Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

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 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 [...]

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, [...]

Like most business owners, I have dreams. Some are big, and some are small. Lately I have had some really big ones. So big, I’m compelled to write about them as I feel it may help them to become a reality. One dream I’ve been having over and over lately is of a bridal or [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I have been thinking about my studio space the past few months as my five year lease in my current location is going to expire in exactly one year and four days from today. Currently I am located in a very nice professional tower, in a very nice part of Houston, and I have a [...]

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 [...]

Straight from the middle-of-the-night keystrokes of Aric himself, Aric’s newsletters are full of thoughts and real world examples about photography and the business of photography from the point of view of Aric. No matter what the subject matter, there’s always a photographic tip or a new resource for you to discover. Aric’s newsletters are free [...]

I have been studying ways to make my upcoming workshops a bit cooler than the rest, which means I am reading blogs.  Event Manager Blog is one that I read quite often.   Today they posted, and in that post there is a photograph of thousands of people at a class.  The front two rows [...]

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 [...]

Like many of us this week, we are rushing to get a full week’s work done asap, to possibly take Wednesday off and enjoy  a five day weekend.  This year is a bit different for me, as I have a wedding to photograph this Friday.  The wedding was originally scheduled to transpire the weekend that [...]

Annie Leibovitz has a new book coming out! Count me in. Listen to the NPR interview. BubbleShare: Share photos – Craft Ideas

Dear Netflix, Thanks for all the laughs. You really have made things easier when I sit for hours on end at my workstation designing albums. But Netflix, things have changed. With the failing economy, it just doesn’t feel like the right time to be in this kind of a committed relationship. We’ve been drifting apart [...]

Did you know that it was a photographer that helped to Powell to endorse Obama? There is an interesting comment at the end of the post as well. Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP Professional Photographer 2012 President PPGH

This is a bit of a long story, so bear with me. I’m a pretty heavy sleeper. My wife Toni is a General Manager of a Chili’s, which means she works harder and longer than I do. There are many nights when she gets home at 1 or even 2 in the morning and I [...]

The Bella Terrazza, The Tuscan Villa of Garden Oaks, and The Chef’s Table were all wedding and event facilities owned by Titus Inc.  While we are not sure of all the alleged details, as we have not verified the facts , we do know that these three facilities were recently closed overnight and over 100 couple’s weddings [...]

For years, Apple has been wildly successful with their “I’m a Mac” campaign, but recently PC has been hitting back with their own version. However, would you believe that the PC ads were made on a Mac!!!

There is no perfect wedding album, there are only perfect wedding albums. Watch this video by Malcolm Gladwell and you will understand why Solaris offers it’s clients 14 different albums to chose from, consisting of four different styles of album design. By embracing the diversity of our customers, we can provide a better service. Malcolm [...]

Mariam and Waddah were a fabulous couple to serve! Everyone was so stress free and the party was fabulous! I really love the couples that hire me and then just set me loose without any restrictions. I was free to create! As an additional bonus Waddah’s mother and sister were able to fly in from [...]

My neighbor is getting married soon, and she is really planning a beautiful wedding. In fact, she is planning a destination wedding outside of the U.S. Solaris is not shooting their wedding as I have a family and friends policy. At any rate, my neighbor stopped by yesterday because she wanted some advice about what [...]