Autumn Hull Photography

No turning back now!

My box of 500 invitations to the Grand Opening Open House arrived today, so it looks like I'm committed to getting everything ready to go in less than 5 weeks.  Yikes! 

Things are definitely progressing, but it's going to get interesting around here pretty soon.  I have only been able to get to the space to work on it in 1/2 hour bursts over the past week, so progress on the actual space has been painfully slow. 

Here is how it looked when I left today.  This picture makes me nervous when I look at my calendar!

The playroom is going to be adorable and a great asset to the studio, but why does everything have to come completely unassembled?  I spent two days building the bookcase, and now I'm knee-deep in parts of a little wooden kitchen.  Once it's done, it's going to be so much fun.  I'm going to bring my four over for a test drive and see how long it can keep them occupied without whining that they want to leave.

I'm almost done selecting all the images that I'm going to have printed and hang throughout the space.  I didn't want to clutter it too much, but I want it to showcase different options for printing, like canvas, framed prints, gallery collections, etc.  I ended up mapping them out in photoshop to plan out each wall.  It is taking longer that way, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.

I had a great meeting with the group that will eventually be the studio's Associate Photographers.  So far there are about 10 people, in various stages of being ready to start shooting with me.  Some will need some training, but some are pretty much ready to go.  So I'm working on a training schedule and an eventual camera room and presentation room schedule.  It's quite a feat trying to plan that out, let me tell you.  It's a great group though, and I'm really excited to start working with them.  I have a feeling in six months or a year I'll be talking with the owner of the building about leasing the empty space next door so I can expand and add another camera room.  These guys are ready to work!

I'm also in the middle of an entirely new branding strategy, which means frequent meetings and phone calls with my AMAZING graphic designer, Melody Welch, who I will be introducing to all of you pretty soon.  She's created some beautiful pieces for me that will all work together to make a great design campaign from business card to website to presentation materials to final packaging.  Once we're done with everything, we're going to work together to start providing design and printing service to other photographers.

Things are happening!!! 

The Alperns at the beach

Several weeks ago I had a beach session with the Alpern family.  They have two huge, absolutely beautiful dogs that were so much fun to photograph.  This was my first session in Carpinteria, which I checked out on the advice of my good friend Michele (hey Michele!). She was right, it was gorgeous there, and so much easier to get to from my house.

Here are some of my favorite shots from the morning.  I pieced together a couple of panoramic images, because the beach was just so beautiful.

The Dredge Family Sneak Peek

All the preparations for the studio have really slowed me down for my clients, so I am just now finishing up this session with the Dredge family.  They have two gorgeous little girls, and mom had brought the little one, a toddler, in for her own session a few weeks prior to this session, so we'd be sure to have plenty of opportunity to get some great shots.  I'm done with the mini session, but I'm right in the middle of working on the family session.  Here are some of my favorites from the mini, as well as a couple that I've finished from the family and some great shots of big sister, the cutie-pie redhead.

Busy, busy, busy!

So it's been three weeks since my last post.  I haven't been away from the blog because there is nothing to write about.  It's that there is SO MUCH going on, I haven't had time to blog about it.  I technically don't really have time to blog right at this very moment, but I keep getting emails from people who are wondering how the new studio is doing, so I thought it was time for an update. 

Ready?  Here goes... (deep breath)

Since I last posted, they finished painting the walls and installing the new floors.  I love love LOVE how it turned out.  The floor looks like wood, but it's actually vinyl.  It's very rugged, not too loud when you walk on them (which is good since we're on the 2nd floor), and easy to take care of.  They put in the new carpet on the stairs and repaired and stained the banister so it will match the floors.  They also restored the bathroom to new, so it no longer looks like a public restroom with the metal paper towel and toilet seat cover dispensers on the wall. 

Here are some pictures of it.  It's not a huge space (about 975 square feet), so I took several shots from one vantage and merged them together.  It's not really as cubist as it looks here!

Here is the front room, which will be used to show clients slideshows of their sessions.  I'll also have a changing table for the babies, and a kid's play area so they can be entertained while their parents meet with me to place their orders.

Here's looking down the stairs to the entrance outside.  The banisters are much prettier.  I doubt the pretty banisters are going to make my maternity clients feel any better about the long haul up the stairs though! 

Here is the second room, which will be my shooting room.  I love the big bank of windows, and they are mirrored on the outside, so they let in plenty of light, but give complete privacy.  I'll also have a workspace in this room, where I will prepare prints to go out to clients. 

This room will also be where I have my workshops.  When I have the Ten For The Weekend workshops, I'll move the equipment off to the side and bring out my folding conference table and chairs.  I'll store them behind the backdrop when I'm not using them.  It's a nice big room, bigger than the main room.

They gave me the keys a few days earlier than expected, so I found myself not quite mentally prepared to get started, but very excited.  I started moving some things in and sorting out my studio into what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of or replace.   (It looks like I'll be having a "new studio" equipment sale pretty soon !)

Here's how it looked with the studio set up:

It was a little odd at first to shoot in such a nice big space, I have to say. I've been in the garage so long, that is was weird to not have to climb over strollers and bikes to get ready.

Yesterday, I had the first of my furniture delivered, and I worked a little on the kids' play area.  I love the couch and chair I found.  I really like the shapes, they are very comfortable, and they are covered in a microfleece fabric which made them (a)less expensive (b)very easy to clean, and (c)soft and comfortable.  I bought the chair with nursing mommies in mind. You just sink into it and you can arrange the pillows around you as needed.  Comfy.

The play area still looks pretty bare.  All I have is the table & chairs and the cutest little brown velvety sofa I found at Home Goods the other day.  I am still waiting for my play kitchen and bookcase to arrive.  The baskets in the corner are for the changing table that will go over by the restroom.  I'm still not sure what I'm doing to the walls here.  I might get a mural painted, or put up some wainscoting, or maybe just leave it.  I haven't decided.

So the actual studio space itself is at least underway and making some progress.  I have an official Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with the Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, June 19th, and the Grand Opening Open House on Saturday, June 21st.  I still have a lot to do to get the space ready, like finish furnishing it and hang pictures on the walls, but I think it will be done in plenty of time.

Making progress...

I have been popping by the studio space quite often to see how things are going.  Things are moving along pretty quickly, and it's both exciting and nerve-wracking.  As soon as they're done, I need to be ready to hit the ground running!

They finished with the construction part, so the doors and floor to ceiling windows are gone, and the wall separating the two smaller offices are gone.  Now I have two big rooms:  the greeting and slide show presentation room and the camera room.  Do you like all the junk the previous tenants left behind?  (Did you notice that computer monitor from the mid-1800's?)  They also left an entire room full of office furniture.  Thanks, but no thanks.

I finally picked my Grand Opening day, which will be on Saturday, June 7th.  A couple of the local magazines are going to cover it, and I think the chamber of commerce is going to come do a ribbon-cutting ceremony with me. 

I've got most of my new branding/packaging/presentation materials planned out and designed, so I need to finish that up and start getting it all printed so I can put it all together.

I'm almost done finalizing my product line, and I'm excited about some of the new things I'm going to be offering.  I am still only halfway done with my price list and my budget, so I still have some work to do there.

I have to go back and measure the walls and start planning out my sample prints and decide how I want to display them.  I can frame them, get them as hangable canvases, mounted prints, or a combination of all of those.  How many collages do I want to show?  How many groupings vs. large prints?   Hmmm.... 

OK, gotta get back to work to make all of this happen!

Good Baby vs. Bad Baby

Ever since the boys were born, they've taken turns being the easy-going boy and the fussy, persnickety boy.  This goes on for weeks at a time, then they switch.  When they were still babies, we called it Good Baby/Bad Baby, as in "this week Sam is the Good Baby, and Ben is the BAAAD Baby".   

Even now that they are 2 1/2, they still take turns.  It never fails, as soon as one of them ends their streak of being irritable and hard to please, the other one picks up right where his brother left off. 

Today I brought them into the garage for a quick photo session, because they were both clean, fed, rested, and generally in good moods.  Here is what happens when you ask Good Baby to sit for mommy.

Now here is what happens when you ask Bad Baby for the same thing.  Keep in mind, he was perfectly fine until I asked him to look at me and he realized I was trying to get him to do something.  Heaven forbid he actually cooperates.  Just so you know, two weeks ago I tried to do a session and I got the exact opposite results.  Sammy gave me one fabulous smile after another, and Benny absolutely refused to have anything to do with it.  All I got was the back of his head or a blur as he ran through the frame, screaming.
The part that made me laugh today is when Ben wanted to impersonate Sam having a tantrum, and he sat right in the light, made sure that I was ready with my camera, then proceeded to have a fake tantrum. 

People ask me why I don't have pictures of the two of them together.  HA!  They've obviously never met Bad Baby.

A Boy & His Dog

I had a beach session yesterday with a family and their gorgeous Newfoundland dogs.  It was a beautiful overcast day at the beach, and I couldn't have asked for a more perfect setting.  I love the new beach I discovered this week, and I can't wait to look through the rest of the images I shot that morning.  Until then, here is a sneak peek.

More From Logan's Session

All this preparation for the studio is really slowing me down.  I'm finally finishing up this mini session with Logan that I did weeks ago.  I posted a sneak peek a while ago, and mentioned that he was the little brother of my favorite little redhead, Regan.  She had the same strawberry blond hair and eyebrows when she was a baby.
Logan was so fun to shoot, so alert, so expressive, and how cute are those little chubby cheeks?

Our Afternoon at the Beach

I have a beach session tomorrow, and as much as I love shooting in Malibu, I've been shooting there for five years now and I really wanted to try out some new places.  So at the spur of the moment this afternoon, I loaded all the kids and our nanny in the car and we headed out for the hour-long drive to Ventura to check out some new beaches. 
I found Carpenteria and I just loved it.  I can get several types of beach shots there, including flat expanses of sand, rocky areas, dunes, cliffs, and some amazing trees.  I can't WAIT to photograph my clients there tomorrow.
Today though, was just for the kids, so instead of exploring all the different areas to shoot, I just let them play with the surf and I photographed them as the sun started to go down. We had such an amazing time.  The older kids ran wild, chasing the surf, and even the boys got into the game after a while, even though they stayed where the water was ankle deep!
I normally would never head out for the beach at four in the afternoon, but if I had planned it better, I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of the amazing light as the sun glittered off the water.  I got to try out some fun stuff with silhouettes that I've always wanted to try with sunset lighting too, which was great.  I've only had time to peek at the huge folder of images I took today, but here's a few just for fun.

More from a recent session

I'm almost done with this session from a little while ago, with Nadia and her baby brother Joseph.  They were both so sweet, and had the most beautiful eyes.  All I have left to complete now are the shots of Nadia in her tutu... so adorable!