Incredible Photographer

I had the opportunity to attend a meeting of the Society of Northern Ohio Professional Photographers (www.sonopp.com) last night. Herb Ascherman a giant on the Cleveland Photography scene was the featured speaker. http://www.ascherman.com/

copryright Herb Ascherman

In these days of lack of craftsmanship in the photography world herb was a breath of fresh air. The projects that he has chosen over the years, which are highlighted on his website have made the world a better place. I am inspired  by what he does. Check him out.

Haiti

My wife Jackie and I have been spending some time in Haiti. A number of the pictures I have taken have been used by Lutheran World Relief and Human care. and Lutheran Church Charities. . Both are awesome organizations and it is an honor to provide pictures for them.

Sarah and Keith

Check Out Sarah and Keith's Wedding

Sarah and Keith's Slide Show

Sarah and Keith's Website

Check out a slide show of Dan and Carly's Wedding, posted on our new on-line partner Pictage

Carly and Dan' Sildeshow

Scouting it out

Today I have a wedding at the City Club in Cleveland, but first we are going to do some formal pictures at the Cleveland Public Library, Main Branch. I have shot pictures at the library before but it has been awhile so I thought it would be prudent to check out the venue and find some neat places to shoot. Attached are some of the reference photos that I took yesterday. I envisioned the bride and groom, bride alone, and bridal party at these locations.

If We Could be Heroes!

These People Are! This week I had the opportunity to photograph a "Heroes Event" for the Red Cross". These people from Geauga and Lake Counties appeared to be your average citizen, but they were not. They were honored for there heroic measures, from doing surgery in Haiti within days after the earthquake to young men saving there fellow students and bus driver when a health issue occurred.
Congratulations and THANK YOU!

Key West Wedding

I just got home from photographing a wedding in Key West. David and Allison had an awesome beach wedding. I literally just walked in the door and was so excited I had to post. I am currently downloading all the images to my main computer and will begin processing the raw (digital negative) files in the morning. I can't wait to put together this album. Here is Allison's family on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor Park, a beautiful venue for an awesome wedding.

Christian MissionaryImages.com

My wife Jackie has a tremendous interest in Christian Mission Work in Haiti. I have personally been to Haiti twice and have been trying to use my photography to help that effort. I have established www.ChristianMissionaryMedia.com so that people who need professional images can download the images for use in their presentations and brochures, Check it out. Currently I am
only featuring Haiti but will add other international and local galleries.

Brides Beware

A friend sent me this link. Thought it was interesting enough to post. Especially since I have heard a lot of feedback from bridesmaids lately about problems they have had with their photographers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js7RzcdDcMs

Gold Rush

Many of the events we photograph are once in a lifetime events. Weddings ( yes we view getting married as a once in a lifetime event), Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, first communions and many other events.

Our NEW PACKAGES feature many items on CD or DVD. So we checked into the lifespan of these types of media. We found this quote, from Kurt Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland GmbH, "Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD,"

That sure scared us andwe went searching for the longest lasting CD's and DVD's we could find. We settled on MAM-A Gold DVDs and CDs. Here is what MAM-A claims about their media .
"MAM-A estimates their Gold label CD-R's have a life-span of 300 years . Other discs that they have tested look like they'll fail in 2 years or less."
THE POINT IS, MAKE SURE THAT IF YOU ARE GETTING YOUR IMAGES ON DISC, MAKE SURE THAT THEY WILL LAST.
We use the best media available to preserve your memories,

NEW !!!! New!!! New!!!

We have NEW wedding Pricing, NEW Digital Wedding Packages and a NEW BROCHURE.

Click here to download your copy in Adobe PDF format. We have found that Today's Brides and Grooms are looking for more and different. How about a package that includes your wedding on YOUTUBE. How about a DIGITAL PICTURE FRAME INSTEAD OF A TRADITIONAL ALBUM (Yes you can have an album if you want one) How about your wedding pictures on an IPOD TOUCH as part of your wedding package. It is all right here in our new "Your Wedding" brochure

SONOPP on YOUTUBE!

The Society of Northern Ohio Professional Photographers (SONOPP) has been making a full court press (I know, I'm looking forward to the Cav's season) to show the value of professional photography. Recently they posted an awesome slide show on YOUTUBE highlighting the work of SONOPP members in the genre of highschool senior photography. Check it out here.
Special thanks to Dale Kincaid of Somewhere in Time Photography who assembled the images from member photographers and published the slide show to YOUTUBE.

I was privileged to have some of my portraits from Mark Rychel Photographers included.
Thanks Again Dale!!

A Most Important Portrait

It's Senior Portrait time at Rychels Designer Portraits and Shaker Photo Studio ! We consider a young man's or young lady's high school portrait to be the most significant picture taken of an individual. Why ? Because, it is probably the only time in most peoples lives that they are the center of attention in a quality professional portrait environment.

The picture that our moms have on their mantel for years, the picture that defines who you are in high school and the one that every class reunion for the next 50 years will remember you by.

This portrait is yours alone, it is not shared with a bride or groom, on a wedding day. It speaks to who you are alone.

That is why we take such care to capture each and every student on personal level. One mother after looking at our website stated, "Each senior picture looks so different" a compliment we were proud to accept. No cookie cutter factory type portraits here.

We felt sorry for the North Royalton student that could not even view her yearbook picture because the school forced her to go to a contract photographer and his policy was to only let students that bought a multiple pose sitting view their yearbook picture in advance.

She came to us for special portraits, portraits that were her choice for her family and friends.

Choose a professional photographer. One that will take the time to make your most significant portrait one that you can be proud of for a lifetime

New Addition

June first is a big day for Rychel's Designer Portraits !!
We have a new addition, called Shaker Photo Studio. Located in the historic Larchmere district of the city of Cleveland, and specializing in people photography, just as we do at Rychel's Designer Portraits, this awesome location will allow us to serve the needs of more people all across Greater Cleveland

Check out our new website! www.shakerphotostudio.com Stop in and say "Hey" at 12806 Larchmere, Cleveland, OH 44120
or give us a call at 216-795-4529. We open Monday thru Saturday at 11:00 AM.

Recycling Saves Lives

Last Saturday I had the privilege of photographing an event for MedWish International an awsome non-profit organization. Here is their mission statement. "MedWish International is a non-profit organization committed to the recovery and recycling of donated medical supplies area healthcare providers must discard. These life-saving supplies are made available to those providing medical care in developing countries throughout the world. Globally, the MedWish International program improves the quality of medical care available to the underserved around the world; locally, we are effectively reducing the amount of solid waste deposited in landfills. MedWish International also serves as a resource for local health-care professionals and charitable organizations interested in global health."

The event "A Sumner of 1000 Dinners" was a kickoff event for a series of fund raisers for this worthy organization. check them out at www.medwish.org

FACEBOOK

Rychels Designer Portraits is now on FACEBOOK. We've had a number of requests from our clients for images that they can use on their FACEBOOK. So we've started to post some of our clients images on FACEBOOK so that they could link to them to show their friends.
Recently Bonnie Kraus who is always behind the camera at her house taking pics of her beautiful family said she wishes she had some pics with her in them. So at her daughter's Bat Mitzvah, a very special event and awesome party, we made sure Bonnie had some pics for her FACEBOOK account.

If you would like to add us to your facebook account, we are listed as Rychel Portraits and our email is facebook@rychel.com.

We can't wait to add some of our 2010 senior portraits to share with family and friends. We are working on some new special effects that we know will be popular with the class of 2010.

Safe-but not at home

A while back I heard of a photographer's studio burning down, it was in the days of film and all his negatives were lost. I ran into one of his customers and their album could not be completed, how sad.
With the advent of digital imaging we can create multiple back-ups of images and store them off site, in multiple locations.


I use a service called Mozy Home. Every day it synchronizes a back up of the images on my computer to their server in Utah. It does this automatically so I can't forget. In addition we back up our images to DVDs and portable hard drives. Our clients images, many of which are once in a lifetime pics are safe, but not only at home.

NILMDTS

For a few years now I have volunteered for a worthy organization called, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, Click on the link to see their website.

I don't publicize it much because I feel it is a service to families and not something to advertise . I thought I would share yesterday's experience because it really touched me.

Yesterday was my birthday and I got a call to go to Metro General Hospital to photograph fraternal twins that were still born. A little boy and girl that were a just over 20 weeks in the womb. I felt very somber that I could observe my birthday, a day that celebrates my birth by being of service to a family that might find it difficult to celebrate little Trevon and Mkyla's birthday every year.

I am blessed that the pictures I take can help people remember significant events in their lives

Who Do You Associate With?

Keeping up with a changing industry, to provide clients with the latest products and imaging technology is darn right difficult in today's marketplace.

If it's hard for me, how do my clients know whats available for their photographic needs?

Try these letters:

• PPA
• WPPI
• NAPP
• SONOPP

These are professional associations that provide me with the latest information about products, techniques,marketplace news, marketing plus a whole range of services that will ultimately benefit my clients,

Check them out: Click on the logo !!

YOUTUBE

Just loaded a video of Phil and Kristin's Album to youtube. One of my favorite albums of 2008. Kristin and Phil were awesome, their album reflects the fun we had together. Click on the picture to see a very athletic bridal party

check it out here: ( make sure you watch it in the high quality mode)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxUwbQainlM

20 Years Behind Us and Moving Forward at the Speed of Light

It's hard to believe that Mark Rychel, Photographers is celebrating it's 20th year in business.
What that means to our customers is stability. We've noticed with the advent of affordable digital cameras that a lot of newbies are trying to be photographers. that's cool, competition makes everyone better. We've also heard horror stories of images being lost, images not being delivered in a timely manner, plus other issues.
Knock on wood - we have never failed to deliver our images to our clients over the last 20 years,

Why, we use the finest professional equipment. Our two main cameras the Nikon D3 and Nikon D700 are specifically suited to what we do. The ability to capture images in low light without flash provides an unobtrusive way to provide our clients with spectacular memories.

We also have the majority of lenses available for Nikon cameras, this allows us to create special images, whether it 's isolating our subjects with a telephoto or using extreme wide angles or fisheye lenses to capture an entire room or the fun on the dance floor.

Experience + Innovation + Investment in Equipment+Integrity

makes what we do -RIGHT FOR YOU !!

New for YOU

What's New? A lot here at Mark Rychel, Photographers! We continue to strive be on the cutting edge of technology to provide the best images possible for our clients. We have recently invested in the new software suite Adobe Creative Design Suite CS4 which will aloow us to produce more creative images in a shorter period of time. check it out here: www.adobe.com.
How about this image:
We feel that the combination of experience, (next year is the 2oth anniversary of our studio), commitment to excellent images and the willing ness to invest in technology will benefit our clients both in their ability to view there images creatively whether in an album, DVD presentation or on line.

Email us at mark@rychel.com. or give us a call at 440-729-2272.

Next: Great camera's take Great pictures.

Seeing Your Portrait Art in your home-BEFORE YOU BUY

A new service offered by Mark Rychel, Photographers is IN HOME PROJECTION. Recently we did family portraits for the King Family at their home. We photographed a number of family groups, the entire family, individual families, grand children as well as 3 generations of Kenny Kings. One of the pictures recreated an exact picture of the grand kids on the front porch steps of their home, that was taken 10 years earlier. We duplicated the kids' exact expressions. The new portrait hangs right next to the original in Mary Ann and Kenny's study.
Soon after we took the pictures, we brought our projection equipment into the King home and projected the pictures on the walls of Kenny and Mary Ann's home, in the exact size that they would be printed. At first we thought the large family picture would be best above the fireplace, but that location was too high to see all the family members. Then a spot by the front door caught our eye. It was perfect, as neighbors, family, and guests walk in the front door they are greeted by the entire King family, in portrait form. The 20" by 40" wrapped canvas portrait works perfectly on the right hand entrance wall in the King home. Projecting the portraits on the wall allowed Kenny and Mary Ann to create a warmth to their foyer that reflectd their dedication and enthusiasm for their beautiful family. By the way- That is the former Euclid Beach rocket in the family picture.

Comfort your way

How many ways can you view your images? Our Office theater area allows you to see your images on a 60" big screen in true comfort. Whether you want to see a slide show or each individual image cropped to your specifications right in front of you, the choice is yours. Want to view your album before it's printed. No problem. Enjoy a beverage as your relive your wedding complete with background music in Dolby 7.1 stereo through a Bose speaker system.

Our goal is to give you choices to make your wedding, portrait s or events easy for you to see. We have the technology to project your images, upload to a custom website or view your images in a proof magazine or traditional proof book. How about a cd you can put in your computer and relive your wedding whenever you want.
This isn't Burger King but you can still have it "YOUR WAY". Most of our Clients say "I'm lovin IT"