all had a great Christmas and having a fabulous  2009. We certainly did and are.

We want to begin by thanking all our Brides & Grooms, all our portrait clients, past, present and future, for trusting in us to document your wedding or do your portraits. We truly appreciate your business and friendship. 

As the 2008 wedding season drew to an end, my wife and I spent some time discussing and evaluating where we have been as a business and where we want to go in 2009 and beyond. As many of you know, our faith is very important to us. We try to abide each day by what we believe.  As Christians, we want that our personal and business conduct reflect what we believe.

That is why we see what we do more than just a business. We want to bless each one of you and truly serve you. We want to go the extra mile in making sure you always get the best of us. For example, we do pray and ask God that He blesses each one of the couples that contact us. We also want you all to see us not just as vendor but as friends. We truly want to touch your lives in a positive way that goes beyond of just providing a good service or excellent images. That is what we want to be remember for, our legacy.

It blesses us when, years after the wedding, when we receive an email or a note in the mail, with a picture of a new baby. That tells us that for those couples we were more than just a vendor. That is just awesome!

Yes, we strive in each wedding for photographic excellence and we spend countless hours in the computer refining our images, not just to be called great artists, but to because we owe that to you. That is our commitment to you and to our God: to always give our best! 

2008

During 2008 we were able to develop some new unique lighting techniques and image vision that has allowed us to create some very unique and exciting images that we are very proud of. And we continue to work on our artistic style.

We also added a new website called Paradigma Digital aimed at Spanish Speaking Photographers of all photographic persuasions. Through Paradigma Digital we are providing Industry news, product reviews, photography tutorials and share what other photographers are doing. We have partnered we some good companies that are supporting our effort and we expect to see more in 2009. Companies like Kubota Imaging Tools, OnOne Software, ShootQ and Showit Sites. Companies that share the same vision: Service through Excellence. This companies provide innovative services and products to the photographic and creative community that allows us to do a better job for you. So, in the new year, and as we enter in Paradigma Digital second year, look for us there as we have many ideas we are working on.

 

2009

The new year began with the launch of our new wedding site & blog, spotlighting new work. Our New site makes it easier to book us  and our blogs keeps you informed on what is going on on our studio as well as share valuable information for your wedding. It spot lights our latest work and our experiences documenting your wedding day.

We also expanded our studio adding some staff photographers and launched our Senior Portrait Website. We love doing Seniors, Teens and Children portraits as it keeps us fresh and they are a lot of fun. We even created a special group in FACEBOOK dedicated to Seniors and Teens.

We have expanded our presence in FACEBOOK which enable you to tag your images and share them in your own Facebook.

After evaluating our albums line, we decided to make some changes so we can give you more choices and greater quality. Until now, GraphiStudio has been our main album provider, but beginning 2009 we will using Finao and Kiss Albums. While GraphiStudio offer excellent quality, we believe that Finao and Kiss Albums are more in tune with our and our clients’ style.  And, we are adding new product lines so you can get more. But, you will hear more of that in the next few weeks.

But the most important decisions we made for 2009 has nothing to do with photography. At least not directly.

We are becoming a more “green” studio in 2009. One of our first steps we took in 2008 was to use the services of a solution called ShootQ which allows to do most of the booking and payment via the web reducing the amount of paper waste and usage. 

Now, one of the crucial question we asked ourselves was: How do artists engage in poverty?

The fact is that God has bless and continue to bless me, my family and business. We feel that with that blessing comes a sense of responsibility. That responsibility is written all over the Bible and in the book of James 4:3, the author tells us that: “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Now, that does not means that we cannot enjoy those blessings, but to be conscious of them and the need of others. In our wealth we can easily forget that not everyone in the world enjoy some of the thing we take for granted and for them are a survival necessities. 

According to the United Nations there are roughly 1 billion people worldwide living – and dying – on less than $1 per day. It is this level of poverty that makes simple, treatable diseases like diarrhoea into a lethal killer. Floods, droughts, unclean drinking water and a lack of food become nightmare figures in a life and death struggle. One in three of the world’s population live on less than $2 per day. This is poverty too. Schooling and access to medical treatment are too expensive for many of these people, increasing their vulnerability to sex traffickers and employers that exploit their desperate workers.

I think we can do without some things so others may receive what they truly need. So we want to share more of what God bless us with. Beginning in 2009 we will donate 5% of all our sales to charity. We hope to increase this percentage in the future and that we can be trendsetters in this also having  more photographers do the same.

To start with, we are partnering with CompassionArt and Thirst Relief.

CompassionArt
CompassionArt is a charity that joins the dots between art and poverty. It raises money to help breathe life into the poorest communities, restoring hope and igniting justice. Started by Martin Smith whose years at the front of the stage with the british band Delirious have given him a unique perspective; across every continent he has seen at first hand the potential that music has to connect. And he has seen poverty – the crushing sort, the type that chokes hope and suffocates life. And he has seen remarkable people doing remarkable things to break poverty’s hold.

Thirst Relief International 
Thirst Relief International exist  to provide humanitarian and disaster relief to those in need worldwide through the provision of safe, clean drinking water with the hope of overcoming death and diseases resulting from the consumption of contaminated water.

This means that every time we receive a payment from you we will donate 5% of the payment to one of these organizations. We exhort you to check them out as well, and if you feel incline, to help them too.

So, sorry for a long note, but we had much to share. See you all in 2009.