I’ve spent the last two hours just looking though old photos from 4th of July parades that I’ve covered over the years for the city of McAllen. I’ve found a lot of friends in photos and even a few gems like this one. I took this photo of former congressman Kika De La Garza during the parade and even had a chance to talk to him for a bit after the event. This one was from 2012 right in the middle of downtown McAllen. 
I can’t wait till things “normalize” again. I was looking through some of my wedding photography archives from years past and I ran into this photo (it’s pretty much right out of camera). The wedding had already happened at their folks ranch and we were setting up for an evening photoshoot right on the property line but no one worried about much other than having fun.
If I remember correctly they actually had the World Series playing in the background because they had so many guests from Houston attending and the Astros were on their way to winning it all that evening. #goodtimes. #eventphotographer
Class of 2020 we’re still doing on location senior portraits!
And that’s a wrap for Samantha’s portrait session. The hardest part of any High School Senior Portrait session is trying to figure out which was your favorite photo of all of them. I had to narrow down the session from well over 400 frames I shot to about 50 (plus or minus a few).
McAllen Senior portraits are still happening!
Now it’s time to go back to editing senior portraits. On my Instagram stories I spoke a little bit about how we do what we do and this is the end result. She was awesome to work with and made my job really easy so it’s just smoothing out very little details to make sure we have what we wanted. #CommercialPhotographer #RGVPhotographer #portraits
Well it’s Friday and I’m still archiving photos from Class of 2020. Incase you’re wondering we’re still shooting them as they’re important and very much part of any High School Senior’s year.
This lovely photo was taken on location here in Mission by Shary Plantation and we chose one of the random mesquite trees. Often I’m asked where I take my photos and I’ll always ask a customer if they have a special area to shoot at or if they have any favorite locations. I have my own little list but it’s always cool to find something new.
If you’re part of the graduating class of 2020 or even 2021 let me know if you’d like to shoot something. Yes it’s summer and it’s going to be warm but the upshot is this is a pretty good stretch of downtime and we can work with your ideas!.
Yesterday I received a phone call from the McAllen Chamber asking me questions about how the business has changed during the whole lock down. It was a great 10-15 minute conversation but I didn’t know they would be publishing it so quickly.
Like a lot of other businesses we had to pivot quickly and were able to get back into the game pretty quickly. Right now we’re busy knocking out Senior Portraits little by little and also producing commercial videos for local clients that need to get their messages onto social media quickly. I’ll do a whole other article on it another day but I just wanted to stop in and say Thank you to the McAllen Chamber for all that they’ve done for the chamber members.
Thanks again!
Abel Riojas Photography…Re-educating Himself & Serving Others is Key
After twenty years of being in the photography business, Abel V. Riojas has seen his fair share of adversity. In fact, Riojas estimates the economic downturn brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is the fourth recession he’s lived through. Over time, he’s taken some lessons and applied them to his business, Abel Riojas Photography.
“I’ve had to learn to be reactive and not just sit by idly,” said Riojas. “You have to learn how to serve others. When you’re out serving other people, your network expands and you see the seeds of that being planted.”
In serving others, Riojas has seen a shift in the work he does. Now, he finds himself doing more commercial videos that paint stories of the businesses he works with.
“We like to showcase why businesses do what they do; you have to be able to show that,” Riojas explained. “People want to feel like they’re a part of your story.”
Helping businesses bounce back after major hits due to the COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Riojas to “re-educate” himself and “figure out how to be an asset to other people.”
“If you’re able to control your thoughts, in a positive way, you’ll come out better on the other side,” said Riojas.
To inquire about video or photography services, visit https://abelriojas.com/
Talking a little bit about what we’ve been up to and also answering a question about how to deal with criticism. Believe it or not Photography comes with critics. Ha ha
Anytime you go on to the internet and put yourself out there they’ll be watching. CRTICS. Don’t worry about it. As we tell our young kids, not everyone is going to like you. Just worry about you and find your own way. I’m sure there’s hundreds if not thousands of methods that keep people going but I use a few and I present them in our Tuesday video.
Again this is just a fun little project to keep me entertained and connect with those that are out there. It’s been fun and if you have a comment or a question you’d like to see answered shoot me a line. This is meant to be fun. Hope to hear form you soon.
Abel.
Thanks again for taking the time to stop by our blog. I’m not even sure what this is. This is what happens when you have time to sit down and think during this whole downtime. I hope you and your family are well and weren’t impacted by the whole COVID-19 displacement. For my family it’s been a lot of fun having the kids home, behind able to spend time with them, and even learn a new thing or two about them. I found out that our oldest is a pretty good teacher, he’s helping little brother with Math and English homework and he’s pretty patient. I’ll say this he’s a lot better brother than I was to my sisters at his age (he’s in 6th grade).
For me I’m still doing photography. The state has opened and we’re following all the rules and the mandates they’ve put out there. While we’re still being asked to help with High School Senior portraits for the class of 2020 I’m just being careful with the set ups. We’re still keeping social distancing between my self and the kids and at this time we’re not using our home studio. If you need help with a headshot we’ll be more than happy to go to your location and set up our mobile studio there.
While the outbreak did change the way did things, we were able to pivot during this time and adjust our business model. All of our equipment has been portable for the last few years. We closed our studio because most of our clients wanted us to go to their location and take the photos at their offices / homes when it was convent for them. So if you need something or have an idea please let me know.
While we’ve been a bit slower I decided to produce a few videos here and there just to say hello and talk about things that were on my mind or help answer questions that people had. Everyone has their own way of doing things, I’ve made my share of mistakes and hope newer photographers can escape those pitfalls. In the video I cover a few tips on how to start your photography business no matter where you live. For those that are outside of the the Rio Grande Valley, I’m based in the McAllen / Mission Texas area. I travel as far as Austin and Houston to take care of clients but I try to stick the Hidalgo County Area. My whole goal for the business was to spend more time with my family and stay close to home. Traveling is always fun, but it does take a lot of time out of the week to pack gear and head on out on the road.
The other question I look at is why I switched from Canon to Sony cameras after shooting one for well over twenty years. These are just my opinions and it really depends on the type of work you do. For the last few years I’ve been working mostly in the commercial photography side of things because I wanted to be close to home. So most of my work lately has been corporate headshots taken on location and local events. I’ve taken photos for a TON of local events and many of them are usually set in lower light and I really HATE blinding people with flash so I needed a little bit more help from my camera to shoot in ever changing environments while saving the photo. I’m not a fan of highly polished event photos or pictures where everyone is washed out or squinting because of multiple flashes.
Anyways I hope to keep posting videos Tues and Thursdays here and on the rest of my social media channels. If you have comments or have questions about photography drop me a line. I love helping answer the questions and when things permit I’d love to show some demonstrations using everyday stuff you can find at home or something you can build quickly and cheaply.
Till next time.
Abel.
What a whirl wind the last three days have been. Now that I think about it I can’t believe that April 2020 is over and we’re now in May and the state has reopened. I don’t want to get into the politics of if it’s right or not, for me I’m going to continue being safe by distancing my self when I go out to work and also sanitizing all of my equipment. It’s a whole new world out there. We’ve resumed operations and following what Texas and Hidalgo county have mandated. I rather be part of the solution than part of the whole Covid-19 problem.
Now having said that I spent almost a month in one class or another and it all just all came together with the whole Advance 360 With Pete Vargas leading the charge. The class was good, I learned a lot and it gave me a lot of ideas for opening up another division. Now the hardest part is starting to narrow all the ideas down, talk about information overload. I had never even thought about teaching classes online or even doing some sort of podcast. I’ve helped other small businesses start formulating their social media ideas and helping craft their voices but never considered doing it as a service so that’s why I took the class. So the upshot is we’re opening up a social media division to help local businesses craft their messages online and help themselves get online quickly and with in a reasonable budget. I’ve been doing in some capacity over the last few years, but this time I’d like to make it official.
Over all the messages were clear. Find a coach, set a destination and stick to the course no matter what. All stuff that we know but do we have the will power to actually do it. I think so many of us fall into the trap of “What story do I have to tell, or my business has always done it like this, etc” yeah the world was rebooted just a few weeks ago and from the looks of things I don’t think virtual meetings are going away anytime soon. I have two zoom meetings scheduled this next week for a senior portrait session and a local doctor looking to do some messages online.
Even this blog or what ever you want to call it has changed as I was to keep things light. I don’t want it to turn into “here’s the last session” or if you don’t use this service your business will suffer. I think there’ more than enough of that online. I want to do something that’s a lot more positive and feature people and projects that I’ve had the honor of being part of.
Ask me anything! Are you struggling with your photography? I think we’ve all been there starting a new hobby even trying to figure out a new job. Shoot me an email or better yet send me a direct message.
I would love to come back and start helping answer some of the questions that are floating in.
When I started this in 2011 I had no idea where I’d end up. I’ve made a ton of mistakes along the way in both business and in taking portraits but life’s a journey. If you had all the answers would life REALLY be that much more interesting?
I can safely say that I had so many “ah ha” moments along the way that I had to figure out on my own but if I had someone locally or with in an ear shot of social media it would have made things SO much easier. Flash forward to 2020, I’m still learning and during this downtime I was trying to figure out how to go live and learn about live streaming. All things that have been around for a LONG TIME (or at least for me) but I’m just barely getting around to it.
Anyways give the video a click and if you have a comment or questions send it my way.