Rob and Lauren Blog

(First up, I want to apologize for neglecting this blog so badly! That will not be a trend that I intend to maintain, and will be posting regularly very soon! Rob and I were up to our eyeballs in this project and everything else was put on the side burner! But we’ve launched it, and are now attempting to restore balance and order in our universe :)

It seems like I say that we have a new project every month now. We just can’t seem to stop ourselves from trying out new things, and expanding our business & art in ways we never expected. Exhausting, stressful, but oh so fun! ;)

This latest project has really set a fire in us. It has to do with something we’re incredibly passionate about: education.

Being self-taught photographers ourselves, we know exactly how long it takes to learn the technical and artsy stuff about photography. Then how long it takes to learn how to start a photography business. And then, just when you think you’ve figured it all out, there’s the incredible amount of time it takes to learn how to run a successful photography business.  And the crazy thing? Learning those things NEVER stops. We learn more every day. And much of that learning comes from the many mistakes and misteps we’ve taken along the way. We really hope, through teaching, to help others avoid those mistakes!!

So what to do with all this passion for education? We’ve been holding Chill Sessions for the past few years, and have enjoyed sharing with some of the most wonderful photographers you could hope to meet. We also starting doing one-on-one coaching this year, and have been able to help a ton of great people! But it was all local. Not easy to share.

Enter Photography Concentrate. A new website dedicated to sharing real-world photography knowledge. We’re kicking it off with  a video tutorial all about RAW Processing in Lightroom. If you’re not using that program to do most of your processing, you’re missing out! It’s incredible. Even if you’re a hobbyist just starting to learn about processing, this tutorial will be awesome for you!

What’s really awesome is that this is just the beginning. We have a TON of things planned for that site over the coming months. So if you’re photographer (pro or passionate amateur!) we’d love for you to check it out!

There’s a second part to this announcement. And it’s a big one. One that I’ve been procrastinating writing for hours now. But I suppose I just need to jump in with both feet here.

Rob and I have made the very very difficult decision not to take any weddings for 2011. 

I could probably write a novel about the reasoning for that decision. But to really boil it down, we believe that life is best lived charging after your dreams. Our dream, from day one, has always been to become travel photographers. Weddings casually strolled into our lives, and before we knew it they completely took over. We couldn’t do near as much traveling as we’d like, since our schedule was determined a year and a half in advance! 

But there’s no need to belabour the reasons. Needless to say, we’re very sad that we won’t be getting to meet new brides and grooms, and share their wonderful journey with them, but we know we’re leaving the Edmonton wedding photography market in very capable hands. There are some wonderful shooters here :)

This doesn’t mean that things stop on this blog. Hardly! We have some wonderfully amazing weddings this year that we are just so excited about. And we are planning to really expand the portrait side of our work this year, so there will be a lot of images yet to come!

It’s going to be an interesting journey from here on out for us. We’re leaving a business we know very well, to pursue one that we know hardly anything about. But that’s never stopped us in the past, and it certainly won’t stop us now. It only takes a heart full of passion and the dedication to work relentlessly to make your dream a reality. That’s something we believe in absolutely.

So, I hope you’ll all join us on the adventure our lives are sure to become! We have been thinking BIG a lot recently, and have some wacky ideas for our future. It will be scary, for sure, but I have a feeling this new path will take us some incredible places.  

Tons of love, and truly, thank you for reading our blog.

Rob & Lauren :)

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 :)

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 :)

Heyo!

How are you guys doing? Man, I feel like we haven’t talked in a while! Y’know, I seriously want to meet all our regular blog readers one day. That would be cool. Honestly, if you ever see us out and about make sure to say hello, ok?

Anyways, Rob and I, as usual, have been hard at work :) Lots of stuff to get caught up on! And thanks a bazillion for all the trip suggestions, we’ve got some really good ideas, and are going to make a decision soon! Man, I’m excited :)

Well, I thought I’d share some photos today. From our last Chill Session! It happened to be a very chilly day, but luckily for us we had a couple crazy awesome people to model for us. They are Mark and Leslie :) Feast your eyes on their cuteness.

 Sadly, they didn’t know what to do with their hands….

 Oh, and since I’m getting lots of emails about it, at the moment there aren’t any Chill Sessions planned, but in all likelihood the next one will be May-ish (when it warms up here!). But, if we get our butts in gear, there may be one or two things happening before then. Who knows. We tend to have too many ideas, not enough time :)

Hmm, I feel conversational today. Like I’m talking to our blog readers. Hey, what’s up? Tell me where you’re from!

Lauren :)

Hey all you photogs out there!

Just wanted to let you know that there are still a couple spots left for Sunday’s Chill Session. This will be our last one until the spring, so if you’ve been wanting to learn how we do what we do, now is the time! Drop me a line ASAP by heading to our contact form and I’ll hook you up with all the details! It’s going to be crazy fun, we can’t wait to hang out and have a blast! And also teach you so much your head will be spinning :)

Lauren :)

Whew! What a day Sunday was! We were honored to host some very talented and wonderful photographers at our home, and had a blast doing it! I think our attendees are still probably recovering from the brain overload :)

One of our favourite things to do is challenge ourselves. Every time we put ourselves in an unfamiliar situation, we’re amazed at what comes out of it. So when we were choosing a spot to shoot for the Chill Session, we decided to go totally out there. We found a random elementary school and worked it out. I think we’ll be shooting at elementary schools more often, they totally rock!!

Here are some of our images, with our beautiful and wonderful couple, Michelle & BJ. And yes, they look really familiar, because we just shot their wedding the weekend before! They just couldn’t get enough of us, I guess :)

 BJ looks a little intimidated having 10 women with huge cameras staring him down!! But they rocked it so hard. I’m not even mad, I’m just impressed. ;)

 Children at play. Completely appropriate :)

 Ok, I can’t get over how insanely stunning Michelle is here. HOLY SMOKES. And if any Chill Sesh peeps have a “behind the scenes” photo of how we managed this shot, I’ll totally post it up :)

BEHIND THE SCENES!!!! Yes, we do this for real. And it works awesomely.

Thanks to Devon for this one…

And Sandra for this stellar montage. I look like such a slacker reclining on the grass. It’s epic. 

  *sigh* Cutie pies

 That’s their ride. Honest. ;)

 G-darn I love this one. A+ to Rob.

 Yeah. They’re fierce. What.

 I also wanted to share this super duper sweet message from Rhiannon, one of our participants:

Thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much! It’s so wonderful of you both to be so open about your art - it really means a lot to me that you are willing to share it. You gave me so much information and inspiration! Like you used to be, I am really shy, which is one of the biggest reluctance’s I’ve had to throwing myself into a career with this. You’ve given me the confidence to know that it can be overcome, and I’m really excited to put all of my new tricks to work at my next session. Oh, and the Snickerdoodles rocked!

In case you’re totally confused, Snickerdoodles are the crazy awesome cookies I made for the Chill Sesh. Don’t you wish you came now? ;)

If you’re interested in the October Chill Session hit me up (love [at] robandlauren [dot] ca) and I’ll get you signed up. It’s going to be stellar!!

Lauren :)

Well, our August Chill Session booked up crazy fast, and we have a fantastic group of photographers all lined up to learn a ton! But we’ve still been getting lots of interest, so we have scheduled another one for this year!

I’m gonna say right now that these two Chill Sessions are going to be unreal. Over the past couple of months Rob and I have spent a LOT of time talking and thinking about photography. We feel like we’ve really discovered some fantastic ideas, and can’t wait to share them! We truly feel that this information will help out a ton of photographers, and not just in a “Put your settings to this and you’ll be good” sort of way. I’m talking about the philosophy of photography, and the psychology of interacting with clients. Deep stuff :) With some Rob and Lauren silliness added in. It’s going to be mind-blasting!! :)

Date: Sunday, October 4, 2009

Where: Our home/studio on the south side of Edmonton

What: A day of learning and shooting with Rob & Lauren. We’ll be focusing on shooting style, interaction, and post-processing.

Included: Snackies, bevvies, and din din

Cost: $500 + GST

We will be limiting the session to 10 people, and I have a feeling it will book up rather quickly, so get in touch with me right away (lauren [at] robandlauren [dot] ca)  if you’re interested. I’ll send you an email with all the details of what we’ll be talking about, and how to book your spot!

Happy Wednesday!

Lauren :)

Wow, that’s a long title! But so much to share this morning. So much that we’re going to share some teasers from Saturdays wedding tomorrow! That’s how much we have going on, it’s crazy!

Let’s get to it right away. This is a Moving Portrait that I’m so excited about. Talya & Richard are a very dynamic and snuggly couple who also both happen to be amazing hip hop dancers! Photos alone just can’t quite get all those little nuances of them, since they move so much together. We hope you enjoy this Moving Portrait we made of them.

Talya & Richard // Edmonton Couple Moving Portrait from Rob & Lauren on Vimeo.

And now, a couple points of news.

We just want to let everyone know that we are DEFINITELY shooting in EDMONTON for 2010. We admittedly were a bit overenthusiastic about our move to Vancouver, and didn’t quite consider housing markets and all that boring stuff. We still will be moving there, but within the next few years. So Edmonton, you’ve got a lot more Rob & Lauren coming your way! And if you’re a Vancouver bride, give us a shout since we have extremely discounted travel rates for you!!

And we’ve been getting lots of emails asking when the next Chill Session is. Well, here you go:

Chill Session 2009 2.0

When: Sunday, August 16, 2009

Where: Our home on the south side of Edmonton

What: A day of learning and shooting with Rob & Lauren. We’ll be focusing heavily on live shooting and post processing, with even more one-on-one time!

Included: Snackies, bevvies, and din din

Cost: $300 + GST

We will be limiting the session to 10 people, and I have a feeling it will book up rather quickly, so get in touch with me right away (lauren [at] robandlauren [dot] ca)  if you’re interested. I’ll send you an email with all the details of what we’ll be talking about, and how to book your spot!

Wow, so much going on in this post, but I hope you all enjoyed it! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think of our Moving Portrait!

Lauren :)

Happy Monday my friends!

Yesterday we had the wonderful opportunity to chill with 10 uber cool photographers! While we were all chatting in the morning I had a perfect view out the window of the blizzard that had taken over the city. But I knew that wasn’t going to stop us, and we were going to shoot no matter what! So everyone bundled up, and followed us out to an industrial area for some fun. To be honest, Rob and I were pretty worried as we were driving out there, and figured our shoot would be cut short. But we were having way too much fun, and were getting some mind-blowing shots, that I think we ended up shooting for well over an hour and a half in blizzard conditions!

Before I continue it’s essential that I give a huuuuuuge shout out to our models, Andrea and Mike. They drove all the way from Red Deer to hang out with us, and we truly couldn’t have had a better couple to work with! They were probably freezing cold the whole time, but never showed us anything but pure enthusiasm. We were so honored to create these images for them!

Check out the snow!!! In a normal situation we probably would have resheduled, but I’m SO pumped that we didn’t because it adds such a killer element to the photos.

 To get this shot I made all 10 photographer tramp through huge amounts of mud. We were all pretty dirty after that, but I maintain that it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.

 Again, we can’t thank Andrea and Mike enough for their amazing model skillz. They totally made our day!

And to all our Chill Session participants, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for an amazing day. You guys were fantastic!!!

Tons o’ love,

Rob & Lauren

Hey friends!

So our Chill Session is now all booked up! Yay! Thanks to everyone who is coming, we’re going to have a blast together!

If you were interested in the Chill Session but the date didn’t work for you, or it booked up before you could reserve your spot, get in touch with us now. We might do another one soon if there’s enough interest!

Have a great weekend!

Lauren :)

Well, we finally got our butts in gear and have decided on a date for our next Chill Session! Here are the deets:

When: Sunday, April 26, 2009

Where: Our home on the south side of Edmonton

What: A day of learning and shooting with Rob & Lauren. This time we’ll be focusing heavily on live shooting and post processing, with lots of one-on-one time!

Included: Snackies, bevvies, and din din

Cost: $250 + GST

We will be limiting the session to 10 people, and I have a feeling it will book up rather quickly, so get in touch with me right away (lauren [at] robandlauren [dot] ca)  if you’re interested. I’ll send you an email with all the details of what we’ll be talking about, and how to book your spot!

NOTE: As of Wednesday morning there are only 3 spots left! So if you’re wanting to come get in touch ASAP!

And a lovely little shot from our last Chill Session:

Hope to see some of you soon!

Lauren :)

Well, I just got the go ahead so I’m really excited to post this here!

We are now confirmed speakers for the Professional Photographers of Canada Annual NAIT Seminar. It’s a two day seminar on March 14 & 15 that features the incredible Jesh De Rox, as well as yours truly.

I’m going to tell you right now that if you are a photographer, you would be flat out insane not to go to see Jesh talk. The cost for non-PPOC members is only $175 for two full days including lunch. You will never find a more fantastic opportunity to hear this amazing person speak. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had the chance to spend some time with him on a couple occasions, and he is such an inspiration. I’m going to say it again: you are INSANE if you don’t take up this opportunity. To all the local photographers who read this blog, just know that once the international photography community finds out about this seminar they will be mad with jealousy.

Plus, you will get to see us all awkward and nervous as we present our first ever seminar! That’s gotta have some entertainment value :)

Seriously though, we’re really excited to have this opportunity and have got some great ideas of what we’re going to share. It should be an amazing two days and we can’t wait to see you all there!

Here is a link to the PDF that you need to fill out and send off. Get this done right away because I have a feeling this is going to fill up crazy fast.

Leave us a comment if you sign up so we can make sure to look for you!

Lauren :)

NOTE: The email address was written incorrectly on the PDF so make sure you send it to this one: es [at] ppoc-alberta [dot] ca. If you sent it to the old address, without the dash, make sure to resend so you don’t miss out!

Woo woo! So today we had our Chill Session and it was totally awesome. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to talk tomorrow, but wow is it great to talk to so many other photographers and see their reactions when we put something in a new light for them.

It was a long day and there was so much talking and learning that I’m sure Rob and I will be totally zonked out tomorrow morning, but 100% worth it. We’re already getting some amazingly sweet emails from participants and we’re so glad they enjoyed themselves! 3 awesome girls even came from Calgary!!!

During our Chill Session we had a live shoot to show everyone how we interact with our couples and choose shooting spots. We had AMAZING models (who have never done this before, by the way) who did a unbelievable job even with 18 photographers shooting them! I really wanted to share some shots of them because it was so fun and we got some really great emotion from them.

And one really cool shot of all the participants:

Thanks to everyone for coming and a huge thanks to Greg and Carole for being our awesome models!!! Can’t wait to see the shots from everyone else!

Love,
Lauren :)