Tag: General

Dangers When Hiring a Painting Contractor

Posted by admin – June 26, 2009

To most families, their home is an integral part of their lives.  Not only just for living in it, but also, family life goes on there, great times, and leisure time.

Well when the time comes when you do have to work on your home, such as doing some painting, this can be a very hard and stressful time in your life.

So with that being the situation, I would like to give you some solid advice on how to choose the right painting company.  This advice comes from years working with homeowners and also running a San Diego painting company myself.

At first, choosing the right painting company doesn’t seem like a big deal.  But if you consider the fact that this project will cost thousands of dollars, cause an interruption in the normal day to day life in the home, and of course can result in a beautiful job you can be proud of to one that you are embarrassed to show.This is a very big decision.

So here are some tips from my experience as a painter San Diego.

First thing, you do want to start getting quotes from several different contractors.You aren’t just trying for the best price.  You are doing this so you can talk with and get to know the company you are going to be working with.Well of course, if you do get a good price that’s good, but don’t make that be your main goal.  Remember you want a good job to be done.

Second, you will want to know what type of guarantee or warranty they have on their work.  See if the company has a strong guarantee to your satisfaction.  This shows how confident they are in their work.

Third, you want to know how quickly they can start.Also, you want to get a good feel on when they think they can get it done and how quickly.  When you are going to cause a disruption like painting your house.You will have to know
how fast they feel they can get things back in order.

Finally, make sure you get some referrals of previous clients.Make contact with them and see what their opinion of the company is.See how well they did the job, if they did it on time, and if they are a good company to work with.

Do these steps and you can ensure yourself with as little stress as possible during these very stressful times.  Take it from my years of painting San Diego, doing these few steps will help you greatly.

Lighting Tips to Help You Take Better Pictures

Posted by admin – June 10, 2009

In this day and age of digital cameras, you’ve probably heard or thought that all you have to do is push the button and great pictures magically appear.  Not so fast.  The truth is you can have the top of the line digital camera, but if you don’t know what you are doing, you will take lousy shots.

I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills.  These tips are coming from years of experience as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are all about the lighting and they will some of biggest reasons for you success in taking photographs.

First great tip in regards to lighting.Now if the shots you will take are going to be outdoors during the day, the natural sunlight will be some of the best lighting possible.  Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows.Or it could blur the details of faces when the sun is overhead.

Overall, you are going to want to take most of the shots with the sun behind you.This stops any harsh shadows in your photo caused by the sun.But there will be those times and instances when you want different angles to get those shadows into the shots.

Now that we have addressed the shots during the day, what about those night shots? 

The trick to taking night shots is to turn off your flash.Now if it is pictch black, of course you will need it, but if there are some lighting, use it, but make sure the shutter speeds are slower to let the light in.  Also you want to stay steady when taking the shot or you will blur the photos.Applying these couple of techniques will make a dramatic difference for those nights shots you take. 

The final tips to using lighting for great shots is using the golden hour.  There is something photographers call the “golden hour” or magic hour, and that time is sunrise and sunset.

These times of day you wll be able to capture great shots because you will get the more warmer and inviting colors.  You will be able to capture that golden lighting you won’t catch any other time of day.

There you have it.Probably the biggest tip in taking beautiful photos is to make use of the natural lighting around you.  Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.