Homes for Our Troops

Homes for Our Troops

We recently had the opportunity to provide our services for the key ceremony of two homes for our injured veterans.  This slideshow video is from our coverage on September 25th, near New Braunfels.

Due to the county COVID rules, participation was limited but we still were able to capture the essence of the veteran going into his new home.

Click on the title above to view this short presentation.

What is the Third Edit?

This is a question we get asked a lot of times by our clients.  So what is meant by the "third edit?"

Most studios, including our own, goes through a image review three times following a shoot:

• First Edit: Review all of the images taken at an event, and begin the curating process.  This means that "top shelf" images are selected and set aside in a separate folder.  In our case, we keep all RAW images from a shoot, whether selected or not.
• Second Edit: Each image that was selected is individually examined for needed color adjustments and cropping. Those images are then placed in another folder, and then uploaded to the client's gallery for review and selection.
• Third Edit:  This is commonly referred to by many studios as "retouch."  The final selected images by the customer for print, or insertion into an album, are scrutinized.  Perhaps blemish removal, artifacts that distract from the overall image, or additional color or application of "fine art" treatment. Sometimes, that final edit or retouch may take anywhere from several minutes, to an hour or more.

So if you see "Retouched" used on a photographer's quote, you now have a better idea what this represents.

Wedding Investment Risks - COVID-19 Impact 2020 Post 2

Is Your Wedding Investment Safe?

There is no doubt about it!  We live in a vastly different world today thanks to the pandemic.  Never in our wildest dreams, did we ever conceive a day that all schools and businesses would be shut down for weeks or months.  Nor did we ever envision the requirement of wearing masks everywhere we went.

As a wedding photography business, we too found ourselves in a unusual position:  Couples forced to cancel or reschedule weddings for an uncertain time in the future.

Many couples were surprised to learn their preferred vendors were charging "change fees", or refusing to return deposits.  Worst yet, many are no longer in business!

As a professional with many contacts in the wedding industry, I am personally witnessing several businesses struggling to stay afloat, or worst yet, not able to stay in business at all thanks to COVID-19.  

So, the question begs, "Are you protected if this happens to one of your favored vendors?"

There is peace of mind available, and I am surprised how many couples are not even aware that protections are available.  It is called "Event Insurance."  For many years, we have recommended to our couples to consider purchasing insurance.  When they are spending upwards of $28,000 for their wedding, (average total costs of weddings in the San Antonio market), why not spend $150 to protect that investment.

A wedding insurance provider we have recommended for years is WEDSURE.  I am sure there are many others.  You can tailor the policy for the coverage you feel you need.  But be sure it includes "Loss of Deposits Coverage.)

Think about it!  There a lot of things that can go awry before, during, and after your wedding.  Consider what you are willing to lose if your venue suddenly closes; guests acquire food poisoning; your photographer never shows up; or perhaps one of you are in a serious accident a few days before the wedding.  What if a tropical storm or hurricane forces postponement?

A small investment to protect your big investment is certainly worth giving some thought.  What do you think?

COVID IMPACT 2020 Post 1

 Covid 19 - Impact to Wedding Photography

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are asked many questions by future newlyweds regarding the probability of their wedding on their chosen wedding date.

The obvious fact is simple: COVID-19 is here to stay for a long time.  Even with the eventual release of a vaccine, many questions arise as to whether it will work and for how long.  We are planning for continued impact to the wedding industry throughout 2021 as well as the balance of this year.

With this fact in mind, our team has decided to begin a regular update to our blog and Facebook with informative articles to help answer questions and provide useful guidance for those planning to get married.

We hope you find these posts useful and feedback is always welcomed!

BLOG REBOOT

 We Are Revitalizing Our Older Original Blog

For several years, we have been utilizing the blog provided by our gallery hosting site, abandoning the original Blogger.

We recently made the decision to go back to the Blogger, primarily because of the SEO, (Search Engine Optimization), and greater flexibility of image insertions, themes, fonts, etc.

We hope you enjoy reading our posts of updates, happenings, and useful information!

  

Healthy Futures of Texas

On Tuesday, November 29th, Matrix Digital Arts was honored to be the photographers covering the Lunch with the Mayor event, held at the Crowne Plaza in downtown San Antonio. This was a great event for a great cause, Healthy Futures of Texas.
Click to View Video Presentation

Lunch with the Mayor

Matrix Digital Arts is excited to be chosen as the photographer for the Lunch with the Mayor event on November 29th. This is a special event hosted by Healthy Futures of Texas, a non-profit organization. This is their fourth annual event. Their mission is to prevent teen and unplanned pregnancy with today's youth using common ground measures that the community can support.
MDAP will be one of the sponsors providing professional quality photos of the numerous guests with the Mayor of San Antonio.

Bring It ON!

Next weekend will be one of the busiest weekends that Matrix Digital Arts has experienced. Let's start with sending a team to Houston to shoot Basel's Gymfest for the 3rd year in a row. Meanwhile, we will be covering Brandeis High School's Annual All-Sports Banquet at Pedrottis. Additionally, we will also be shooting the Alamo City Youth Soccer Tournament sponsored by SeaWorld. Over 120 soccer teams have signed up, and this will be covered at two different locations in San Antonio. We are excited and honored to be selected as the official photographer at these events!

MDAP Chosen for City's Soccer Tournament

Matrix Digital Arts & Photography has been chosen as the photographers for the upcoming Alamo City Youth Soccer Organization's Tournament.

Games will be played on Saturday, May 21 & Sunday, May 22. Games will be played at Alamo Sportsplex, the Classics Elite new soccer facility and additional venues if necessary.

We are excited to be part of this big event in San Antonio.

Time For Houston National Invitational

The MDAP team is excited to return to the Houston National Invitational for the third year.
"We will have ten photographers available to cover this event in it's entirety", remarked Mr Holeda, the acting shoot director. "This is a special event too for the event director, John Basel, of Basel's Gymnastics", Holeda continued. "This year, the TNT segment is called the Winter Classic, for the elite athletes competing from all over the country."
Eric Aaron created a series of special photo templates for this year's event. "We plan on offering a 16x24 poster for the first time", Eric said. "Additionally, this will be our first year offering 6x9 prints of the portraits we take. With our new dye-sub digital printer, we will be producing these prints in less than 20 seconds on-site."
When the news was released in December that Matrix Digital Arts was again the official photographer, calls starting coming in from previous customers pre-ordering for this year. "We love this event", Michael said with a smile.

2011 Promises To Be A Great Year

2011 is promising to be a great year for Matrix Digital Arts & Photography! With several weddings, senior portrait shoots, award banquets, and many national and international gymnastics events already booked for this year, Team MDAP is excited.

The Tower of Americas photo was taken by one of our photographers, Muhilan, on New Year's Eve. Muhilan joined our staff last September. His uncanny ability to capture not only vistas like this, but his perfect shutter timing for action-sports photos continues to satisfy our most demanding customer's taste for perfection.

18th Annual SPURS Cheer Competition

The team at MDAP is preparing for the final cheer competition of this year, the 18th Annual SPURS Cheer Competition, at the AT&T Center on December 18th.
Competitors will also attend the Spurs game that evening, with the top two competing teams performing during half-time.
Photo of Isaiah Gonzalez, at the Texas Cheer and Dance Championship held last Sunday at the Durbon Athletic Center.

NCA Alamo City Spirit Championship

Our team just finished shooting the NCA Alamo City Spirit Championship at Wagner High School in San Antonio. Thousands of images were taken during this great event. The parents loved the sampling of images we placed on our Flat Screen in HD. Nearly 50 cheer squads were captured during their outstanding performance during the competition.
Our team is looking forward to the next Cheer Competition, next Sunday!

Cheer Star Chooses Matrix Digital Arts!

Matrix Digital Arts & Photography is honored to be chosen as the official photographer for Cheer Star Productions of San Antonio.

We will be providing photography coverage for three important upcoming events: Cheering in the Spirit of Giving on November 14th; Cheer Star Texas Cheer & Dance on December 5th; and San Antonio SPURS Cheer Competition on December 18th.

MDAP is in the Cloud

Computer geeks will know exactly what we are talking about! But for those of you not current on today's massive web technology, let's explain. Matrix Digital Arts & Photography has teamed up with Rackspace Hosting of San Antonio. Our website is moving to a cloud web hosting complex. What does this mean for our customers?

"No more down time", says Michael Holeda, Executive Director for MDAP. "We have received far too many phone calls from our clients complaining that either our website was extremely slow, or wasn't even available."

"That's one of the disadvantages of using shared web services", Michael continued. "When your site is hosted on a server with hundreds of other companies across the country, customers experience slow response or complete outages."

The team at Matrix Digital Arts is very excited about this move. In addition to providing extremely fast response to our web pages during peak periods, we also now have another off-site safe archival storage for thousands of images. Plus, MDAP will have the most responsive email and scheduling service available to the business market today.

Bottom line? Better customer service on all fronts!

Transition to the new web hosting facility will take a few days to complete, and will appear seamless to our customer base.

Matrix Digital Arts Earns BBB Accreditation

PRESS RELEASE August 30th, 2010

This week, Matrix Digital Arts & Photography announced its recent accreditation by BBB Serving Central, Coastal and Southwest Texas. As a BBB Accredited Business, Matrix Digital Arts is dedicated to promoting trust in the photography marketplace.

According to BBB reports by Princeton Research, seven in ten consumers say they are more likely to do business with a company designated as BBB Accredited Business. BBB is a resource for the public, providing objective, unbiased information about businesses.

"We are excited to be a BBB Accredited Business because we value building trust with our customers, " said Mr Holeda, Executive Director and Co-Founder. "Our BBB Accreditation gives our customers confidence in our commitment to maintaining high ethical standards of conduct."

"Start with trust, the motto used by BBB is appropriate for customers looking for a photographer," says Eric Aaron, Co-Founder and Director of Special Events. "Customer Service is not a department with us," Eric continued. "It's an attitude!"

BBB Accredited Businesses must adhere to BBB's "Standards of Trust," a comprehensive set of policies, procedures, and best practices representing trustworthiness in the marketplace.

"This is very important to us," continued Mr. Holeda. "We are honored to receive this accreditation. In today's marketplace of photographers, consumers need to have the ability to check out a business for it's validity, and trust!"

The BBB seal will soon begin to appear on the company's website directing prospective customers to the actual current report on Matrix Digital Arts.

27 Tournament Basketball Games

On behalf of Texas Team Sports of San Antonio, our team of photographers covered 27 tournament basketball games over this past weekend. Friday evening, 5 games were shot at the Jewish Community Center; 15 games on Saturday, 7 games Sunday, at the Barbara Bush Middle School. Most of the games were semi-finals, and on Sunday, MDAP returned to cover the finals, "winner takes all!" Thousands of images were taken, over 60 gigs total. Now the real fun begins!

We Welcome Texas Team Sports

Our first assignment: Cover six youth basketball games in three hours!

This was great fun watching our future superstars play at their best.

Click Here to view a quick snapshot of the highlights.

Welcome Rob Dicus!

Matrix Digital Arts would like to welcome Rob Dicus as our new Associate Photographer. Rob brings to our team of photographers a new and different perspective to what he sees through the lens.

Currently a student of the New York Institute of Photography, Rob particularly centers his photography skills on portraiture and formal events. Recently Rob assisted Eric Aaron at a Quinceanera.

Rob and his wife live in San Antonio and are enjoying the company of their newborn baby boy.

Matrix Digital Arts Announces New Education Fund At Expo

During the Quinceanera Expo held on Sunday, July 25th at the San Antonio Event Center, Matrix Digital Arts kicked off a new promotion to help fund the future education of all Quinceanera and Sweet 16 Girls. With thousands in attendance, visitors learned that Matrix Digital Arts will return fifty percent of all on-line sales of photos for the Quince that occur in a thirty day period. A check representing half of all on-line sales from friends, guests, etc, will be presented to the father of the young lady as a contribution to her education fund. "Quinceaneras and Sweet 16 parties are held by proud parents at great expense", Michael Holeda, co-founder, remarked. "So we would like to make a contribution to her future education in appreciation of being selected as their photographer of this very important event in her life."