To continue our wedding Wednesday’s posts I am going to highlight another venue I love shooting at, The Ranch Golf Club. The Ranch Golf Club offers stunning views of downtown San Jose and the distant skyline of San Francisco along with some great golf course views and a beautifully designed clubhouse. There are so many scenic spots around here to shoot at from the golf course views to the stonework and arches that go throughout the clubhouse.

Here is a little more info about The Ranch Golf Club:
The ranch golf club has many great reception options within the San Jose venues to choose from. Whether you are planning a small, intimate wedding or a grand gala event for your entire community, the Clubhouse at The Ranch Golf Course is the ideal setting for your wedding in the entire San Jose area. Our distinctive facilities have a rich warm and elegant style, creating the perfect ambiance for your special day. This cherished event can be both exciting and challenging. It is for these reasons that we have designed affordable, yet lavish wedding packages to simplify your wedding. Our catering staff takes pride in excellence and attention to details and will assist you from the rehearsal through the reception, creating memories you will treasure for a lifetime.

And a recent wedding from the Ranch (the ceremony was at St. Joseph’s Basilica in downtown San Jose.

Photos from the Ranch Golf Course from mark stagi on Vimeo.

With valentines day just passing, love is still in the air. When we first started Stagi Imagery 11 years ago and were trying to figure out what to do for a logo my wife and I decided to have a heart as the logo. It doesn’t have much to do with photography but at the same time has everything to do with OUR photography. When we started this business it was all about the heart, being passionate about what we were creating and putting everything we had into creating the best images in the world for our clients. We still have the same basic beliefs today, we want to create the most amazing images for you and capture a slice of your life. Years down the road when you are looking through your wedding album we want tears of joy to come back to you or if you are looking at photos of your newborn to feel that excitement you felt when holding them in your arms. Photography is such a powerful art form and we are so happy to be able to be a part of all our clients lives.

So this year for Valentines day we are going to do something crazy, we are going to share the love with all of you. Any portrait session from now until 3-15 we are discounting to just $50. This is a huge savings compared to our normal sesison fee’s and a great way to get an awesome portrait session. To see more of our portrait work visit our Bay Area Lifestyle Portrait site. If you don’t need a portrait session for yourself no problem, give one away to a friend. You can give away as many of these discounted sessions as you would like. The only restriction is the shoot must be scheduled before March 15th.

I am going to start a new series on the blog for everyone out there planning their wedding. The bay area has so many awesome locations to have your wedding at sometimes it can be hard to find that right place. Since we have been shooting weddings in the area for 11 years we have been to pretty much every venue around and know all the great locations to have your wedding at. Every Wednesday we will highlight a new venue and show some work from a recent wedding there.

For our first week I want to highlight one of my favorite places to photograph at, Villa Montalvo (now officially called Montalvo Arts Center) in Saratoga. Montalvo is a perfect location for a wedding, the stately mansion sits at the end of an expansive Italian garden and lawn area and the views around the grounds are just breathtaking. The mansion itself (built in 1912) is an amazing backdrop for a wedding, there are so many areas around this property that just inspire the artist inside me to create beautiful wedding images. And the grounds around the mansion are just as break taking, its nestled in the Saratoga hillside and common to see deer walking across the front grass as you and your guests are dining along the front veranda.

Here is a little history of Montalvo Arts Center:
Montalvo Arts Center was previously known as Villa Montalvo, a historic landmark built in 1912 by James Duval Phelan (1861-1930). Phelan, a passionate Californian who had been a three-term progressive mayor of San Francisco, went on to become California’s first popularly-elected U.S. Senator. Villa Montalvo was Senator Phelan’s favorite home and a center of artistic, political and social life in Northern California. Phelan invited leading writers and artists to Villa Montalvo to work on individual artistic projects in an environment rich in dialogue and fellowship. Jack London, Ethel Barrymore, Mary Pickford, Douglass Fairbanks, and Edwin Markham were among Phelan’s many guests.

And a little slideshow from one of our favorite weddings out at Montalvo last year:

Wedding at Villa montalvo and St. Claire Hotel from mark stagi on Vimeo.

I am giving away an hour long mentoring session to help raise money for Thirst Relief. If you are going to be at WPPI it will include a lunch or dinner, and can be an hour one on one session about anything you need to know! You can bid online only today and tomorrow so get your bid in now: http://thirstrelief.shootq.com

Get mentored by mark

in the 2010 ThirstRelief Mentor Auction!

Grow as a photographer while saving lives!

I’m participating in the 2010 ThirstRelief Mentor Auction. Our mission is to save lives by tapping into the incredible talent and generosity of the photo industry.

Did you know that every 15 seconds someone dies of a waterborne illness? That’s 5760 people every day! You can help. Bid on a mentoring session with your favorite photographer!

100% of the proceeds directly benefit Thirst Relief. Add to that the incredible wisdom and talent that is being shared in the one-on-one mentor sessions and you have better and more
successful photographers! It’s truly a win win for everyone involved!

About me and my mentor auction

Here is a little bit more about my studio:

Passion is what its all about for us. True passion and love for photography drive our team every day (and a few Mocha’s along the way). Photography has been a love of ours since childhood and we shoot not only to provide our clients with the most awesome images they could ever image but to also fuel our creativity and need to capture compelling images.

We have been capturing weddings in the Bay Area for over 11 years. It all started with a passion by Award Winning wedding photographer Mark Stagi to create fresh, fun wedding images that reflect each brides unique day.

Mark has a degree in Fine Art along with a minor in photojournalism. This has given him a unique look into weddings, from focusing on capturing the emotion of the day along with getting creative with off camera lighting setups. Running a studio shooting over 50 weddings a year has given Mark many insights into what it takes to successfully market your company. He has learned how to keep a boutique style feel to his studio with a strong focus on his customers all while taking care of a good number of weddings each year.

Our mentor session will focus on finding your style and being true to that. We believe that the best long term way to run your business is to be true to your self and let your passion drive everything you create. We wear our passion for our work and our life with our clients and truly give them an experience they won’t forget. Mark will also focus on how to keep your marketing fresh and to keep buzz always around your studio.

My mentor session can take place at WPPI 2010 (Las Vegas), in my hometown of San Jose, ca OR on the phone.

We are running a discount for our workshop registration only to our readers this week. For any of our workshops (Weddings photography from A to Z and our Marketing in 2010) save $60 off the workshop cost if you register by this Sunday (2-14). You can view details about our workshops online here: Photography Workshops.

Weddings from A to Z
Our weddings from A to Z workshop is a full day intensive workshop all about wedding photography. With emphasis on finding your style, expanding your creativity and unleashing the artist in you. We will cover some basics in using natural light in an artistic way and start to get a little more complicated with bringing in external lighting to your weddings. We will show you how to turn the ordinary wedding scene into an amazing art piece. From using creative compositions to creative lighting and how you work with the bride and groom, we’ll show you how we turned our passion for the art of photography into a successful wedding studio. Its all about unleashing the artist in you and making your work shine!

These are full day workshops in our studio in San Jose. Our next wedding workshops are:
2/27
3/13
5/7
7/16

Sign up online at http://www.workshopsfromtheheart.com

Marketing in 2010
2010 is here and times have changed dramatically over the last few years when it comes to marketing. 2010 is here and if you want to have your photography business thrive in this age you have to learn many new ways to market yourself (as well as some tried and true methods that have worked for ages)

Are you just starting your wedding photography business and don’t know how to get new clients? Or just looking for new and fresh ways to increase your current business. In todays competitive environment marketing is key to your success. We will cover many aspects of marketing from websites, blogs, Podcasting, referral marketing, and social media. Learn all about Facebook, Twitter and other online ways to market your business. This will also include a portfolio review and insights on how to brand your image.

Our marketing workshops are 1/2 day workshops and limited to 8 photographers. Our next Marketing in 2010 workshops are:
3/19
5/21

I love teaching these workshops, they are a lot of fun and packed with great info and goodies from our sponsors.

– Mark