Ray Johnston Designer Photography

Services

Ray Johnston Designer Photography studio specializes in custom Photography creations. Ray Johnston frequently photographs family, children, baby, pregnant mothers, High School Seniors, College Graduates, weddings, business portraits, modeling, event, and commercial photography. Ray currently photographs in the Davis, Vacaville, Fairfield, Dixon, San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, Roseville, Folsom, Lake Tahoe, Woodland, and Napa, Sonoma Valley wine country areas.

Ray Johnston Designer Photography has free consultations where the Photographers photographer meets with the client and shows them samples of work, discusses the clients vision, and suggests clothing and background choices. The studio offers a variety of different creation sittings, from a basic studio sitting to shooting outdoor or on location to custom sessions that the studio tailors to the clients needs. There are many options for receiving your images, from archival quality mantel portraits to signature archival quality wall portraits. The studio prints on a variety of surfaces, including paper, watercolor, and canvas. The studio specializes in custom framing and album creation as well.

Ray Johnston Designer Photography also restores damaged/old photos or artwork. They are professional retouchers/digital artists and can bring almost any photo back to life.

In addition to portraiture, Ray Johnston Designer Photography also offers Passport Photos services, including citizenship and visa photos for any country.

Pricing

Please contact us to tell us what type of photography you are looking for. Please share your vision with us of your desired portraits.

When to start Photographing Children

We recommend even starting before your baby is born, usually in the last months of pregnancy. Then after your child is born, at 3 weeks, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. With these images, we can create a beautiful album showing the first year of your child's life, growing up. After this every year is recommended. We want to be your child's photographer for life.

Clothing

First, we recommend setting up a consultation appointment for us to meet you. This way we can see your eye, hair, and skin tone, helping us decide together which colors work best for you and your surrounding environment and the the time of the year - in the studio or on location.

Session Length

Being on time for the photo session is very important, especially for outdoor portraits, when the lighting near the beginning or end of the day can change quickly. During the portrait session, Ray will take hundreds of images. Ray will continue to photograph until he really feels he has captured your portrait. Sessions usually last an hour to two hours (for event/wedding photography there you can hire the studio to photograph for/up to a whole day)

Let us reassure you...

Many times people will avoid a portrait just because of a past bad experience, or physical appearance. Ray will use lighting and the angle of the pose with the camera to hide or balance so that you look your best. Many times posing will not work and a more candid or natural moment will help you look your best, for example a side profile view of you conversing, laughing with a friend. In addition, Ray is also a professional digital artist to enhance, hide, shadow, and add or reduce makeup. You can have the perfect portrait.

Archival Quality Prints

Ray Johnston Designer Photography images are guaranteed to last a lifetime. Ray uses the finest of museum grade quality papers and coatings for your images to maintain their beauty for generations to come.

Viewing/Ordering Images

After your portrait session, we will set up a date for the viewing of your images. It is always best to view and order in the studio with help from Ray and his trained staff of artists. We use large projections of your images for you to make your selections. During this time, we can show all the images including cropping, black and white, color or other artist rendered enhancements of your images. We will also discuss all of the re-touching and signature wall portrait options for your portraits.

We dedicate as much time as you need for the viewing and decision making in a relaxed atmosphere in our studio. There is no extra charge for the first viewing and we ask that you plan on making your decisions during this scheduled time. For an additional charge, additional viewing sessions are available. Please allow approximately one and a half to two hours for your viewing time, as we do not want you to be rushed.

About the Photographer

Award winning photographer, Ray Johnston grew up with a camera in his hands, pushing the limits of photography, combining art history, and a passion for people photography. Ray has the patience and people skills to photograph any age, making his clients feel comfortable.

Ray Johnston Designer photography offers museum quality portraits that are timeless. More than just photographs, Ray delivers a masterpiece when only the finest will do.

With a background in motion picture film, Ray always asks himself, "how do I create a two hour movie in one frame." Some of his clients have compared him to Norman Rockwell with a camera. "Creating people art", Ray photographs from a different angle, lighting, background, and pose to tell a story with every portrait as a family heirloom to pass on to many generations to come.

Mini Portfolio

Ray Johnston has photographs on public display at Mother and Baby Source, the Sutter Birthing Center, at Helmus Optometry, and at Papyrus.

Comments:

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2008-01-31 22:30:28   Being an artist and businessman, I was looking for a creative business headshot photographer here in Davis, CA. I wanted more than the “glamorized passport photo” that I see everyday, such as the realtor headshot I see on the shopping carts at Safeway. In the past, I’ve walked by Ray Johnston Photography’ studio window on G Street on my way to work many times. I’ve always admired his photographs of family, baby and wedding photography. I was even more amazed with the samples he shared with me when I went into his studio. Ray has a large indoor studio with many backdrops and different types of lighting. He was very helpful in helping me choose the clothing styles and colors to compliment my portrait. Ray helped me feel at ease during the photo session. After the photo session, I was very happy to see the many images to choose from, different angles, lighting styles, and backgrounds. Needless to say, I got more than I expected. I now have images for web, business card, and brochure. I also gave a print to my girlfriend and parents. Thanks Ray – Awesome job!!!

—KyleVorst18

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2008-04-02 20:01:09   Ray has had some interesting photos for sure! It's sad cause I remember recognizing most of the people in the display photos from being around Davis for long —StevenDaubert

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2009-04-15 22:45:35   Ray was realy great with our 3.5 year old daughter and son age 1.5. There was no way our son was going to cooperate, sit still ,look at the camera, yada yada until Ray brought out his secret weapon - the rubber chicken. It was amazing. Passport photos for Switzerland and Canada were perfect, plus he's a nice guy. With Ray you get small town service. I was surprised at the cost, $65 per set (but 50% off for the second set of Canadian passport photos was nice). We called around and most places charge the same or more just for US passport photos and they don't know how to handle foreign passport pictures. With so many foreign students at UC Davis you can see how he got into this line of work. —CarlShepherd