St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

Just in time for Valentine’s Day! We’ve got our second year of Valentine’s Day Mini Sessions lined up for Saturday January 23rd. For $150 you get a mini session in the studio along with a set of cards and five of your images in digital format. (exchange the cards for two 5 x 7s and a set of wallets). To book your session, please contact me and we’ll get you on the calendar. Here’s a sample of one of the card designs that will be available:

Note to photographers: This design will be available for sale at Pink Ink Studios soon. Fully customizable template design.

I am excited to share a senior basic book with you that I designed for Bobbi Jo. My basic books are just 7 x 7 in size and have about 34 pages to them. That’s 17 spreads. Each one comes with a printed cover that I can custom design, or you can choose from some of my previous designs. Now, Bobbi Jo can have a nice collection of all the images from her high school senior portrait session. Take a look!

I really love the option of albums for clients. When you consider the cost of printing all your images from a session, it’s really just a nice way to get close to every one, in a nice and presentable way. I work with top album companies and my prices range from $350 to $1200 for albums depending on the size, paper types and cover options.

I also love in-person proofing, and my studio is going to be moving towards this for all clients as the main option (unless you’re reordering or are out of town). It truly allows my clients to discuss their needs with me – like where to hang certain images in their homes, seeing true measurements of sizing and can put products in their hands. I’m a firm believer that you’re doing a better job at servicing your customers when you can help them this way. In my studio, clients come in and we first chit chat, then I show them a custom slideshow on my big tv. Clients sit comfy and cozy as if they are in a living room. Then, we begin the process of sorting through their images. Using the program, Pro Select, my clients can easily tell me which items they love, hate and are on the fence about.

I know for a fact that it’s hard to choose images. I tend to give a little more in my proofing sessions. I prepare a few specialty product drafts to show them too. If someone does not see something, they won’t know about it to buy it. With Pro Select, I can show them what their images would look like cropped a certain way, how they might appear in specialty collages, or even in my custom designed greeting cards and albums.

I do love albums. I love that when I’m shooting your session, I’m trying to tell a story. Your images can compliment one another on the wall, but when you want a larger collection, why not choose an album? I have a few, more luxury style albums available, but let’s face it, in this economy we want to be able to afford a beautiful keepsake and still get something that is a great quality.

Our Basic Albums are a new product for us. Each album contains a hardcover where your image is printed directly onto the hardcover with a durable matte finish. Each book is printed on 100# silk-finish premium paper (this is not the heavy-weight mounted pages in our premium books). Sized at 7 x 7 inches, albums contain 15 spreads (approximately 50 images). Priced at $250 (each additional spread is just $30).

The design process is pretty streamlined for our studio, and we can provide a draft in just a couple of days to you. Rush Fee on final album order designs not placed by December 5th. Deadline for delivery by December 24th is 12/7. So, if you’d like to open up an old session and have us design one of our Basic Albums for, just get in touch!

Here’s a quick slideshow of the album we did for Cherie + David’s session on Tuesday – the spine has text (the first slide is the cover design).

I absolutely LOVE albums. I mean, look at those luscious, thick pages, printed on Fuji papers. And, those gorgeous bindings with a custom cover. Oh, the design and goodness of a square album.

I don’t sell enough of them. But, I intend to. I think when people see them, they are in awe. They fondle them and want to hug them, just like I do. Okay, so maybe that’s a little over the top, but some things just do it for me. It’s the perfect way to display your entire session, especially when you aren’t sure how you’re going to decide just which images to purchase. I shoot a lot. I offer a lot of proofs. I want my clients to have all their images. This is probably the most affordable way to get them, and have something amazing you can treasure for years to come.

Dream albums are my favorite squared albums. This new company started this year, and when I got my first sample, I died (in the words of Rachael Zoe). I did, I die!

The insides are always custom to fit your images, but the outside, I like to have a few, amazing options pre-designed and have been planning on doing this for my Client Lounge for some time now. So, I present my first design. Photogs can buy this design at Pink Ink Studios if they want. My clients, you can choose this for your square album cover. It’s designed for a 12 x 12, 30-page album which retails for $990. It can be resized down to a 9 x 9 ($750) or a 6 x 6 w/ 20 pages ($450). This one came to me because of being inspired by Brittney’s dress. The warm tones, with the woodgrain texture – perfect!

Anyway, I just love albums. You can see that it’s a perfect keepsake from your session!

Each of my senior reps get a set of these rep cards for free. So, how do you get them if you’re not a senior rep with us? When you get your senior pictures taken with our studio and you order $150 worth of products, you get a set of them for free! They are normally $36. Each card contains our contact information on it so you can pass them out to your classmates and let them know how awesome your portrait experience was with us!

This is the set called: Pink Glam.

To see the rest of our collection of Rep Cards to choose from visit our product store.