So, why should you hire us instead of one of the multitudes of other photographers in the area?
That is of course the question for the ages, and one that we hope to be able to answer to your satisfaction on this page. We are a husband and wife team, and this has several advantages. We handle the work ourselves, so sublet quality isn't an issue. Reliability is superior, as there are no employees to "call in sick" or otherwise let the ball drop. If we commit to a job, we'll be there on time and get it handled. We don't show up with one camera and a flash, and just hope that everything works fine because it always has in the past. We have back-ups prepared for everything possible, to be certain results are obtained. We also won't be showing up with the same snap-shot camera that uncle Benny bought last week (if you're name is uncle Benny, sorry - we're talking about a different uncle Benny), we utilize top of the line professional equipment for the best results possible. That's not to say uncle Benny can't take good pictures, he probably can. We'll just be a little more consistent about it.
For Joe, immersion in photography began when his father (who earned his living through photography for many years and taught it in WWII) began teaching it to him around 1970. This led to his first job as a staff newspaper photographer before being old enough to get a drivers license. Over the years of dealing with medium format roll and sheet film cameras and a black & white darkroom, fundamental skills such as exposure, composition, timing and the like were cemented into place. Even with the amazing electronics and computerization of today's camera bodies, the thorough understanding of these basics, in addition to things such as depth of field and when/how to use it, continue to "separate the wheat from the chaff" in photographers.
Elena graduated from four years of art school and has used that training to enhance her photographic and design skills. This is a multi-faceted benefit both during the actual taking of pictures, the arrangment of items and people for photographing, and the post-processing decisions on crops, angles, coloration effects etc. Her trained eye, in conjunction with a naturally intuitive and artistic way of looking at things, leads to a variety of different pictures blending into our work. With many years of teaching school and managing companies under her belt (most in her native language of Russian), directing and organizing comes quite naturally.
During our years involved with photography, we've had the chance to view many other professional photographers work, sometimes work with them, and on occasion even clean up the messes they've made. There are some very talented individuals out there, and a very many more... less than talented ones. Finding one of the good ones is important. Our hope is that in looking through this website, you'll gain some knowledge that will help you in the selection process, whether or not you choose to use our services.
It's commonly written that if an amatuer photographer gets half a dozen good shots out of 100 taken, they are doing quite well and should be happy. Of course no professional would be acceptant of that ratio, but the number of good shots to bad ones is typically still not impressive. That is why you only get a choice from a few select photos out of the many taken by most photographers. One of the best tools we have to show you the level of quality we produce, are some of our early albums of weddings shot on 35mm film. The albums have a print from every single frame shot, including mistakes, in the order they were shot in, roll by roll. Very few photographers are ever willing to show this sort of thing to a prospective customer, as the number of flubs and poor quality shots can be quite embarrassing, and can lead to a customer being skeptical of the prospective photographers skill level. We are both happy and proud to show our prospective clients these albums, as they are an accurate representation of both our photographic style and level of quality.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions!
JAND.COMPhotographers:
Joe & Elena Davis
E-mail: joe@jand.com
Phone: 206-999-4392 We are located near
Redmond Washington, USA
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