Patriotic Pregnancy

Shudderz

I am busy these days doing charity sessions for military families that are facing a deployment in their family. For more information on the charity, see OPERATION: LOVE REUNITED

Part of the agreement with oplove is to keep a military/patriotic theme in part of the session. I loved this one and wanted to share.

This is one from Friday night. Her due date is actually just after dad is scheduled to deploy. We're all hoping she comes a tad early.

c&c welcome

JavaLover

Wow! What a great organization! Seriously brought tears to my eyes.

Snarcher

i think your watermark type thing is a bit.. obtrusive.. i

evoryware

I think the shot came out great!

Shudderz

JavaLover wrote:

Wow! What a great organization! Seriously brought tears to my eyes.

I have been a part of this organization for months now, never a call, until a few weeks ago. I am the only photographer within 100+ miles involved with OpLove. The families have all found out about me and there is a deployment coming up. I have completely enjoyed getting to know these families. I have quite a few appts with other OpLove families this week. I can't wait.

If you haven't found a way to use your talents to give back.....consider finding an organization to volunteer with. I have found that sometimes the appointments I have that are associated with my volunteer work to be the most rewarding.

Snarcher wrote:

i think your watermark type thing is a bit.. obtrusive.. i

This photo is linked straight from the client's gallery, and I use the Medium size file from smugmug to allow the client to put it on their myspace. The agreement is that they may not print the file (It's not big enough for much of a print anyway) and they may not remove my watermark.

I don't give digital files to my customers for print...so this has turned out to be a great word of mouth marketing tool. My customers get the picture for their profile, and my contact info is easily seen by all of their friends! I have been booking newborn, high school seniors, and even weddings thanks to this.

I wanted to share this shot, but didn't have the time to copy the file, change the watermark size and then post it. I'm sorry you weren't able to enjoy the shot due to the watermark.

evoryware wrote:

I think the shot came out great!

Thank you. It was a great experience to try to create a different type of maternity shot. I also have one of the dad, in uniform, kissing her belly, I LOVE that shot as well, just haven't finished processing it. As soon as it's ready to share I will.

My original vision was something entirely different. However in search of borrowing a flag large enough for this shoot, I was educated by an American Legion member about the flag code and what should and shouldn't be done with the flag. It was quite the education. I didn't intend any disrespect in my original vision, but didn't want to take the chance of misunderstanding while working with the charity. So, this is the compromise of my original vision and trying to adhere to the flag code.

Sam

Heather,

I sent in an application, but received an auto response stating they were not accepting any new photographers. I hope that means they have more photographers than they need, and can cover all the requests.

Sam

anwmn1

I belong to this as well but have not had a shoot yet :cry

I was called for a homecoming but the location was more than 1 hour from me, on a weekday, and they could only give me a 4 hour window. Given the platform and the circumstances I couldn't make it work.

Glad to see some dgrinners working with Oplove.

Shudderz

Sam wrote:

Heather,

I sent in an application, but received an auto response stating they were not accepting any new photographers. I hope that means they have more photographers than they need, and can cover all the requests.

Sam

Sam, when did you send in an application? There was a window of time where they were doing some restructuring and it was just better to not accept apps while the changes were being made. I do believe they are once again accepting applications.

I can speak for my area, no there are not enough involved. So far I am the only one within about 150 radius. The families on the local base just found out about me. I have been SWAMPED this past week.

Please look into it again.