Josh Barry Photography’s Blog

So there I was just minding my own business when my wife decided that I was going to do a photo session with her and her friend for fun.

I, being the type of photographer that I am, decided that I needed time to plan better and think up creative things to do.

My wife, being the motivational, positive minded individual that she is, said "You'll be fine, your creative enough. You'll think of something!"

Well we all ended up having a four hour photo session that was a lot of fun!

As well as they turned out I am offering this fun unique style to my bag of tricks. If you are interested I have designed unique packages for just these types of sessions. Call me at 888-517-6374 to set up your time to come in. A great idea for valentines day or a special gift for your husband's birthday…or even just because

More to come!!

So I took some of my images that I used on my website that showcase my Bar/Bat Mitzvah Photography and made a slideshow out of them.

Let me know what you think. Making these are fun.

Bar Mitzvah Photographers
Maryland Photographers

I recently finished workflowing Gabrielle's Bat Mitzvah Portraits. I set them up online last night for the family to view. Once again I have hit the mark as I am always aiming to meet or exceed my clients expectations for my client's Bar/Bat Mitzvah Photography. I just received an email from them:

Josh,

The pictures are AMAZING!!!!!…….I wanted to see if Jewish Family Services wanted the picture of Gabbe with the Tzedakah basket because it turned out so great! Maybe they would use it for ads etc. ……..thanks again for the great memories Thanks again for the great memories!

Linda Weiner

One of the things that makes being a businessman trying to generate income using one's particular art, such as photography, difficult is we are facing a double challenge. First we have to please our client and produce a product that they will enjoy for many years. This particular challenge is a common goal of many different businesses. Not at all uncommon. If it were just that then my goals would be easier to achieve. However, take away the business side of it. Pretend I do photography for free and I am rich beyond all wildest dreams and could afford to give away my services just for the love of the art. I would still have to face the second challenge every time no matter what. What is that second challenge you may ask? well…….[I'm going to need a new paragraph for this]

As an artist we put ourselves into our work. It is a direct reflection of who we are, how much we care, how capable we are, our levels of creativity, and, believe it or not, our self-worth. So when someone looks at our "artwork" we take it personally. We think about how we failed, what could we have done better, did I listen intently enough to give myself the aim and direction to meet their goals? The second challenge is along the lines of the critique. Did my client just 'like' the portraits or did they love them? Were they able to feel the personality or each portrait? Do they like the artistic vision and creativity of each portrait? Would they show these proudly to all of their friends and family? Would they use me again?

All of those factors are wrapped up in the artist's self esteem. We all want, as artists, for someone to say "Wow!". That is why we are artists. We love to create and we love to show. A very simple concept. Pretending I did all of my photography for free again I would, as well as all artists, probably say that no matter what the conditions, if someone doesn't like our artwork it feels the same whether we are making money with our talents or not.

We paint with light and feedback about our "paintings" is needed to help us understand if we are heading in the right direction or the wrong one. It's nice to know that not only have I met the first expectation (producing a product that the client will enjoy) which is hard enough for some businesses to do but also that I have successfully met or exceeded the expectations on the 2nd challenge ( meeting or exceeding the artisitc expectations of the client or the critique ). I am so glad to have done that for my client once again. Thank you for the feedback.

Here is a portrait taken from this particular portrait sessions.

On the same theme yet completely different style of photography. I lost an impromptu photography contest today. The challenge was to take a photo and to have within that photo two elements of who you are and one other element in the photo is that it has to be taken where yo live. That is all the description we got and everything else was left up to our 'artistic interpretation.

Below is my entry.

Explanation:

Who I am and how I think is pretty simple. Life can be filled with darkness, challenges, or as I call them opportunities for excellence in problem solving. However no matter what a door always opens for me. On the other side are new beginnings, better days and brighter futures. Who I am today and what this represents is pretty accurate. Whenever I find myself in the dark I can always open a door and find the light.

Until next time

Thanks and Grins

Joshua Barry

I found this online today and wanted to post this because I think it speaks to the very heart of business in America. Where do YOU fit?

I wanted to share with you the 10 differences between how wanna-be’s and entrepreneurs think…

• Wanna-be’s obsess about ideas. Entrepreneurs obsess about implementation. Don’t get stuck in Analysis Paralysis. Look at what the top income producers are doing and copy them. No need to re-invent the wheel.
• Wanna-be’s want more web traffic. Entrepreneurs focus on sales conversion. Use a marketing system that closes the sales FOR you! You do not want to be a sales person. You also want a system that will do this for your new members as well, giving you the ability to earn ridiculous amounts of residual income.
• Wanna-be’s focus on positive thinking. Entrepreneurs plan for multiple contingencies. Positive thinking is important but you are not a Jedi, yet. You cannot move things with your mind or conjure money out of thin air. Positive thinking will only get you so far. You must have Positive thinking combined with specific, targeted action.
• Wanna-be’s want to get on TV and get “famous.” Entrepreneurs build their businesses and their list. Let the ego go. Your only goal is to make as much money as possible as quickly as possible. This will inspire others to do the same.
• Wanna-be’s seek a perfect plan and wait for the perfect time. Entrepreneurs execute and take action when they see an opportunity. Entrepreneurs accept educated risk and are able to make big decisions quickly once they have all the information. Make a decision and take some risk. No successful entrepreneur accomplished any significant by playing it safe!
• Wanna-be’s wait for their lucky break. Entrepreneurs take responsibility and create their OWN circumstances.
• Wanna-be’s fear looking stupid in front of their friends. Entrepreneurs willingly risk making fools of themselves, knowing that long-term success is a good trade for short-term loss of image. Don’t listen to your friends and family-They are BROKE. They have zero credibility as far as financial decisions are concerned. Surround yourself with people who have results and do what they do. This is the only way to fast track your wealth.
• Wanna-be’s shield their precious ideas from harsh reality, postponing the verdict of success or failure until ’someday.’ Entrepreneurs expose their ideas to cold reality as soon as reasonably possible. Don’t be afraid to look stupid. That is just ego screwing with you. One way to know you are on the right track is when you lose anything in common with all of your brokes friends and family. They don’t count, unless you want their results! PERIOD!
• Wanna-be’s put off practicing basketball until they’ve got Air Jordan’s. Entrepreneurs practice barefoot behind the garage. Stop waiting for the perfect time, the perfect opportunity, the perfect situation. Take decisive action now and stop procrastinating.
• Wanna-be’s believe what they’re told. Entrepreneurs do original research and make their own decisions. Do your due diligence and follow you gut. It will rarely lead you astray.

You can have it all if you really believe you can. Figure out who you are, what you want, and stop settling for less!

So so cute and so much personality out of each one of them. Huxley seemed to be the dignified one acting more as royalty than an animal. Buster was the 'don't touch me just play fetch with me' one. He would bring me his toy and then patiently wait without moving a muscle waiting for me to throw his toy. Molly was the most laid back it seemed being the only girl in the house. She looked like she could fall asleep at any moment in any place in any position. If I remember correctly she was the biggest sneak of them all, quickly sniping my treats either out of my hand or out of my cup while i was working with the her two brothers.

Here is a slide show of a few of the portraits from their session.

They are owned by Mark and Jane Mendlow

First. Congrats to the Lipka family. Bruce, Nicole, Jess, David and Samantha. They will be celebrating Jess's Bat Mitzvah in March and want to thank them for choosing me as their photographer. We are all going to have a great time creating some amazing portraits for you.

Second I recently had the pleasure of doing some photo editing work for MODE. If you are from Harrisburg you may have already heard of this monthly gem. It is by far the most entertaining and creatively designed magazine/newspaper in our area. I would even go as far as saying that if it were not printed on newspaper stock and instead a bound glossy magazine stock it would give "Harrisburg Magazine" a run for its money.

Scot Giambalvo, Mode's Publisher, recently sent me an image that he created for his cover story and asked if I could help clean it up in Photoshop and make the image shine. The image was already a perfect straight-out-of-camera image so this made my job much easier.

I wanted to share the great compliments that were published about josh Barry Photography (ME) for my role in helping this image come to life. In the "About The Cover" section inside the magazine Scot Giambalvo had this to write about it:

Special Thanks go out to a handful of fast-acting people involved in the start-to-finish production of this month's cover in under 24 hours.

ROBIN BAKER, makeup artist did an "Mardi Gras" look with precision and clarity. We highly recommend her for creative makeup work.

MEGHAN KAUTZ, Modest Model, rose to the occasion of an early Sunday shoot with sunglasses, a Red Bull and six-inch heels. You go girl.

JOSH BARRY, Photoshop image magician, ,made what was already a stunning image pop and scream with radiance. His work is exemplary.

Take a look below at the results.
All images copyright Scot Giambalvo
Before

After

before

after

THANK YOU SCOT AND MODE MAGAZINE FOR THE WONDERFUL COMMENTS.

I treat each image from my own portrait sessions with same amount of love and care. All images are enhanced and retouched (I call mastering) using the same methods as demonstrated above. This gives all of my clients an image that pops off of the photographic paper and screams with depth and color.

THIRD
I have begun processing another Bat Mitzvah's portraits. Rick Weiner's wonderful family was met by me down in the Baltimore area for Gabbe's Bimah portraits. We did some natural light work and brought out the Torah for some other portraits as well. That is my main focus this week as all of my other projects are currently caught up. I hope to have these finished and posted online by the end of the weekend.

AND FOURTH
I can't get enough of my website. It looks so great to me compared to my old site. It clean and easy to navigate. Who cares that it's flash and the web-crawlers don't see it. I use pay per click so I show up when necassary in the google search results. IDEA: bookmark my page. Link to my page whenever you guys can. THAT is something that will help my rankings more than anything. Thanks for the already positive feedback I am getting about the website. 2008 is already starting off on a good note.

THANKS ALL
BAR MITZVAH PHOTOGRAPHY

Welcome to my Blog at

Josh BarryPhotography

I will be updating this blog to coincide with my new website. I figured since I have a new website I might as well join the millions who have a blog on their site as well.

This Past weekend I did the Cohen's Bar Mitzvah down in Baltimore a Ner Tamid. The entire group of kids were all kids I have seen 6 or 7 times before from other events I have been photographing at so everyone recognized me pretty much right away. It made for a real comfortable and fun time. Jeremy is such a mench personifying to word humble I couldn't stop overhearing how amazing he did at services in the morning. Mazel Tov to you and your wonderful family.

Jeremy was a good sport when I decided it was time to do the official Bar Mitzvah boy 'Crush Jeremy' Portrait.

Oh and a big thanks to Yaffa for helping me get the space needed for the backdrop. You make your job look effortless.

I can't forget Dj Mike Pachino. Speaking of making it look easy right!!!! This is the 2nd time I have worked along side of him and he is such a pro at keeping everyone interested and the energy up. Check out his website at DJmikeonthemic.com

bar mitzvah photography