Jules Bianchi Photography Blog » family portraits

family portraits at lake temescal

Jules — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:34:44 +0000

I started shooting Tuan & Casey back in 2005 (and on nearly 100% film – including my funky little swinglens camera) when they got married at the St. Francis Winery in Sonoma. Since then I’ve shot their first maternity photos back in 2006, their family photos in 2007 & 2008, their second maternity photos in 2009 and now…. their THIRD maternity/family photos! I LOVE watching this darling family grow!

Congratulations Tuan, Casey, Jonah & Odin on your new soon-to-be baby brother! Can’t wait to meet him for our family photos in November.

CreativeLIVE and discount codes for you!

Jules — Tue, 15 May 2012 22:27:27 +0000

Just a few short weeks ago, we were approached by CreativeLive to produce a workshop for them on Marketing. Specifically Marketing to Moms, in honor of Mother’s Day weekend. What happened was completely amazing. Our workshop turned into TWO workshops, one for moms to learn how to use their cameras, and one for professional photographers to learn how to really get their family portrait business up and running. The first day we met with a group of fabulous moms to talk about Photo 101. The next two days were filled with discussions on Marketing, Sales, Consultations, Editing, Projection, Work/Life Balance… oh and let’s throw in a live shoot with three kids!

We had a blast. What an absolute RUSH. I have a new appreciation for producing, especially LIVE shows. It is obvious how much work goes into making one of these productions, and the mighty cool staff of CreativeLive makes it looks easy.

If you enjoyed the show or you missed it, you can purchase the downloads here. Our course covered everything from marketing, to sales, to shooting, to life balance, so check it out!

Hooray to the crew!

Marketing to Moms…

In honor of Mother’s Day, we brought our own mom! She is really an inspiration to both of us. We love you, mom!

I wanted to thank some inspiring women who took the time to share with us about how they feel about being moms and business women. Thank you to: Me Ra Koh, Tamara Lackey, Vicki Taufer, Sarah Petty, and Dawn Davis! Your words added so much to the workshop.

One of our live student audience members, Michael Houlden had some great thoughts that pretty much summed up how we feel about marketing and sales. He says,

“Words like marketing and sales so often strike fear into the hearts of artists such as ourselves while at the same time they leave a sense of distrust in the minds of our clients. So, I sort of feel almost dirty telling people that I was at a workshop on marketing and sales. Here’s the thing though – marketing is simply the process of letting people know that we exist and what our service is – and done well the message reaches people that are interested in and value our service. And sales (almost a four letter word for some people) is simply the process of determining what our clients desire and then delivering it to them. Pure and simple. No ugly monsters. No scary ghosts.”

And that’s the point! Sales is simply providing a service to our clients to help them choose what it is they have already told you that they want! Thanks for your words, Michael! Thanks also to our in-studio live student audience: Michael Houlden, Julie Pergitone Croff, Joni James, Dan Troutman, Kristin Tetuán and Christiana Sloop Childers. Wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Here are some fun shots of the week … in the studio, the live shoot…
….and if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll find DISCOUNT CODES for lots of GREAT products!

This is actually JOY shooting the CAMERAMAN shooting JULES shooting the family.

See?

The day after our live shoot, we got back into the studio to talk about editing, photoshop with presets and textures, and of course, sales! Joy demonstrated ProSelect and we all had fun editing images together, to decide how to show clients’ your very best.

Here are a few of Jules’ favorites from the live shoot. Thank you Hilary and Scott, for being so accommodating with the crazy outdoor shoot filled with cameras, wires, and people!

and of course, the famous eye-swap one:

And finally, we have to thank all of our amazing sponsors for all the generous prizes we were able to give away! Here’s Jules with her cute little shutterhugger dinosaur, and me with my DaisyGrip puppet! I don’t know who they entertained more, us or the kids we were supposed to photograph!

DISCOUNT CODES!

Proselect – 10% off of ProSelect software, offer also includes a free “Room View Collection”, with promo code: BIANCHI. Offer not valid on upgrades. Promo code expires May 31, 2012.

TotallyRad! – $50 off of RadLab from TotallyRad! with promo code: 1020MOMS, offer valid May 10-May 19, 2012.

Animoto – 20% off a month of Animoto Pro with code: BIANCHILIVE. Offer only for new subscribers. Expires May 31st.

Pictage/ShootQ - 4 Months of ShootQ starter with promo code: julesjoy2012, valid through 12/31/12. You can also get a 2-month trial of Pictage, no promo code necessary. Just go to Pictage Services, sign up, and if you link your Pictage and ShootQ accounts together you can do some amazing things!

Triple Scoop Music - 10% off any purchase at Triple Scoop Music with promo code: julesjoy12, offer valid through May 31, 2012.

VGallery Haven- 30% off of everything in the v gallery haven store, offer valid from May 10th – May 17th, 2012.

DaisyGrip for a special offer!

We also wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you who have visited our shop on Jules Cafe recently. We really try hard to produce products that we think would be useful to other photographers, and it is always something that we genuinely use ourselves. Again, thanks so much and we really appreciate you.

Happy Holidays from Jules Bianchi Photography!

Jules — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:49:08 +0000

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season. The holidays are my favorite time of year, and I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone the happiest of holidays and a prosperous 2012!!

Here are a few of my favorite shots from the family portraits we’ve done over the last couple of weeks….

Pictage PartnerCon rocked our world

Jules — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:26:16 +0000

Hi! This is Joy, hijacking Jules’ blog to brag about her. Jules has been a presenter at Pictage’s PartnerCon since its inception in 2005. This year’s conference was at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego where It was announced that this would be the last one. We want to take a minute to say thank you for seven great years! Jules and I are both big Pictage fans. They have grown to be so much more than just “a lab”. I have appreciated their commitment to finding new and innovative ways of improving the business and community of photography. Click on the following links for a quick look back at all of Jules’ previous PartnerCon workshops. (I also thought it was fun to watch her hair grow longer and longer with each subsequent year)

This year, I had so much fun watching my sister teach her shooting workshop as she photographed our model family, Lauren, Matt, and baby Claire. We had a really great group of shooters with us! Jules and I spent a little time before the shoot talking to our group of photographers about marketing and sales, as well as overcoming obstacles while working with kids. Thanks to everyone who came out and joined us! We had a blast. Here are a few of my favorites that Jules shot from the workshop.

Halloween Event at JBP!

Jules — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:45:02 +0000

THANK YOU to all of the families who came out to the studio on Monday to participate in our Halloween Portrait Thornhill Elementary Fundraiser. We had so much fun and were very impressed with all of your costumes!

I want to extend a HUGE thank you so both Shelly Waldman and Ananda Shorey for coming and helping out with the event. We couldn’t have done it without you girls!!

If you would like to see all of the images from the event, click here.

GoGo Dancer Jules & Ms. Kitty Joy!

from Whine to Wow: photographing the fussy family

Jules — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:28:43 +0000

Joy and I have been honored again this year by being asked to participate at Pictage’s PartnerCon in San Diego. I have been a speaker at every PartnerCon since its inception in 2006 except for 2009 where instead of speaking, I did a shooting workshop with an entire bridal party.

This time, Joy and I are going to do a workshop together to show you how we handle our portrait clients. We’re calling the workshop “From Whine to Wow: photographing the fussy family” because, as I’m sure you portrait photographers know, many times children and pets just do not have an interest in being photographed.

Come join us to learn how we prep the parents at our pre-shoot consultation and then watch how we handle an actual family -plus pet- to see what tricks and methods we use to get the fun lifestyle shots our clients love.

If you have not attended PartnerCon before, you really should do yourself a favor and register now. This year the event will be in San Diego and if past years tell us anything, its not to be missed. It is a not only a great learning experience, but the networking is so much fun!

Click here to register!

San Francisco family portrait sneak peek

Jules — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 06:32:06 +0000

Shoot one from this morning: Scarlett & Wyatt turn one! Joy & I have been photographing Wyatt & Scarlett since they were a few weeks old. This is a sneak peek of their shoot at age one.

Senior Portraits by Jules Bianchi

Jules — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:15:55 +0000

Well hello! We are so glad you found us!

Check out all the info HERE on our site JUST for SENIORS!

But before you do, take a second and watch this cool video-slideshow from a Senior Portrait Party — and get up to 4 of your BFFs to have your own!

Senior Portrait Party sneak peek!

Jules — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:23:36 +0000

Today Joy & I held our first High School Senior Portrait Party at the studio. We shot four beautiful Carondelet High School girls and had such a fantastic time! We had a hair and make up artist here to make them all glamorous, provided breakfast and snacks and had the tunes pumping all day. Here is a sneak peek of two that caught my eye as I downloaded the files… more to come soon!

If you are a high school student interested in having you’re OWN “bestie” party, contact Joy here: joy@julesbianchi.com for all the scoop!

baby twins in San Francisco!

Jules — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 20:01:50 +0000

You met Scarlett & Wyatt back in December when we started their “baby’s first year” session. Now they are ALMOST ready to sit up on their own…. and they are so so adorable!

Family Portraits in Santa Monica

Jules — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 06:19:53 +0000

We actually shot The Levine Family at both the beginning of 2010 and the end. This second portrait was done to celebrate the birth of their darling daughter, Farrah. Congratulations on your newest addition!! I love these shots because they are more lifestyle than some of the others I have been sharing here on the blog recently. Its fun to come into our clients’ homes and just hang out with the family capturing what’s going on. (Plus, they have a cute dog, and you know I love that.)

More Family Portraits in Los Altos

Jules — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:35:17 +0000

The Schumann family came to us as a referral from my friend, Heather Whiting. What a sweet family. I loved that they included their grandparents in the shoot!

For their session, they were hoping to not only get beautiful family portraits for their holiday card, but they wanted more lifestyle photography as well. After the portraits, we played ball as well as piano, and those are some of my favorite shots of the day!