Whats Happening?? Whats New?? Whats up??

We just did our first ever file sale and it was SO succesfull! We are in the process of re archiving our files to a new source (not deleting them) and thought this is a great time to offer people some of our older files. Many clients do a lot of scrapbooking, make their own homepages and projects and this is a great way to have our portrait to use for that. It also makes it nice when you just need an extra 5x7. We will continue to store our files indefinitely, but this is a fun way to have everything from your session.

What else is up? We have a fun Limited Edition coming up soon. Cowboys & Cowgirls! With a beautiful Limited Edition Vintaged Art Piece. We have commissioned a local artisan to create vintage style barnwood frames to frame out wonderful, whimisical Cowboy/Cowgirl Art Pieces. The images will be enhanced and then printed onto imported watercolor paper, then hand torn and the edges burned for a vintage, western look of days gone by. We will then mount the image in a sandwiched float matting and frame them in our one of a kind, handcrafted frames. We are so excited about these art pieces! No one in Austin is offering these, this is Jennifer's creation and is truly a one of a kind art piece!

Whats happening?? I have been invited to speak in several locations in Texas this year about my newborn photography. These areas include Dallas, the Metroplex area, Waco & San Antonio as well as being a speaker for the Florida State Convention in August! I am humbled and excited to present my program at these meetings and conventions~

We have several new sets & props for the Spring time, call the studio or keep an eye on the website for details!.

Dan's Accident

Hi all, ok this is not going to be depressing but I wanted to post something. My oldest son, whos 21, Dan, was in a pretty bad car accident last night. Hes going to be fine, he has some bruised lungs, sprained wrist, and a nasty seat belt burn, bruising and cuts etc. He was a passenger with 3 other boys, all who will be fine and range from a severe concusion to broken leg to just a sprained wrist. They were lucky, the car they were in was a very small car and they were hit by another small car..the thing is in TX we have a LOT of SUVS, trucks, Hummers etc..the odds of them being hit by a small car were very lo and thank God because if they had been hit by a truck or SUV they might not be here today and that was a thought that shook me to my core at 5am this morning when I finally got home and got some sleep. So my thought for the day is simply this...hug your kids every time they leave the house..no matter how old they are. Always tell them you love them before they go no matter how rush you are. And always enjoy the moments you have with them. My son called me from the back of the car while he was still stuck in there, he was having trouble breathing and was trapped basically....it was a moment of awe to realize that I was his first thought and I thank God I was not his last.....
Sorry for the heavy, but with us all worrying so much about business, being so busy, rushing around...this made me stop in my tracks and thank God for whats before me right now...not int he future, not when I fix this or that but NOW.

Final Version for our Christmas Card

Decided on this for the card, did some work (Moved Cassi and Cookie from a dif picture. It will work for a holiday card but we'll reshoot for the actual portrait for my wall. We have a great Texas'y looking fireplace that I want a very big picture over so I'll be patient and do it again right :)

Our Family Portrait....what was I thinking!?

Ok so the plan was to have a beautiful family portrait on our new property with our dogs and horses and of course the kids. Well we quickly realized that we had to make a choice between the dogs and horses (since the dogs think they can take the horses and spend the entire time barking their annoyance at the giant beasties). Since we have done holiday pictures with the dogs, we picked the horses. I did the shopping, dark brown shirt, dark denim (which only 2 of us ended up having, more Photoshop work), brown shoes. Found matching shirts, bought each of us one a week ago. Tried mine on yesterday....hated it...back to the store and bought Cassidy and I a different style (so the girls match), but nice dark brown shirts. Looks good as long as I hold my breath during the portrait and stand as tall as possible with maybe the horse in front of me...yep liking that idea. Ok, we wake up this morning to heavily overcast skies so I thought we'll wait for afternoon sun, its beautiful here in the late afternoon, the sunlight streams thru the trees it will be lovely. Glitch...Dan has to work this afternoon so its morning or nothing. Ok do we ditch the oldest child in lieu of beautiful light....thats a hard one for me, I could drop him in digitally later but wheres the fun in that and besides the light wouldn't match and that would make me CRAZY. SO we decide to shoot in the morning....I am apparently the only one who moves faster than a turtle and by the time we are all dressed, bring the horses up, get to the front of the house....the sun is starting to break thru the overcast skies (which was NOT supposed to happen today and how can it be sunny and even MORE cold?!)....well you would think more sun is good...no, not when it blows out the trees in the background which are already pretty bad looking from the winter and puts blotchy spots all over. I, of course, did not prepare for this type of lighting and left reflectors and a good flash at the studio 30 miles away...not going to go get it. SO we set up, I get everyone in place, in cluding the horses, set the camera up and ready for my mom (Cory) to push the button, I take my place and immediately Cookie (our new 18 mo old filly) decides she is bored, we walk in circles bring her back get in place, take 2 shots....bad lighting, re position the camera.....take 2 shots....Cookie bored....walk in circle....boys cracking jokes and of all things MOVING out of their spot....get everyone set back up...re adjust the camera....take 2 shots...Cookie Bored....walk in circle....yell at kids to quit messing around and stand and smile.....Cookie still bore...more cirlces....back in place.....light changes...readjust camera...back in place, Cookie bored.....shove her back to her spot, threaten to never give her another carrot if she moves again....yell at kids to quit moving...back in place...2 shots....don't care what I have...we're done. I'll let ya know what we came out with :) and you thought YOUR family portrait was tough!

Not sure why the last one didnt load pictures but we'll try again.

More pictures of our babies from today. Ok these are total snapshots but just to show you how gorgeous our little babies are and how photogenic :) not bad since they had both just gotten shots.

Family Portrait & Birthday Weekend!

Well we about to head into my birthday weekend :) My family laughs at this because of course no one else gets a whole weekend, but the way I look at it, I tend to not slow down much and if I have a whole birthday weekend, I tend to actually take that weekend off! You should try it, its awesome! Of course Im not taking the whole weekend off because I am taling on the daunting task of......oh my, am I serious...yes, family portrait weekend! We are getting moved into our new house and I thought it would be fun to take our family portrait on our property. For those who dont know, we moved to Liberty Hill in November to a home on 5 acres in the Hill Country. Its absolutely beautiful out here, well it was until the wind and freezing weather, but seriously even with all of that it is SO quiet and inspiring. We have brought our horse, Cat, home to the property and have just recently added "Cookie" who is Cassidy's new filly. Shes 18 month old and the sweetest little Quarterhorse Paint (See her picture above taken by her previous mommy). I'll try and post pictures more after the weekend shoot, should be interesting. For anyone I have ever talked to about patience, this is the weekend to test it. My family is a bunch of joksters and pranksters...ok, I'm usually joinign right in on that, but of course the whole portrait thing is important to me so my patience goes right out the window with my own kiddos :) So, anyone who has given me praise for my "picture of patience"...well read more after the weekend!