It's Here The MGP Black Friday Sale!

It's here! The Black Friday Sale at Mark Garber Photography!

We've reactivated an entire year's worth of portrait sessions, weddings and engagement sessions at markgarber.com! From now until Monday, November 26th take 50% OFF any Gift Size Prints 8x10 and smaller!

The Details...

Passwords: You, and anyone who has previously viewed your proofing gallery(s), will automatically receive an email notifying you of the promotion complete with a link and a reminder of what your password is. Most clients will have the same password; however, a few were changed because of duplications. Remember that passwords are always all lowercase with no spaces.

Delivery: Orders placed during this sale will be ready for delivery/pickup by December 15th at the latest with plenty of time for holiday delivery.

Restrictions: The sale price of 50% Off only applies towards Gift Size Prints 8x10 and smaller. Albums, wall prints, canvas prints and specialty items are not included. The sale price isn't retroactive, meaning that it does not apply to orders that have already been placed. The sale price only applies towards orders placed between 11.21.12 and 11.26.12.

Note:  If you have a viewing gallery that is currently online (not one that had to be relaunched for the sale) the 50% discount will NOT show up automatically when you place your order.  We will be manually adjusting the price on those orders.  We will be double checking all orders before processing any credit cards to make sure the sale prices are upheld. If you experience any difficulties with ordering please mention that in the Memo/Notes area of your order or email the studio at garbersonline@gmail.com. We will be out of the office with appointments, but will be checking email regularly. Thank you!

Need to buy a gift for someone who is tough to shop for or seems to have it all? Portraits make the perfect gift that they will enjoy for years!

The Knot Best of Weddings 2012!

The results are in...we made The Knot magazine's Best of Weddings for the fifth year!

A very special thank you to all of our wonderful clients who voted for us. We are so blessed to witness and document some the most special moments of our clients' lives.

We relish every event and milestone that you share with us and are truly honored to be a part of your lives. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!

Studio News and Travel Updates!

You may have seen our work around town lately. Our images made the cover for Reach Magazine as well as Cincinnati Wedding's Reception Planner special feature. The lucky couples are Christy and Nick and Kara and Nathan. Also, we will be in New Orleans at the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) national convention. We will be out of the office January 14-18th.

Mark and I will each be receiving National Photographer of the Year awards. To receive this honor a photographer must submit four entries and have all four entries be submitted into both the General Exhibit as well as the Loan Collection...not the easiest of challenges. We submitted four client wedding albums and had all four accepted into both exhibits. Shhhhh.....but rumor has it that we have one album that has made it into the Top Ten Best Wedding Albums in the Country. We'll be sure to keep you updated as we learn more.

We are also looking forward to photographing an engagement session in New Orleans. We then be photographing their wedding this June in New York. Lots of fun!

Published! Professional Photographer Magazine

As part of our winning Diamond Level Photographers of the Year for 2011, we were featured in Professional Photographers Magazine. It's a challenge and a thrill to compete each year in the International Print Competition (IPC) with the Professional Photographers of America (PPA).

Out of the thousands of IPC entrants only a dozen achieved the Diamond Level Photographer of the Year award, by having all four of their entries both Merit and Loan. The greatest thrill for us is knowing that it is actual client work that has been judged by our peers. We aren't the type of photographers to go out and photograph sunsets or bowls of fruit. We want to submit work that is literally created in the heat of the moment for our clients.

In the last few years, we've become known for wedding album entries. Instead of being critiqued on a single image from an event, we feel it is important to be judged on the whole body of work or story of a wedding. For us it is the ultimate test, to be creative, professional, consistent and meticulous not just for one shot, but for a whole day or thousands of shots.

It's a thrill to arrive at each of our clients weddings and tell ourselves, "Today is the day. Today we will get our next winning album." We believe that all of our work is a self portrait, and as artists, we want to be remembered for a complete body of work. Entering print competition keeps us constantly striving to be better than we were yesterday, and to never let good enough be good enough.

To see more imagery from the four weddings that were submitted into the Loan Collection. Click on the links below.
Julie and Christian
Abby and Brian
Logan and Jonathan
Amy and Gary

Ryan and Michael Published in The Knot Ohio!

Ryan and Mike's beautiful wedding has been published in The Knot Ohio's fall magazine! Issues are on magazine stands now so be sure to pick up a copy.

Their event was full of unique details, creative twists and vibrant splashes of color. You can view more mages from the their original wedding post by clicking here. You can also check out some of the amazing wedding vendors who helped make their vision a reality.

Congrats to such a wonderful couple! Thank you for sharing your special day with us!

Tres Chic Event Planning, Coutrenay Lambert Floral Design, Prime Time Party Rental, The Envelope, Goodwin Lighting, Elite Catering, Party Pleasers DJ & Classic Confection Cakes

PPA District Judging Results!

The Professional Photographers of America, with nearly 22,000 members in the US and Canada, each year holds it's annual District Judging. We are apart of the Northeast District, which is shown in green on the map above. Two weeks ago, our District Judging was held and we thought we would share the results...

We entered the maximum number of entries, which is four. All four happened to be wedding albums from 2010 and one from 2009. In order to 'merit' a print/album has to score above an 80 on a scale of 0-100. We are very happy to say that all four of our entries merited with scores of 89, 90, 90 & 92.

Of all the entrants to our District competition, only 16 other photographers merited all four entries. Going 'four for four' is extremely coveted because it makes you eligible for two other very coveted and prestigious awards.

First, at the District level, you are eligible to win the Canon Par Excellence Award. With only five Districts, only five photographers in the entire country can win this award each year. Secondly, at the International Print Competition held later this June, you are then eligible to win some level of the Photographer of the Year Award.

We are very honored to say that we did win the Canon Par Excellence Award. We also now have the title of being the only photographers to have won it for the second time in it's five year history. We'll be sure to let you know the results of the International Judging later this summer.

A special 'Thank You' to our clients, who help make these awards possible. we are honored that you chose us to share such a momentous occasion and that you trust us with your memories! Below is a sample spread from each album. You can also click on the links below to see their wedding blog posts.

Julie and Christian

Abby & Brian

Logan and Jonathan

Amy & Gary

Canon Par Excellence Award

Canon just launched a web page featuring their Par Excellence Award Winners. While we won this award in 2008, it's inaugural year, we are still very proud to be one of it's 33 winners. We are also the only winners to have won with just wedding album entries.

To win the Par Excellence Award, the image maker must receive a score of 80 or above on all four photographic entries. District judges will then consider the maker's entire body of work using PPA's (Professional Photographers of America) "Twelve Elements of a Merit Image."

People often ask us why we still compete in photographic competitions and we can readily tell you its because we relish learning and polishing our craft. While photographers can enter any type of image they wish from fine art, landscapes, etc., we thrive on entering our 'everyday' work. Images that we produce for our clients on a daily basis. It keeps us striving to make our work better for not only ourselves, but also our clients...that is what really matters!

Out of the Office...

We will be out of the office Friday, July 30th through Monday, August 2nd while we are judging and speaking at the Professional Photographers of Louisiana's State Convention held in New Orleans.

We will be back in the office on Tuesday, August 3rd. Please feel free to leave a voice mail or email as we will be checking these periodically. Thank you!

937-748-8445

garbersonline@gmail

Coming to a City Near You...

Here is an updated list of travel for us. If you are in one of these cities and would like a session, please feel free to call. Session times are limited due to travel commitments; however, we can usually fit in one or two sessions. I'm sure that we will be adding more Cleveland dates for the fall as well.

We have a wedding in Sarasota the last weekend in March of 2011 and will be staying additional dates for beach sessions. 2011 will also have us in Arizona, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina and Cabo, Mexico to name a few. We'll have more detailed information about 2011 travel posted later in the year. Hope to see you!

Unbridaled at Uncorked 7.22.10

There is still time to register for the 'Unbridaled Event' at Uncorked next Thursday! Join Jennifer and several other awesome vendors from the i-do Boutique. Enjoy champagne and hand crafted micro brew beer tastings in an intimate, charming venue featuring the wedding professionals of the i-do Boutique sharing tips on defeating the Bridezilla within, refining wedding style and wedding day disaster prevention!

Date: Thursday, July 22, 2010
Time: 6:00-9:30pm
Location: Uncorked Wine Shop & Bar at The Art of Entertaining, O'Bryonville
Cost: $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

For tickets and more information, please call Karen at 513-871-6400.

Come eat, drink and be married!

Hotlanta!

We will be out of the office June 13th -16th, while we judge the Professional Photographers of America's (PPA) International Print Competition in Atlanta. Mark and Jennifer are both International Jurors and will be judging albums and prints for 8-10 hours a day all four days...that's a lot of prints!

Mark and Jennifer also have 4 entries (the max number of entries) in the album competition as well. All four entries should *hopefully* merit putting them in the PPA General Collection. However, the BIG goal is to have the entries go into the Loan Collection, which is considered to be the 'best of the best.' This is also how PPA determines it's National Photographers of the Year. Photographers with 4 out of 4 Loan prints/albums will then be published in the Professional Photographers Magazine and Loan Collection Book. We accomplished this three times...let's hope for a fourth!

Keep your fingers crossed that we have all four entries go Loan! We'll make periodic updates on Facebook as we learn results, and we'll post the winners on the blog as well.

Professional Photographer Magazine

This month we were asked to contribute to a business article in The Professional Photographer Magazine. The article, which is compilation of interviews, starts in the magazine and continues online. If you are a PPA member, you can read the article by clicking on this link.

Mark's long time friend, fellow photographer and past PPA President, Dennis Craft had a multiple page article featuring his children's work. He caught us off guard by mentioning Mark as an inspiration to him. Very sweet of him to think of Mark! Hopefully we continue to inspire you just as you have also inspired us over the years. Thanks Dennis!

Bride's Choice Award 2010!

We are honored to have received The WeddingWire Bride's Choice Awards ™. The Bride's Choice Awards recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness, and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the Bride's Choice Awards are determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds. This year's winners represent the top five percent of WeddingWire's vendor community, which consists of over 100,000 local wedding professionals nationwide.

WeddingWire is a helpful planning resource for bride's allowing them to shop for vendors, add their own if not listed and then organize all those resources...sort of an online bridal binder. Check them out at weddingwire.com

Snow Day!

Just an FYI! With all the snow (9 inches and counting) we will out of the studio Tuesday, Feb. 9th, and if the weatherman are right about another 6 inches, we will also be out on Wed. the 10th. We will be checking email while snowbound so feel free to leave us a message at garbersonline@gmail.com. Stay safe and warm!

Voted Best of The Knot 2010!

We wanted to say a BIG Thank you to all those out there who voted us The Knot Best of Weddings for 2010!

It is such a huge honor and it means a lot to us because it is local brides who voted for us. Its aways nice when we win various professional awards for our work, but when the award comes from our brides it means so much more! It is that much sweeter knowing it's our second year in a row....thank you, thank you!

The Knot is the number one most trusted wedding resource and if you haven't already checked them out do so! Jennifer used it exclusively when planning our destination wedding and couldn't have done it without The Knot!

On the Road Again!

We will be out of the studio Friday, Jan. 8th - Tuesday, Jan. 12th, while we speak at PPA's International Imaging Conference in Nashville.

We're super honored to be a platform speaker in the wedding track with some of the best photographers from around the world...Yervant, Ghionis, Bussink, Reggie, Pfister, Villa. many are known for their work with top celebrities, but I think us Daytonians can still compete. Wish us luck!

We will be back in the studio on Wednesday, Jan. 13th, and would be happy to help you.

A-M-A-Z-I-N-G Wedding Videos

2009 WEVA wedding demo gold winner from imacron on Vimeo.

We are super excited to be working with Imacron USA on a video/photography project. We're collaborating on a five minute slide show that they will put 250-300 hours of labor into! Can you believe it for five minutes of product...definitely worth it when you see their work!

Imacron is a Philippines based company, but has a location in the US too. Be sure to see their award winning wedding demo as well as their 3D photo montages. They have won numerous top honors from WEVA (Wedding and Event Videographers Association). WEVA does have a Brides Guide to help brides learn more about video like different styles, questions to ask and what to look for in a professional video...definitely worth looking into. Dayton and Cincinnati have many talented videographers to choose from, but stylistically there are huge differences.

Since so many brides are looking for photojournalism or a more 'natural' feel to their image, it would make sense that you would look for that in a video as well. A more cinematic feel to your wedding video will keep you watching it for years. California based cinematographers, 50 Foot Films have an amazing style. While they are an investment ($12,500 plus travel), you can get an idea of what true wedding cinematography can be.

Out and About....

We've been crazy busy the last few weeks and we have gotten a little behind on blog posts. We're trying to get caught up, but it might be awhile. I've been meaning to get this particular post up for a month now, and have just now gotten organized enough to post it.

The Vreeland wedding is featured in the Fall/Winter Knot Ohio, our album company's recent newsletter featured our images, and we have the cover plus a feature article in the Professional Photographer's of Ohio Magazine. A little birdie also told us that we will be in the Professional Photographer's Magazine this December.

Stay tuned for several engagement sessions, albums, and save-the-date ideas. We'll also post the 'Must Order By...' dates to guarantee Christmas delivery on various products. Christmas is only 46 days away (hope I didn't scare anyone)!

I-do Boutique Grand Opening!

We are extremely excited and privileged to be apart of the I-do Bridal Boutique in Cincinnati. Created by widely known and accredited bridal consultant Brigid Horne-Nestor of I-do Weddings, the Bridal Boutique is a one-stop resource of Cincinnati's top vendors.

Located in prestigious O'Bryonville (right near Walnut Hills & Hyde Park), the Bridal Boutique is the perfect place for brides who want easy, carefree planning without having to drive all over town trying to find vendors. The Bridal Boutique represents over 30 companies from catering, florists, entertainment and much more. Each vendor has display material as well as a detailed binder of information covering their services. Because the Boutique is staffed with friendly knowledgeable staff, you can get answers and guidance on questions that you may have about vendors.

The I-do Boutique is also home of the Wedding Day Divas, who can provide great wedding planning services to any bride on a budget. Select from a menu of individual services or go for the big planning package. You can also purchase many cute and unique table favors and wedding gifts at the Boutique.

There is plenty of comfortable browsing and meeting space so we will now be able to meet with brides directly in Cincinnati as this will be a satellite office for us. Join us for the Grand Opening on September 30th!

Headn' East!

We will be out of the studio Friday, September 4th through Monday, September 7th, while we photograph a wedding in Colonial Williamsburg.

We will be back in the studio with normal office hours on Tuesday the 8th. Thank you!