Matt Ramos Photography – Blog

Someone sent this to me in an email and thought it was pretty cool. The first one is pretty much self-explanatory in that your eyes play tricks on your to think things are moving (which is crazy), and the 2nd one is absolutely insane – I have never seen anything like it before so thought it was extra trippy.

When you get the second one, the trick is to stare at the 4 small dots in the center of the image for about 30-40 seconds (don’t cheat and do it for a shorter period or it won’t work!) – then look at a wall or up at the ceiling and close your eyes, and then slowly blink them…… who do you see when you close your eyes? If you haven’t seen it before, it’s insane – how to people figure this stuff out!?

In my opinion, businesses with amazing or exceptional customer service are not always easy to find. While there are some fantastic companies (large & small) out there, many think that doing business is just about the “transaction” rather than the “interaction,” which I completely disagree with. As a full-time business owner, I constantly pay attention to how places treat their customers, and sometimes wonder how people stay in business. On a positive note, I’ve also been blown away withe the amazing service I’ve received at other places, and will continue to give them 100% of my business (and tell everyone I know about them).

I think my bank (which I’m not going to name right now) is a perfect example of a place giving poor service. Despite the fact that I hold 4 accounts with them and am there 2-3 times per week, I’m lucky to get any sort of a hello when I walk in the door, and often have to initiate the conversation myself to break the silence & dead air (which I hate by the way). I’m not asking for people to jump through hoops of fire when I walk in the door, but wouldn’t it be nice to at least give a basic “hello” and greet a person that is choosing to do business with you? If I opted not to open my mouth, I’m pretty sure I could walk in and make a deposit without a single word being spoken to me (I actually may try this tomorrow and report back to you, haha).

While it may not be possible to 100% please every single person you come into contact or do business with, I do feel that the service we try to provide for our clients is equal if not better to the photography work that we do. I get more calls from future clients telling us they heard about what great service we provide, than calls from people that want to do business only because of the work we do. I’ve heard so many stories from folks we’ve met with complaining about other photographers that either have no personality whatsoever, or were extremely rude and treated them poorly. I’m probably sharing more than I should for the local photographers that read this blog, but I think the #1 reason people fail in business is not because they aren’t good at what they do, but because they don’t know how to run a business and provide the best service possible for their customers – I suppose this is not that big of a secret, right?

You’re probably asking yourself where I’m going with all this (I’m beginning to ask myself, actually). Aside from already doing all we can to provide the best photography service in the Capital Region, we are also doing some extra things this year such as signing up for a Linkedin account, which will allow others to recommend our services and/or leave feedback. This morning, we also received our offical accreditation into the Better Business Bureau (not just given out to anyone these days, and expensive to be a part of), which I’m pretty excited about. Once the paperwork is finalized, we’ll be displaying their official seal on our website, which is just one more symbol of our dedication to providing ethical & exceptional service.

Aside from our testimonial page on the website, you can access our new Linkedin account to link yourself and/or recommend us if interested. We should have our BBB listing up sometime next week, so save your complaints until then – haha! :)

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mattramosphotography

It’s been a crazy couple of days for us, and we’ve had album orders come in faster than we can keep up with. I’ve been working around the clock to try and crank as many out as possible. We have done 3 in the last 24-48 hours, and wanted to quickly share one from good friends, Kevin & Rebekah’s recent wedding!

Of all the weddings we did last year, I’d say these guys may have taken the cake for being the rowdy bunch. Kevin & Rebekah are so much fun to be around, and to be honest are as goofy as they’ll ever get (I mean that in a good way). It was like shooting the wedding of two comedians, and you’ll see from some of the photos/pages in their album, I’m not lying. They have not yet seen the album yet, but I’m posting it here for all to see anyway (hopefully, I won’t get into too much trouble for doing so). I’ve posted a few of my favorite page layouts below, and for those interested, you can view the entire album slideshow by clicking the link below:

Make sure you turn up those speakers first to get the full effect! :)

www.ramosdesigns.com/demassio

It seems everyone is all the sudden interested in getting their albums from last years wedding (which is a good thing before we get too crazy for the 2008 season) I’ve never seen so many album orders in such a short amount of time! There are so many albums I love, and I’m trying not to go broke by ordering samples of each one since I hate not having one for myself. If I wasn’t holding myself back, I’d probably have orderd about 30 albums just for myself from our 2007 wedding season.

Anyway, I came home to these in the mail, and thought they just looked incredible. This is the set of good friends, David & Lydia’s albums – 1 Master 9 1/2 x 13 and 3 duplicate 8×12 parent albums from Graphi-Studio. These puppies are AMAZING – I can’t wait to ship them out this week and am sure they will go nuts when they see them!

Keep those orders comin’ and we’ll keep crankin’ em out! Still procrastinating to order that wedding album? Now is the perfect time to place your orders!

Tonya and I don’t travel to the city much, but we had a blast this weekend as a part of her company retreat in Manhattan, in what may now become more of a regular occurance (if we have the time anyway). It had been years since I had been on a train, and I was amazed how easy (and surprisingly comfortable) it was to take a train down, and it sure beats the stress of driving & parking once you get there.

I can’t admit to being a big fan (sorry), but we also had the opportunity to attend the Knicks game, which was a lot of fun (I can’t believe they won by the way!) – there’s nothing like seeing an event like that in Madison Square Garden! I lived in Japan (just outside of Tokyo) for about 2 years when I was in High School/College, however still can’t say I could ever live in a city environment like that again. Despite my personal preferences, the City is truly a fascinating place on earth that’s amazing to visit every now and then… overall, an awesome weekend!

I’ve forgotten how many emails my inbox generates after a day or two of being away from my computer….. looks like I’d better get to work! :)

P.S. Sorry for the boring & low quality photos – I had a cheap little point & shoot camera with me, and didn’t have much time to snap anything good – maybe the next time.