blog - Positive Vista Photography & Art:photographer in Santa Cruz

Don’t miss Family Portrait Month

Don’t Miss Our Special Family Portrait Month Promotion

Before and after operation by Operation Smile

I thought you would want to know about a very special family portrait promotion we will be participating in with an elite group of photographers around the country. From October 16 to November 15, we will celebrate Family Portrait Month, a wonderful opportunity for you to update your family portrait (or portraits of your children), and support Operation Smile, which treats children around the world who suffer with cleft lips, cleft palates and other facial deformities.

Along with other studio members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), we have pledged to contribute your $98 session fee to PPA Charities which has chosen Operation Smile as its charitable beneficiary. Every $240 will enable one child to have the needed surgery to have a normal smile that the rest of take for granted.

What’s more, we want you to benefit from this special offer: so I am offering

Saturday Oct 19 sessions for those of you who like a weekend appointment
12pm-5pm Oct 31, Halloween specials for kids (or adults) in costumes, $40 package (includes 20 minute mini-session, and one small digital file of your favorite pose, additional orders are 50% off normal price). ALL proceeds from this day will go to Operation Smile!

Recording the faces of children and their families is our greatest pleasure. That’s why we are so pleased to support the work of Operation Smile. Each year this incredible organization of more than 6,000 volunteer doctors, nurses, dentists, and specialized health care professionals, perform free reconstructive surgeries for children suffering with facial deformities. More than 100,000 children are born with a facial deformity each year in Operation Smile’s 26 partner countries.

We hope you will join with us in helping to make this vital work possible. Don’t forget that the holiday season is right around the corner, so there’s no better time for a family portrait, which is always appreciated as gifts for family and friends and to send along with holiday greeting cards.

Your Family Portrait Can Create Smiles and Change Lives!

Celebrate your family by helping a child! Call now 831-426-1400. Appointments are limited! Remember… Your family portrait is perfect for holiday cards! Family Portrait Month is sponsored by PPA Charities.

As always . . . we look forward to creating some truly wonderful portraits of your family.

You will always get my BE THRILLED OR BUST guarantee on any portrait taken at my studio. This is a great opportunity to experience for yourself or to gift a friend or loved one something they will treasure.

time-zero Santa Cruz – my first photography book

Today is a milestone day, I have published my first photography book time-zero Santa Cruz. Have you thought about publishing a book? It is actually a lot easier now than in the past. If I had to print 1000 copies of a book I probably would never have done it. But it is now possible to have them printed on demand, with very little upfront cost to the author, so I decided to give it a go.

Order on Amazon here.

It is a look at Santa Cruz where I have lived since 2001. I started taking photos of places around Santa Cruz using a Polaroid SX-70 instant camera, and really enjoyed manipulating them to make them interesting and different. My Polaroid SX-70 manipulated images have always been a personal project. I love the uniqueness of them, and the painterly look. You may have seen them in my Polaroid gallery.

Making photographs look more like paintings by manipulating Polaroid SX-70 images is an alternative art form which has been around since the 1970’s. Although Polaroid no longer makes this camera and film, the SX-70 camera can still be found on eBay or in people’s garages and attics. The more challenging part is getting the time-zero film which can be manipulated. The Impossible Project, a very interesting story by itself, currently produces film which can be manipulated similar to the time-zero Polaroid film. The results are not exactly the same, but one can still create one of a kind images today.

I got my first SX-70 camera in the 2000’s, when the film was still available from Polaroid. I love watercolor paintings, and I love photography. This is a happy union of these two activities. I enjoy the process of creating something different and interesting, while having fun with it. The photos are manipulated using hand tools, scanned into the computer, and sometimes further enhanced using computer software. To me, it is just a fun process, and the results are often unexpected!

I especially enjoy meeting people who are curious about the odd camera I use when I am out taking photos, and showing them what can be created from the photos.

In this first book, I have included 50 images of Santa Cruz, many street scenes downtown, on Pacific avenue over the the last few years and some new images of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, which is so identified with Santa Cruz as a summer holiday destination.

Please visit my Polaroid gallery, and if you like the images, check out the book too.

The book can be ordered now on CreateSpace and it is also available on Amazon here.

But it’s my photo or is it? About Copyright

This Copyright thing! Whose photo is it?

People are confused about this Copyright thing, it is not just you, but even some people in the business of stock photography are confused.

Long time ago, before I opened my portrait studio, I went on a cruise with a bunch of friends. On cruises, they take lots of photos of you, and you can buy them if you like. If there is a photo of 4 of us, shall we buy 4 copies? or buy one and make some copies ourselves? It turned out that even though the idea crossed my mind, I never did it, somehow in the back of my mind, I knew there was something unsavory about making copies of them. In fact, it would be illegal to do so. I doubt the cruise company will be taking people to court over this, but that doesn’t make it less wrong.

When a photographer takes a photo, he owns the copyright of the photo, period! If you take a photo using someone else’s camera, hmm, you still do, but most of the time it is not a photo that is worth the trouble, so nobody worries about it. If it is an image of someone else, that someone else does not own the photo. They may not like it, or say you can not take a photo of them, that is a privacy issue, not a copyright issue. The copyright holder can “copy” or make copies of the photo, others can not. Unless… the copyright holder grants you the right to do so.

When clients come to my studio, Positive Vista Photography & Art, I always ask you to sign a Model Release, this covers the privacy issue, and allows me to display images of you publicly, modify them, sell them. If you don’t want to sign the model release, and I still agree to photograph you, I won’t display your image on my web site, I can’t show them off publicly. If it turns out to be a master piece, I miss the opportunity to show what I have created. I respect your privacy, especially if it is a boudoir photo of you, and won’t show them unless you allow me to. As a photographer, I want people to see the photographs I created, be it a portrait of you or your family, a pet portrait, or even a horse. Ah, but the animals don’t have the rights to privacy like people do, so they do not need to sign Model Releases.

You can get a print, or a digital file of your image from my studio. If you want many prints, use the photo online, and email it around to your family, I offer the digital file of the photo along with a Limited Copyright Release, in which I grant you the limited right to make copies of the photo for the uses you and I agree on, personal, business, or both. So, even if it’s an image of you, and you purchased the digital file or the print, you do not OWN the photo in the sense that I do, and you are only licensed to use it. Strange? It’s kind of like when you buy a book, maybe even a book about you, you really only bought a copy of the book, you do not own the contents of the book, which is owned by the author (copyright does expire eventually, see this US copyright office page)

Are you still confused? I will be happy to explain further if you are. Let me know!

Photographing horses

A day of equine photography

A white Arabian horse named Mouse

Today I went to visit and photograph horses owned by my friend Cyndi. This is her Arabian horse, with a unlikely name Mouse! He is 25 years old and is enjoying his late years in the hills of Corralitos. I took some photos of him and also his friends at the ranch. Here is a video I made of the photos, let me know if you enjoy them!

Fun family portraitPhotography by Positive Vista Photography & Art by Portia Shao

What family portrait is all about

Family portrait is about having fun and getting the precious moment on camera to treasure and enjoy for a lifetime!

Family portrait

I just saw this review of their studio experience on Yahoo, which made me so happy! This is exactly what family portraits is all about. Thanks Dana, for letting me and others know what your experience was like at the studio, and that you enjoy not only the experience but the portrait itself in the future!

“I had been wanting to do a family photo for quite a while but never took the time to get it together until I saw a Groupon for Positive Vista. I had never heard of Portia Shao, but then, I didn t know any photographers so I just went for it. It ended up being a great choice for me! My daughter lives out of town and it was a little difficult to find a time when all four of us could be together to even take a picture. Portia was wonderful in helping with offering to work when she normally wouldn’t to accommodate my needs, including honoring my Groupon after it had expired! The photo shoot was amazing, not only did she spend more time than I would have expected, it was a blast! We all were laughing and having a great time. Portia took probably hundreds of shots, in all different combinations of the four of us. I ended up with exactly what I originally wanted and more, I now have a beautiful collage of my two young adult children and the best picture of myself ever taken! Thank you Portia for capturing my family in time that we will all enjoy for many years into the future!”

Santa Cruz photographer Portia Shao loves to create family portrait which captures priceless memories you will love and enjoy forever.

More information about the studio experience can be found in the Studio FAQ page

Photos of adoptable dogs from the Santa Cruz SPCA

Here are some of the dog photos from my latest Santa Cruz SPCA photo shoot. There were several puppies, one mommy, and of course don’t forget that older dogs need homes too.

The art of posing and lighting

I just finished an one week workshop at Texas School of Professional Photography. I studied The Art of Posing and Lighting from master photographer Hanson Fong. Hanson is a world famous wedding and portrait photographer from San Francisco, but we both had to go to Texas for the school! There were more than 50 instructors at the school, and more than 1000 students. Several instructors were from California, and I am the only photographer from Santa Cruz, along with two more from California.

I have seen Hanson present at other photography conferences and trade shows, and have always admired the ease and proficiency he showed in posing groups of people, and his famous flow posing for couples. Even though I do not photograph weddings, there were a lot to be learned from a master. There were more than 20 photographers in my class, and we also learned from each other. Everyone has difference background and experience, height, weight, size and shape. I especially enjoyed the hands on part of the workshop when we had to pose each other, but it was amazing to see how Hanson made it look so easy.

A great portrait does not happen by accident. At least not if you just want to get lucky. Lighting in the studio must be used to bring out the best of the model (the subject in the portrait), and hide anything you don’t want to show. I am reminded of what I learned from another master photographer about how to analyze the face for the best lighting and angle. People have written many books on how to light and how to pose, it is definitely an art to be learned and practiced.

So what are the principles of posing? For groups it is uneven height, blocking or showing the bodies as appropriate, moving forward closer to the camera to appear bigger, further away to appear smaller. These are just the tips of the iceberg on how to pose for a great portrait. I will be applying what I learned to my portrait sessions, and look forward to creating more beautiful portraits of family, couples, and individuals.

Abstract Waterfall from Dallas Botanic Garden

A fun photo of waterfall from the Botanic Garden

A glamour photo from the model shoot-out night

We had a party night at the Red River Dance Hall

Studio portrait experience - in the studio with portia

The studio portrait experience

What is it like to be photographed at Portia’s Santa Cruz portrait studio? We dropped in on an actual photo shoot and asked several clients about their experiences! We also turned the camera on Portia the photographer and asked her some questions about why she does what she does.

Well, it was not as scary as I thought to be on the other side of the camera! I hope you get some idea about what it’s like to be photographed in my studio by watching this video. Have you wondered why I named my studio Positive Vista Photography & Art? This short video gives you the answer. I also give you a challenge at the end of the video, find out what it is! Come on, my camera loves you!

Having fun at the studio – photography of children and family

Some moments in the studio are just too precious! Mad and Luke who are cousins were in the studio with their family for their family portraits. They are just the cutest kids and having fun was what they did. If you think this photo was to die for, click here for more photos and a record of them eating some apples and these moments were so precious! Do you know any kids who are as adorable? Ask their mom to give me a call at 831-426-1400 so we can capture some great moments for them.

How to take a better pet portrait – pet photography

Do you wonder how to take a better pet portrait? Here are 5 simple tips to a better pet portrait.

I take a lot of pet portraits, mostly dogs, some cats, a few chickens, some rabbits and even a rat. Sometimes dogs and cats together!

While volunteering at the Santa Cruz SPCA, I get to see some poor animals who at first glance don’t look like they would make a great photo, but I try my best, and luckily for everyone, I usually get a few good photos which would show them off in a better light, and attract people to come in and adopt them.

Here is a video showing an actual photo shoot at the SPCA, created by Adobe, the company which gave us Photoshop and many other wonderful products.