Archive for the ‘Articles Written by Aric’ Category

As your wedding photographer, I will see all of the vendors you have chosen for your wedding. Or at least, I will see the products they have created to help make your event more personable and unique. For instance, I will see your wedding cake, but I may not see the individual who made the [...]

Hello Members and Friends of the Professional Photographers Guild of Houston (PPGH), My name is Aric Hoek, and I am the 2012 PPGH President.  This particular blog entry is a continuation of the February newsletter and worth reading if you enter print competition every month as I do. Each month since the PPGH converted to [...]

I’ve never been one for organization – that is until a Houston Professional Organizer, Susan Kluckman of It’s A Neat Addiction changed the way that I look at my office and my life company’s workflow. Susan Kluckman believes that everything should be neatly organized to affect your entire lifestyle. Recently, I hired It’s a Neat [...]

After years of searching, and floating from one company to the next, I believe that I have finally found my Houston Bookkeeper for the years to come. Padgett Business Services. The owner of this particular location of Padgett is Bryan Brassell. He is highly professional, but very easy to get along with. One of the [...]

This is a charity event for the Berry Family started by the team at Copperfield Chilis managed by my wife, and I wanted to help spread the word.  Please share this with any of the social networking tools you find in this post to help it go viral.  Please leave a comment below.  Send people [...]

This blog entry is really for the photographers out there that read this blog. I recently upgraded my main retouching station on my network to Mac’s new operating system Lion. Immediately I ran into a problem when trying to import images into Adobe Lightroom 3. For whatever reason I was unable to see my Drobo [...]

I am looking for a life size mannequin that I can use here in my new home studio. I want one so I can study posing and different lighting techniques. Anyone know where I can find one? Thanks. Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP Professional Photographer

I took the weekend off, and it felt great, mostly because it was my 10 year wedding anniversary with my beautiful wife Toni. We spent it eating great food and giving ourselves a short break from the kids. We were gone two nights, but we were both really ready to have our kids jump into [...]

Austin, Ashley, Angelica and I will be out of the studio starting today at 2pm until Wednesday morning. I am leaving to attend a continuing education conference and trade show in San Antonio hosted by the Professional Photographers of America. I go to multiple shows each year, but I always make a point of attending [...]

Welcome to the Solaris Studios Website. If you are in the beginning stages of searching for a Houston wedding photographer, then you’re probably not quite ready to make a decision yet. You need to research further. Which photographer is the best fit for you? How do you know what questions to ask? Do you use [...]

There are many things that can make a wedding photographer popular.  The quality of their work of course plays a very important part, as can the price of their services. Whatever the reason, a wedding photographer’s time can become saturated rather quickly with reservations.  After all, there are only so many weekends in the year, [...]

Without a doubt, professional photography is a luxury product. No one needs family portraits. So, I would say that family portrait photographers have it harder than wedding photographers. People will always want great images of their photography. What is wedding photography after all? Women communicate with their friends and family through the use of stories. [...]

Are you a wedding or portrait photographer in the Houston area? If you are, then you need to become a member of the Professional Photographer’s Guild of Houston. It is one of the longest running professional photographic organizations in the area with over 50 years of rich history. Quite a few changes are being made [...]

You are planning your wedding, and choosing the right photographer for you is so very important. How can you tell how passionate a photographer is about their art? You know you need to ask questions to make an educated decision, so you search the bridal magazines and websites and sure enough you find a list [...]

It’s Monday, and Monday’s are reserved for the following tasks. First, I have to secure the images that were taken during the previous weekend’s wedding. This means downloading compact flash cards to the server, and initiating a drive to drive backup. Next, all of the raw images need to be backed up to DVD and [...]

I arrived at the church on time. As a wedding photographer, on time for me is 20 minutes early. Nobody was there. Another 20 minutes pass, and still no one. 45 minutes before the wedding is to start and a groomsmen arrives, so I finally get confirmation I am in the right place. And then [...]

I am contractually obligated to show up at a specific time, and a specific place, each weekend. And, I must be prepared to perform to the best of my abilities. Which means there is some prep work before heading out to photograph a wedding. Primarily, I am getting my equipment ready. Cleaning my camera for [...]

Today’s blog entry has very little to do with photography. It’s really just kind of a fun story. It’s Saturday, and normally I have a wedding on Saturday, but not today. I’m looking forward to a nice “date night” with my wife. So, I’m just waking up and I hear a loud scratching. I think [...]

My mission statement is very simple and is composed of two parts. I want to help as many families as I can with my artwork, and I want to help as many photographers as I can with my knowledge. One challenge for many photographers today is to obtain a respectable ranking on many of the [...]

When planning a wedding there are many items that go on a list that must be researched, the perfect solution found, and then marked off the list. One of these items is finding a photographer that suits a couple’s needs. Being a bride-to-be is an exciting time yet it can also be quite stressful trying [...]

So, I had a consultation in the studio the other day, and I heard a story told from my guest.  I’ve heard it before.  Basically it was the horror story of the client never getting their wedding album, or what ever product they had ordered from their photographer. They are of course telling me this [...]

Thanksgiving means lots of family, and lots of family means lots of pictures.  If you are looking to create a do it yourself family portrait, then here are a few things to think about. You are going to need a tri pod to ensure that everyone is in the portrait. Family portrait sessions taken outdoors [...]

If you are a bride-to-be more than likely you are devoting a serious amount of time into educating yourself about how to plan your wedding, and at some point you will begin researching professional photographers. Any local or national magazine on wedding planning is going to provide you a list of questions to ask potential wedding [...]

For over 10 years now I have been a member of the Professional Photographers Guild of Houston, and during that time I have made a point to take advantage of all the benefits of membership while contributing my time and energy whenever possible. Continuing education is so important to me, so I was so happy [...]

I was only 17 when I failed typing during my sophomore year at Bellaire High School. That was 21 years ago. However everything changed for me when I was introduced to photography shortly after. It was the first thing that I was really good at and I latched on tight. I knew that when I [...]