Why I Stopped Competing

Years ago, I never imagined family portraits and senior pictures would earn me national awards. I was honored by judges — but the real shift came when I stopped creating for competition and started creating fully for my clients.

After winning the People’s Choice Award at the OPPA Convention in 2002, I made a decision. Inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I realized competition was pulling me away from creativity — and away from the very people I was meant to serve.

Since then, I’ve focused on crafting sessions that bring out the best in every personality — toddlers to teens to parents — with skill, empathy, and genuine connection. The biggest reward now? Seeing a family light up when they pick up their portraits. That’s all the judging I need.

HOW IT WORKS

step-by-step instructions are Just below samples

IF YOU’RE NEW TO OUR PROCESS, REVIEW THESE DEFINITIONS TO TERMS WE (and most professional photographers) USE.

Printed portrait orders may be picked up at the studio or drop-shipped to your home, allowing you just one visit for the whole process.

#1 - CHOOSE YOUR SESSION

#1 - CHOOSE THE SESSION below that’s right for your personality, environment and portrait-sharing goals.

NOTE: Each session varies in time and purchase obligations. More time allows you variety of poses and/or settings.

#2 - Click the red “BOOK NOW” button located by each session type to see a live calendar, pricing and details for that session. (images sold separately - see #3 ORDERS below)

Be sure you’re on the correct session calendar when you reserve. Retainers are required to hold your chosen session time and will apply to your completed session and/or order. In most cases they are 50% of the session package that you book or a $200 minimum. This is not an extra fee, it will apply as a deposit to your completed session, with any extra applying to the images.

Cancellations within 72 hours are fully refundable or applied to a later date. Less than 72 hours we’ll keep record of your credit for one year.

#3 - BOOK AN OPTIONAL CONSULTATION - Most questions we receive are answered by an auto-reply email from your initial booking.

CLICK HERE to schedule a pre-session consultation. *If you know which session you want, book that right away to guarantee your session time. We fill much faster in September through November.

If you have any questions about the terms that we use, “sessions, files, poses” etc. please visit HERE.

All prices subject to change without notice

#2 - BOOK YOUR SESSION

HOW OUR SESSIONS WORK

• Each session includes portrait session fees (a.k.a. creation fee) that also covers production time to cull & color-correct your previews for online viewing.

• We do not have you return to order at the studio. ORDER ONLINE on your schedule from the convenience of your home, where all can participate without having to coordinate and schedule a second trip. (in most cases from multiple homes - ask about our “Share Favorites” feature to help you pool together a single order for better pricing.)

• Session fees do not include printed portraits, those are sold separately in custom combinations designed by you! (not dictated by me or my lab) This is done by pre-payment of your session minimum on the day of your session. We then provide you with a DISCOUNT CODE that will deduct your pre-paid minimum. Ask about our 25% discount option when you arrive for your session.

• Calls are welcomed but our LIVE CALENDAR - BOOK NOW BUTTONS below will show you availability for each session type.

• Pick your session type and click the BOOK NOW button under that particular session. (each button is specific to the session's availability)

• ALL SESSIONS ARE RESERVED WITH A MANDATORY RETAINER PAID WHEN BOOKING. (first price you will see when booking)

• Retainers are not extra fees, they reserve your time on our calendar and apply to completed sessions and/or orders.

Sessions vary in prices.

Prints & digital files sold separately (not included in session price except for our Annual Holiday Portraits

Purchase minimums are visible when you click on each session type.

`Most print and file prices are listed at base of this page.

POST-PRODUCTION

What happens after your session…

Once your session is completed, you’ll see your previews online within 3 business days. (M-F)

1 - We back them up to both an external hard drive AND cloud server then cull them down to your best images per look and/or background with a simple rule of “if in doubt, I leave them in.” Nothing will hit the proverbial editing floor unless it’s an unflattering “no.”

2 - You’ll receive an email with an access link, password and instructions within 2-3 business days of your session.

#3 - ORDER

WE ALLOW YOU TO ORDER FROM HOME

Thanks to the pandemic, online ordering became our new process. Not only can you set aside your fear of “up-sell” pressures (though never our way), but you’ve got 24/7 access and the ability to share worldwide with recipients of your purchases. No extra trip to the studio for viewing and we can drop-ship your orders unless you schedule to pick them up.

No surprises at the proverbial “sales appointment,” we let you do that from home after viewing most product prices here. Anything you don’t find, like Acrylic and other wall portrait prices - just ask.

Prices up-front, no surprises. All prices subject to change without notice, though we can lock in most prices for 14 days from the time we upload your initial previews.

1 - Pick your favoriteNEED HELP ORDERING?s by clicking the star icon. Take another pass at them deselecting or adding more to your favorites. It is MUCH easier to place your order from your favorites, so you’re only looking at your best contenders for minimum order (minimums vary by session type as seen with details when you book).

2 - Place your order online, deduct any prepay credits at checkout. If you choose “DIGITALS” they receive the same level of care as printed portraits. My professional artist (NOT AI, far more believable when done by a person) will retouch them before I prep for printing or file delivery.

Want help deciding on your print order? We make this entirely optional so that you never feel pressure to buy. That said, selecting the right wall portraits and print type (Acrylic, Metal, Canvas, Gallery Wrap or basic Lustre surface) can lead to many questions and consideration.

If you choose this option - PLEASE arrive ready. It’s very helpful for you to have your favorites selected in advance. Also, think about where you want your images to hang - lighting and space are big factors, so we recommend that you email us phone photos of where you want to hang your images.

RETOUCHING: We remove blemishes, dark lines, whitens eyes & teeth and any other “incidentals” while keeping you looking REAL - at no extra cost. (though we can do amazing things for $10 extra, like removing braces or unwanted objects from your favorite images)

DIGITALS: Having “all digital files” might sound like great bait, but we only deliver perfected images that reveal your favorite, purchased selections from several options.

If you purchase image-files for printing on your own, you will receive very detailed instructions via email once they are fully edited/retouched. Nothing is delivered until my amazing retouch artist applying her magic. Once she’s done, I adjust color for sRGB printing (the format retail labs use - NOT INK JET) Home printers are 4+ colors in the range of CMYK - they will not look like intended.

These prices (and more) are visible in your private image gallery.

#4 - PICK UP or DOWNLOAD…

Please keep in mind - I do a lot of off-site work. Drop-ins are not an option. You’ll be notified by email and/or phone when your images are ready to be picked up (unless you chose shipping or digitals only.)

Digital files are delivered via email so you can start sharing before your wall portraits arrive. If you order printed portraits from any of your poses, we’ll include a FREE THUMB DRIVE that can be picked up with your completed wall or desk portraits. The thumb drive will only include purchased (finished) images.

No need to call first if you BOOK A TIME TO PICK UP YOUR PRINTED IMAGES (and/or Thumb drive of purchased images)

MY FIRST FAMILY PORTRAIT SESSION

While training with my portrait mentor, my first professional family portrait session was for then-Senator Gordon Smith. As a new photographer I had no idea how many years it would be before mastering the technical aspects, BEFORE I could be fully present for the next big phase - being an upbeat, multi-personality-balancing levity-inducing people-pleaser that knows how to tamp down discomforts for that 1/200th of a second [CLICK} to create a wall-worthy portrait.

Lou was every bit of that AND one of the most patient people I’d ever met.

We were shooting medium format film then, outsourcing the printing to a professional lab in Portland OR. In order to prepare an order for printing, that meant we had to “mask the negatives” by taping the individual 645 negative to a specific crop-mask so that the lab would print to our composition, not theirs. (creative controls even when outsourcing to a lab.)

The session went great, they returned to place a large order and Lou let me mask the negatives, including their 30x40, framed canvas wall portrait. I was nervous but he trusted me enough to only check the composition before mailing off the masked negatives.

The massive cardboard box sat unopened in his Pendleton studio for several hours, waiting for me to return and open it. He clearly wanted me to have that nervous-excitement experience of seeing the final result, and nervous was an understatement!

I opened the box, unwrapped the image and stood back to admire the most incredible family portrait I’d ever been part of, even though it was 99% under his supervision. The 1% was the most costly part [GULP].

My 70 yr. old teacher glanced at it from behind me, then stepped closer to the BIGGEST portrait I’d ever seen, turned toward me and calmly asked - “What do you think?”

“I think it looks incredible, can I frame it too?”

“When the time comes, sure, but for now - just ask yourself if anything looks off to you.” [SILENCE]

As I stared at it like a Hidden Pictures puzzle, he moved next to the side of the portrait to watch my face, then asked… “When they got married, what finger did they put their wedding rings on?..” I suddenly understood why he stood watching my face for that moment when I’d say…

“HOLY $#!+, emulsion to emulsion!..” (a rule I knew quite well from my BW printing days in school).

The emulsion (shiny or matte side of the paper) should face the downward facing emulsion of the film when in the enlarger. I mounted the negative upside-down, causing a mirror image of the family. Left hands appeared to be right hands, putting their wedding bands on the “divorced” side of their hands (at least as it symbolized at the time of the session). Mr. Smith parts his hair on the left, making it an even more obvious blunder had Lou not discovered it first.

I quickly grabbed the invoice from the box, looked at the cost and could suddenly hear my heart race between my ears. Despite the huge expense it would cost to reprint, his reaction was nothing more than an educational response that I have not-since forgotten - ask my kids. I used his two-word reply with equal stoicism while parenting our five kids.

Graphics and branding were not as much Lou’s priority, but there was a great reason why people came from a 45 minute radius around Pendleton - Lou knew portraiture!

He simply stated - “You’ll learn.” I knew then that I wanted to be like him when I got older.

One year later he offered me his studio for nothing more than a signature, even showing me the legal paperwork he had prepared. For fear of his family liquidating his assets “10 cents on the dollar” as he put it, he offered me a priceless sign of ultimate trust - His legacy!

His only two conditions for me signing into ownership was that I keep my plans to move to Portland for a couple of years, and to keep the studio in Pendleton. He knew I had another dream “in the big city”, and that I’d never be happy if I didn’t first go to explore.

In those two years I spent 13 mos. working at Zupans original grocery store in West Linn, before being fast-tracked into management with Fred Meyer. They moved me from Salem to Beaverton to Albany, which was where I stood to make my decision about returning to Pendleton. My ever-increasing paychecks, benefits and trajectory made the decision a tough one.

Fred’s had just put an apparel-only store in downtown Pendleton, just a few short blocks from the studio. I was already “Fred-ready” so they made me a closing PIC, allowing me my daytime to work in the studio. I leaned into marketing by joining the Lions Club (that was quite active fundraising during the rodeo) and the Pendleton Downtown Association where I was appointed liaison to the Pendleton Arts Council.

My high school art teacher read about my return for the venture and asked me to come speak to one of his classes (full of HS Seniors - which didn’t hurt…) I did everything I could to at least double the studio business so that I knew it could support me without costing him more. In the eight short months I stayed, we had a 300% increase over his pre-recession record.

Every day we’d share lunch as he educated me in light ratios, trained me on studio lighting and he sent me to professional photo seminars to learn from people he dubbed greater than he was.

One day I said “I just not sure I can see myself doing what you do, working in the studio all day. I prefer to shoot outdoors, like scenic images with more of a National Geographics/Ansel Adams vibe.”

With conviction he countered “But you’re great with people, you can be both. You just have to learn to pose people in those scenics and turn it into wall art for their home - I can teach you!”

With his training I was able to master what looked like natural light, allowing the colors of scenery to maintain a wall-decor vibrancy, without the fill-flash dominating the image. He once laughed at me when I said “I prefer only natural light.” as he educated me with “YOU NEED THE FILL [flash] TO SEE EYE COLOR!!!” (emphasis to represent his incantation that soon became mine. HA!)

Six months later I still felt like something was missing that I could not explain. I went to a nearby bookstore, bought and read “What Color is Your Parachute” to discover that I was more likely to “flourish” in Portland.

I declined his AMAZING offer which meant I would have to find another way to achieve my dream. First I had to move closer to the GREEN that I loved more than the rolling brown hills of Eastern Oregon. April of 1989 I made a couple of phone calls and landed a position as Nutrition Center Mgr at Fred Meyer (before it became Krogerized).

Before Lou passed away he asked me to meet up with him midway in Hood River to receive “a little something” he wanted me to have.

“You can barely talk without coughing, I’ll come to you.” His cancer became aggressive, so I wasted no time in returning to see him.

He gifted me a medium format camera and a number of portable lights that I would need to “do portraits your way” as he called it - shooting seniors and families outside.

12 years later I cashed in my 401k from Fred Meyer and took that leap. I opened my studio in 1996 with that gear and his postmortem reminders.

Over the past quarter century I made every single error that a budding photographer could make, all the while laughing as I’d hear his calm, wise voice reminding me - “You’ll learn.”

People like him don’t come along every day, but when they do - you know you’re in the presence of greatness. I am humbled and completely honored to have had his guidance, instruction, friendship and now convictions for the artistry of my craft.

By no surprise, he was right about having both. With today’s tech I’m able to operate a brick-n-mortar studio without being “stuck in the studio” since I have the luxury of doing both. He also taught me how to mend the marriage of an Oregon state senator.

God speed my Bears-loving Chicagoan!

It’s been a ride.