The Treasures to be Found on my iPhone {New Braunfels Photography}

Most people assume I carry my camera gear with me everywhere. There's always a note of surprise when, at a party or out and about, a friend or acquaintance turns with surprise and says "what? no camera?" when something they deem a total Kodak moment pops up. But alas, no I do not carry my gear with me wherever I go. But I do have a camera with me most of the time. Probably the same one you have. The one that's on my phone.

It gets exhausting always being the one who's expected to photograph every moment. But because I am who I am and I can't let those moments go undocumented, I often pull out my trusty iPhone to capture those silly moments of daily life. My problem, however, is that they tend to stay on my phone for long periods of time. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I attempted to take a photo only to get the message that my memory was full. What? I have to get them off my phone now?

So I downloaded finally and what I found was a treasure trove. That phone was packed with more than a year's worth of cool stuff. "How did I miss all this?" I asked myself. There are so many blogable moments here. So many cool things and fun shots. I can't believe all this was in my pocket the whole time!

So I went through and uploaded just a small sample of the treasures on my phone and I did have a hard time at narrowing them down. I love them all. I treasure them all. And I won't even mention all the cool videos my Boy took. I know he likes to borrow my phone from time to time to "make a movie" but I had no idea he was a total Speilberg!

So here you have it. My top iPhone images of the past year.



This one is my son after his coolest haircut ever. Needless to say it didn't stay this way for long. But it did grace the welcome screen of my iPhone for the better part of a year.



This one is too awesome for words. My son took up Taekwondo and decided to hold ninja lessons in our front yard for a while. Every day he'd rush home, as would the kids in our hood, to congregate on the lawn for another day's lessons. It was magical.



This is a fun one of Jayme at one of his science fiction conventions. We took it to make our oldest child jealous. She didn't want to come to the party. When she found out there was a giant dalek there, of course she was insanely jealous because who doesn't want to hang out with one of these things.



While up in Dallas for the above-mentioned convention, we made a side trip to the American Girl store at the request of my sweet then-12-year-old. It was a red-letter day for her.



Her older sister, however, thought the moment was worthy of her best eye roll ever. And I captured it all with my little iPhone.



This one is the sweetest that I found. My Boy hates kisses so I took advantage of him falling asleep next to me watching television. I made sure to take a selfie with the iPhone to prove to him that I did in fact kiss him while he slept. He wiped his cheek when I showed him even though it was hours later.



This one was taken at Texas School of Photography in May 2013. It's me and my favorite second shooter, Laura during one of the after hours parties. What a fun time.



This is the breakfast in bed I got from My Boy for Mother's Day last year. I'm so glad I snapped a photo of it.



Aw, this is one of my favorite. It was taken that same day on Mother's Day. I attempted to take out the trash at the condo on the beach we were staying at and The Boy jumped in and took it from me pronouncing that it is Mother's Day and his mommy would not take out the trash. I'll treasure this photo forever.



It's Baby's First Job! My girl just got her name tag for her very first summer job. I missed her helping me out on sessions, but I was so happy she was able to work another real job and earn some extra money.



This is me and my girls at a San Antonio Missions baseball game last spring.



Oh here's a funny one. This is at the dentist's office after I told The Boy that we weren't quite done yet. His sister was still in the chair for a while longer. I think he was ready to leave.



My baby girl was pet sitting for some friends and made a new friend. This kitty became a model for our Humane Society calendar later because of how she won our hearts.



This was right after I did my own page for the Humane Society calendar. I decided to go fill up my car with gas in full retro wardrobe and hair and makeup. Not a single person looked at me twice. My daughter was teasing me on the way home so I wacked her with this rubber chicken. That's how we roll.



This was taken at the San Antonio Museum of Art. It was a nice day with the kids. I saw them sitting in this window and thought it was so beautiful, if only I had my camera. So I took out the iPhone and still did okay.



Another priceless family moment. My girls squabbling over the front seat. Nice.



It's me and my girl and my sister at the Maroon 5 concert in Austin. How could I possibly carry that big bulky camera with me to this? I'm so glad I have this photo!



It's County Fair time and my boy loves the fun house!



This is my Boy at Freebirds with his Harry Potter wand that he made out of foil. I hope it's still there and didn't get removed. He'll be so happy to see it preserved forever on the wall.



We arrived a little bit early to an engagement session near an old church so we decided to explore the cemetery.



Halloween carnival time!



We finally got the keys to the new studio so me and January from Diamond Divas and Becky from The Bargainista got sweaty and dirty to get it ready for move in. Fun times!



It's Christmas tree time!



We stopped by to see the Girl Scout house before they closed it down for good. It was a sad moment and we saw that other girls were writing their memories on the wall so my girls added to it. Priceless.



My girl got a kick out of the way somebody scratched "Hogwarts" into the back door of the mall. It was a Kodak moment.



This is one of about a hundred selfies I found of my daughter. She likes to take my phone during sessions and clown around while I'm working with the clients. I love finding her little presents on my phone. Usually she'll change the image on my main screen for me.



The Golden Girl herself on a monorail in Orlando.



It's me and The Boy taking a selfie on the Dumbo ride at Disneyworld.

So that brings us up to speed. I shared more than I wanted but it was a really cool year. I hope I don't take another year to download all these images from my phone. I hear there's this cloud thing that will help, but I'm a little behind the times on that. Maybe next year.

Lisa On Location Photography

What I did on my Texas School Vacation {New Braunfels Photography}

Once a year I like to take a drive up to Dallas to participate in the bestest darn photography education in the world. The Texas School of Professional Photography is a week-long school/workshop/convention/tradeshow for professional photographers.

Each year I choose a class, but I have to be quick because some of them fill up fast, and I spend a week with some of the most amazing photographers in the world. Two years ago I was honored to learn some new wedding lighting techniques from Robert and Leslie Faust that I still use at every single wedding I photograph. Last year I sat in Robert Seat's class to learn some Photoshop techniques that helped me perfect my pin-up photography.

Each year I meet more and more fellow photographers and become more and more enriched in the culture of professional photography. I tell my friends I have a love/hate relationship with the school. I hate the drive to Dallas (and don't much care for the city itself), I hate being away from my family for a week, and I hate being away from my workload for a week. But I can't justify not going because I love what I learn. I love coming back with all this new information and then watching it take root in my own business and making me a better photographer and business woman.

This year I took a boudoir photography class with Kay Eskridge. She's a master photographer in Phoenix and she had so much information to share. We had a small class of 15 people and we had the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Intercontinental to ourselves all week. We had boudoir models coming into the suite daily to pose for us as Kay walked us through every detail of running a boudoir photography business. I got valuable feedback on my past boudoir work and a clear direction of where I'm going.

I'm excited share some of the new techniques and business practices I'll be implementing soon. In the meantime, take a look at some of the images I captured with our beautiful models in the class as well as some of the fun I had with my fellow photography friends during the evening parties.

Lisa On Location Photography

In Studio Bridal Sessions: Fear conquered {New Brraunfels Wedding Photography}

Right about now a beautiful bride is saying her I-dos. Congratulations Erin! I've been waiting for a few months to share these images with my blog readers because they're about me conquering a fear I had when I first opened my studio.

I knew I would love shooting boudoir and pin-up in the studio and it has been. Many gorgeous sessions have been pulled off her and there are many more to come. And I've done a few babies in a breeze. But I was worried about shooting bridals here. I was worried there wouldn't be enough beautiful scenery or creative poses that I could come up with in a stiff formal studio setting (not that there's anything stiff and formal about my studio). It just seemed like such a small space for a big bridal.

I ended up quite please with what I captured for Erin. We stayed mostly within the walls of my studio but we did decide to venture out by the river for a couple of images and into the stairwell for a few. I like them.

So as Erin says her I-dos tonight with me there to capture them, I'd like to present to you these. Fear conquered. Bring on more in-studio bridal sessions.

Lisa On Location Photography

Destination: Chicago {New Braunfels Wedding Photography}

I've been waiting for months to share these images with you! I was so excited when one of my lovely mothers of the bride asked me if I wouldn't mind being flown to Chicago to photograph a bridal session for today's bride. I had never been to the Windy City so I jumped on it. "Sure," I said.

So last September on a beautiful crisp fall weekend, I boarded a plane in San Antonio and hit the big C-town by noon. We then spent the whole day checking out some of the bride's favorite sites and shooting everything we could. We hit the Morton Arboretum, we had a late lunch in LaGrange, which tickled me because of our own notorious LaGrange in Texas. We hit the downtown area to do some images in front of the big "Bean" in Millennium Park, then at sunset and a little after, we hit Soldier's Field for some fun Chicago Bears shots.

We were all exhausted by the end of the day and I had more photos than I knew what to do with. It was hard sitting on these images all this time. But today's the big day, Renee is marrying Diego right now in a big, beautiful, pull out all the stops, ceremony at Boulder Springs.

Thanks for showing me the beautiful city of Chicago ladies! It was an adventure!







Lisa On Location Photography

Boudoir season is in full swing {New Braunfels Boudoir Photography}

Most of you who follow me are familiar with my past Boudoir Balls. I usually host it one day every January and fill the day with a lot of beautiful women back to back all day. This year I did things a little bit different. This year I have a studio so I don't have the need to rent a gorgeous suite at the Faust like I usually did, although I'd love to return there soon because it photographs so beautifully. But I chose to keep it in the studio this year. As a result I haven't had just one day of boudoir. I've had a lot.

Those images are private. I won't show you the gorgeous bride-to-be who is giving her fiance an amazing gift on their wedding day. I won't show you the beautiful grandmother who still has it and isn't afraid to share it with her significant other. You won't see the images from the session I shot with the single mother who found love again and wanted to give her new love something special. Nope all those are private. You'll see none of those or the other lovely ladies who come to me in secret, slipping into my private studio tucked away near the basement of the old historic Landmark building in New Braunfels.

But don't fret. I do have some images that I can share with you. Every now and then I like to put out a casting call for models. These are real women who pose for me for the purpose of sharing images with you. Many of them are just as self conscience and nervous as the women who come to me in secret. But they're stepping out of their comfort zones because they want to try something new and be a part of something special.

It's not too late to get your session in before Valentine's Day. And I'm sure your guy won't mind a belated Valentine gift of this variety.

Give me a call to schedule.

Lisa On Location Photography

My thoughts on digital storage {New Braunfels Photography}

I still have all my film negatives from the pre-digital age. Everything I ever shot on film is neatly stored away in a safe place. I'm screwed if there's a fire, but they're pretty safe from damage for the most part.

I can't say the same about the digital age. I made the digital switch in around 2006. But I continued shooting film with my SLR and digital with my little Fuji Finepix for a while further. I switched totally to digital at around 2008 when I got my first DSLR.

Many of my early digital files are no longer in existence. During a routine file transfer onto an external hard drive, my darling husband kicked over the external hard drive and all files on it were lost. Hard lesson. Fortunately, I had not started photographing clients at that time and I only lost some personal images that would be really cool to have now. Lesson learned. From that point on I made sure my files were all saved in at least two places. My work flow goes like this. Once I shoot a session or wedding. I download to my internal hard drive. I make a copy onto an external hard drive. I process the images and upload them onto my online storage gallery and move the processed images to my external hard drive as well.

After a few months, I delete the images from my internal storage so I'm only left with the external hard drive storage and the online storage.

I don't completely trust online storage. We've all heard horror stories about failures in that method of storage and it's totally out of our hands. So I can't totally trust that the online storage is fool proof. And of course I can't totally trust that my external hard drive is safe.

Case in point, just last week I had an issue with one of my cords behind the computer. I asked darling Jayme to take a look down there. While under my desk he accidentally bumped my Seagate 1TB external hard drive to the carpeted floor just a couple of feet below. We plugged it in and it seemed to recognize the hard drive and we breathed a sigh of relief. But that relief turned to terror the next day when I actually tried to access some of the files on that drive. The computer didn't see them. And the drive started making a horrible churning sound. Great! So I went to Seagate's site and downloaded their software to see if it could fix it. Nope, they recommended sending it in for evaluation. So I paid their $50 evaluation fee and sent it off with a prayer that the files could be recovered. I wasn't too worried because I store everything in two places, I just dreaded the prospect of having to go online and download all those weddings, sessions, family photos from my online storage. It's a chore. But there were some files that I stored on the external hard drive that I did not have in multiple places. I paid $99 for some album templates, digital backgrounds and papers and some fonts. Those would be gone forever if they couldn't recover them.

A few days later I got a nice little e-mail from Seagate telling me they could recover the files -- for a mere $1,250.

That's crazy, I thought! One little knock to the carpeted floor could cost me $1,250?!

So I declined their lovely offer.

They immediately sent another email. I'll just paste it right here so as not to leave anything out:

"Good Afternoon Lisa,

> > I am not certain if you received my voice message. I was reviewing > your case more closely and realized that your original drive is under > warranty. We recently released a pilot program for clients that have > a Seagate drive under warranty and trying to recover basic flat files > (office documents, pictures, movies, music and videos). If we recover > 80%+ of these basic flat files, we consider the case successful. We > use your replacement drive for the recovered data. It appears your > drive is under warranty until 2/1/14. The cost of the pilot program > is a flat fee of $399.00, less the $49.00 eval fee (plus any > applicable taxes). Please advise if you are interested in the Pilot > program (approximately 4 week lead time). If you have any questions, > please advise.

> > Regards,
> XXXXXXXXXXX
> Case Manager
> Data Recovery Division"

Well isn't that nice of them?! Because I've had my 1TB hard drive for less than a year, they'll gladly give me all my lost files for a mere $399 minus the $49 evaluation fee. Wow, that's just so sweet of them! (Note the sarcasm).

They even have a whole division called the "Data Recovery Division." A group of people who's whole job is to get paid to sell people their files back when their hard drives fail!

So I decided to respond with my own little brand of charity.

"XXXXX,

I am disinclined to take this offer. But because my drive is under warranty, I would like a new drive. Although I don't know if I will trust it again.

I am a photographer and I need a place to archive all my past sessions and weddings. That's what I was using the drive for. I don't trust just one storage method, however, so I also archive online. So pretty much everything that was on the drive is also backed up online. There are a few digital papers and digital textures that were on the drive that I didn't have backed up, but they cost me $99 to purchase so I don't see the value in spending $349 on recovering something that cost me $99.

I'd also like to say that I am very disappointed in the durability of the Seagate drives if a 2-foot fall from a desk onto a carpeted floor will damage it. I also don't see the value in a drive that will hold 1 TB worth of files if all those files can be wiped out instantly with a bump to the desk and a short fall to the floor. It would make more sense to get smaller drives so that if it does fall, you lose just a few gigs of files and not a whole freakin' TB. I'm just glad this happened early on before I filled the whole thing and lost backups to 2 years worth of work instead of just one.

No, I will be downloading my files from my online storage and putting them onto another, more secure and less fragile hard drive for long term storage. I am very disappointed in this whole mess. It seems you have, however, found a nice racket. Make fragile, big capacity hard drives, and then when people lose their files from small falls or minor dings, you can charge them outrageous fees to recover those files. Nice little income stream there.

Thank you for the reduced offer, but no thanks. I just can't justify that fee and I'm a bit bitter about the whole situation. I'd really like a refund of the evaluation fee and a refund or replacement of the drive.

Lisa Blaschke, C.P.P."

Her response was a cold, clear message. They're sending me a replacement drive only. No word on refunding my evaluation fee or on the security of their hardware.

So for the next few weeks I'll be downloading and backing up from my online storage. It's all I can do at this point. And ponder about a more secure method of long term storage of digital files. CDs and DVDs wear out quickly. Various drives and storage mediums become obsolete so fast (remember floppy discs and zip drives?)

My search for the perfect solution is ongoing. But that box full of film negatives will most likely outlive us all.

Lisa On Location Photography