Blue Skys Retouching

11/02/2020

At this time of year when your schedule is overflowing with activities, the last thing you may want to schedule is your OC family portrait session.

06/03/2020

10/13/2019

Acne can be quite challenging, especially in a guy. The question is how to remove it without making the skin looks to soft, with no texture or detail. We specialize in great skin and have literally cleaned up 1000s of faces to take a good image and make it look great!

10/01/2019

See why I outsource my photoshop retouching work on the blog today

It is finally starting to feel like Fall in sunny California. And with the Autumn weather, comes lots of family portrait sessions for the holidays. If your business is anything like mine, October...

08/16/2019

Here are 5 things I Wish I Knew when starting my Portrait Photography Business!
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In 2002, without any background experience, I opened a 3000+ square foot retail portrait studio. While we did grow and achieve a lot of success, it was overwhelmingly stressful creating my own roadmap to building the business. So here are 5 things I wish I had done from the very beginning.

07/14/2019

Are you a photographer who is moving from a shoot and burn model to in person sales (IPS)? Do you feel overwhelmed with creating a price list that will provide your clients with products that they can't live without? I feel the struggle for sure. Over the last 17+ years of running a successful portrait studio I have experimented with most pricing models and now feel I have an amazing product offering that creates happy clients and a healthy bank account. I wrote an article on our blog, "Pricing your photography for profit". You can check it out here:

I don’t know about you, but I became a professional portrait photographer because I love capturing gorgeous images of people and creating long term relationships with clients. But let’s face it,...

06/18/2019

Here are 5 things I wish I had done from the very beginning.
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In 2002, without any background experience, I opened a 3000+ square foot retail portrait studio in Laguna Hills California, complete with a hair styling and a full wardrobe of clothing. I had big...

06/07/2019

Skin tones aren’t always easy to get perfect! It definitely starts with good lighting and proper exposure. And a little photoshop magic always goes a long way!

04/30/2019

Headshots come in lots of different styles and I always say the most important parts of a headshot are making sure it helps portray the feeling and culture of the brand and that it represents the personality of the subject. For guys it is also extremely important to not over retouch the skin (it will look like they have makeup on). Let me know if you shoot headshots?

04/27/2019

I am often asked, how can I grow my photography business? There are so many ways to go, but I think a great place to start is by doing portrait sessions solely for yourself. That means, going out and finding the ideal client for your business and offering to shoot them for free. That’s right, by offering to photograph someone for free, you can actually grow your business.
So you might be asking yourself, how does that work?
1. You get to photograph someone exactly the way you want to photograph your ideal client. You can select someone that you imagine looks like your ideal client, you can style them and recommend the perfect outfit, you get to determine the location and time of day of the shoot, you can decide who the subject is (a family, a high school senior, a corporate headshot, etc.). Basically you can begin to show on social media and your website exactly what you want to shoot.
2. When you photograph someone who fits the profile of your ideal client, you have to realize, they have friends! And if they are thrilled with the images you produce for them, they will tell their friends. And you will get referral business.
3. During the session, you will not have the pressure of having to hurry or to get exactly what you think the client wants. Instead you can take your time to get all of the images you want.

I have had a professional portrait studio since 2002 and I still do 3-5 creative sessions (portfolio build sessions) every year. This is one of my most recent sessions with the beautiful Saya. What would your dream portrait session look like?