FULLERTON PHOTOGRAPHICS

Well, I'm finally back! These past 2 months have been an incredible whirlwind of busy busy days at Fullerton Photo, all of which were culminated by a magnificent wedding this past weekend. My son is the luckiest man on this earth. We now have the most incredible daughter-in-law any family could ever wish for. Their destination wedding at Firestone Vineyards, in Los Olivos, California has to rank in everyones top five weddings ever attended. Maybe even top two! The whole weekend was magical as you can see from the breathtaking photos, beautifully captured by Fullerton Photos own fabulous photographer, Kara Johnson.

Last week, at PMA 09, in front of 3000+ members of the International Photo Marketing community, we were named as the grand prize winners of the Win BIg competition! The feeling was unbelievable! Our competition was incredible (Fuji Film, USA for goodness sake) and yet our campaign was recognized as the Industry winner. We thought it was pretty brilliant, but to be honored by our peers like this is indescribable and we are so humbled by it. I'll post some details about our Celebrate Create Donate campaign as the cool part about it is that it's easily transferable to any photo retailing business and your community wins every time. Also, I forgot to mention the $25,000 prize is pretty cool too!

We got some great news this week! Late last fall the International Photo Marketing Association, better known as PMA, launched it's Win Big 2008 Photo Gift Promotion Marketing Competition. Any photo retailer in the World could enter a the Contest, and the entries were judged in categories based on annual gross sales. $5000 was awarded to each of three category winners and guess what? We Won! Now comes the hard part. Our entry entitled Celebrate-Create-Donate, faces off against a company called Magenta Photo (18 stores) from Quebec and Fuji Film USA. We will present our campaigns in Las Vegas March 3 and the winning company will be awarded $20,000 on the morning of March 4, at the General session of the PMA Convention. We couldn't be more honored with our Finalist status....but we're bringing our A game to Vegas in hopes of being crowned the Grand Prize Win Big Winner! Stay tuned....

On Monday at noon we were told that my mother-in-law needed to be placed on 24 hour continuous hospice care. She had taken a turn for the worse and we were told to stop all medications. We were only to administer comfort medicines and then wait. So, that's what we did for 18 hours and she slept. Then on Tuesday morning, she woke up. And asked for food and asked for pain medicine and asked for her make-up and asked to see the baby. And so the miracle began. Three hours later, Joyce was cradling my new nephew as she gave the little guy his bottle. Tonight she had salmon and mashed potatoes and we no longer have 24 hour hospice care.

You can see the miracles in the photos below.

All I can say is this has been one incredibly difficult, amazingly miraculous and overwhelmingly exhausting 27 days. I am grateful to report that business at FP is stronger than ever and that my staff is amazing in their willingness to take charge of things in my absence. Because I have had to deal with a very ill mother AND father-in-law, I have had to rely on the remarkable staff at Fullerton Photo to cover for me in many instances. We are what we are, because of outstanding people.

In addition to the demanding health issues of late, we have also had some great news in our family! After unsuccessfully trying to adopt a child for the past three years, my sister and brother-in-law brought home their infant son from Minneapolis this past week. I am sharing my photos of this gorgeous baby as a reminder of all that is good in the world.

I am reminded by this little guy that even in spite of sad and difficult times......miracles are possible.

As you might imagine...we are in our busiest week of the year at FP. Things have gotten so crazy here that I've even forgotten to blog.

But, crazy is good and I guess it means that even in these wild economic times we are doing something right. Speaking of that, I'm even more grateful than ever before, that I have a marketing background to rely on in today's business climate. So, with all this I decided you should be the first to know about our latest and greatest special offer. From now thru Dec. 31 we are offering something so OUTRAGEOUS...you will not want to miss.

Buy or re-load your pre-paid card and get 150 FREE prints! Wow, I can't believe I just blogged that!!! Maybe I'm crazy...but what a deal for you. That makes your 4x6 prints 14.6 cents each and your savings as great as $220. WOW

Maybe, I should reconsider......

So today we received a call at the lab about photographing an event. A couple had decided that they needed a photographer to document their wedding reception. The wedding itself had taken place months earlier in Hawaii, and the couple were hosting a party and were celebrating with friends....TONIGHT!

Although it was short notice we were happy to say yes, and arrived at Skyline Dr. in Fullerton at 6:30 pm....anxious to meet our mysterious clients. How fun it was to discover that the bride had stopped by Fullerton Photo for the very first time only days earlier, and was so impressed with what she saw that on Saturday morning she called to see if we were available to shoot one of the most important celebrations of her life!

It was an honor to be part of such a joyous occasion and even more of an honor to have a business in a community full of wonderful people.

We had a blast!

"Trick or Treat.....Trick or Treat"!

I kept hearing that all night long as I would go back and forth between the dinner dishes and the ghosts and goblins at my front door. You could imagine my surprise when the Trick or Treater standing on my porch was my recent college grad son, who now lives and works 400 miles away, in Sacramento, California. He wasn't supposed to be home until Thanksgiving but I'll take a surprise visit home from my little Ghostbuster any day of the year!

Today was so much fun. Every time we turned around there was a new monster walking thru our doors. I've created a sample collage of some of the special guests who dropped by FP on Halloween Day!

FYI...These collages are simple to create and make great Holiday Cards. The best part about them is that they are printed while you wait....so you can actually have instant Christmas Cards to take home with you minutes after ordering!! How cool is that?

I don't know about the rest of you but I can't wait til this Election is over! Well, actually I'm excited for Election Day because we're trying something we've never done before. We thought we'd be really crazy and do something so outrageous we might be sorry we did. Special print pricing so ridiculously low that it even scares me to publicize it. We're calling this Election 08 Crazy 8 cent Sale day. We'll see what happens but if nothing else I know my staff will be taking advantage of this never before offered crazy crazy deal!

What a privilege it was for me to meet such an amazing group of people. Ordinary, regular people... who just happen to be cancer survivors. As part of her annual event, Dr. Renee Cobos hosts a "Day of Beauty" which includes a facial, make-up, hair, massages and a fabulous lunch too. Then it was on to see me! I was so touched by the smiles and the incredible dignity and grace.

How cool is this. Last year I was invited to be part of an amazing program called "The Day You Deserve". Founded by Dr. Renee Cobos, a leading dermatologist in the Fullerton community, this wonderful day serves to honor cancer survivors participating in St. Jude Hospitals Walk Among the Stars. This event benefits the Virginia K. Crosson Cancer Center of St. Jude Hospital. We had the pleasure of photographing many inspirational people who were thrilled to be showered with love and attention the entire day. I am so looking forward to October 5 when we will be honored do it again!

Wow...if I do say so myself!

After hosting Girl's Nite Out for seven years it is safe to say that the staff at FP knows how to throw a party!

We were thrilled to have so many people in attendance and even happier that we could donate $1050.00 to the North Orange County YMCA.

The entire evening was awesome from the catered food (provided by Jerry's Catering) to the amazing chocolate fountain and goodies (provided by Parties by Panache). For our guests, I guess the fact that we had so many prizes to give away didn't hurt either. As always, our generous friends at the Jeweler's Touch donated the famous "Bling Raffle Prize" of a $500.00 gift certificate to their beautiful store in Yorba Linda.

We also introduced many new product ideas that nite, as our guests gathered in "our classroom tent" to learn all about the latest and greatest at FP. Topics such as gifting and scanning were covered in short 5 minute segments, and were greeted with many "oohs" and "ahhs" from our customers and friends alike. We think we hit on a brilliant marketing idea with our show and tell infomercials so look for more to come along those lines from us in the weeks to follow.

As is customary at GNO, our guests were treated to photos in our studio and of course many fun FP goodies including a collage similar to the one shown below.

We would of course love to thank our many sponsors who helped to make this nite a fabulous success and of course an even bigger thank you to all the lovely women who attended!

GNO 2009 soon to be announced!!!!