Well, that happened

Barack is back for four more years. Not totally surprised about the result, but its not like he's going anywhere. I knew that was coming cause most Americans are already used to him so far, and his wife is doing a fantastic job by making kids in this country more active and healthy. The other thing is that everyone is completely different in terms of diversity and beliefs, which is why most relationships don't last. But nonetheless, they still manage to work progress together, even if they don't like each other at the office or on the Junior Varsity basketball team inside the team bus.

What's going to happen during the period of Barack's second term? I'm not really too sure since I don't like predicting shit, but all I know is that everything will be different (including the adult industry business in the San Fernando Valley) and people will grow older and think maturely by the time Barack and his family are due out of the white house four Election days from now, which I'll be 28 at that time. This recent Election didn't feel as crazy and buzzed as the previous Election 4 years ago in 2008. Everyone (specifically minorities and twenty-sometings) was in good spirits then. I remember the following day when I took the Orange line on my way to Pierce College at the time I was attended there, and once the transit door open, the driver greeted me like it was the movie Pleasantville in the 1950s. In other words, he was fucking happy, and that was the first time I've seen a driver that enthusiastic just from Barack winning the Election over John McCain. The dude was black, if that matters. But from this recent Election, people (except Mitt Romney supporters) are still happy that he won. Again, I REALLY don't like discussing politics, but all I can say is that as long as Barack knows what he doing and performs it for the next four years, then I'm straight with that. Oh and he should tighten up his Secret Service clique and stop having restaurant managers lift him up among other things. I know he's having fun and all, but still, its a non stop job he positioned with, and his crib at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave is a fishbowl that everyone is looking at.

Alright, well now Barack is back to where he left off in his work instead of somebody else, such as Mitt Romney for that matter, taking his place. Special thanks to Nicole and Jon Stetter for letting me watch the Election at their place on Tuesday night. Oh and Diane Sawyer is fucking hot for her age. You can totally dislike and disagree on anything that I type on here or yell at me as much as you want, but I'm just giving my thoughts about the 2012 Presidential Election. Thanks for your time reading this.

November to Remember

Already a year since I took this photo in Downtown Los Angeles.

That was during the Occupy: Los Angeles protest at city hall park, probably one of the most epic experiences I ever witnessed. I didn't participate in the whole Occupy movement and I wanted to photograph the protesters in Downtown cancelling and transferring their accounts that they already regret  to credit unions during "National Bank Transfer Day" (I took this photo the day before), but I couldn't because I had to cover my good friend Yvonne's baby shower that day. To see the photographs of the Occupy LA movement and photos from Yvonne's baby shower as well, check them out on my Facebook page in the photo albums.

So the next 24 hours will be the last 24 hours of advertisers and the media dousing us with which measures and propositions we should say Yes or No to, as well as President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney doing whatever they can to get American citizens to make each said candidate chill inside the White House until January 2017, which is the month the "will-be" president -elect who was elected two months prior will be sworn in. For those who are voting, just make the best decision that you think is best. Nothing else more since I don't really talk about politics on this blogsite, but I will make a post either tomorrow night or the Wednesday after pertaining to Election Day. Should be interesting.

Oh and the Lakers finally won their first game last night since May 18 of this year during the NBA playoffs against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead of witnessing it, I was going back and forth between Sunday Night Football and a new episode of The Simpsons. I remember when I used to look forward to Sunday Night Programs just every week back in the day, whether its was a new episodes of King of the Hill, The Simpsons, and The Worlds Funniest with James Brown (who was on NFL on Fox that time). If they were on repeats, I'd be watching some Sunday Night movie that ABC would usually air. I watched some TV last night just from spending most of last week by coming across some old ass episodes of Futurama. Shit, I used to be INTO that show, especially during the first season when it was on Fox back in early 1999. I would be drawing Fry and Bart Simpson in 5th Grade every day, but I wish I hadn't stop. If I was still into it, then I would've gone to a couple of Comic-Cons in San Diego since Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama) is there all the time, as well as the Futurama voice-cast doing table readings at one of the panel discussions. 

Now that shit is so hard to get into, and I always hear that their website servers always get clogged up with traffic on the day the tickets are sold. Not into Comic-Con that much now, but hopefully next year, they have enough bandwidth and tickets so that everyone, including those who have been trying to attend for the past several years, should be fortunate enough to obtain the tickets. As an alternative, the San Diego Comic Con staff should pull what Coachella did and have two separate weekends of the event, but to have each attendee go for one weekend so that it would be fair to other seeking attendees. It will still sell out if that happened. Fuck, they should have Comic-Con on a cruise now that Coachella is going to do the same next month, but I think that probably won't take place due to some attendees with a chance of sea sickness or if some character dressed in a costume gets tossed overboard into the sea by trying to fix the zipper. Speaking of conventions, I can't wait for the LA Auto Show at the end of this month. I also spent the weekend walking to my homegirl Nicole Stetter's house from my pops house just to catch up on stuff for a bit cause she and her kids had to step out. Great seeing her and her family again. 

Anyway, that it for now on this post. Thanks for your time reading this. 

Minding Over Business Matters

Welcome to November. One of the most important months of the calendar year to a couple degrees.

Some people will be blessed this month from "getting busy" on Valentines Day (I'll let you figure that out), some will let their Gillette Razors and electric shavers be rusted for thirty days to have their faces go from that 5 O'Clock shadow look to already being qualified for that Rick Ross/Zack Galifinakis swagger, and some will try not to make their moms catch you treating yourself "like an amusement park" and end up sharing a room with a sexy female being shown in a silhouette through the curtain like Estelle Costanza did Twenty years ago on Thursday night. I can go on about the Presidential Election next week and families camping out in front of a retailer during Thanksgiving for a 70 inch TV they don't really need with the money they don't really have on Black Friday, but I'm not going to discuss that for now.

Speaking of families, this is why November is so important. It one of the only times when all families can fly in from different parts of the country, if not, then different parts of the world. They spend a week from their schedules as they gather together to see how big their grand kids are and that conservative discussion in the back porch with that uncle having a heated debate with their father-in-law, along with that post grad twenty something nephew, on why some of the state propositions should've been decided the other way, as well as those optimistic group of high school cousins mistaking the Apple Cider with the White Wine next to that half eaten Turkey prepared by both mothers of the said married couple hosting the gathering, and that group of tomboyish half-sisters and their daughters rooting for the Detriot Lions during the annual Thanksgiving football games. Reminds me of watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and the OG Home Alone, but that's next month.

Moments like these need to last, cause once its gone, its gone. and that's what I'm here for, to capture those moments. Now, I know y'all have seen the Photography and Rates section of my site for anytime you should visit glanced at my business site, and it has alot of detail with the packages and stuff. As you also noticed, my prices are WAY lower than any other professional photographers rates. I'm aware of that, but to me, I really don't give a shit about the prices that much. I'm more focused in doing the perfect job and making the client feel satisfied and amazed on the finished product they requested and paid their money for. I wanted to do this for free when I first seriously started doing this four years ago, yet than again, I don't want people to think I'm shady or something and also, I'm not too comfortable of charging $500 for just a one hour photoshoot and additional money for getting the prints, or charging over $2000 for covering a wedding. Yes, I would like that also and yes, there are photographers say that they charge high is because of  the whole "Time is Money" ordeal (which is reasonable and legit), but THAT JUST ME THOUGH.

Again, I'm all about the quality (how well the photos turn out) over quantity (the prices, limited time, deadlines). If I really like you and think you're chill, than I even offer some special pricing as opposed to the standard rates I listed on my website. On that topic, to those who are confused on how the prices and packages work out, let me explain it to you.

RATES
$75 for Photoshoots
 50 per hour for Events
  150 per hour for Weddings

PHOTO PACKAGES
1 8x10= $10
Extra disc of Photos= $10 per disc
4x6 prints for photoshoots= 15
5x7 prints for photoshoots= 20
1 11x14 = $15 per photo

-Framing is $10 extra for 8x10 photo only
-Disc will include DVD slideshow and JPEG files, upon request of clients option
-Post Production on photos will last two weeks to a month depending on session 
-I accept cash and checks. Payment is made during the day after the session
-All photo sessions comes with a free disc of photos. Additional discs is extra. 

So say for example that you want to do a photoshoot session. I'm going to charge you $75, which covers the session and the free disc. The session is entirely unlimited, meaning I'll take as much photos as I can of the said subject and there's no time limit. Then after the session, we (myself and the client) go over the photos and pick out which ones are the best. Like, if I shot 50 photos, out of all of them, about 15 to 20 will be chosen for editing depending on the client's choice of selections. If he or she wants those 15 to 20 photos printed, then I'm going to charge him or her an additional $15 for prints in a 4x6 size and/or $20 for prints in a 5x7 size. That's about $90 to $95 so far. If he or she wants two extra discs to send to his or her relatives than that's an additonal $20 there, which totals up to $110 to $115.

The disc is made on DVD and it can be viewed on a HD Television or a computer. For Macs, just click on the disc icon in the desktop. For Windows, go to My Computer and click on the DVD drive. Some computers will play the slideshow automatically, especially on Macs. Just configure your settings on your computer to disable automatic DVD playback. I don't do the slideshows that much for photoshoots (unless if you want) but mostly for events and weddings since I take over 100 photos for those, and unlike the photoshoots where the client selects the photos, I select the photos for the events and weddings. If you want an 8x10 enlargement and the option to have it framed, that's gonna be $20 per photo ($10 for the enlargement and $10 for the framing).

So you looking at about no more than $120 just for a normal package for a photoshoot, whereas some other photographers charge twice more than that for their packages. I could've set the rates higher, but there are people out there who have financial issues or got extremely affected by the recession for the past four years, so that's why I edged away from the same high $500 average prices and gave those potential clients a break from their checkbooks. Speaking of which, the payment is made RIGHT after the photoshoot is complete. If you want to pay before the session, then that's fine. If you have anymore questions regarding the prices and the photosessions, then leave comments below, or hit me up on Facebook or Twitter or send me an email at justforsneaks07@gmail.com. In addition, for those seriously interested in getting their photos taken, please check out either my website or my Flickr page for some samples of my work to get the idea of how I take pictures and how I edit them. The links are on the top right of the page, and finally, please don't be that fucking asshole who wants a photoshoot but then stops keeping contact with me or just flakes out in the last minute. If you don't have the money, THEN DON'T EVEN BOTHER. Like I said, I wish I can do it for free, but I can't anymore, unless if I decide to cover an event on my behalf. Again, if you have any questions or interested, just hit me up.

Hopefully this clears out the confusion of  how I handle my rates and packages. Please DO NOT tell me on how to set my prices. I might even raise them a bit next year, but again, I'm not that concerned about money, but only on making the perfect photographs out there. Thanks for your time reading this.