Monthly Archives: December 2009

Angels on White

December 28, 2009

As a photographer I take thousands of photos a month. Some good and some not so good, but every once in while I photograph someone or something that haunts me. I think about the photo all of the time. I print it for myself, frame it and still cannot get enough of it. A lot of the time I can’t even determine what it is about the photo that skrikes such a cord with me. For whatever reason the photo just resonates within me and I just adore the image. That is how I feel about this series of photos. Of course they are gorgeous, but it is something beyond that. I have been trying to determine what it is and the closest I have been able to come is they are angelic.

1

Their family photo is one of my all time favorites. I love how it was so spontaneous, with young William laying in front of his perfect older sisters. I wish I could take credit for that, but he was intent on doing his own thing and it worked. So often I get caught up in capturing that perfect photo when in reality I should allow my subjects to be themselves and let those wonderful personalities come through. More often than not it makes for a better, more honest, photo that will stand the test of time with it’s owners. I can imagine their parents looking at this photo years from now and being able to reconnect with the darling personalities at this time in their lives. So perfect, so real.

2

3

Like I said, Angels on White. Each one of them has almost an ethereal look about them. So gorgeous and so innocent.

show hide 6 comments

add a comment

Susan - Love them!!!!!!! Little Will just melts my heart.December 30, 2009 – 11:23 pm

Gretchen - These pictures are so beautiful it makes me a little teary eyed! You are amazing!January 1, 2010 – 7:58 pm

Amy Vercillo - Thank you, Kirk! (You made me cry.) They are lucky to have you for an uncle.January 9, 2010 – 9:40 am

Julie - Wow! I think that says it all!January 24, 2010 – 10:09 pm

Carol - Seeing these pictures makes my heart sore and fills me with so much joy. I love our family soooo much! Thank you Kirk, for posting theseFebruary 15, 2010 – 10:52 am

Carol - I really meant “soar” not sore. I don’t know how to edit the comments, otherwise I would have fixed it.February 15, 2010 – 10:54 am

San Francisco Book from AdoramaPix

December 1, 2009

I received my most recent book from AdoramaPix yesterday and I am extremely pleased with this book. Their claim to fame is that they use real photographic paper to print the pages of your book. I had read reviews where the people were very happy with the quality of the printing of their books and some even said the paper was too thick. Personally, I don’t think the paper could ever be too thick in a photo book.

1

I was even more please with their packaging than with Blurb’s packaging. It comes shipped in a nice size box and when you open that box you find your book is sandwiched between two sheets of foam paper and two pieces of cardboard and then shrink wrapped in the middle so it doesn’t move around. Theoretically you bang one of the corners pretty hard and it would never reach the book. Like I have said before, the little details make a huge impression with me. I like to know that my book is going to be cared for.

2

I printed an 8″x8″ 50 page book. All of my photos were converted to black and white and I made all of them square. I absolutely love the format and am ecstatic about the printing. Blurb did a fine job, but I wasn’t happy with the way they printed faces. And if you looked close you could easily see the dots that made up your photo. Not so with this book. The quality is fantastic and the tonal range is great. I love how thick the pages are.

3

As far as the quality goes, AdoramaPix is by far superior to Blurb. But there are things that bug me, although none of them actually deal directly with the quality of the book. I hate their software, and yes, you have to use their program. It is pretty easy, but it would be so much easier if we could use our programs and then upload the document or a pdf to them. They don’t offer dust jackets for your book. I really like the dust jacket, especially for a coffee table photo book. Their print wrap on the cover is top notch though. The last think I am not a fan of is the page numbers. You can have 26 or 50 and that is it. I can understand having a minimum, but what if I have 40 pages? What if I would like to add four more?  I had a bear of a time cutting my photos down to 46 pages. (I didn’t print on the end pages.) Other than those things, I am beyond pleased with the book.  I will definitely be using them again and recommending them to others. They have a good selection of sizes, which makes it fun to be kind of creative with your photography.

show hide 10 comments

add a comment

Jan - It looks amazing. That is really strange with the page numbers they do. Do know there reasoning?December 1, 2009 – 10:33 pm

Ingrid - The reasoning behind the page numbers is due to the width of the spine. Due to the thickness of the paper, if we allow for lots of different numbers of pages we would need to do custom spine widths. By offering 26 and 50 pages, we avoid having to stop the whole process of book making to cut a custom spine. This saves production time and helps to keep our costs down. We are working on a “signature” line of books where we would offer this option as well as different covers, etc., but that is down the road.

Thanks for the review of our books, and if there is any other questions you have, please let me know.

IngridDecember 2, 2009 – 9:40 am

Kirk - Jan, it looks as though Ingrid has explained the reasoning. Thank you Ingrid. Your reasoning makes perfect sense and I expected it was something along those lines. Thanks for your comment.

One more thing I would like to add to my review is the customer service I have received from AdoramaPix. While using their software to build the book I had a few questions and I used their “Have a Questions?” button on the top of their web page and received a reply within 10 minutes. I like that kind of communication and it was reconfirmed with Ingrid’s diligence in finding and responding to this post. I will definitely be using them again.December 2, 2009 – 11:38 am

Mike - I had a couple questions while designing a book last night. I’ll second the customer service comment — I got someone on a live chat within 2 minutes and they walked me through everything. Also had a website issue while trying to place the actual order and got a quick response from @AdoramaPix (on twitter) saying the techs took care of the problem.

I can’t find the link, but I read another review a while back saying that after 9-ish months of constant handling and thumbing through the pages the AdoramaPix book was still in excellent shape. That’s what made me choose them.December 2, 2009 – 12:26 pm

Julie - That is really impressive that she would find that and take the time to respond! And she linked you to a tweet.December 2, 2009 – 1:33 pm

Jill - It’s beautiful! Gorgeous photos, gorgeous book. Very impressive.December 2, 2009 – 1:45 pm

Kirk - Thanks Mike for your comments. I hope it does stand the test of time, and so far so good. It has received quite a bit of use these last couple of days, but that will probably drop off.

Julie and Jill, thanks for the comments.December 2, 2009 – 3:35 pm

DJ - This is a very useful review! Thanks. I’m considering ordering a book. I was wondering if you could describe (or better yet, show in a picture) the thickness of the pages.December 3, 2009 – 1:14 pm

Ivan - Kirk, you may use the Pre-Constructed theme for book/calendar. It allows you to use your own images almost without dealing with software.January 28, 2010 – 5:54 am

Tweets that mention San Francisco Book from AdoramaPix » kirksample — Topsy.com - [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by AdoramaPix, adorama. adorama said: RT @AdoramaPix Nice review of our photobooks here: http://bit.ly/75tNQf [...]December 2, 2009 – 10:04 am

All images and content © 2006 - 2011 Kirk Sample Photography, LLC | Salt Lake City Utah Portrait Photographer | ProPhoto Photographer Template by NetRivet WordPress Development