Jennifer Bowen Photography » Engagement, Wedding, Portrait & Family Photographer // Scottsdale, Phoenix Arizona

My 2010 wedding season officially kicks off this Saturday and I’m excited to photograph so many super cool couples this year!

One such couple is Jenna and Jimmy, and they are getting married later this month at the always gorgeous Royal Palms Resort & Spa in Phoenix. I recently completed their custom-designed Guest Signature Book from their engagement session images and I wanted to share.

These books provide such a nice alternative to the more traditional guest books where people simply sign their name on a line. They get to see all of your favorite engagement session images and write you nice sentiments in a professionally printed book that you can keep forever. Some couples opt to provide the questions that guests can answer and others prefer to leave some or all of the pages blank.

I use a professional lab that uses higher quality papers than you can find online with consumer sites, plus it lays completely flat, so guests don’t have to worry about funky writing angles. Plus all the books are completely custom designed by me to showcase the images from YOUR engagement session and YOU. Since no two couples are ever exactly alike, neither are engagement sessions and hence the final books.

Look at this adorable little family! We are working on a montage storyboard print from their session a little bit ago so I wanted to share the cuteness. I love storyboards because its a great way to combine several shots from your session into one large print. Order it as a canvas and its ready to hang as soon as it arrives!

Holiday cards are here!

As we mentioned a couple posts below, we are offering holiday mini sessions this year with a $25 credit that can be applied towards the cost of holiday cards. The beautiful thing about these cards is that, aside from the the turn around time being quick, they are beautiful, custom designed for you, and easy. All you have to do is address the envelopes! Why shop for cards where you have to attach the photo or bows? (Unless of course you do have the time and desire for that.)

We also offer several different paper options (prices vary), so when ordering your cards, please inquire and we’ll suggest what might work best for your budget and style.

Here are some of the details:

• The cards come in packs of 25 and are priced per pack. We do offer volume discounts for more than 100 cards, if ordered at the same time.
• Paper stocks are heavy weight and come in smooth, linen, pearlescent (heaviest weight option), fine art watercolor, or UV coated.
• The cards come with matching white envelopes.
• All cards below are shown in a 5×7 format, however any card can be retrofitted to a more custom size, such as 4×5 or 5×5.
• Any flat postcard style cards can be customized into a folded card format
• All colors, text and fonts are customizable
• They are printed by my professional photo lab, so quality is guaranteed
• Pricing starts at $68.50 per pack for flat cards and $98.50 per pack for folded cards

Here are the options for cards this year. We brought back a couple of our more popular styles from years past, and also still have last years cards available for purchase as well.

If you have any questions or would like to order your holiday cards, please inquire here.

We are now offering these beautiful, completely custom designed Portfolio Image Boxes. I love these! The are hand-crafted with your favorite images and bold beautiful patterns to hold up to 15 matted 5×7 or 8×10 prints, or hundreds of your favorite loose prints. These image boxes are a fantastic way to display your favorite photographs of your children or your wedding images. They provide a nice alternative to a coffee table album or just as an additional way to show and share your proofs.

I’ll post more images soon but wanted to share this box that just arrived!

Boxes can be added to any portrait session or wedding package. Inquire for pricing.

We live in a digital age and clients want their images electronically. Photographers understand this, but also wrestle because we care about how our images are ultimately shared or presented to others, in addition to protecting our copyrights. We also hope that our clients will put some images up on their walls or into frames so they don’t just sit on a computer somewhere. As someone who takes thousands of pictures of my kids, do you realize how long my images sit in my computer without ever making it into frames, or books, or anything? I have so many that now I just cant decide what I want to print as large prints or even small prints! The point is to get them up (on the wall) and share them and enjoy them, and this is one of the downsides to the digital age and wanting everything on our computers. The reason we hire photographers is to get some great photographs and if we never print them out, it kind of defeats the purpose.

There are many photographers who will not sell their digital “negatives” (image CD / high res images / JPEG files, whatever you want to call them). However, these days, many more do. For my wedding clients, I do include the image DVD of negatives in any wedding album package and then offer them for sale for those clients who opt for ala carte pricing. In other words, if clients purchase an album package, I give the negatives as a gift with the wedding album. If they don’t buy an album, they can opt to buy the negatives instead.

I have always sold the negatives for portrait clients as well, and will continue to do so, although those discs will be increasing in price this year. However, because of the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and clients sharing images this way, Jennifer Bowen Photography will now offer all portrait and wedding clients a free bonus as a way of sharing their images via Facebook. (IF the client wants them for this purpose.) With all portrait sessions, the client will receive 10 of their favorite images free of charge that Jennifer uploads and then “tags” to the client Facebook account. These images will be watermarked with the Jennifer Bowen Photography studio logo and will be web-optimized images for quick electronic sharing. Additionally, Jennifer can also share any web-based slideshows that may come with your portrait session. If you wish to share your slideshow via Facebook, just let us know and we will upload your show directly and tag your account.

Wedding clients: we can post and share your slideshows and some images as well, as well as your your wedding album slideshow. Please let us know if you would like any of these items posted to your account.

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In regards to protecting our copyright, here is something we photographers need to consider: If our images are placed online in any medium by our clients, especially if we are not aware of where they are placed and the image does not contain a logo or other identifying marks, the photographer’s image can potentially be taken and used by a third party. This can happen intentionally where another person may seek to use an image they find on the internet as their own, in some sort of personal project a person is creating, or when businesses or individuals seek to use any image as part of a larger marketing campaign without the photographer’s consent.

It can also happen unintentionally where a third party may try to locate the copyright owner of that image, but cannot because there are no identifying marks (logos) or metadata included in the file, and then the image becomes public domain and can be used without compensating the owner. In either case, if the images are ultimately used without permission, the copyright has been violated.

For this reason that it’s very important that photographers 1) include their metadata inside the file and 2) watermark their logo or copyright info on their images. Additionally, if photographers sell or give away the digital negatives to their clients, the two parties must establish clear guidelines about how the images may be used. As I mentioned, I do sell discs to both my portrait and wedding clients, and include a set of instructions about how the images may be used. I have always asked for my name as well as a link back to my website be issued as credit if they client is placing those images online. This year, due to the popularity of personal blogs and people posting their images to those sites, I will actually be modifying these instructions to also include that at least a small watermarked logo must also be included (for any images online) to protect against third party infringement. As always, clients have the right to print off those files for home and personal use in frames, as gifts, etc. and do not need to include logo or watermark info for those files.

***All new designs for 2008 Holiday Cards***

Click below to view the cards and pricing. All cards are customizable with text, lettering styles and in some cases the colors. You pick your favorite image(s), place your order and we design and ship to you within 5 days. All cards come with white matching envelopes. The last day to order your cards is Dec 6th. (You will receive them by the 10th or 11th at the latest.)

The following slideshow will show you a “gallery” view at the end of the show, so that you click on the individual images again for longer viewing. The first set shows our new folded cards, followed by the pricing, and the second set shows the flat 5×7 style cards that we have offered in the past, but includes new designs for this year. Click play on the image below to view all the different cards.

You can also view the show in an alternative web browser by clicking here.