Paulo Jordao Photography - BLOG

Cassandra and Luke are going to get married in September of 2008. Cassandra (the bride) contacted me few weeks ago asking me to be their Photographer. After few emails back and forward, I finally met her (Luke, with his very busy schedule, couldn’t be there).

I have a very personal rule before I accept to cover a wedding. I have to feel a good connexion between the couple and I, so I would be sure that I am their best option.

As I was saying, I met Cassandra few weeks ago to talk about her Wedding. For my surprise, she is a bride that really knows what she wants. I know that most of the brides have their dress, flowers, church and other details ready few months before the Wedding date, but Cassandra had every single little detail ready. It is even hard to explain with words how good I felt knowing that I will have the privilege of being their Photographer on that special day.

But, what impressed me the most was that she gave me the the address of their Wedding Website. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so…  Here is how she explained it to me:

“The reason I created my wedding website was to keep our friends and most important our out of town family up to date with wedding info… I wanted our family and friends to feel like they could enjoy the entire process of our wedding with us… To see when we made up our minds on certain aspects of our wedding… I thought the website was an important part of our wedding since my FH has so many friends and family all over the place… ”

Here’s the Link to their Wedding Webpage

www.mywedding.com/lukeandcassyhooper

You will have to sign up to see the site and here is the webpass: Hooper

She was getting spam on their guestbook so she had to make a webpass…  

Few weeks from now, I will be taking their Engagement Session. I am sure that Cassandra and Luke’s pictures will make my next sample book.

If you are a bride or know somebody that is getting married, please check Cassandra and Luke’s Wedding Webpage. You are going to be amazed!!!

Today is April 7th 2008… It is my birthday!!! I don’t know why the date on my blog says that it is April 8th… It is still 11:47 pm (April 7th), but anyway…

I couldn’t let the day end without leave a little post about this day.

There was a time that I couldn’t wait for this date. Presents, party, etc… It was so much fun.

Today, the feeling is not the same. Today is just a regular day. Actually a good day!

Does everybody feels the same way about their own birthday?

Anyway…

For you guys that come to my blog once a while…

I am glad that you can be a part of my day.

Sincerely,

Paulo Jordao

March 23, 2008… It is Easter!!! I remember when I was a kid, my mom and dad used to hide one little chocolate egg for each kid (I have 3 other brothers) on Easter day. I have great memories from that time…

Today the times are different, everything seems more commercial.

My wife, my son and I, went to a egg hunting yesterday morning. Nothing like when I was kid… at least, that was my thought!

After a while, I looked at my son, and he was having the time of his life. He and his little “girlfriend” where holding hands and having fun.

I just wanted to show you this little collage.

Happy Easter!!!

As I mentioned on my last post, I just came back from a convention in Las Vegas ( WPPI ). It was the best convention ever… But I will talk more about that on my next post. OK?

Today I want to finish the Post that I started last week about Spirit Airlines.

I was really mad after Spirit Airlines Charged me $20.00 per bag. I was so mad that I wrote that other post and I started taking pictures of people sited on the floor eating their home made sandwiches, or the huge line of people trying to buy some water before catch their flight. I want to show how the quality of flying have been deteriorating these last few years.

When they started calling to board the Airplane, I just had one thought on my mind: “great now I am going to Fly for 6 hours and the only thing that they are going to offer to us are some snack and a glass of coke”.

Now… I feel even embarrassed to tell what happened next. Do you know that they are not offering the snack or coke anymore? Not even water? I had to buy my water inside the airplane so I didn’t get dehydrated.

What happens next? Will we have to pay to use the restroom? How about pay a little extra to turn on the air-conditioning?

Anyway… I normally don’t like to use my posts to complain about these kind of things, but I just felt abused. I can not remember any other event of my life that I have felted so violated and powerless. The sensation that I had, was that I had been hold “LIKE” a hostage and I still had to pay to drink that glass of water.

If I learned a lesson from this experience is “…”

Sorry… I don’t think that there was a lesson to be learned here. I just wish that the authorities that are responsible for Airlines regulations would stop this kind of abuse.

Sincerely… Paulo

Today is a great day for me, I am flying to Las Vegas for our annual convention WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International). The only problem that I have is… SPIRIT AIRLINES. Oh gosh I don’t even know how I should start this post.

After the “circus” that Airports and Air Companies started doing here in America, I can say that it have taken away all the pleasure of flying. I know that they say that is because of security, blah, blah, blah. Than you have the huge lines, blah, blah, blah. Than, you can not bring liquid, blah, blah, blah. Than you have no food inside the airplane anymore.

But today I got the latest of I can qualify “lower quality company” in a modern world. I got my tikets and hotel confirmation, form TRAVELOCITY.com and haded to the airport. When I got here, the lady from SPIRIT AIRLINES told me that it would cost me extra $20.00 for my only bag that I was checking in. I was surprised that my medium bag would be that heavy. Than she told me that was not because of the weight. That was the new Policy ($20.00 per Bag).

Can you imagine that? Would you be OK if you were taking a taxi and the driver turned to you and charge for each bag or each person, etc?

I don’t know… Maybe it is just me, or it is just because I am still waiting my Flight here at Fort Lauderdale Airport.

But tell me… Am I wrong? What happened with quality and excellence of service?

Anyway… Get away from SPIRIT AIRLINES!!!

It is finally here. The WPPI, Las Vegas - USA

For who doesn’t know about WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International), this is it… the one… the best… the biggest… ETC!!!

No matter what I say about this convention, it would still be much and much MORE!!!

I am getting on a 5 hours flight From Fort Lauderdale (Florida) to Las Vegas (Nevada) for 5 days of the best of what the Wedding Photography Industry has to offer. I will be there exchanging experiences with the best Wedding Photographers in the world.

But the fact is, I am one of the very few Professionals from South Florida that will be going to WPPI 2008.

Now…, Here is a question to you (BRIDE) sleep on it!!!

You already know that WPPI is the place where the best Wedding Photographers will be meeting this next week. The question is… Why would you hire or invest your $$$$$ in a Photographer that didn’t come?

A good Photographer doesn’t just affiliate… A good Photographer has to be part of it.

I will try to write some few posts from there. OK?

If you want to check some of my Samples and Packages, please visit:

www.paulopics.com

Do you know that days that you just don’t feel right, that everything that you do feels bad, and no matter what, it feels that there is nothing you can do about it?

Mabe  a phone call might help!!!

… A month ago, I went to Orlando-Florida for a Videographers Convention.

I went for the Convention, but my wife and my son enjoyed the ocasion to have their little vacation. Anyway, after few days learning a lot from the best instructors of USA, it was finally time to come back home.

On our last day in Orlando, I still had one last class to atend in the morning, so I left the car with my wife and walked a mile until the convention. My wife would wake up latter and take care of the hotels check-out.

One week latter I would notice that one of my monopods was missing. I looked everywhere and nothing! After a lot of thinking and few long distance calls, I figured it out that my wife forgot my monopod at our hotel room.

To make the story shorter, Last Saturday I decided to go back to Orlando (3 hours drive from Fort Lauderdale - 6 hours to go and come back) to get my monopod back. You can see now the reason of why I was not feeling to happy.

Six hours driving by myself and with the cost of this little trip already bothering me, I thought that nothing could change what I was feeling

… I was wrong!!!

I was already driving back from Orlando, when my cell rings. It was somebody asking me about photography samples and packages.

I asked her how she had found my phone number, and she told me that she was searching on the internet and that she really liked my style. She was still going trough the samples and saying that I would be the perfect Photographer for her wedding.

We talked about different styles and different options to make the memory of her special day as special as she deserve. We might have talked for almost an hour and to tell the truth I wouldn’t mind to keep the talking a little longer.

Anyway, when I hanged up the phone, I was smiling and singing an old song that was playing on the radio.

So, next time that I might be feeling sad again, would you give me a call?

Last week I wrote about Matt Wieters and his Baseball future.

Today I want to talk about the little ones… very little ones. I am talking about T-Ball.

I am a parent of an almost 4 years old boy. As a proud dad, I always try to find a way to motivate and compliment my son for his efforts.

Few of my clients told me about this program for little kids that would introduce them to different sports (this season is Baseball), and the place is not to far from my house, so I decided to sign Ryan to this 2 days per week training.

This Tuesday was his first “GAME”.

I am so proud of him…

Sometimes you might even forget that he is not even 4 years old yet.

Check this picture. He is playing with 6 years old kids. Doesn’t he look cute?

I just finished working on the pictures that I took yesterday of Orioles - Spring Training at Fort Lauderdale Stadium. There were so many players there that would be hard to write about all them or post all the pictures of the Major Players here.

But anyway … I wasn’t there to watch the game or any Major Player. My mission was to take some pictures and video of one of their Spring Training Invitee (Matt Wieters).

If you haven’t heard about him yet, don’t worry, you will hear about him pretty soon. He is one of the most promising Orioles Spring Training Invitee.

But don’t take my word on that!!!

STACK media, which is the nation’s leading producer and distributor of sports performance, training and lifestyle content for high school athletes and high school sports community, flew their Managing Director (Rachel Trem) just to have an interview 1 on 1 with Wieters.

Not just that, but the Brand Manager of Under Armour (Colin Clark) and his Associate Marketing Manager-Footwear (Michael Cutting) were there also to support Matt Wieters.

I am not a baseball expert… but the people that I just mentioned before flew between 3 to 5 hours each way in a single day, just to spend few hours with Matt.

I was told that Matt will be a big plus for whatever Major League Team. I hope that he stays here with our ORIOLES.

I’ve created just two Photo Collages of this game and meeting, but you can check in few weeks more pictures and the video of Matt Wieters at www.stack.com.

This last picture shows the Videographer John Lorence (that was shooting fom my company - Paulo Photography & Video) recording Rachel Tream (STACK) interviewing Mat Wieters.

I wanted to post some of the pictures that I took today of “Baltimore Orioles” at Fort lauderdale Stadium, but is already 2:55 am and I still have to select the best ones, edit, make a nice Collage. So, I promise you that tomorrow I will write a post about my day at the training game and all about this new Player that is one of the promises for the 2008 season.

So… Tomorow (FEB-28), first in the morning, you can come and check all about this player and some shots that I took at the stadium. OK!

Let me go to bed!!

See you tomorrow…  

Paulo

I do like cats, but I can say that “I am a Dog person“.

Years ago I adopted a Yellow Lab from Human Society. Since the beginning he (Max) was a great dog. He was so great and beautiful that I decided to make him a model.

Peggy, my wife, is a Professional Stylist for big Catalog Companies (she is responsible for creating the set, so the photographer can take the picture that you see inside the catalogs).

We decided to create few different sets with different props and come with a Greeting Card Line.

We have a collection of 30 cards, but we would love to have some strong representative so we would have Max Cards all over America.

Here are few of the pictures.

Yes!!! He is wearing all the costumes. He is very good on that.

Let me know what you think! Leave a comment.

Paulo Jordao - www.paulopics.com

Party, Party and Party… Wow!!!

Yesterday I went to that Videographers association Meeting (Click Here to read about that post) and today I just came from a friend’s birthday at OUZO’S, a South Beach Mediterranean Bistro.

Lisa and Gigi own the place, and Nicolas (birthday boy) is Gigi’s brother.

The place is a nice and intimate restaurant that specializes in Mediterranean food.

Ohhhh myyyyy…

What else can I say? The food was delicious and the service was perfect. If you live here in South Florida, or if you are here on Vacation, take the time to visit the place. You will love it!

I took quite a few group shots of Nicolas’ friends, but unfortunately I had to select just some of them for my Photo Collage. Hey… I even got in some shots this time. Can you find me there?

As always… Leave a comment. OK?

Thanks!

Paulo Jordao - www.paulopics.com

So… Last week I decided to buy 2 more domain names at GoDady.com, and I also decided change the company that hosts my paulopics.com.

I found this great deal at Hostgator.com so I could have many domain names using just one account. That would be perfect for what I was looking for.

The problem is that I don’t like to wait forever for other people to do their job (most of the time too SLOW). So I bought these 2 new domain and transfer the other one to Godady, and I also signed with Hostgator.

NOW WHAT?

Since I didn’t have to much help trying to triangulate information between the 3 companies (Godady, Hostgator and GATE), I decided at least start the process of changing by myself.

I went to Godady and changed the “Name Server” from my old GATE to new HOSTGATOR.

That went quite well (easy… I thought). Just to learn on the next day that my page was off-line.

I didn’t know that I was supposed to wait 24 to 48 hours to Hostgator transfer my files and DATBASE from GATE, and since I had changed the codes… You can imagine what a mess!!!

They finally got all the files. My page was on-line again, but how about my BLOG?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Wordpress… but it was impossible to get the database from my old server. And since I didn’t have the patience to wait the two companies get on the same page, I just decided forget my old posts and start a new blog from the beginning.

I just want to apologize to any people that come to my blog and don’t find the old posts here anymore. If you want to see any pictures from any old post, I still have them here in my computer… I just don’t have the post.

I hope that you don’t make the same mistake. OK?

Let me know (comments) if you also had some similar experience!

Paulo