I’ve been very fortunate to get in contact with the wonderful people at the Ambassador Bridge who’s in charge of maintaining the Michigan Central Station. When I approached them with the proposal for a one of a kind photo shoot and possibly workshop inside the building they were more than open to my ideas. The photo shoot is already a reality but still tons of things have to be done.

Jennifer from the Ambassador Bridge has been a sweetheart and offered to show me the inside of the building in a private tour, how could I say no!

If you are like me, passionate about architecture you know this building is a beauty, but you have to see past the destruction to really see the spectacular craftsmanship and visualize the building as it was meant to be. Despite the rubble, the trash and all the disgusting graffiti the building took my breath away. As I’m walking inside the building and taking pictures I can see in my mind the scenes that I want to shoot…. I can’t wait to shoot inside this building!!

All the images below were taken using just the natural light that enters the building from literally everywhere.

^The main entrance of the building from the inside and outside. Not one window remains intact in the building.

^The main lobby area and me experimenting with what I call color fading, which is nothing more than a B&W picture with a colored  band that fades away.

^On the second or third floor, where the offices existed. Most of the rubble on the floor are broken Italian white marble tiles that decorated the walls of the building… unbelievable and so surreal to see such beautiful structure in this state of disaster.

^Another one of my experimental color fading pictures, showing how nature is slowly taking care of the inside of the building.

^Main control room. I was told from here the entire building was controlled. Just this panel and a very old desk remains.

Although I was not their photographer I had to take reference pictures, for the painting I am doing for them, and sure enough I got carried away. The wedding and reception took place on the stage, yes, on the stage of the Detroit Opera House. Behind curtains we waited until the couple was married to celebrate in full the beginning of their new life together.

When they contacted me about 2-3 months and Salma told me they were going to get married right on the stage at the Detroit Opera House I just couldn’t believe it, because it is the last place that would have crossed my mind, but I have to admit it is THE perfect place for an unforgettable wedding.

The wedding was like a fairy tale. Belly and sword dancers were part of the amenities at the reception, and well as for me, no one could believe I was painting in the theater, live in front of everyone. My time was short, and the painting was not near half done when I left, but nonetheless, I enjoyed every minute of it.

One of the things I wanted to capture, and the reason I took my chances and didn’t bring my flash units with me, was the ambient light of the scenario. I sure know very well from my ballerina days the play of lights in a stage, and I knew very well the lights would have been not only theatrical but spectacular in many ways. Candles were lit on every table and center piece along with the lights on the stage making the entire room, well stage, peaceful, tranquil and so exquisite.

Thank you Salma and Mohamad for making me a part of your beautiful and elegant day.

I just finished reading a similar case again from a lovely photographer on a group I belong to, which is not only shocking but infuriating when your livelihood depends on it and decided to post my approach about it.

As a wedding, engagement or event photographer you charge an hourly fee for your services plus a printing fee, a fee for high resolution images on DVD/CD and fees for other products your decide to offer your clients like albums, canvas prints, etc. The images belong to you, the artist behind the camera, not your clients, you have the copyright by law, and you create the products you sell your clients for an extra profit, otherwise as a photographer you would be filling for bankruptcy very soon if your only income is your hourly fee.

But let’s face it, whatever we as professionals post online is doomed to be copied or reproduced one way or another, so how to stop this? I’m afraid there is no way you can stop this from happening. You can prevent right clicking on your web pages but your clients will just do a print screen and capture the image anyways, or even go to the length of finding the image on your server. You might think watermarking the image would be enough? think again, many would just crop out your watermark and use that image in any way they want because many are that ignorant when it comes to copyright. You could even go further and apply a transparent image on top of the original picture, again this has being proven completely inefficient as well. I’ve had my images from my art sites downloaded for years now, and the only thing I’ve heard from many is “don’t have a website and you won’t be copied” but is this really the solution on the internet era? of course not, you would be loosing hundreds if not thousands of customers if you take all your sites down!

Another approach is the legal route, but unless we are talking about copying for reproduction and profit it makes no absolute sense to go and file a case in court, but there is something that can be done in the case of photography for wedding, portrait and event photographers, charge a fee.

Many photographers (me included) don’t give our images away, we charge a fee for a DVD/CD with the high resolution images and a limited copyright usage. But let say your client didn’t buy a DVD/CD therefore he/she doesn’t have access to a digital file and he’s decided he wants to print out a thank you note on his own. Of course since he has no digital files of the images he thinks is a great idea going to your blog and just right click your image, make the art and send it for printing, without notifying you of his plans. You find out somehow and you know as a professional photographer this is absolutely illegal, and that the printing company could be in serious trouble down the road for printing unauthorized material, but your client doesn’t know and 95% of the times this problem rely on us as professionals by not transmitting the message about OUR copyright to our clients so they know what they can do, what they can’t do and what to expect if they break the law. Since this might be considered a minor offense in court (if you don’t have your work registered at the copyright office) lawyers will not take your case into consideration at all, but you are still stuck with clients abusing you and your work.

My approach is very simple, charge a printing fee to your client for downloading the image off your site, and charge them a penalty fee for cropping out your watermark and abusing your copyright policies. For this to work you will have to add one more clause to your contract agreement, something like “in the eventuality you as the client download, right click or print screen any of the images from my blog, portfolio, facebook, flickr or any other site that’s hosting my images, to use in your personal printing material, etc (whatever you think is inappropriate here) without previously paying the corresponding fee for printed materials and requesting the necessary permits from me the copyright holder of all the images I capture, you will be charged a regular printing fee plus a penalty fee for the violation of my copyright, cropping my watermark off the image to use on your printed material or any other violation which will be billed separately and as per image downloaded. To avoid penalty fees for the download and illegal usage of any of the images on my blog, portfolio, etc. please request the necessary permits from me the photographer”.

You would say this is extreme, why would you penalize your clients for violating your copyright, making you mad, loosing money, sales, etc.?… is it really extreme?…

Another thing you will need to add to your contract is an usage fee (called Royalty Fee) in the case your clients are not purchasing high resolution images with a limited copyright notice, so whenever your clients or anyone for that matter approaches you to legally use one of your images for any printing materials you have the provision in place and know exactly how much to charge on a per image usage. This is a common practice in the art and photography industry so as a professional photographer take advantage of it and you will minimize violations tremendously.

80% of the clients think “I paid the photographer I own the images”. Until this is understood by your clients to be wrong, violations will keep occurring. You are the only one that can enforce your rights. It’s up to your clients to keep up.

Happy shooting!!

If you are not familiar with these elegant and exquisite chocolates here are just a few pictures I took of my 18 delicious chocolates!

The great news! First of I got the approval for the biggest and greatest photo shoot ever taking place in Detroit or anywhere else in the US for that matter! If you read my blog you have heard the MCS, Michigan Central Station one of THE most beautiful buildings in the city of Detroit is having the worse luck any building could ever have, being demolish. The Detroit City Council gave the order this past April to demolish this amazing building. How are they going to do that on a Landmark is beyond me.

Fair enough I decided to do my part, by bringing awareness, and I mean National awareness to this fabulous structure, to stop this madness and to find a way to restore this building and to bring the railroads back to life. Now more than ever, the world needs to go green and every city needs to start acting up to make this a reality. So I got in contact with the fabulous people that manages and owns both the Ambassador Bridge and the Michigan Central Station to request permission for the biggest photo shoot ever taking place inside this building. Boy was I aiming to the sky when I emailed them! but I took the chance and sure enough they not only loved my idea they gave me the go, so now I’m planning one of the most meaningful photo sessions that ever existed and photographers from all over will be a part of this incredible task. Can you tell I’m exited?? Photographers from all over will have the chance of a life time by shooting inside one of the most magnificent buildings that exit in the US today. To be a part of a worthy cause, bring awareness and help preserve the heritage of every city in the US starting with Detroit. So please join me in this wonderful task!

More soon as the plans get rolling and everything is wrinkled out, so sign for my feed so you can get to know more about this wonderful opportunity!

See ya!

I created Manuela Valenti Studio in 2000, and it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I actually and finally was happy with my brand! when I opened Manuela Valenti Photography a couple of months ago, I figured “well I am the same person, same company, why not same image, so my photography blog started as Manuela Valenti Studio, same colors and all (I’m a freak for orange!). But after a little while I wasn’t happy one bit! I wanted something different but at the same time similar, something girlie but at the same time elegant, so a rush of ideas started coming to my mind and like a month ago I sat down to put all those ideas on paper.

I knew I liked lavender not only as a color, but as the flower, is my FAVORITE one ever! to the point I grow my own organic lavender in my own garden which I use to make my LavenderAlmond Organic Soaps, yes I do have my own line of exquisite organic soaps and they are to DIE for! my clients can testify for that!

Aside from lavender I thought “well, I love France, that’s one of my favorite places of all times”, so much that we drove the South of France completely in one trip while living in Spain and the West on a second trip all the way to Paris stopping on almost every little town and village we could find on our way, it was amazing! talk about direct inspiration for my paintings! so with all this, I was going for a more vintage looking French lavender design for my blog. It was not quite ME, me, I’m more modern/abstract/contemporary person (ask my 17 years old! all his friends say I’m the coolest mom ever!! ), but it had the elements I wanted and loved. So here I was with all the info that I wanted for my new design, perfect! so I started working and about a week or so ago I’m popping in into one of my favorite places online SWFB a photography group on flickr, and I stumbled on a thread about how fabulous Stacy Reeves’ new look is! (and let me tell you is FABULOUS!!!) and I almost fell backwards! we love the same thing! lavender! I had a couple similar elements, not exactly the same, but similar, and I thought to myself, I’m doomed completely! I have to start all over again! I mean Stacy Reeves is one of my favorite wedding photographers, but although my colors and overall design were different I wasn’t comfortable, so back to the drawing board.

Starting back again I wanted something that represented me and I made the decision I didn’t want orange as my accent color (a hard decision!). I wanted definitely something modern, contemporary, abstract if you will, but with a small feminine touch, but for days I was completely blocked! I couldn’t pass that barrier! so like everything happens for a reason I remember watching this video from one of the tours/workshops from Jasmine Star (you have to check her work out! is amazing!!) where she talks about branding, how she came up with hers and how incredibly important it is on any business, and although I knew what exactly she was talking about, ’cause hey! I already have a business remember? my studio/gallery business for my paintings, I was still blocked! I knew I needed something and I just couldn’t find it. My brain wasn’t working hard enough, so like I always do to relieve my stress, I grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and started doodling my signature. For years, ever since I was a teenager, I’ve used MValenti as my signature for my paintings and art in general, that’s how I’m known internationally among collectors and galleries, even for my photography, but I still wasn’t sure about using the same signature as my brand. I kept drawing and doodling and I wrote the M in my cursive font to sign my name with a different font just to try and see if that worked. As I’m writing the M I made a mistake and a line came after it. I was thinking at that moment, “ah! another mistake, let me try again” as I’m placing the pencil down on the paper to start again, that’s when it hit me! I had it, right there, in front of me. For years I’ve experimenting on how to write my name with a nice font, because my handwriting really sucks!! so I grabbed a sharpie and a white piece of paper and started making more and more, loose and not so loose, short and long, round and not so round Ms until I made the perfect one which is the one you are seeing in my new logo. I took a picture, cleaned the signature, made some photoshop magic and that’s how my branding came out.

The colors? well, basically they are the same ones I use for Manuela Valenti Studio but since I knew I had to change the main color (orange) ’cause I already had made the decision to part away the two businesses (still crying about it!), I started hunting for a nice color that would match perfectly with my dark gray (or grey as you prefer) and white. I tried many, including red, too typical and an era I just don’t want to go back to!… blue was completely out of the question (I’m just not a blue color fan)… green, LOVELY!!!… yellow? too bright, plus it’ll look like a bumble bee!… purple? not quite, although my oldest son liked it!… back again to the blockage, what color now?!… I had to take a break or I would go crazy. I entered my painting studio as I needed to clean some old paint I had left on the tray and I saw the color, fuchsia! I finally had it! I ran to my computer and the blockage was gone! my ideas started floating like crazy! my brain was finally organized and on track! I was able to design in no time the entire new look for my photography site! in no time everything was ready (it’s good that aside from an artist, I’m a graphic designer and web designer huh?!

Yet, after I thought I had the color, fuchsia, figured out here comes my little one and after a while looking how I’m playing with colors he says “I don’t like that pink, I like the green better, it matches the color of your eyes” HA! and I thought I had all ready! here comes this little guy about to loose another tooth anxious ’cause the tooth fairy will leave him $20 under his pillow, makes a statement out of nowhere and I crumble! I was so sure, so convinced about my business decision and I crumbled?!?! oh boy! the doubts back again, which one! fuchsia or green? or should I just cave in and go for the orange and call it a day? HELP!!!

If you want to help, then place your vote below in the comment area, ’cause I’m dying here! two simple choices, this exotic tropical green you see in my blog right now or  the luscious fuchsia below?

What started as a quest to find the perfect design that would match me, Manuela Valenti the person, the artist behind the camera and the head of the business ended up being the most rewarding process I have ever done for myself and the most challenging at the same time.

Now what is left is design the business cards (if I ever decide on the color!), and all my marketing material that will match my new simple but elegant design, I can’t wait!!

Coming up with a design for your business whether you do it yourself or hire a company to do it, is tricky and sometimes frustrating. A design that matches your personality as a business owner is extremely important as is the first thing any client will see before even considering hiring you. The key to find your brand is look deep inside yourself and find what you like the most, what you identify the most with. It could be really anything, even a bouquet of flowers, or a piece of candy, but whatever it is, as a business you build your entire empire around it as that would be crucial for your future clients to identify with you, the person and the business behind the product your offer.

If you want to, I would love your feedback on my new design, I really do! so click below and start typing! and don’t forget to tell me which color you like the most!… I love them both, so this is a real dilema for me!

Until next time!