DGN Photography in Columbus, Ohio – newborn, maternity, baby, child, family, wedding photographer, senior pictures

I’m going to take the next few days to do a series of photo book reviews.  There are so many companies out there that will print photo books, it’s hard to know what one to go with.  Fortunately for you, I’ve made some good ones as well as some mistakes.  I will start with my professional quality coffee table book, just because I’m so in love with it.   Then the next few days I’ll review Shutterfly, Photoworks, Winkflash, and Blurb.  There are a few other popular brands out there, but I don’t have books from them.

If you don’t create photo books, you really should start.  (Or buy a special one from me ).  What is really nice about them is they take up SO much less space than the old photo albums with prints, and you have something hard copy that you can get out and show photos to people.  Plus, you can have text so you can explain the significance of the photos, and remember who the people in the photos are.   That’s why I make them for my kids, otherwise they’ll get to college or have their own kids and won’t have anything but stacks of CDs of their childhood photos.  I have a big bin of old slides from my mom, and I can tell you they don’t get brought out, ever. (I keep meaning to scan them in, but I’ve been “meaning to” for 8 or 10 years now).

So there it is.  You can choose between leather, faux leather, fabric, book jacket, or custom printed cover.  This is the custom printed cover.   I’m a big fan of the idea of custom printed covers… book jackets get torn or lost (at least they do at my house).

Compared to my other photo books, this custom printed cover is REALLY NICE.  The colors are true to the original photo, you can’t see any dots from their printer, the text is nice and sharp.  It’s got a matte sort of finish to it, and if it got a smudge, you could wipe it off.

Here are the inside pages.  The pages themselves are nice and thick.  This book has hinged pages, so it lays flat when open.  The colors are true to the original photos, and you have to look REALLY hard and hold it up to the light to even begin to see the grain from the printer.

There’s a close up!

And a close up of the cover.  The little bit of blur is from the camera angle (I’m a better portrait photographer than a product photographer!)

Isn’t it beautiful?  They’re going to have it on a table at their reception for guests to sign.  I wish they had these when I got married (7 years ago).   My wedding album is 5″ thick, and weighs a ton! (it is beautiful though).

Tomorrow: I’ll review Shutterfly’s photo book.  Stay tuned!

I have to admit, I get really tickled to get updates from clients.  They really make my day to get emails like this one:

Hi Dianna,
I just wanted to let you know I have given out so many of your business cards even to people I don’t know! I actually think my sister and cousin are going to use your for their kids pictures at some point.  Anyway I finally hung up all of Molly’s pictures and I wanted you to see what I did with them. They are above open steps to our downstairs.  It was difficult to hang (for Doug)ha but well worth it.  I love them! It’s like my little Molly shrine.  Some people may think I am obsessed with her pictures….I just say I am proud!! ha    By the way I love your blog I read it everyday before I go to work! Your pictures are amazing!
Lori

No, not crazy or obsessive, I need to get more on the ball and get more pictures of my own kids up on my walls.  I have this great picture that I had specially printed, framed myself even… and it’s still leaning up against a wall.  I have a goal to make a photo book for each of my kids for every year.  Maylie is 5 and has 2 books, Greg is 3 and has 2 books.  So I still need to make 3 more for Maylie and 1 more for Greg, and in 2 months Vivi will be a year and she’ll be due for her first year book.

Speaking of photo books, Christina & Brian, the couple whose engagement photos I shot a couple weeks ago, purchased a coffee table book, which I designed and had printed (much better quality overall than the cheap with coupon Shutterfly (and other brands) books I do for my kids… although I’m now reevaluating that because the color is all off and wonky in the consumer-grade books, but the color is GORGEOUS on the pro-grade book.  And for something for posterity that they’ll keep forever… it is probably worth it to spend the extra money for a really nice book. OK I’m rambling here).  Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow, do a comparison of photo books.

So if you’re curious, here is the layout of Christina & Brian’s engagement coffee table book.  They’re going to have it at their reception for people to sign (that’s what the white space on the pages is for).  The final book is beautiful. They’re going to love it (she’s picking it up tomorrow). My new web site will have pricing and such for the new products (coffee table books, gallery wrap canvases, custom photo bags, etc), but like that picture that’s leaning up against a wall still… it’s a work in progress!  (Of course I can send pricing, just email me to ask if you are interested.)

Vivi’s favorite thing to do is to take everything that’s on a shelf or in a box and throw it all over the floor, so my personal projects end up taking a backseat to picking up the potholders from the floor for the umteen zillionth time in a single day. That’s the joy of having a mobile baby…

On Memorial day, we had a family cookout thing to celebrate my husband’s birthday (which was actually today, May 29).  And on that day I took a bunch of pictures… at some point, I was very intrigued by the light coming through the bay window and hitting Vivi on one side of her face.

So I took a series that I call “side view baby in high chair” or maybe “baby smearing watermelon juice”.  Well this first one, I was playing with a shallow depth-of-field (that which makes the background go blurry).  I don’t remember what she was intrigued by…

And then, fun watermelon juice!  She was a watermelon fiend.  I have to chop the watermelon (and everything else) in bite size little bits, because she can bite huge hunks of things off with her 8 teeth, but has no molars to chew it once it’s in her mouth.  Here’s an interesting tidbit: she doesn’t like blueberries.  She’ll start to eat one, then spit the whole thing out.  We find that strange because the other 2 kids can eat a whole pint in one sitting between the two of them.

Oh and in honor of Daddy’s birthday, Vivi learned a lot of things today (she’s 10 months old).  She climbed up 3 stairs on her own (I have NOT been encouraging her to learn to climb stairs), she learned the sign for ‘milk’ (she also knows ‘all done’… I taught Maylie and Greg to do baby sign language when they were this age and older, it’s fun!).  She’s standing on her feet and one of these days is going to start walking, eep!!

I had a session with little Miss S last weekend, and boy is she spunky!  A typical 2 year old, we got a lot of unposed shots of her.  It’s a good thing her mom likes unposed shots.   These are from the same session the fairy one from a couple posts ago is from.

We did the session at Homestead Park over in Hilliard, and  first, she wanted to swing on the swings, then play in the sand pit. Then we coaxed her over to the pond, where we got out the bubble machine.  Then she wanted to look at the ducks.  And on our way back, she climbed on the blue train.  I’m not sure she realized it was a portrait session, she got to have a lot of fun at the park!

This one was when she was sitting in the stroller in the garage, before we walked over to the park.  The light was fabulous, so we worked on getting a smile, and there you have it!

I just got this email yesterday:

Dianna,

J. won photogenic in her group out of 13 girls!  I used the hot pink picture & the jean picture where she is laying on her arm for this competition.  She won 1st runner up in portfolio, which I submitted 10 of my favorites all from the ones you took!  Thank you soooo much!  We were so excited!

Thanks again,
Daniela & Miss J. 

That’s so exciting and very cool!  I think the best part of being a photographer is meeting new people.    I really like hearing updates from people.  Here are the photos she was referring to:

This isn’t my usual thing, but I was looking at the photos from yesterday’s shoot and thought she needed fairy wings.  So I started dinkering around in Photoshop, and this is what I came up with.  I’m not the greatest digital artist (and didn’t want to spend the money for someone else’s artwork) but I think it turned out okay!

Wow you guys are on the ball. Congrats to Heather L for being up late and catching my forgetting to post in the blog yesterday.  You win a $10 Starbucks gift card!  There’s 6 more days left until the contest ends… it’s been surprisingly hard to remember to post every day.  I think I’ll be posting frequently after the contest ends, but probably not every day. whew!

I did have some pictures I was going to post yesterday (and then I fell asleep early, while I was putting the baby to bed).  My step-mom and her daughter, Cassie (who is graduating from high school) were in town earlier this week, and I said “hey Cassie, do you like having your picture taken?” and she said, “Sometimes… why…?”  I needed a bit more diversity in my senior portfolio, so she agreed to pose for  me for a few shots.

Isn’t she pretty? Her eyes really are that blue.

I pulled out a few more photos of little baby Mason.  He’s such a cutie pie!  Look at how alert his eyes are:

And then little sleepy baby:

You can see how small he is in his Daddy’s hands:

OK Kurt, you can stop reloading my blog, I’ve got the sneak peek up for you! (just kidding

Wed evening, I went over to photograph little Mason who has got to be the smiliest little newborn ever!  And I’m not just saying that, I’ve got photographic proof!  It’s like he’s sitting there all happy because he made a good choice for his new Mommy and Daddy.  I showed my step-mom the pictures on my computer today (she was up visiting from Las Vegas and flew out today) and you should’ve heard her going “squee”.  I’ll post a few more tomorrow (before the end of the work day, just for you to show your work buddies, Kurt) but check out all these baby smiles!!

Look at that last one, he was smiling at his Daddy! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.  Little Mason weighed 5 lb and change at birth, and was less than 2 weeks old (still had his cord).  When he was awake, I’d swear he was looking right at me.  I’ve got several photos of his little newborn eyes looking right into the camera.  I remember my kids had these wild eyes that looked in weird directions for the first month or two.

Oh and not only was he full of smiles, but he was sleepy and poseable.  A lot of newborns, they wake up when you try to move their arm.  So I was able to get this shot that I’ve been aching to try for awhile (he’s lifted about 4-5 inches above the black backdrop)

Wait until you see his little eyes looking right at you.  It’s so cute. Stay tuned till tomorrow.

I went to Inniswoods last night with a future bride (who is banning her fiance from looking at my web site, so I can post these and we had some fun doing some bridal portraits.  She had her practice run of hair and makeup a little bit earlier in the day, and she brought along her friend to help smooth out the dress and assist.  We had some good fun!  Her wedding is June 7 at St Paul’s church in Westerville, and I’m doing the photography for it.  I’m excited, it should be fun!

We did the blushing bride theme…

We did some kind of artsy dramatic ones (too bad the sky was very gray with storm clouds, some bright blue would’ve been neat)

We did a few shots (of the camera variety) on the little stone bridge…

Beautiful, happy bride!

Another one in front of the sky…