Rob and Lauren Blog

Man, I love shooting portraits. Today we got to go to the brand spanking new Art Gallery of Alberta, and take photos of two lovely people. Fun, laughter, and cool images: good day. 

I’d like to thank Rob for totally kicking my ass on this shoot. Both of these images are his. 

More to come! These are just a couple that I really wanted to edit right away. 

Enjoy!

 Lauren :)

Well, you may have heard us talking about FotoJournal for some time now, and wondered what the heck that was all about? Strap yourself in, cuz this here is an official announcement.

After over 1.5 years of insanely hard work, FotoJournal, a brand new blogging platform designed from the ground up specifically for photographers, has been released to the public. 

Now, the next question I’m sure you have, is “Why are Rob & Lauren announcing this? Did they make FotoJournal?”

Short answer: We were recently asked to join the two extremely talented guys who created FotoJournal and help them from a customer service/advisory capacity. They did all the heavy lifting (read: coding!), and built this platform from the ground up, we are just lucky to get to help them spread the word! 

Why are we telling you this? Well, even though it might be a bit boring, we very strongly believe in transparency in our business. For a long time we were always talking about how amazing FotoJournal is, and recommending it, since we got to use it from the beginning. We were just very happy customers, and wanted to share a great new product that we used. Now that we are officially part of the business, we of course have a vested interest in it, and want people to be aware of that. 

With all that being said, the reason we’re a part of this adventure is because we honestly believe FotoJournal is an incredible product, and has made our blogging lives so much easier. If you are a blogger, but don’t want to spend $2,000+ to have a nice looking blog, you should really check it out. It has a totally custom theme editor so that you can change the look of your blog without knowing any code. If you like to post lots of photos, but are sick of how difficult that is in all the existing blogging platforms, you should check it out. And hey, there’s a free account, so everyone should just check it out!! It honestly does make blogging slick, sexy and fun! Even if you’re a hobbyist photographer, this is a fantastic way for you to show off your work, and share it with friends and family. 

Head over here to sign up for free! http://myfotojournal.com

Here’s a little screenshot of me uploading some photos to blog. One of my favourite parts about FotoJournal? Once these are all done uploading, I can put them all neatly into a post with one click! Sweeeet! There are about a million other amazing things about it, but I’ll let you check it out to discover them all. 

Now, it’s Monday, so you might be bored and want the whole backstory. I’ll let you know how this whole thing came about, which is a pretty neat tale!

Back in 2007 Rob and I came up with the idea of The Wedding Travelers. We wanted to travel to India and shoot a couple weddings there. And we wanted to blog about it. We’d used Blogger, and then got fed up, switched to Wordpress, and were still frustrated. All of those platforms were built for normal bloggers, not photo bloggers, so trying to get lots of photos up there was taking way too long. We also wanted a custom blog, and had received quotes well over the $2,000 mark. That was simply way too much for us, especially since those blogs were still created with the old, non-photo centric blogging platforms. “There MUST be a better way!”, we lamented.

Enter Jon Smelquist. He and his then-fiancee-now-wife came in and met with us about wedding photography. We got chatting, and learned that he actually knew how to build blogs! Truly a fortuitous coincidence! We asked if he would make one for The Wedding Travelers, and he agreed!

He built the back end (the part you log into and do all the work from) from scratch, and we loved it. We talked a lot to him about the lack of affordable and easy-to-use solutions out there for photographers. We could either pay thousands to have someone custom build one for us, we could spend weeks trying to figure out how to customize it ourself in HTML and CSS, and ending up just pulling out all our hair, or we could just put up with the bloated and confusing solutions that existed.

He, and his good friend, Kyle Fox decided to do something about it. And so, in July of 2008, they began working on FotoJournal. The first iteration (0.1) was created, and installed for this blog you are reading right now! It’s fantastic, I’ve been using it for over a year now, and it speeds up my blogging tenfold. 

But it wasn’t awesome enough for them. So they kept working, because they really wanted to build something that would revolutionize the way photographers blog. The result, the one that you can now sign up for, is incredible, and I’m actually pretty jealous that I don’t get to use it with this blog, lol!

During this whole time, we would let them know what we liked about FJ, and what features would make our lives even easier. We were loving the product, and really enjoyed the fact that they would seriously listen to what we suggested. But the whole time, it was their baby.

Fast forward to a few months ago. Now that FotoJournal was getting closer and closer to launch, they decided that they would need some help, especially on the customer service side of things. So they asked us if we’d like to become an official part of FotoJournal! We were so honored, and so stoked. FotoJournal has really gotten people talking, especially in the web development world. It’s a very ambitious undertaking, and seriously the first of it’s kind. It’s also meticulously created, and beautifully designed. We’re extremely excited and lucky to get to be a part of it, and can’t wait to see where it goes!

So now, it’s launching today. We’re extremely proud of these two guys, and they deserve all the credit. FotoJournal is awesome because they care so much about making a great product. And we truly believe that they have succeeded! 

Well, that’s the story! It’s been a really different experience for us, since we don’t know anything at all about web development, but it’s been incredibly fun, and exciting. We honestly think that FotoJournal will be a game changer. If you don’t believe me, just go and check it out. 

Feel free to hit us up if you have any questions about FJ! 

Wow, it’s been a wonderful few weeks. We’ve had the opportunity to meet with some amazing people who just happen to be photographers as well. The response to our coaching offerings has been more than we had imagined it would be, and we feel very lucky to be able to share all we’ve learned, and help people to become the awesome photographers they can be! 

So, we’re very happy to announce that we will be extending our coaching sale through April. This is the perfect time to brush up on your skills, and get ready for a fantastic season of shooting!

For details on the sale check out this post.

Yesterday we got to go out and shoot during a half day consult. It was so fun making art out of the most unexpected places, and sharing a gorgeous evening with people who share our love of photography. Just wanted to share these two frames I took. 

Lauren :)

Oh man, the weather here in Edmonton certainly is wonderful! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays this way! If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll know we aren’t fans of the cold at all! Why do we live in Edmonton then? Well, there are some awesome people here :)

Anywho, in celebration of our shooting season starting up again (which we are so excited for! We’re dying to start shooting again!) we’re having a Spring Portrait Special! Check out the graphic below for all the deets! 

Click on the image or this link to contact us! Now is a wonderful time for some custom artwork for you and your loved ones!

If you’d like to view our portfolios, here are a couple links!

// Maternity, Newborns, Families and Individuals

// Couples

Lots of love,

Lauren and Rob

Well, our contest for the Best Wedding Image of 2009 ended at midnight last night, and I’ve spent the morning counting votes. It was certainly a thrilling race, with nearly 600 different people voting! And that’s all individuals, there was no tricky business allowed. Trust me, we sent those ninja cats out to a couple people. I hear they were terrified, but promised never to cheat in an online contest again….

Anywho, you don’t really care about that. What you care about is who won. And whether or not you got that sweet free portrait session!

Since I’m still missing the Olympics, I gave our top three contestants medals for their bravery and dedication to this contest.

Coming in third place, which was the most hotly contested spot….

April & Sheldon! They get a custom 11x14 print for their effforts! Hip hip hooray!

In second place, with an astounding number of votes, the very romantic Laurie & Joseph! They will also receive an 11x14 custom print! Huzzah!

And in first place, the big kahuna, the ones who swept the competition, with an INSANE number of votes…..

SONAL & RAJ!!! YAYYY!!!!111!!!1!111!!!!!

Now, what’s really cool about these two being the winners is that even if I took out all the votes made by friends, family, and obvious co-workers (I can figure that out when I get a million emails all from employees in the same company ;) they still would have won. The votes that I was most interested in were those made by our own friends, family, past clients, and colleagues. We are very honoured to have our blog frequented by other photographers from around the world, as well as stellar wedding professionals, and were so happy to see them getting in on the voting! Those votes, which were completely unbiased in terms of loyalty, were going most frequently to this image. It was the true winner. It’s romantic, exotic, adventurous and unique: everything you’d like your own wedding to be! Congrats you guys!!! They will receive a gorgeous 16x24 canvas, and I definitely think they should pick this shot ;)

Ok, now, the winner of the free portrait session and 8x10 print is…..

Chelsea Luft!!

I’ll be giving Chelsea a shout to see if she is able to claim her prize. We did get a lot of votes from all over the world, so I don’t know if she’ll ever be in Edmonton! So sit tight, and I’ll announce if the prize is indeed awarded, or if we need to draw again :)

Thanks to everyone for participating, it was super fun! We have a little thank you treat for everyone who played, so check your emails :) 

Lots of love!

Lauren & Rob

Just a reminder that our Best Wedding Image of 2009 Contest is ending tomorrow (March 9) at midnight!

You have one more day to enter yourself to win a free portrait session from Rob & Lauren, and help your favorite image win eternal glory!!!!

Just hit up this post, and vote away!

Remember, only one vote per person. We have our army of ninja cats waiting on standby…..

Lauren :) 

Over the past few years we’ve been so honored to be sought out as educators in our wonderful city! We’ve held quite a few Chill Sessions, and had such an amazing time connecting with the wonderful photographers who’ve attended! We also had the thrill of speaking to over 100 photographers at the PPOC Annual NAIT seminar. Though it was so nerve-racking, we were thrilled to hear that we inspired many who attended to kick their business up a notch! 

One of our favourite ways to teach, however, have been the one-on-one consults we’ve been holding for interested photographers. It becomes a much more personal experience, with all of our material directed at exactly what that photographer needs. The result is a complete overhaul of how they look at photography, their business, and their art, and they always leave with their mind spinning from new ideas. Thus far these have been held on a rather informal basis, just done when someone specifically asks. However, we’ve come to see these as a very powerful way to help other photographers, and are looking forward to making them a more regular part of our offerings. 

We see these consults as the perfect option for anyone interested in photography. We’ve taught people who just invested in their first DSLR and need some help learning how to use it, and people who have run a photography business for years and need some help adapting to the changing market!

There is no better time than right now to shake up your work or your business, as we wait for the spring to come and shooting to start! We personally use the winter to re-evalute everything we do, and it always lets us start the new season with a bang!

So, in honor of this new offering, we are having a couple awesome specials on our consults!! Check the graphic below for those offers!

If you’d like to check out all the details and pricing just hit up our Coaching site: http://www.robandlaurenphotographers.com/coaching/

These offers are good for any consult taking place in March. If you’re interested in booking a consult, drop us a line and we’ll set it up! 

We truly love teaching, and are excited to make it a bigger part of our lives as photographers!

Lots of love,

Lauren & Rob :)