Client Testimonials

TAMPA PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS ARCHIVE

UPDATES - CLIENT ALERTS - TAMPA PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

This is the official Aurora PhotoArts NEWS ARCHIVE! This page is a text only web page, as the Aurora PhotoArts site is not designed to handle a lot of content (It is a photography site, after all!). Click on any link to return to the main site.

Photography Marketing Begins - Monday, August 13, 2007

Tampa Bay Advertising Agency Site Coding - Sunday, August 12, 2007

New V6 Aurora Site Online - Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Thursday, November 9, 2006 - Enhanced Exposure

Sometime next week we will be launching a massive marketing blitz, and for the first time, we will be collaborating with Independent Modeling, Independent Acting, and Independent Performer in addition to offering new incentives for our model and talent clients. In the first few months of 2007, our marketing will expand to assist sister company Eventi Events/ Eventi Stage. Although 2007 will be our record-setting year in sales and volume of clients, by the summer of 2007 there will be a transition and Eventi Events/ Eventi Stage will have a higher profit margin than we will. This, of course, is good for us, too, because Eventi will amplify our marketing and sales efforts. Aurora PhotoArts will be advertised heavily in all Eventi event and stage productions (especially their modeling events and runway productions), and our services will be massively pushed in their marketing and sales. These efforts will inspire others to accept our market superiority as we assimilate them into our agenda.

Monday, October 23, 2006 - Working On Upgrade

We've updated many files, but our upgrade is still in-progress. The work is ongoing, and we are finalizing our selection on which thumbnails we will use and how they will be laid out. We are doing away with all black and white thumbnails, and the thumbnails will link to the "official" configuration of the image which they represent. A color menu thumbnail may lead to a black and white picture (for the example of actor head shots), and clicking on that main image will enable visitors to toggle or click through to color or alternate versions. Most existing and all new black and white pictures will have color versions.

Main images displayed will be their favored versions, so black and white photographs may be displayed anywhere on the site. The color rule only applies to design elements such as thumbnail menus.

The upgrades will be completed sometime this week.

Thursday, October 19, 2006 - Site Upgrade On Monday

The Aurora PhotoArts web site will be upgraded on Monday, October 23, 2006. Many of the upgrades will not be noticeable to the average site visitor, although a few will. We will be updating our main site thumbnails, and this will change the overall look of the site. This scheduled upgrade is needed to support our fall marketing efforts, which are on schedule to commence on October 30, 2006. November and December will see the largest marketing and sales effort in our history, and new client support options will be in place in the next few days. The final months of 2006 will pave the way to market domination in 2007 to the point were everyone in the industry will notice that we are leading the market.

While we are on the subject of web sites, the new Huey Class (named in honor of Orlando photographer and friend Craig Huey) Tampa Bay Photographers Round Table Photography web site will finally debut in November. This web site has been finished since February 12, 2006, and the time is now right to launch it.

Monday, October 9, 2006 - Some Rates Adjusted

Our model portfolio photography rates have changed as of today, and they have dropped to what they were in 2004. Actor and talent head shot photography service rates have not changed. Rates are now locked until spring of 2007, and it is unlikely that they will change then; if they do, they will only go up.

Regarding our Client Delivery System, or CDS, it has largely remained unaffected.

Friday, October 6, 2006 - Rates To Be Adjusted

Our service rates for model portfolio and actor / talent head shot photography services will be adjusted later this month with the fall 2006 edition of our service agreements and our refined Client Delivery System (CDS). Due to an increase in business, base rates are expected to drop to 2004 levels, or as much as 25%. If this goes into effect, services such as model portfolio photography will have seen a reduction in base rates of 40% since August. The increase of bookings has made our services more cost-effective, and we are working toward further increasing those bookings. We will be consulting with our photography partners as we evaluate and adjust our rates. Profits are expected to increase by over 70%, as new marketing and sales efforts go into effect next week.

If the rates are reduced, discounts and CDS bonuses may not be possible like they were in the past. If the rates are reduced and this move does not inspire additional bookings, it is possible that the rates will be adjusted again early next year.

Thursday, September 28, 2006 - APS 6.0 In 2008

EOS MediaArts has begun development of the next Aurora PhotoArts web site, APS 6.0, which will be due sometime in 2008. The site will utilize advanced flash technology and will be built using CSS libraries (the existing site uses JPEG graphics/ images and simple CSS Templates). The basic design and layout will remain the same, although the site will have different ratios of the existing layout components and there will be a few changes. A good portion of the new site will emphasis long-term client support. The format will be much more refined than what the present site has. Much of the site will be developed using new scam-fighting techniques and will be optimized to defend against competitors and aspiring competitors who try to learn from us and attempt to steal what they want.
The new site will contain music and videos, as well as a few surprises like image customization. Details remain a closely guarded secret.
The present Venus Class site is far from obsolete, however, and it has only begun to see its potential as a marketing and sales platform. The site has been highly successful and its effectiveness is increasing. The current Aurora PhotoArts site, APS 5.0, is the most advanced and successful photography and design services site in Florida, and nothing in the Tampa Bay market can compete with it. If the 2008 site is delayed, the current site is designed to be effective until at least 2010.
The current site will be upgraded in early October, with the main thumbnails replaced and updated along with several new features.

Wednesday, September 6, 2006 - Support Files Cleared

Our client support files have been backed up and cleared from our computers, databases, and telephone system voice mail. Pictures have been archived and stored away, and online web proofs have been deleted.

This is needed to clear our support network to be able to handle a 4,000% increase in business bookings later this month. Because of an increase in paid bookings, our stock photography program has been reduced 90%, and we'll be lucky to find the time to do one session per month; especially with most of our needs met through paid bookings with our clients. Most pending stock photography sessions with certain models (you know who you are) have been postponed indefinitely or have been outright cancelled. The window is closed and time is up.

We will be mailing picture packages tomorrow to the six models who have them pending. We also have at least two packages to mail to Los Angeles.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006 - Stock Photography Reduced

Our Stock Photography program is being scaled back by 90%. We've been much too busy lately to do it as much as planned, and there have been some adjustments to our service lines and to our booking process that has put a dent into the program as far as it being a stand-alone project. This will free resources for our service bookings as business continues to grow in the Tampa Bay area.

Models on our waiting list for this program, meaning those who have not been able to lock down and book a time to do it, can expect their wait to increase to months instead of weeks.

Expect a noticeable increase in business and updates to this site in September.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006 - Client Delivery System Adjusted

Our Client Delivery System, or CDS, has been adjusted and finalized for the remainder of this year, with different terms and conditions. CDS specifics will be tied into a "services rendered" statement which will be attached to the signed service agreements, making service paperwork a three component process which will simplify consultations and booking clients. Contact sheets and prints will come with all photography services now, and the older "crop out" print templates are being discontinued in favor of straight prints. Composite Cards and Head Shots, which are separate services, will continue to have Aurora PhotoArts branding printed on them, but will now have an area where agencies can place agency logo stickers.

While our six-look modeling portfolio photography package had its rates adjusted on Monday, we will be adjusting all service rates in October.

Monday, August 14, 2006 - Model Portfolio Rates Drop

Due to record levels of model portfolio photography services, which bring our costs down, and in order to stimulate even more bookings, we have adjusted out model portfolio photography rates for the Tampa Bay market effective immediately. The rates have dropped nearly 20%, and the new rates will be retroactively applied to four pending photography bookings that we've quoted in the last week. We will notify these clients today about the new rates for a six-look model portfolio photography package. The per-look rate and other photography rates remain the same for now. Our Client Delivery System, or CDS, remains unaffected, too. The adjusted rates are comparable to what they were in 2004, which continues to be our record-setting year, although sales this year were on course to exceed that record before the rate adjustment. Sales should smash that record, now.

Marketing and sales incentives which will begin next week will easily enable lower rates due to increased business.

Friday, August 11, 2006 - Service Line Work

We have more work on our service lines this weekend than we have done in five years. Our business advisory board has ordered an overhaul of our service agreements and legal contracts. We will be meeting with our attorney and our legal team in downtown Tampa Saturday to go over these changes and sign off on them Current pending contracts will be grandfathered in, and existing contracts will be honored.
Policy changes are in effect, too, with a "comp card" rule applied to stock photography model eligibility requirements (matching a 45% forced decrease in stock photography resource allocations due to a conflict with our other service lines - Stock photography agreements will now be offered as a post-service option for our other service lines as an alternative to straight-out stock bookings). Qualifying models for booking consideration of any stock photography session or commercial photography session will include a reference evaluation on every photographer they have worked with, and references will be checked in the booking process.
We will be using a "25" or college student qualifier rule for consultation qualifying screening, and there will be an overhaul in our paperwork, our CDS, and our client tracking system. For the first time, we will begin promoting our allies at Independent Modeling and the benefits of our collaborative packages in all consultations and service line bookings, and as a result we will dramatically increase in support and financing to our modeling resource site friend. We will be increasing our support of Independent Modeling and the Independent Sites by over 400%, as we have reduced confidence in doing business with Tampa Bay based model and talent agencies. Independent Modeling and the Independent Sites will see an incredible level of updates in the next three weeks.
We will be streamlining how we do business and will be adopting our 2007 standards this fall. Our main portfolio will be redone and new forms will be created to support business operations.
Referrals from satisfied clients and subsequent bookings have recently exceeded the bookings that we get from conventional marketing efforts. This may be the start of a trend in our model portfolio photography and actor/ talent head shot photography services. There are also indications that an increasing number of models who are represented by Tampa Bay and Orlando model and talent agencies are passing over the photographers that agencies try to force on them and they book us for what they need. There is evidence that this is a growing trend, too.
A new tiered rate system for model portfolio photography services and actor/ talent head shot photography services was unveiled today, and may be adopted soon as our new standard. Our rates will be adjusted in October. Our CDS (Client Delivery System) will be adjustable and scalable if any rates are adjusted, as CDS terms are included in set service packages and the client, not us, pays for them.
Work in the studio will be done this weekend, too. Our main computer has over 100 Gigs of photographs on file, and many of those files need to be archived and purged from the system to support increased bookings (and maybe we will be able to finally locate Ingrid Suchit’s pictures while we are at it). We will be cleaning computer hard drives, adding physical file cabinets for paperwork, will be working on our client services telecommunications system (at night, when we don’t get constant calls), and will be adding tracking cards and an organized client paperwork system designed to support initial and continued client contact.
Some of this maintenance is long overdue and is a result of our busy nature as the Tampa Bay photography and design services market leader. Some of our agreements and service contracts were quickly put together and worked into use as we began to book a lot of work five years ago. The overhaul is now needed, as business will dramatically increase along with our transition to a focus on commercial photography services within the next year.

Monday, August 7, 2006 - Pictures Uploaded

Aurora PhotoArts Senior Photographer C. A. Passinault had a great swimsuit modeling photography session with model and former Ms. Florida USA pageant contender Shilah Goodwin over the weekend. Some of our picks from the shoot have been uploaded, and they can be accessed from the new images thumbnails on the left or from our swimwear modeling portfolio channel.

Saturday, August 5, 2006 - Site Code Adjustments

Starting today, we will be adjusting code throughout the site. These adjustments will enhance the effectiveness of this web site and double its performance. While we did get to most of it today, there will be other work done in the next few days. Because some of this work is confidential and invisible to the average site visitor, we will make no further announcements regarding this and will not specify exactly what we are working on in the code and in what part of the site this work is being done in (good luck analyzing all 724 pages on your own - Official count is 724 web pages within a total of 5,039 files organized in 205 folders and clocking in at 113 MB, which is just over a tenth of a Gig - We have a very big site and it will triple in size by next year). The thumbnail graphics will be upgraded sometime in the next two weeks, and we are looking into enhancing the CSS templates of the site design this month. Some of these upgrades are made possible by recent EOS web team developments and some new design technology which was developed during design work on the EOS MediaArts web site, which is a Tampa Bay advertising agency and our sister company.

Friday, August 4, 2006 - Booked Out

We are booked out for the next two weeks with over 20 photography sessions and service line work. Our service agreements need CDS (Client Delivery System) adjustments, some CDS line specifics need working out, our normal letters and paperwork need to be adjusted, our rate sheet needs to be reformatted (our service lines are massive, as we do far more than photography), and we need new forms and client tracking tools. Our copy and legal teams (needed for site content, service agreements, and paperwork) are also tied up with the EOS MediaArts advertising agency web site preparation at the moment. This, in addition to a lot of photography and design work, has used up our time and resources. Web site updates will be minimal, with most of them being select portfolio picture uploads. Expect our major marketing push to begin later this month and our rates to be adjusted in September. The marketing push will be preceded with a large site update and perhaps an overhaul during the week of or sometime after August 21, 2006. Until then, enjoy the new picture additions!

Friday, August 4, 2006 - Portfolio Updated

Our model portfolio photography portfolio has been updated (sorry about the extra day Stephanie and Matt!). See the newest image thumbnails at the left to look at our uploaded pictures.

Thursday, August 3, 2006 - Portfolio Format Adjusted

Our online photography portfolio format has been adjusted again. We will no longer post black and white thumbnails unless that is the primary or only image, which will increase the use of color within our layout. You can see black and white and altered versions of photographs by clicking on them within our online portfolio, and you will go automatically to other variants of that image.

We will be reformatting our thumbnail menus in a few days. Target portfolio profiles will be adjusted, and credit text links mirroring the thumbnails will be added to the bottom of our site.

Wednesday, August 2, 2006 - Commercial Connection

Aurora PhotoArts is making progress in making commercial photography services our main market. We are working with Tampa Bay advertising agency and sister company EOS MediaArts to develop joint services. Could it be that model and talent agencies will be seeking us out for model print jobs and the top professional models in the Tampa Bay and Florida modeling markets? The paradigm is about to shift in our favor, and wait until you see what we are going to do to the modeling industry in the Tampa Bay market.

Saturday, July 29, 2006 - Bookings Increase

Our bookings have increased and the EOS Team has spent most of the week getting the Dream Nine Studios site up to speed. Our stock photography program is booked solid, and we may have to book multi-model sessions in the future to keep up.

Monday, July 24, 2006 - Portfolio Channels Adjusted

As our web site updates settle down to a normal routine, we have adjusted and optimized our portfolio channels and have connected photography service sections to their relevant portfolio channel. The design portfolio will be connected to the design section when it is operational next month.

Updates will be slow this week as the web team spends a lot of time on the Eventi Events web site.

Saturday, July 22, 2006 - Contract And Rate Work

We will be adding new photography service rates and contracts for the next two weeks. These services will cover the Tampa Bay market. Although we are going to be adjusting our service contracts and will be optimizing them for our Client Delivery System (CDS), existing photography and service rates are not due to be adjusted until September.

Our CDS paperwork will start use this week.

Thursday, July 20, 2006 - Aura Models Team Formed

Aurora PhotoArts and Eventi Events officially formed the Aura Models print and promotional modeling team today. The Aura Models Team is a modeling organization which covers print and promotional modeling as well as dancing. The team is a joint project of both companies,and will also serve as a talent pool for all of the Passinault.Com companies. For more about the Aura Models Team, please check out today's news on the main Passinault.Com site.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - Photography Portfolio Channels Active

Our online photography portfolio channels are now active. We still have to upload another 40 to 60 pictures before we catch up with the picture content that we want online, and we have to add optimized copy for each channel, but the portfolio section and all of the new directories are ready for the flood of incredible pictures that we will be taking the rest of this year and well into next year. We also have to identify which photograph profiles we wish to push and adjust their formats (we may change around the portfolio front-end, too). We will be connecting all areas of this web site to their relevant portfolio channel. The last batch of up to 60 images should be up by next week, and we are still searching our photograph archives for some pictures of New York model Ingrid Suchit and Tampa Bay model Roxanne Kowalska.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 - Web Sites, Links, and Updates

Updates to our web site will slow to a normal level this week as the EOS team moves on to other web site projects and SEO support of this site. We will be adding a lot to our links section, and site content adjustments will be ongoing. We will also get our portfolio channels online in a day or two.

The EOS team is setting up a special server account and some more domain names will be procured on Thursday. Finishing touches are being done to the new Huey Class Tampa Bay Photographers Round Table Photography Association site (we have seen it, and it is a state-of-the-art masterpiece, unlike their current eyesore). Frontier Society, Advanced Model, and the popular Clearwater-based Tampa Bay Modeling model resource will share the new server by next week. These are great times, and set up the market for what is coming!

Monday, July 17, 2006 - Marketing Potential Unlocked

Our web team has unlocked the development restrictions that were on the web site by default, unleashing the full marketing potential of this Venus Class photography services web site for the first time. Core sections have been adjusted as most of the site pages have been gone over and optimized, and SEO performance increases will become obvious within the next few weeks. Additional Internet activity has been authorized and begins today. The web team intends to have hard data concerning the effectiveness of this web site class within six months for ongoing evaluations and improvements to be applied to other web sites and the next generation Aurora PhotoArts web site due in 2009.

Monday, July 17, 2006 - Site Adjustments

We have refreshed the site and are still working on the portfolio channels; the portfolio can be accessed from the main portfolio page and all channels are duplicates of that page at this time. We have added several more channels and that is giving us a little more work to do. The portfolio channels will be working this week, and the main menu will change when that happens (we are thinking about adding a design portfolio section with its own channels, and this will be accessible from the main menu. The design section and the existing portfolio section would both link to Tampa Bay advertising agency EOS MediaArts).

We are currently spending time launching aggressive promotions today.

Sunday, July 16, 2006 - Educational Services?

Things are about to get both weirder and more interesting around here.
Besides owning entertainment and business support services, Aurora PhotoArts senior photographer and Passinault.Com executive producer C. A. Passinault also owns a little-known scientific research firm. Professionally qualified in over 20 professions with a Mensa-level IQ and enough of a college education to earn him several doctorates, polymath C. A. Passinault is passing along his “educate while entertain” philosophy to our photography company. We will be vesting our photography and design services to include scientific research and work in experimental art forms, and we will be including an incredible amount of attention to detail in both our work and in the way that we describe that work. One area that will reflect that is in our anecdotal and information part of our online portfolio, where technical information on our subjects and links to additional information on the Frontier Society site will be included. While not official until now, much of our work over the years has covered far more than photography. Many of our clients have expressed that they are not only very happy with our photography and design work but also because they learned something cool from the experience, the conversation, or both.
There was an announcement today that took many of us by surprise, and answered the questions that some had about obscure services such as aerial photography. C. A. Passinault announced today that Aurora PhotoArts was investing capital into a new aerial tethered robotic drone that he had developed over the years, and the company would be procuring three of them by next year. Far more flexible, easier to use, and less expensive than renting small aircraft, the aerial robotic drones will carry commercial camera payloads thousands of feet to take high resolution photographs for commercial photography and survey work. The drones will be able to work stationary over areas for up to twelve hours at a time, with a data link and payload control function that will enable the photographer to work from a ground station while the drone maintains flight control. The drone will utilize pilot interaction only when needed. Additionally, Aurora PhotoArts will be procuring a number of small, highly maneuverable drop pods for low altitude photography. These tiny, high-speed pods carry high resolution camera payloads.
It will be an interesting time for flying devices and clever gadgets that get the job done. All of these inventions will adhere to F.A.A. regulations. Both the aerial robotic drone and the drop pod have already flown and work well. Both were invented by C. A. Passinault, and patents are pending.
Aurora PhotoArts is going to be far more than a photography and design services company. With two new upcoming service lines and innovative solutions that no one else has access to, we will continue to be the best value in photography and design services in the Tampa Bay market and the rest of Florida.

C. A. Passinault will be finalizing some technical aspects of the aerial photography gear on small aircraft in a series of flights over Tampa Bay this fall.

Saturday, July 15, 2006 - Updating

Our online portfolio core has been placed in a pending status while we make some adjustments. We have paused photography image uploads until the adjustments have been made, and should resume our photography uploads on Monday, July 17. The portfolio is, however, fully up and works fine. The channels are open, but all channel content will be identical (with the exception of our photography stock) until updates resume. Much of this work is SEO related and has to do with titles and alt tags. Older portfolio profiles will see alt, title, and anecdote updates over the next few weeks. Section-relevant meta tags will be uploaded shortly to their relevant site sections.

We have edited our NEWEST IMAGES section to the left, and have reduced the image thumbnails from 97 down to the operational-spec 20.

Saturday, July 15, 2006 - Portfolio Adjustment

As of early this morning (12:43 AM), there are over 227 images in our online portfolio. Our NEWEST IMAGES section to the left has 97 image thumbnails leading to some of them, and this is the reason that the site is loading slow for some people. As of now, we are going to update the main portfolio menu and then edit the NEWEST IMAGE thumbnails down to the last 20 (which would only cover around half of what has been uploaded this week). Obviously, now is the appropriate time to fine tune the portfolio section and make final revisions to the format before jumping into hundreds of shoots and thousands of new image uploads.

Presently, we have the normal ability to upload up to 20 images per day, which consists of roughly 160 image files; 80 for the images themselves and 80 for the supporting new image and main thumbnail images. The uploads also require roughly 80 HTML support page files, which totals 240 files in an eight hour editing session. This is a lot of work, as you can see, but it makes for perhaps the best photography and design services marketing web site in the world, and the top one in the Tampa Bay market. Now that we have established upload capacities, it should be noted that we are benefiting from what our web team has learned from designing and maintaining leading modeling resource sites. Simply put, it is not enough to have the most content on a site. To be usable, the content must be organized. Throw hundreds, and eventually thousands, of portfolio images into one big thumbnail menu and you will lose people regardless of how good the photography is and how interested that they are. This is why we are now slowing down uploads enough this weekend to finalize some details and organize what we have so far. We will adding main thumbnails to the main portfolio section, removing a lot of the new image thumbnails to prune it back to a manageable level, and then we will bring most of the portfolio "channels" online. The channels will only have relevant image thumbnails for that section, greatly enhancing the ability of people to find the images that they are looking for and enabling our online portfolio to reach the full potential of the advantages of having thousands of pictures online offers. Our online portfolio will have over 1,200 pictures online by the end of the year, and they will all be easy and fun to look at. By this time next year, we should have over 3,000 pictures online.

With our site designed to handle thousands of organized pictures, continuity of portfolio profile formats will change. Newer profiles will be slightly different than older ones, but they won't be so different that it will become much of an issue. Besides profile pages, other elements of this site are being improved, too. Our thumbnail formats have been improved, and the mouse over actions are noticeably different (and better) than the original format. This is one reason that we are holding off from updating the main thumbnails on the top and on the bottom of every page on this site; we are waiting until enough new thumbnails are added and then we will update selected ones to the new standard.

Next week a lot will be happening. We will be working on this all weekend to be sure that it's ready by Monday

We are now uploading far more than your typical model portfolio, actor and talent head shots, and portrait photograph images. we are now uploading pictures of just about everything and anything that we have, including out take snap shots that may not be up to our quality standards. Effective immediately, we will limit out take type pictures to their relevant portfolio channels and will not use them in our marketing or feature them on this site. Our NEWEST IMAGES section will only include marketable additions and not out take type images (one did slip in yesterday, but it is of excellent quality and will soon be displaced by newer thumbnails). We will not announce or market every image added to our site, and will not publish over 50% of our work here. The NEWEST IMAGES section will also be used to proof selected shoots and our client picks. Since an average six-look model portfolio session may yield our picks of around ten images covering those six looks that were shot, proofing a shoot will only take up around half of the self-imposed 20 NEWEST IMAGES that we have set for ourselves to optimize the performance of the site. Our NEWEST IMAGES will serve as a highlight proof and a que for images to be added to pour main portfolio section and their relevant channels. By the time that image thumbnails are displaced, they should be selectable from our portfolio section and the relevant portfolio channels. At times, we may push the NEWEST IMAGES beyond a 20 limit (let's say that we have more than two model portfolio sessions in a day and want to post more than 20 images from them- even booked up, the 20 images should last at least 72 hours before they are displaced, as we do want to give our clients and chance to look at them and need to give ourselves time to add them to the online portfolio section. In rare chances, we may extend the NEWEST IMAGES over 20, and perhaps as high as 50 in rare situations. Just don't try to use updates to this site as a way of trying to weigh out how much work that we are getting or trying to find out who our clients are so you can shop them. We will never upload anything close to what we are doing, and you'll never get the full picture.

In other news, the 6th Aurora PhotoArts web site is now in development, and it will feature flash graphics and animation, sound, CSS library templates, and will be PHP database driven. It will be the ultimate site for flexibility, presentation, customized visitor experiences, and quick and easy updates. While we may announce it, we also may not, as it is a long way off. This site is just getting started, is proving itself as the best photography services marketing site, and we still have to test some things. Don't expect the new generation Aurora PhotoArts site until at least 2009, and we will guess 2010. Until then, you will get to experience this beautifully designed, refined site, and our never-ending tweaks and upgrades.

Friday, July 14, 2006 - Massive Mobilization

C. A. Passinault has ordered the largest mobilization of our resources and project bookings in our 12 year history, with the goal to completely refresh our portfolio by the end of the year and build an additional portfolio for a special project that will go after other photography markets in the Tampa Bay area. This will, by far, exceed the volume of work that we have done since the last time that we did something like this between 2000 and 2002, and combined with our usual business bookings, this means that we will be booked constantly for the remainder of 2006. Passinault activated several dormant contacts, and in the course of a single day booked out for the rest of July. We will be booking and working with at least 60 experienced professional models the rest of this summer.

Much of this work will be with our Aurora PhotoStock program, booking professional models. We are looking forward to meeting and working with every worthwhile professional in the Tampa Bay and Florida markets in the next few months. We're also looking forward to talking to them and listening to their experiences and what they have to say about the industry (if you think that there will be more to this than just doing shoots, than you may be on to something. We have always been far more than a simple photography services company, and our connections and interests are far more extensive than any other professionals in Florida).

Friday, July 14, 2006 - Portfolio Copy

We have uploaded more pictures today, and have adjusted our online portfolio section. We will be adjusting the channels before we bring them online, and have added an OUT TAKES section for those cool behind the scenes pictures that show the respect and the repritore that we have earned with top industry professionals and models. As soon as we get our image files situated, we will spend a day or two going over the copy in our online portfolio profiles, namely the title tags, descriptions, and anecdotes.

At the present, our online portfolio contains roughly 100 pictures. We will be adding at least 1,200 pictures to our online portfolio by December 2006. All 1,200 will be Grail shots that we took in 2006 (a Grail shot, as in holy grail, is a picture that we recognize as the best of the best. This is our term and we came up with it. We strive for these in every photography session, and often get several per shoot). See the next entry for information on how we are going to come up with so many new pictures in this short period of time.

Thursday, July 13, 2006 - Images Added

We have traveled back in time five years and have added some great pictures from our 2001 and 2002 archives. See those images by going to the NEWEST IMAGES section to your left; the main portfolio menu will be updated shortly (if not by the time that you read this). Our site is exploding to life in preparation for what is to come.

Thursday, July 13, 2006 - Site Upgrades Begin

When this Aurora PhotoArts Venus Class web site launched last September, it was designed and optimized for future upgrades, but we had not planned to do it at that time. We are beginning to install upgrades, including some enhancements to our background. Our new images feature is now set up to post our picks during selected shoots and projects. Our partnership with Independent Modeling is going strong, and their site is now ready for what we have planned. This summer is going to get hot around here, and we are entering a new era where we give our clients the best value and show models and talent the light!

It can be said, and has been said, that the greatest fear that a competing photographer or photography company should have is that their clients, such as models, meet us, get to know us, and work with us. We are about to introduce certain people to the bigger and better deal, and this market really needs it!

Thursday, July 13, 2006 - Project Marketing On Monday

C. A. Passinault authorized an extended marketing push for the Aurora PhotoStock stock photography program today, which will begin on Monday, July 17, 2006. The marketing will be a major effort and will last until the end of this year. A second wave of marketing will launch the following weekend. The projects will be limited to professional models who have established portfolios and composite cards. Independent Modeling incentives have been added to the program for the remainder of the year.

Service marketing will resume this weekend, but will be kept separate from project marketing due to it being a conflict of interest.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - Standard Aurora Uniforms

With the planning and assistance of sister company Eventi Events, Aurora PhotoArts will be issuing a standard uniform for our company later this year. The uniforms will be blue, yellow, and gray and will be made of cotton. The Aurora PhotoArts logo will be embroidered on the shirt. The uniform will be designed for electronic interfaces and will be in full compliance with Eventi Events standards for their official uniforms. The Aurora uniforms will not adhere to their color classification system, however, although our color scheme will not conflict with theirs if we work together. Eventi Emblem badges will be placed over the Aurora PhotoArts Logo for subcontracted Eventi Events work (either that, or our photographers and photography support personnel would have to wear the standard green-coded Eventi uniform for the event support classification).

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - Model Tracking System (MTS)

Our new Model Tracking System, or MTS, will be online this week. The MTS will be needed for our commercial photography/ model print work, and working with sister company and Tampa Bay advertising agency EOS MediaArts we are planning on becoming the leading source of print work for models (model and talent agencies are also subject to a MTS-type system, and if we are not comfortable with anyone that they represent or are associated with, we will choose to avoid working with them). The MTS will enable us to organize and schedule model information more efficiently, and it is needed because of the large number of model referrals and inquiries that we we get from professional models. We will use the system to make ourselves professionally accountable for who we choose to work with; all models will be assigned permanent tracking serial numbers for their permanent file. The system uses databases such as TALON to track the work history and references of models we are considering to book into projects. We will know every contact and reference that the model has before working with them; all models are subject to background checks and a security clearance before we will consider booking them into certain projects due to the contamination of the Tampa Bay photography market that we have been monitoring. Professional conflicts of interests will be taken into account, and we would like to remind models that you basically are who you work with; this is why it is so important to be selective with who you work with.

The MTS will be adapted for a Client Tracking System, or CTS, as well, later this summer.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006 - Main Computer Offline

We have taken the main computer offline while we work on the ethernet port. One of our two backups is handling our editing and support work. We will be cleaning up old files on the system and will be overhauling it for future work.We are also going through our archives in an attempt to locate some portfolio image files. The system should be back up later this week. In other studio developments, we will be bringing an actress to do voice-over work for our answering system software. We are also adding hands-free head sets for our client services representatives and a hold system to support heavy call volume.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006 - Lightning Damage

The Geomedia 3 production facility suffered a direct hit from lightning last night during an extremely strong storm, knocking some systems offline and shutting down power for over an hour. The facility was designed to be surge resistant when it was built, and even has special grounded EM shielding built into the walls that prevent RF and EM signals from being picked up outside (the studio section is built inside what is basically a faraday cage). There was minimal damage that would have been far worse if not for our precautions, with a router and an ethernet card paying the price (we also lost a pump on one of the display aquariums). The router was replaced today by a repair team, and we will be installing a new network card in our main computer later this week. For security reasons, we only use one of our computers for uploading files to web sites, and this means that all EOS uploads will be suspended for a few days while work continues on web sites. Although the fiber optic cable that was recently installed isn't supposed to be able to conduct lighting, we will be going over everything in the next few days to fine-tune our surge protection. We will be installing new UPS systems next week.

Monday, July 10, 2006 - Images Added

We attended the Hot Import Nights event in Orlando on Saturday evening. We've uploaded 22 of our favorite images to our online portfolio. You can check out these images through our NEWEST IMAGES on the left or in our online portfolio section.

An online proof of all images taken at the event has also been uploaded, and it can be accessed through our PROOFS section. Please note that these images are unedited, and we are not responsible for anything depicted in these images.

Friday, July 7, 2006 - Client Services

We are working on new tools and procedures to improve our communication with our clients, and are working toward long-term professional relationships. These new tools will be operational on Monday. We are going to be editing pictures today and will be adding them next week, too.

Thursday, July 6, 2006 - Photography Session Policies

Escorts

As it has always been, we would like to remind our clients that they may bring someone along to any shoot that they book, unless the individual is an unauthorized photographer or someone who may be a security risk. Friends and family are welcome! We don't mind as long as they do not interfere with the photography process, they make our clients more comfortable, and their participation is not a professional or ethical conflict of interest. If it is ever an issue, we will simply request that our client bring along someone else. Clients under the age of 21 are encouraged to bring someone along. Clients under the age of 18 are required to have the full participation of their parents or legal guardian at all times.

Nude And Glamour Photography

Our company, as a rule, does not do nude photography or any kind of photography that we have professional issues with. We will not do any work with the potential to make our clients or our company look bad. We are against the exploitation of models and talent, and freely support resource sites that build up the integrity of the entertainment industry and which help models and talent. If you are looking for a service that can photograph you nude or in risque poses, we have a list of ethical professionals who we can refer you to. This kind of work is very risky for any modeling or entertainment career, and we recommend avoiding it if possible. If you pursue it, please be careful and make sure that you are dealing with an ethical professional. Check all references and make sure that they cannot sell your images to businesses that will not portray you in the best of light. We believe that exploitation is not art, and those who exploit people in the name of art are those who defile our freedoms. It is too easy for someone to pick up a camera and take pictures of nude subjects, and it requires no professional training. Too many "photographers" are doing this sort of work, and those of us who are professional take a stand. While we recognize that nude photography is a legitimate art form, we also respect the higher level of professionalism required for such art. In our case, we simply do not feel comfortable doing this kind of work because we do not want to risk the pictures being taken out of context and turned into something that was never intended. If a photographer is mainly soliciting nude work or only seems to do nude work, we suggest looking elsewhere for your photography needs. Find a photographer who excels in many areas of photography, who has been in the business a long time, and has many verifiable references.

Thursday, July 6, 2006 - Site Work

We will be doing some cleanup work on the site in the next few days. We will be deleting some pictures and adding many more. We will also be adjusting content and files as we prepare our online store and the introduction of other services. Out thumbnails are in the process of being upgraded, and our overall look will change shortly.

Thursday, June 29, 2006 - How To Contact Us

Over the past few weeks, we have lost count on how many E-Mails that we get asking for rates when we have instructions in our contact section explaining that we do not E-Mail rates (we have also lost some E-Mails due to the volume of mail that we get and models sending huge image files to us). We also do not post our rates on this web site. The main reason is that we have hundreds of services that we offer and our rates are constantly being adjusted. Another is that many of these inquiries are not specific, and we have too much respect for the time of our clients to quote them a general rate when we may not have any idea of exactly what they are looking for. Instead of spending days E-Mailing back and forth, the information can be obtained either by investing five minutes on the phone with one of our representatives or by scheduling a free, face-to-face consultation with one of our photographers. E-Mailing a standard rate would hardly be fair to you, and it is far faster and better to simply call us at (813) 671-9507. If we are busy, please leave a message and we will get back to you faster than we can with E-Mail.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - Advertising Spending Increased

As we branch into other markets, we are increasing our investment into mainstream advertising. We have budgeted thousands of dollars into mainstream advertising for the remainder of 2006. This should increase our market share by over 400%. This is especially important as we focus more on commercial photography in 2007 and demonstrate the we service photography markets other than the model portfolio and talent head shot photography that we continue to excel at.

Monday, June 26, 2006 - Online Store In July

Our Online Store, originally scheduled for a debut this month, has been delayed until late July. The store, which will also sell stock images, will possibly launch around the time of our next large upload of images for our portfolio. We have been spending a lot of time booking client photography sessions and taking pictures of other things in order to build a stock image library for EOS to take advantage of.

Saturday, June 10, 2006 - Twelve Years!

Today Aurora PhotoArts is twelve years old! Our very first photography session was with two DJ's at Lowry Park in Tampa. The shoot, done at the band shell, was for Geomedia's 22nd release, Futura, featuring DJ Frontier (C. A. Passinault) and DJ Cricket (Nicole Angel). Aurora PhotoArts continued primarily as a support company of its sister companies, and then came into its own in 1998 and 1999. By 2000, we were routinely turning out great work for professionals who booked our services. By 2001, our company became the most profitable Passinault.Com company and a Tampa Bay photography leader. We continue to be the top Tampa Bay photography and design company, and are well on our way to achieving national photography market leadership in the remaining years of this decade.

We were going to do a celebration shoot at Lowry Park today, but we have been too busy with booking shoots, and that itself is an ongoing celebration of the work we do and the overall tastes of the consumers in our market.

Thursday, June 8, 2006 - Summer Work

We’ve been really busy booking and working on photography shoots lately (the reason for the lack of online update time), and this summer is going to be record-setting.
Our online store will launch shortly, along with our new photographic art sales line, and we will be scheduling more time to update the site, as new service contracts which we will be using require it. We will be expanding our marketed range of photography services, and model and talent clients will be promoted through an exclusive deal that we have with Independent Modeling, Independent Acting, Independent Performer, and the TALON TALent Online network (affiliated photographers such as Craig Huey and Andy Meng will have the same benefits, so models and talent can not go wrong working with them, either). This exclusive promotion will be offered at no additional charge for our regular freelance promotion package. No one else can offer what we can, and we’re more than happy to demonstrate what we can do for our clients that no one else can match. We are far more than just another photography company.
Our rates will be adjusted again this summer. Please call our client services department at (813) 671-9507 for current rates that are relevant for the services that you are looking for.
Aurora PhotoArts will be investing in new equipment this summer, including a range of specialized studio and portable lighting.
Our photography association, the Round Table Photography Association, found at TampaBayPhotographers.Com, will be pushed heavily in the coming months. At the moment, their old site is up, and we are sitting on the new site, as it has been finished for months now. The reason? We’re preparing to support new initiatives with the association and with the web site, and to post some revolutionary new ideas on the Internet before we are ready to push them would prove to be a mistake. We are not in business to teach our perceived competition how to do business, and we are concerned that some may take our ideas and use them before we are in position to, as it has happened before. We are committed, however, to helping improve the overall integrity of the photography services industry, and will be assisting our photographer partners and photographers who work in our upcoming professional alliance. We will subcontract the best photographers for our projects in the future, further increasing the range and the effectiveness of our services.
Working along with our new photography spinoff company, we will be increasing our stock photography services this summer, too. Advertising agency and sister Passinault.Com company EOS MediaArts will begin selling stock images as a low cost alternative to commercial photography to commercial clients starting this fall. All stock images will be beneficial to the careers of all involved models.
The EOS advertising agency site is in development and will be launched very soon.

Friday, May 19, 2006 - New Photography Company

It is official. There is a second photography company that will begin business in the Tampa Bay market in the summer of 2006. Although this company is an operational partner of ours and will share our photographers and resources, this company will focus on photography and only photography, with an emphasis on fashion and modeling (our work is heavy on the commercial-type and we do far more than photography) . The new photography company will tackle photography that we are not comfortable doing, and it will provide an ethical and professional alternative for much of what is going on in the market now. This new company will not be an official Passinault.Com company for market-conflict reasons.

The company name and specific photography service lines are classified, and the company is currently putting together an extensive portfolio.

Edge Portfolios, an advertising agency for models, actors, and talent, has been absorbed into advertising agency EOS MediArts and will now operate as a division of EOS under their license.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - Store Due In June

Our long-awaited online PhotoArts Store will be online and featured on our site in June! You will be able to buy Aurora PhotoArts art, lithographs, prints, and other products from this site. The store will also be connected to and marketed through an arrangement with online retail leader Ebay and other sales sites.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - Site Updates

Site updates to the Aurora PhotoArts site have been slow lately because we are booking plenty of work and have been very busy. There is a backlog of images that we have shot lately which we will start uploading today; please note that we're overloaded with images and we will not post everything that we have been doing. We will only post the highlights of our most recent work. A lot of this work has been the most impressive in our history, and we are working on some things that will increase what we can do by a factor of ten toward the end of this year. Currently, we are the top photography services company in the Tampa Bay market. By next year, we will be openly competing with the nations best and will become the obvious choice in this market throughout several industries.

We will be doing plenty of updates throughout this site in the coming days as we schedule time to work on it.

We will be adding new marketing support campaigns and entire new sections this summer to support new sales and program initiatives.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - ESPY Model Testing Retired

Due to the large volume of business that we have been doing, we feel that the ESPY Model Testing Program is redundant, and may not be performing like it should. Effective immediately, we are suspending the ESPY Model Testing Program, but retain the right to offer it in certain circumstances to approved clients. ESPY has been a very successful program, and has been ongoing for the past three years. The suspension of ESPY is part of our process to increase commercial photography and other services.

Those who have been putting off booking an ESPY session may be out of luck. Please contact us and we will be happy to discuss your new options.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - Sponsored Sites Restored

Sponsorship of the Independent Sites and model resource sites like Tampa Bay Modeling have been restored. Aurora PhotoArts, EOSMediaArts, and other Passinault.Com companies will continue to support the sites. As part of an updated agreement, the sites are no longer dependent entirely upon us and are free to shop for other sponsors if we are unable to sponsor them in the future. For the time being, however, sponsorship and assistance is promised and followed through. For Aurora PhotoArts, this also means that our client profile arrangement is on again with the Independent Sites!

A special thanks go out to all of the models and actors who sent countless E-Mails to the sites and to us protesting the suspension. The majority has finally become vocal, and we heard you. Sponsorship was restored a week ago.

Although we are sponsoring them, the Passinaut.Com companies are not responsible for the opinions expressed on these sites, the information presented, and the talent resources available on them.

Monday, May 8, 2006 - Independent Sites Suspended

Effective today, Independent Modeling and the other Independent Sites have had their web support suspended by EOS MediaArts. Although these sites are not directly affiliated with us and the sister companies of Passinault.Com, advertising agency EOS MediaArts performs maintenance on the web sites and at least one other unrelated modeling resource (we believe that it was Tampa Bay Modeling). Without update support, this pretty much stalls all the involved sites and suspends further updates until a financial arrangement can be secured between the sites and the EOS web team or the owners of these sites find other web companies that can work with the EOS web designs (it remains unclear if EOS will allow this, as the site class formats are technically leased to the involved parties under the terms of sponsorship and the web sites would probably have to be paid off in full before they are released).
Effective immediately, this terminates our online profile arrangement with the Independent Sites, too, as we cannot do this if they are unable to update their sites. This is projected to have minimal impact on our business.
The EOS web team will continue to maintain most of the existing content of the involved sites, as several sponsored sites are now on standby mode with no planned updates. The domain names and site content remain the property of their owners.
It remains unclear if this is the end of some of these sites. For now, they will remain online. We have been informed by the web team that all of the sites can be brought up to speed in one day if the need arises and outstanding issues are addressed.

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - ESPY Program Schedule

C. A. Passinault today scaled back the ESPY model testing program on our active schedule. We will now have four main sessions a year, and reserve the right to qualify participation. Rates for this service are now longer held at a discount from the rates of our model portfolio photography, but have been set as a testing rate. The quality of both testing and portfolio photography are identical. Model portfolio photography and other photography services may be pro-rated as package deals, however, and we reserve the right to adjust rates at any time. Rates booked under the terms of a signed service agreement are locked at the specified rate.

We no longer market our services with the promise of reduced-rates or discounts. With the new Client Delivery System (CDS) implemented this month, all of our photography services are expanded, and our clients now receive more with each service contracted. Our long-term client support services have been enhanced, too. With service improvements made, we can no longer justify budget marketing, especially when our full-rate services have been outselling our discount programs for some time now.

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - Portfolio Updated

We've uploaded more images to our online portfolio. Check the "newest images" on the left to see more.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - Rates And Services

In the latest rounds of service agreement adjustments (necessary because of the implementation of our new Client Delivery System, or CDS), we have elected not to increase any of our rates. We have also elected, as CDS specifies, to increase overall services and enhance client support. To enable these welcome changes, we have made cut-backs to reduced rate services and are pushing to make up for increased overhead by obtaining higher volume sales. ESPY, which is currently marketed as a reduced-rate model testing service, will be offered less, and we will be very selective in who will be eligible to use ESPY (We have a session this Saturday April 15 and in late May. After that, we’re looking at August, and then maybe as infrequent as every three months. Those that ignored or passed up this offer in the past will soon find it very hard to get into. It is possible that we may discontinue and retire the ESPY program later this year). We are projecting our offline sales efforts to become more effective once ESPY is no longer pushed, and while we won’t go into reasons, let’s just say that we are too busy booking our regular services to bother with reduced-rate anything.
We will no longer market services on the promise of lower rates. Our work quality is excellent, and we really don’t see any other photographers or photography companies in the Tampa Bay market who can match what we can do for clients. Those that market services at lower rates almost always have work that match those low rates. We are all that anyone needs for the pictures and quality work that they are looking for. Since sales have been up, we are interested in increasing the services that we offer to our clients instead of trying to give them discounts. Our focus is on both service and total value. If anyone wants budget pictures by someone who is less experienced and is still trying to figure out the photography business, than they are welcome to go there. We’ll wait for them to come back to us for what they need.
Clients who have booked our services using older agreements would be bound to the terms of those agreements, and would have to use the newest edition agreements to take advantage of our CDS. The new agreements will not be available until next week at the earliest, as we are still finalizing some details. We may grandfather some photography sessions that we did this week into the new terms, but have not decided if we will or not at this time.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - Studio Upgrades

We are about to upgrade our studio connection. Our present broadband connection is barely able to keep up with our web work, and a new fiber optic connection should be more than enough to help us keep up. Connection speed has a lot to do with the number of updates to the “new images” thumbnails on the left, and whenever we add any images, we have to refresh the entire site directory. This takes time, and with our current broadband connection it takes at least thirty minutes and we need someone here during the process to make sure that the FTP does not time-out.
We have always intended to use the left “newest images” thumbnail bar as an online proof of current, daily work of the images of our choice. These images would be highlighted here, but would not necessarily be added to the online portfolio (We would leave that to the best of the best and work that demonstrates our professional range). It was never meant to be redundant.
With uploads being over six times faster, we can finally use it to proof our top picks for current work. The “newest images” would be aimed at current clients rather than general visitors, although security precautions would be taken so visitors could look at that work, too, if they wish.
Currently, we use Photoshop to generate web proofs for clients to look at. We’re not happy with the way Photoshop presents unedited work that is not optimized. A part of our solution will be to use this web site’s “newest images” as an online proof of the edited work of our choice, while providing our clients with actual printed contact sheets (as a part of our new CDS, or Client Delivery System) and follow-up consultations. The clients would end up getting our picks as a bonus and their picks as promised by the service agreement. The new CDS would also include prints as part of photography services, and we will cover that in another news post today. Increased services that are more user-friendly rather than reduced-rate offers are now the trend- which is putting pressure on services such as ESPY. The days of clients having no choice but to choose their own printing service are now over, too, especially when we have seen what some models have done to our composite cards and some actors have done to our head shots with our company name all over them. Quality issues aside, we’re also not too keen on referring our clients to potential competitors, and some of the printing companies that we happened to refer clients to in the past just happened to offer services like we do as well as printing services. We will be highly discouraging clients from mailing image files and from using their own printer. We are also looking at our web comps and may modify the format so they cannot be printed off of the web- we haven’t decided what to do there, however (the existing web comps and online head shots on Independent Modeling, Independent Acting, and Independent Performer would not be changed, however, and would be unique in their download/ online print capabilities if we decided to modify the format).

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - ESPY Model Testing Scaled Back?

Our famous ESPY reduced-rate model testing program has been running since the summer of 2003, and there are now rumors that the program could be scaled back in favor of conventional consultations and increasing model portfolio photography and talent head shot photography. Our regular photography services have seen an increase in bookings, and ESPY has indications that it may not be as cost-effective as it used to be. With regular-rate service bookings increased, we have less time to do any reduced rate services even as group projects, and historically offline sales have led to conventional service bookings rather than ESPY bookings. ESPY has always been the darling of online sales efforts, and with a 30% drop in online sales, ESPY sessions are not booking like they used to. Overall, however, sales are up, with the majority going to our conventional services and our greatest success coming from our highly-refined offline sales program. It seems that when people see our work, they are inspired to invest in our photography services. This is how it should be, and it should be noted that we are booking clients even after they have shopped other photographers in this market.

ESPY sessions may become less frequent, and we may become highly selective on who we book into this service. The next session is in late May, and there may not be another until July or August. With the connected First Look program, and some issues regarding height limitations in what agencies will even consider in a model, ESPY may become an elite service which is an exception rather than the rule.

Monday, April 10, 2006 - New Service Agreements

We will be releasing our Q2 service agreements and upgraded contracts later this week. Unlike the last few changes, rates will remain the same for now, although we will be looking at our rates again in September. The changes will instead reflect our new Client Delivery System (CDS), and some agreements will see the increased benefits that take advantage of of our last rate increase. One of the reasons that we raised our rates in Q4 2005 was to support our CDS and the inclusion of prints. The system is now ready, and while we will be doing more work after each photography session to support it, it is worth it to satisfy our clients and to enhance our new efforts in long term client support.

The terms of our client delivery system (CDS) cover full-priced photography bookings. Discounts and special offers may modify the CDS.

Sunday, April 9, 2006 - Changes In Store

We will be working on adding more pictures to our online portfolio in the coming days, and these pictures will be more than the ones of models and talent who fill the Aurora PhotoArts site currently. We have a lot of landscapes, pictures of things and objects, and art work that we haven’t had the chance to show on this site until now. We will be editing pictures tonight, and some may make it onto the site on Monday morning.
Of course, adding new type of pictures to the site is only one of the changes that are in store. The rest of this is about booking policies.
We've had this policy in place for the past three years, but we're really going to start emphasizing it. Which policy are we talking about? The under 21 rule. If a model is under the age of 21 and at least 18, we strongly encourage their parents to become involved in the consultation and booking process. If the model is under 18, then parental involvement is mandatory.
Under 21? Talk to your parents and spend time with them looking at our work. Your parents will like us. We have yet to meet any parents who don’t, and we have a mile-long list of references to back it up. We like parents, too, and have spent a lot of time making it easy to work with them in model testing and model portfolio photography work.
Speaking of consultations, we have recently changed our consultation process to make it a bit easier. Changes aside, clients still must deposit at least 50% down in order to book our services (and those between 18 and 21 should have their parents involved.). Lately, our schedule has been getting tight, and booking deposits help us manage all of that and make it work.

Saturday, April 8, 2006 - Client Choice

Some of our work in the past twelve weeks has even surprised us. Some of our clients and even other photographers have told us that we’ve been doing the best work in our history in the past quarter.
That’s a start, but it won’t compare to what is coming. Just wait until they see what we’ll be coming up with in the near future.
What exactly does “writing photography” mean? It is a conceptual process that will become the foundation of the future of Aurora PhotoArts, and it will enable us to compete with highly regarded professional photographers and photography studios on a national and international level. We are going to become famous for our editorial and conceptual work. The irony is that you will seldom see anything editorial or conceptual in our present work. That will change. Photography is much more than great composition and taking well-lit, sharp pictures of models, actors, and talent. We are going to demonstrate that shortly. Aurora PhotoArts is about to become a legendary brand, and our already-excellent photography work will improve ten-fold in the next year.
Why do others worry about famous photographers flying down from markets like New York and booking work in Tampa Bay? We don’t.
That’s something to think about (if you’re not in the loop, it’ll only be more confusing than anything, and that’s just fine with us- we would rather that most would see the results and not have to think about the process). For now, we have to work on the studio, get it ready for models, and work on studio lighting. We’ll be working on the studio all night tonight and into tomorrow morning.
The fact that 99% of all of our work is done on location and not in a studio should be raising some eyebrows, and should make the above information even more compelling. Good. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
We are already the choice of our clients. We will soon become the choice of the established clients of our competition, and we look forward to making the bigger and better deal obvious. We’re going to give a level of work that you simply won’t be able to get anywhere else, and that’s the way that it should be.

Thursday, April 6 2006 - Site Expansion Coming

The Aurora PhotoArts web site will be expanded soon. This site has been very successful since its launch last fall, and although it weighs in at a hefty 1,500 pages, some of the features and other sections await expansion. We will be tripling the size of this site in 2006.
We will be adding and updating the following site content:

SEO
We are now increasing this sites effectiveness on Internet search engines. The advanced SEO techniques coded into this site have been working well, and we will be adding SEO support features to double what we’ve been able to do so far. Much of our business comes from people who find us using the Internet, and while sales efforts are now focusing offline, our online efforts will increase. For the time being, smart people are finding exactly what they need. They are finding us, and feedback that we’ve obtained from our new clients indicate that they love our site and they love our work. Our web site is the most effective marketing engine in the Florida photography and design services market at the moment, and it will only get better as we grow into our designed potential.

PORTFOLIO
We will be adding several hundred new images to our online portfolio section, and will be activating all channels. We are thinking about adding additional portfolio channels, too. One of the largest channels will be our Stock Photography channel with stock sale-enables images for sale. We plan an additional 50 stock photography sessions this year to fill our stock library.