You read that right…. you can get your photos printed on metal. There are options for different finishes for metal prints and the photo itself can help you decide which finish to go with. In this video in our series about photo prints we discuss metal prints and finishes, how to choose as well as pros and cons to metal. Check it out here:
Category: Informational
Types of Prints: Paper Prints
In this series we are talking about types of prints, and in this video it is all about paper prints. Most people think of the glossy prints you got from a grocery store photo lab. There are actually many options for paper prints. Check out this vlog about different paper types and what to consider when choosing a paper type.
New Vlog Series: Types of Prints
Now that you have great photos, what do you do with them? You want to display them so you can enjoy them. There are quite a few options available for printing photos. In this five part series we talk about some of the options available for prints and pros and cons of each type. Check out the first video:
What you need to know about senior photo sessions
The senior year of high school is a big turning point in a young person’s life. A senior photo session is one of the early milestones you go through during your senior year. There are many questions that people ask about senior sessions. Here is video one in a three video series about senior sessions.
Senior Sessions: When? Where? and Why?
5 Tips for live streaming your wedding or event
With the world being effected by COVID-19 there have been many changes people have needed to make. This includes weddings being cancelled or postponed. With weddings beginning to take place again they are not happening the way they were before. Many guests are not able to attend in person for a variety of reasons. Live streaming your wedding is a wonderful option for those who can’t be there in person but still celebrate with you.
There are many things to consider when deciding if you want to live stream, including what we talk about in the video below. But for the quick overview of what to consider before livestreaming your wedding or event, here are 5 tips we cover in the video to help you get started:
- Make sure you have enough internet bandwidth to stream well. The last thing you want at your wedding or event is to have the screen freezing, the audio cutting out, or worse, disconnection issues. How much internet speed do you need? We cover that in the video below.
- Location, location, location – Where you put your camera matters Your camera is the eyes of your online participants, so where they “sit” matters a lot. To be sure they have a great view, make sure to set up in a close up space very near the front where all the action is so they can see it all happen!
- Have a facilitator – Having a dedicated person there watching the stream feed, how your bandwidth is holding up, and making sure the sound is good is very important for making your event or wedding day go smoothly for those who attend virtually. You want to make sure they feel like they are there and appreciated for their attendence!
- Sound will be vitally important, so plan ahead – Next to seeing everything happen, your sound quality will be the other big factor in giving you online guests the best experience possible. It doesn’t matter if they can see you standing there if they can’t hear you say “I Do!” Make sure that you plan for how your online guests will hear you, as well as what the experience will be like (for more tips in this category watch the video!)
- Your online audience is still an audience, think from their perspective – Ultimately this is about having those who can’t attend in person feel like they are still there participating in your wedding or event. Taking some time to both think and experience it from their perspective will help you give them the best experience possible and let them know they matter to you!
To get all the info for having a successful live stream of your wedding check out the video below! Happy Planning
Keywords: photography, videography, live stream, wedding, wedding video, Salem, Oregon, Willamette Valley, salem oregon wedding photographer, salem oregon wedding videographer, drone wedding
About Orion
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d tell others about myself.
I have a lot of interests, besides photography. I’ve been told almost my whole like that I’m rather geeky. So when I looked up what a geek really was, I discovered that they were right all along. The Oxford dictionary defines a geek as:
noun: geek; plural noun: geeks
- 1. an unfashionable or socially inept person.
- a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast.”a computer geek”
- 2. USa performer at a carnival or circus whose show consists of bizarre or grotesque acts.
verb: geek; 3rd person present: geeks; past tense: geeked; past participle: geeked; gerund or present participle: geeking
- engage in or discuss computer-related tasks obsessively or with great attention to technical detail.”we all geeked out for a bit and exchanged ICQ/MSN/AOL/website information”
- be or become extremely excited or enthusiastic about a subject, typically one of specialist or minority interest.
I’ll let society tell me if I’m socially inept, but I think the verb is more of who I am. I really enjoy specializing in niche knowledge. Some of the things I feel comfortable specializing in include: photography, running, technology, gaming (both board and video), history (especially local), music (both performance and composition), laboratory-related things and bad jokes.
I think my list could go on more, but I’ll leave it at that for now. First, photography. There are two things I really enjoy about photography, taking and making photos the best I can and how technology can help capture unique photos. Technology in photography right now is moving at a rapid pace. It seems that there’s always some new advancement available, for example drones. That’s why I was inspired enough in drone photography to go get my commercial drone pilot license. New toys…I mean tools are cool to play with , but currently there are so many advancements built into cameras that allow for things like faster delivery of photos. I won’t geek out too much, but I find all this stuff fascinating and I love using the technology I have in creating great photos.
I am also a long-distance runner. I actually just competed in my first marathon, and while I have been encouraged for several years to sign up for one, I had to find the right one for me. Since I really enjoy trail running, I decided to sign up for a rather hilly marathon at Silver Falls. Ok, so running at Silver Falls is really two things for me, running AND photography. I really enjoy running the trail of 10 falls to see how the water flow is so that I can go back and capture the waterfalls in different situations. Waterfall photography is a passion of mine. Just check out my gallery and you’ll see a bunch of waterfall photos in there. Yeah…I go out to see waterfalls often =-) Lastly, I learned my love of running from my Dad. He also gave me my love for photography.
I’ve been somewhat a video gamer for many years, but I often don’t play the really popular games. Perhaps that’s the geek in me coming through. I really enjoy cooperative strategy games like Warcraft 2 or Age of Empires, both of which are probably considered ancient games today. While I have enjoyed playing board games when I was a kid, I’ve discovered there’s a new rise in board game popularity and there are new games coming out all the time, Again, I really enjoy cooperative strategy games like Battle for Hogwartz and Pandemic.
It seems that I’ve listed more interests of mine that I think I should talk about in this article. I’ll save those for another time. Hopefully I’ve piqued your interested and perhaps I’ve provided a little bit of a window into who I am which I find is really important when hiring a photographer. Things just seem to flow better when you know who you’re working with.
So here I am. This is me. I am orion.
3 Tips for taking portraits with your pet
As a family photographer, I am privileged to work with many diverse types of families. Many times we work with children, and young children need special attention for getting great photos with them. But young children aren’t the only kids that need special consideration in photography. I am talking of course about your fur babies!
Over the years I have worked with dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits, horses, and even chickens in portraits with my clients. I love to see the interactions and love that is very obvious when these fur babies come in.
I have found over the years that there are few things that will make the portrait experience more enjoyable when your fur babies join you. So here are 3 tips for making portraits with your pets easier on them and you!
Tip #1: Don’t go against your pets personality
You know your fur baby best. And just like any 2 or 3-year-old, working with their personality not against it will make the whole process much easier.
If your dog is always on the go, it is best not to try and get him to sit still.
If your cat doesn’t usually get held, chances are someone will end up bleeding if you try to hold her for a photo.
Plan to work with your pet’s personality and your result will be better.
Tip #2: Communicate info about your pet to the photographer
Photographers will do their best to work with you and your pet, but any help you can give them will make things go smoother. For example, if your pet always comes to the sound of their name, then it is probably not good for the photographer to continually call their name and have them walk out of frame. If you have a dog that gets aggressive if someone gets too close, let the photographer know so that they can keep their distance. Anything that will help is important to communicate to your photographer.
Tip #3: Keep an open mind and reasonable expectations
Just like working with toddlers, pets will have good and bad days in front of the camera and that’s ok! The important part is that they are there, not that they are perfect. Sometimes it is the quirky imperfections that make a memory endearing, like this kitten who only wanted to be on his dad’s back! Sometimes, that is what makes the cutest photos.
I hope these tips help you the next time you have a family portrait scheduled and you want to include the whole family!
Come Celebrate with Us
This Friday, August 19th, marks the grand re-opening of the Photos By Orion studio in our new location, and the grand opening of Purple Kat Business Development, my newest brain-child. We are going to have a big event! I hope you can make time to come out and help us celebrate between 2:00 and 6:00 pm. Our official ribbon cutting is at 3:00 pm and I can’t wait! Hope to see you there! Our new address is 2416 13th St SE Suite A Salem, OR 97302.
Cherry Blossoms, Camas, and Japanese Wisteria…oh my!
Beautiful family portraits and preserving them for the future
That special time of year has arrived again! The cherry blossoms are here and that means the camas and wisteria are not far behind. Each year these 3 beautiful flowers offer their blossoms up and families want to take advantage of their beauty for family photos like these:
I always love this time of year because I know the kinds of amazing photos I can give my clients. But it is also a bittersweet time because every year I also see destruction left by those photographers and budding photographers (pun intended) when they take a client or model to these places and knock cherry blossoms off or stamp down the wild camas so their subject can be “among the flowers.” Every year when we take clients to do photos, well anywhere really but especially these one a year treasure places, we always make it our goal to leave the place just like we found it (and sometimes better!).
Sometimes the ends don’t justify the means
There are always ways to get the photo without destruction. For example, To get the falling blossom effect we pick up blossoms off the ground or wait for the wind to knock them down (as it would do whether we were there or not). For the wild camas, we try to put our clients on paths where we look over the camas to them, or use places that have only grass, to get the same effect as planting them on the camas.
So if you are going to be looking into booking a family session to take advantage of these rare opportunities, it is worth taking the opportunity to tell the photographer you choose (though I would love it to be me!) that you want to conserve the natural beauty as much as possible and save the flowers. Our community and your children will thank you!!
Everything You Need to Know About Hiring A Drone for Your Wedding
Guest blog from Dronethusiast.com
Everyone wants their wedding to be a special occasion – a source of wonderful, happy memories that last a lifetime. And of course, you need a photographer (and/or videographer) to capture those memories so that you can revisit them again and again.
Many couples are now choosing drone photography as a way to make their wedding videos more dynamic and instantly unique. But this technology – and its adoption by the consumer mainstream – is still fairly new, so it’s understandable that you might have questions about what drone wedding photography looks like. Well we at Dronethusiast – the premier source for drone news and reviews online – are thrilled to partner with the Photos by Orion Blog to share some insight into hiring a drone for your wedding.
1. Why You Should Hire A Drone Photographer
As Orion recently covered in more detail, style is one of the most important things to consider when choosing a wedding photographer. Drone photographers and videographers are mainly hired because they bring a unique perspective (quite literally!) to their work.
Aerial photography used to be extremely expensive – it involved hiring not only a professional photographer with an expensive specialized camera, but also a helicopter for them to fly in. Now that drones with cameras are more readily available, their main advantage is that they can provide beautiful aerial photography for a fraction of the cost – and they can do so in areas that a helicopter or airplane can’t reach!
2. Discussion Points
Here are some basic things to ask when hiring a drone photographer:
- Are you licensed? In the United States, commercial drone pilots are legally required to have an FAA certification. Never hire an unlicensed drone pilot or a pilot who tries to convince you that a license isn’t necessary.
- Are you insured? Even a skilled drone pilot can lose control of a drone due to equipment malfunction or inclement weather. Such incidents are rare, but you still want to make sure your photographer has liability insurance, just in case.
- Can I see samples of your work? A portfolio will give you a good idea of the photographer’s style, which will help you see whether or not it matches your vision for your wedding. A good drone photographer will provide stable video with a unique, polished look thanks to a good editing skills.
- What is your availability? For obvious reasons, you need to make sure the photographer you hire is available at the time and day you want your pictures taken.
- Do you provide interior work? Some drones can only be flown outdoors, while others are small enough to be flown inside as well. If you’re interested in interior photographs, you need to make sure that’s something your photographer provides before hiring.
3. How Much to Pay
Drone photography price will vary by location, by contractor, and depending on the type of work you’re looking for. For photography itself, you generally don’t want to pay more than $500 an hour. For an entire wedding photography package which includes drone photography along with other services, you can often expect to pay between $2000 and $6000 depending on how many photos and what type of video you want.
4. The Hiring Process
The process of hiring a drone wedding photographer usually looks something like this:
- Look for a photographer online and find someone who suits your needs.
- Reach out to them over Email or phone and bring up your discussion points. An in-person meeting is always ideal if you can manage it.
- Choose a photography package and pay the photographer accordingly.
- Integrate your photographer into your wedding plan. When do they need to show up? When are you taking your photos with the wedding party? Will you be going through a “Traditional” or “First Look” schedule? Make sure you and the photographer both understand each other’s needs and responsibilities.
- After the wedding, you should receive your photos digitally or in the mail at a time specified by the photographer beforehand.
5. Think Outside of The Box
A good drone photographer can do more than just take videos of your wedding, although this will most likely be their primary role. Be sure to think outside the box and speak to potential candidates about what they can do to make your special day even more special.
We hope this article has helped you understand what to look for in a drone wedding photographer and videographer. For more information on the ever-expanding drone industry, visit our website at Dronethusiast.com.
This article is published in conjunction with our friends at Dronethusiast.com. If you are thinking about drones or purchasing a drone it is a great website to consult. Our thanks to Mike and his great team!