Children's Photography – Christmas Session
Written by Mel McLellan
Things are CRAZY around here leading up to Christmas but I thought I'd take a moment and post a few images from the Christmas session we did with my best friend's little girls a few weeks back. Hope you enjoy them! :0)
DWF Mentor Auction w/ Sean & Mel – Dec 8th at 12:00 noon EST
Written by Sean McLellan
DWF. WTF? For those of you not in the know, DWF is the Digital Wedding Forum. DWF is an absolutely fantastic resource for wedding and portrait photographers. Without having come across it about 4 1/2 years ago, our business most certainly wouldn't be where it is today, and we wouldn't have met so many people that we now are privileged to call our close friends. In addition to being a fantastic forum, they host an annual conference that is going to be in Nashville next year! One of the highlights of the convention are always the mentor sessions, where you can make a donation to charity, and spend an hour with people at the top of the industry and learn more than you ever thought you could in such a short time. We won a mentoring session with Jerry Ghionis around three years ago and were absolutely blown away, and it was transformational for us. Last year, we were asked to contribute to the mentor sessions for the first time, and we really enjoyed being a part of it. Melissa Tirado asked us to be a part of them again this year, and we donated three sessions. Shortly thereafter, DWF announced that they would be auctioning off a few longer sessions, and around the same time Melissa emailed us to tell us that our three sessions had sold out nearly instantaneously. So we volunteered our time for one of the auctions, and those are taking place this week. We are honored to be among the other photographers on the list. Jerry Ghionis, Mike Fulton, Jim Garner, Kevin Kubota, David Beckstead, Cliff Mautner, Huy, Alt-F, Ray Prevost, Chuck Arlund, The Bebbs, and... Sean and Melanie McLellan. If you are a DWF member, our auction is happening tomorrow (Dec 8th) at 12:00 noon EST. If you aren't a DWF member, WHY NOT? Here is a link to the thread where the auction will be taking place, along with details about some goodies we're throwing in with our session: http://www.digitalweddingforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=334172 Daniel Lane, a photographer who we mentored at the convention last year just wrote something amazing on that thread, and I feel compelled to post it, here. "Sean and Mel were my first mentor session ever. (DWFC 2009) After a few moments of chatting with them, it was clear, these two were a true pro team. I can say that not a single moment of our 30 minutes was wasted. They went directly into backing a dump truck of knowledge up to my feeble little brain and unloaded. Marketing idea after marketing idea flowed across the table. If I had a question, they had an answer. I scribbled down a number of the ideas they handed out and I still have that list today. (I have had success with those ideas I've implemented. I've got more time this year to devote to the rest of the list.) If you're lucky enough to win this one, bring a digital recorder or a stenographer, because Sean and Mel will have more ideas and plans than you can write. --Daniel Lane" Thank you SO much for your kind words, Daniel. We're so happy to have made such an impact, and that's what it's all about. All proceeds go to charity--so what are you waiting for? Get over there and bid! We'll see you at the convention, next month!
Wedding Photographers: Private Consults with McLellan Style
Written by Mel McLellan
For the past several years we've been getting the question: "when are you going to start doing workshops??" We love teaching, sharing, and helping other photographers. It's really very cool to make a difference in someone's business and help them realize their potential! Still, it has been something that we've been slowly and hesitantly entering into because we never wanted to be lumped into the category of "yet another new photographer with a workshop!" We wanted to make sure that we really had something to offer and that we could help photographers move in a direction that is good for them and their business rather than just pushing them down the path that we personally took, regardless of whether that really fit them or not. As you've probably seen on the blog and through twitter, we've done some group workshops and speaking recently as we've been asked to do so and it has been a very rewarding experience! The group dynamic is great and hopefully, everyone walks away with something different they can use. There is a time and a place for that, but what we really love is digging deep, finding a single person's strengths and weaknesses, and working with them to create a game plan that maximizes their potential and pushes them to realize their dreams! We found that for us, this can be best achieved with private, one-on-one consultations with individuals. If you've poked around on our site in the past year, you may have found a little blurb about these tucked away in the "about" section. We just put it out there without really promoting it and let the chips fall where they may. We've had the pleasure of meeting and working with some wonderful people and we're so excited about where their businesses are headed! The purpose of this post is to officially make it known (without having to dig around on our site) that we will be offering more private consults in the coming year. We so look forward to doing these and watching so many more photographers flourish! If you'd like more information, please feel free to inquire at sean@mclellanstyle.com. Now, because every post is better with photos, here are a few from one of our more recent consults where we spent part of the time covering shooting in harsh light, with flash, and in bad locations. Bekah is our lovely and talented assistant/studio manager/on-hand model. She is the girl who has a box of Keebler Elves Fudge-shop cookies, a can of pistachio nuts, and a bag of Doritos stashed behind her monitor here in the office at any given time and is still this thin! Are you sick yet? ;0)
