Photos by Robin » projects http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog Blog Thu, 09 Sep 2010 03:19:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 August wrap-up and Save the Date! http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/august-wrap-up-and-save-the-date/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/august-wrap-up-and-save-the-date/#comments Sat, 04 Sep 2010 18:53:53 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2850 Just our wrap-up from August.  Pretty sad, but I hardly take any photos of my own family!  Thank goodness I carry my point & shoot in my purse and Scott has his i-phone – otherwise I wouldn’t have enough to even complete the month!  Gotta get better at that!  :-) And here’s a “save the date” I did with the new template set I bought!  Papers & spiderweb from www.heatheranndesigns.com – the Ghoulish Delight kit.  

Friends, family, neighbors – you are all invited, so save the date!  :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/august-wrap-up-and-save-the-date/feed/ 1 Cards, cards, cards! Holiday Card Designs for 2010 | Minneapolis Photographer http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/cards-cards-cards-minneapolis-photographer/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/cards-cards-cards-minneapolis-photographer/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 20:15:49 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2642 Well I’ve been a bit of a busy bee designing some cards for the upcoming season!  I used all products by Heather Ann Designs!  For those of you that don’t know, I’m on her digital design team.  It’s been a great opportunity working with Heather (and if you haven’t read her blog, you should!  She’s a modern-day Wonder Woman!) and I just love her products!

This is a brand new design this year – sorta fun! Another new one… and another… I actually designed this one last year and it was very popular amongst my clients!  It’s very versitile – I can easily modify the colors as well as the photos to accomodate almost anything!  This is actually an old one from 2008…but updated it a bit here. Another one from last year.  This one was also very popular since it can incorporate 5 photos nicely!  (btw…this is my little bro & his cute family!) Another new one…I made the “word art” so it can be put on any design really! Here’s one that I admit was HUGELY inspired by one I saw on www.tinyprints.com and I just loved it!  I wanted to see if I could come up with something similar (but not exactly the same of course).  I highly recommend tinyprints if you want to upload and print your own cards!  They have probably the best selection of cards around!  (I think!)  I did switch a few things around and modified fonts/sayings/added scrolly things, etc.  I can also swap out papers to match clothing in the photos – or just go w/ classic b&w and it doesn’t matter! Here’s an oldy but a goody!  I cannot tell you how many versions I’ve done of this card….but it’s a LOT!  I can totally change the frames, take off the tape, change the colors, fonts, etc.  Very, very versitile.  And it can be one-sided or two-sided (or hey, even a folded card if you want!) This too is another oldy but goodie.  I also have done MANY versions of this card – I can swap out colors, sentiment, word art, papers, etc.  Very versitile too. Another oldy but goody.  Very clean, simple & classic.Made this one last year too.  Very classic & simple – and non-traditional Christmas colors.  Looks best w/ a b&w photo.  I wasn’t going to get too into cards this year (I tell myself that EVERY year!) but I obviously got sucked in again.  I’ve already had people asking about card designs.  If you want to see more, I have a private gallery set up w/ almost every card I’ve done!  I’ll send you the link/password if you like (and only if you are a current client of course!)  :-)

So here’s the scoop!  Anything that is already “pre-designed” and I just have to pop in your photos and print will be subject to a $25 design fee for my time (unless you order 100 or more cards, then the design fee is waived.)  If you want me to start from scratch, it’s $50 + the cost of the cards of course.  Refer to my website for card pricing.  Here’s my post on some designs from last year that I purchased. 

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/cards-cards-cards-minneapolis-photographer/feed/ 4 Great weekend! http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/great-weekend/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/great-weekend/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:42:36 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2609 Well we had a great weekend!  The weather was gorgeous – wow!  Can’t complain for sure!  Thanks for all the nice birthday wishes!  :-) I had a very fun & relaxing day! (…well, besides getting hit HARD in the arm by a whiffle ball during our back yard neighborhood game last night!) 

Got some editing done that I’ve been putting off  (and would you hate me if I said I got my Christmas card done?  haha!  just need the photos to drop in there now! yeah!!) 

Last week after it rained so hard, I took Buddy out to go to the bathroom and spotted this salamander in the yard – YUK!  I went back in the house and told the fam and Claire went running out to find it!  haha!  That’s my girly girl!! (……….NOT!)  ;-)   {btw….I spent some time on www.designerdigitals.com and downloaded some AWESOME freebies!  Everything here is from there except the frames are www.twopeasinabucket.com – Rhonna’s Photo Phun and part of the Fortune Teller kit.  font is beer dip.Then Friday night we went to dinner at  Psycho Suzi’s with my good friend Shelley and her husband Todd.  We actually started out meeting up at the studio that we’ll be sharing starting in September….I wanted Scott to see it!  So we decided to be a little adventuresome and try a place neither one of us had ever been to.  Plus it was really close to the studio so bonus!  It was super fun!  I’d highly recommend it! 

(btw….used one of Heather Ann’s quick fill kits here and some paper from the Two If By Sea kit.  fonts are AL postmaster and I can’t remember the other one).  {we both promised NOT to bring our big cameras cuz we didn’t want the guys getting all mad at us….so I only had my crappy point & shoot and Scott’s i-phone – haha!}

After Psycho Suzi’s, we dropped by my friend Jennie’s house to hang out with her and her hubby Rob!  Good times!  They are very funny & entertaining!

Saturday my parents were in town so we went to Chili’s to celebrate both my brother Jon’s b-day (8/6) and mine too.  I forgot my camera – darn!  But here’s Jon from when we took him out to Macaroni Grill for his b-day.  For my birthday, I took advantage of a couple of great FREE birthday coupon deals!  haha!  We went to Old Country Buffet for brunch (actually LUNCH since we went to church and didn’t get there until 11am - most of the breakfast stuff was GONE so bummer! ), then I got my FREE Caribou drink (I don’t drink coffee so I got  a yummy smoothie!)  For dinner, got a free burger from Ruby Tuesdays – got “Ruby Tue Go” so brought home burgers for all of us (well, except Claire who doesn’t eat hamburger…)  Then took the dog for a walk and came home to 1/2 of the neighborhood kids in our back yard playing whiffle ball!

Scott made my FAVORITE cake – cherry chip w/ cherry frosting!  And he also bought me some beautiful flowers!  :-)     That’s all!  Took today off so now it’s time to get my butt off here and go do something fun with the kids!  :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/great-weekend/feed/ 1 July wrap-up http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/july-wrap-up-2/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/july-wrap-up-2/#comments Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:42:17 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2530

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/july-wrap-up-2/feed/ 1 Current and Former Clients – Please take my survey! :-) http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/current-and-former-clients-please-take-my-survey/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/current-and-former-clients-please-take-my-survey/#comments Tue, 06 Jul 2010 03:43:16 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2228 This is directed to my current and former clients.  I'd LOVE it if you could PLEASE take a few seconds and fill out my quick survey!  You don't have to log in or anything - just click on your answer and submit it.  And it's totally anonymous!  :-)


I have thought about this many times since I went into business and now I'm thinking about it again = do my clients order prints after they get their CDs?  I'm really curious!  I have been to some clients' homes and in some cases when I look around, I don't see any photos framed other than the 4x6" that came with their sessions!  sad!  I want to encourage my clients to print your photos!  :-)    If you have come to me in the last year, I have uploaded your gallery to zenfolio which is linked to www.mpix.com.  You can get SO many great products at VERY reasonable prices!  Not only can you get traditional prints, but you can also buy gallery-wrapped canvas, stand-outs, etc.  You can even get other stuff like t-shirts, mouse pads, you name it!  

Here is a photo I took of the screen where you can order stuff.   

"Value Prints" is where you can go to order 4x6 prints for 19 cents!  Under "small prints", a set of 4 wallets (cut w/ rounded corners) is 70 cents!  5x7's are $0.99!  But why stop at small prints?? - a 20x30 is only $24.99! (although I'd highly recommend you mount it + lustre finish - an extra $16.29 only - great deal!)  Anyway, check it out if you haven't already.  :-)

I'll also pass along this other great deal!  www.bhglifeinphotos.com - they have really cute "pre-designed" photo books - you basically upload your photos, drag & drop them in, add text and order!  But they are going out of business SOON so you'll have to hurry, but until they go out of business, the books are 50% off! - coupon code = LASTCHANCE

Another fun thing to do is make photo slide shows!  There are many programs you can use for this but if you are PC, you probably have Windows Movie Maker = FREE!  Otherwise, Pro Show Gold is pretty user-friendly.  Animoto is too (but it costs about $30/year for a subscription). 

Anyway, that's my little schpeel (sp?) to encourage people to make the most out of your photo CD!  You paid for it so might as well use it the way it was meant to be used, right?!  :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/current-and-former-clients-please-take-my-survey/feed/ 2 4th of July 2010! http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-2010/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-2010/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:53:17 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2205 We celebrated the 4th a day early this year, so today totally didn’t feel like a holiday!  haha!  Here’s the kids getting into the holiday spirit! (used Sheye’s “Ruby shoes” action here) Our neighbor Laurie brought over these beautiful flowers!  She’s always SO thoughtful – thank you Laurie! We hosted our neighborhood party this year and boy, did we ever have a great turn out!  Some of the neighbors started out with a friendly softball game (despite the high humidity and 90 degree heat!)  The kids alternated playing wiffle ball, doing the bean bag toss, shooting waterguns, and blowing bubbles!  Once it got dark, we practiced trying to write names with sparklers!  haha!  Of course we shot off a few fireworks too but I didn’t get any good ones of those.  oh well!  (p.s. the blue one is actually a little flashlight thing that came with some glow-in-the-dark Easter eggs that Claire hid in the back yard) Here’s a quick layout I did with Heather Ann’s awesome products!  I used the “America the Beautiful“, “Great American Holiday” and “Stars and Stripes” kits – as well as the Quick Fill layout #58.  (fireworks photo was actually taken in 2006… ;-) )   Thanks to all our friends and neighbors that made it to the party!  We had a great time hosting!  :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-2010/feed/ 0 4th of July – animoto http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-animoto/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-animoto/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:07:37 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2200 (scroll down and pause the music first…)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/4th-of-july-animoto/feed/ 0 June wrap-up http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/june-wrap-up-2/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/june-wrap-up-2/#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:03:45 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2197

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/june-wrap-up-2/feed/ 0 We’re baaacck! http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/were-baaacck-2/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/were-baaacck-2/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:11:39 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=2086 We just got back into town today from our good ol’ fashioned family vacation in the Black Hills of SD!  Scott has been bugging me to do this for years so we finally just did it.  I have to admit I was totally NOT looking forward to driving like 1600+ miles with the family, but it actually turned out to be very fun!  Here’s a parting shot – taken w/ my fisheye lens on the back of our mini van before we pulled out of the driveway!

We drove to Moorhead and dropped the dog off with Scott’s parents, then drove to Sioux Falls & stayed at a hotel w/ a little waterpark.  Then we got up in the morning and drove to Mitchell to see the World’s Only Corn Palace!  Then we went to Wall Drug (of course!) and continued on to Hill City to the Crooked Creek Resort where we stayed the rest of the time.  I thought that it would be fun to do something other than just hotels w/ pools and since I was planning the trip, I rented us a cabin!  I honestly wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but everyone agreed it was a great choice!  :-)

Anyway, here’s a collage of photos from our adventures – these are mostly taken w/ Scott’s iPhone (hipstamatic & shake-it apps).

 and another collage… (used the free action “lomo” here)  

I think my favorite thing was Bear Country.  I was totally thinking we’d maybe see like 1-2 bears WAY up far in the woods….but NO!  There were a TON of them up CLOSE!!  In fact, they said to not even roll down the windows…yeah, they were CLOSE so not a problem!  eek!  (oh, and the kids got some sex-ed since it’s apparently mating season!  haha!)  Anyway, when you are on vacation, don’t you just hate it when you want a family picture, but you are afraid to have someone handle your $4,500+ camera/lens?  Yeah….I am always nervous about that!  So I had my little point & shoot for a lot of the “family” shots – which was great until the rechargeable battery ran out!  Oops!  forgot the recharger!  But the photo in the middle I had someone take who I saw carrying around an SLR…and the far right is a self-portrait in the fun-mirrors at Reptile Gardens.Of course I wanted one last family shot outside our cabin right before we left, so I pulled out the handy dandy tri-pod!  btw for this photo (and almost all the other ones on our trip!) I just used “P” or program mode and a FLASH (GASP!)  Whatever, right?  I actually really like this one w/ the sun flare & all. 

That’s the short version of our fun-filled family vacation!   It feels good to be home!   :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/were-baaacck-2/feed/ 4 Possibly the coolest thing ever! | Minneapolis Photographer http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/possibly-the-coolest-thing-ever-minneapolis-photographer/ http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/possibly-the-coolest-thing-ever-minneapolis-photographer/#comments Sat, 05 Jun 2010 21:26:34 +0000 Robin http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/?p=1938 OK I am in LOVE with this app that I saw on this blog (btw…Bobbi & Mike are just the COOLEST photographers ever!  I would love to do a session with them some day!  sigh!) 

Anyway, it’s called “Hipstamatic” and you can find out a bunch about it from this awesome blog.  And to get it for your iPhone just buy it from the app store ($1.99!!!  what a deal!!)  They also have a tiltshift app (but haven’t tried that yet!)

Here’s some random photos from our day today – we went out to eat at Q-Fanatic in Champlin - if you haven’t tried it, you really should!  Yummy!

Here’s what I LOVE about this!  With my photography, I find that I over-think EVERYTHING I shoot!  To the point of it not even being fun any more!  Is the lighting right?  What’s my aperture?  Shutter speed?  What ISO should I use?  Focal points or no?  White balance?  blaa blaa!  Yes, obviously when someone is paying me to take their photos I need to be constantly thinking of all of that and much more! 

But sometimes it’s just nice not to think and have it be OK to take crappy photos!  ya know?  There’s NO THINKING! (except if you want to switch out your “lens”, “film” and “flash”) plus no editing! - they instantly look cool without it!  Plus the frames are already added on! 

The only bad thing is they are only like 100kb (SUPER small!  i.e. not  print quality at all!)  But still fun!

Another use I found for it is to use as overlays on my regular photos!  I took a picture of our garage floor and overlaid it on these photos.  Then I took the outer frame and selected only that and laid it over the photos again.  Kinda cool!  Before I did that, I used Pioneer Woman “seventies” and “sunshine”. Just thought I’d share.  Can’t wait to take it on our family trip to SD!  I want to document our whole trip like that! 

Oh, the other bad thing is the only iPhone we have is hubby’s work phone!  :-(   So…………..I just might have to run out and buy an old iPhone and just use it as a camera?) 

I bet ya anything though that someone will come out soon w/ a digital camera that already has fun/cool options like this – but at higher quality.  I HOPE so anyway!  It’s so fun!  :-)

]]> http://www.photosbyrobin.com/blog/possibly-the-coolest-thing-ever-minneapolis-photographer/feed/ 1