laugh | SPCcreative

Not Your Mama’s Christmas Cards – Katy Houston Photographer

by Shelly | Dec 21, 2018 | business, family, special project |

I simply MUST share my favorite new Christmas Tradition with you. If you do something twice during the holidays and you enjoy it, it becomes a tradition, right?

THIS is how the Wallace Family of Katy, Texas rolls!

Seriously, they’ve got to be the FUNNEST Christmas Family in Texas.

You see, It all started when Mom, Jenny, called in 2017 looking for a fun and unique family Christmas card. They had a general concept in mind, but needed a pro to help them pull it off. Oh my goodness! It was exactly the project that had been bubbling in my own brain for quite a while, and suddenly these people just called me to create it! How does that even happen? Did I ever tell you how much I LOVE my job?

As we began planning for our session, I reached out to one of my photography instructors and friends, Dan McLanahan. Dan is very well-known in professional circles for his amazing skills and talents, but my brain at this time was all-consumed by the reknown “Friday Night Food Fight” composite that he had created a year before. Click on this link to check it out! Dan gave me some pointers to help make our session go smoothly, and he also offered a gentle but extremely helpful critique during the post-production stages of Christmas Kitchen Chaos 2017.

The magic of a project like this comes in compiling several photographs until one composite image is complete. I don’t know what part of this scenario I enjoyed the most.

It could have been Scott’s flaming skillet. (Yes we used real fire).

Or Jenny’s flying flour which looked so realistic because the sons hid behind the island throwing flour and mashed potato flakes into the air until we captured our perfect messy cloud.

Maybe it was Braden’s athletic skills catching a football mid-air with his LEFT hand so that we could still see his face –HOW MANY TIMES?

Josh’s feigned boredom with the whole scenario absolutely cracked me up because it couldn’t have been further from reality. In fact, he offered keen thoughts, insight, and even served as a voice-activated lightstand throughout the session both last year and this year.

However, the story I LOVE to tell about this shoot is about the family dog, Brinkley. This dog is so well-trained that he absolutely refused to steal the lasagna off the counter. In order to make that scenario happen, we had to send dad to another part of the house while Jenny and the sons coerced and tempted him.

This was my first ever attempt at a relatively complex composite image, and it was so much fun. The Christmas card recipients started asking what this year’s card would look like, and the Wallaces quickly realized that they couldn’t ever go back to a traditional smiling family portrait card.

When they called me this year, we sat down together and brainstormed until we came up with a new concept.

Deck the Halls — Wallace Style

The family has actually experienced a couple of real-life falling Christmas tree incidents, so they knew that their friends and relatives would understand the significance.

Everyone maintained their basic persona from 2017. Jenny’s tripping over her own enthusiasm, and so surprised that she’s practically juggling the ornaments as they smash to the floor. Josh is once again absorbed in his technology and light untangling mess. Braden’s adding Santa to the top of the tree — Elf Style. And of course we’ve got Scott, once again about to burn down the house with his Griswold-inspired electrical connection.

We even included last year’s card on the television screen at the back of the room.

Best memory from this year’s photography session? The pure thrill on the guys’ faces when they got to actually throw glass ornaments up into the air, allowing them to smash on the ground. Josh said it was the one thing that you’re always told not to do.

“Don’t drop the ornaments, don’t let them break, be careful with them. Don’t make a mess.”

But on this one day we shattered ornaments on the floor and made a royal mess.

Merry Christmas from SPCcreative Photography via The Wallace Family.

I will let one little secret out of the bag.

We’ve already started planning for 2019.

What will it be? I’ll never tell.

Senior Portraits for Demi|Katy, Sugar Land, Houston Photographer

by Shelly | May 24, 2017 | senior gals, senior portraits |

No doubt about it, Demi has quite a presence in front of the camera. Is she not a gorgeous STUNNER?!

Well, look out world because here she comes.

Demi and her classmates from Foster High School will cross the stage to receive their diplomas this Saturday in what is sure to be a celebration-filled evening.

I loved working with her, and had to laugh when we were designing her graduation announcement. Let me tell you, this young woman knows exactly what she wants and how to get it.

As most of you know, my graduation announcements are totally customized for each student. We choose colors, overall feel, fonts, images… EVERYTHING to reflect the student’s personal style. No cookie-cutter announcements over here!

Most of the time I get it right – straight out of the chute with maybe a minor tweak. Not this time! Well, the black background could stay… and the wording was good… and the image selections had already been decided. BUT, I totally missed the boat on everything else. That COULD have gone very wrong, but not with Demi. She sent back her change requests, right down to the exact type style that she wanted.

Really? Nobody’s ever done that before! BUT — we do offer a custom product, and that’s what we provide — satisfaction guaranteed.

We made the changes she asked for — type-style, adding glitter to the school color gold, changing the overall layout exactly as she specified, and then everything just fell into place. She loved the end result.

That’s what I like. Someone who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to ask for it.

I will admit that I had to swallow my pride a little bit, but it wasn’t too difficult at all because she was so very specific about how she wanted her announcement to appear.

After Graduation, Demi will attend Prairie View A&M where she plans to continue her studies and enter the field of nursing.

Congratulations on your graduation, Demi! Have a great time celebrating and reach for the stars. You’re already on target to achieve so very much.

Headshots & More for a Maven of Teas & Spices – Katy Houston Photographer

by Shelly | Apr 3, 2017 | business, food, women |

WORD-NERD ALERT!

This girl learned something new the other day, so I’m going to share it with you.

Did you know that the art of reading tea leaves is called TASSEOGRAPHY? I didn’t, but it completely makes sense. After all, Tasse means “cup” in German, French, and probably about a bazillion other languages, and of course -graphy is the Greek word for writing.

So… I looked into my own cup after working with LaShan, and there it was, just as plain as day. The tea leaves said, “You will soon hear a whole lot more about this beautiful lady who is in your studio.”

Oh my goodness, what a time we had. The tea was fresh pressed; the laughter, heart-felt; and the spirit, sincere.

LaShan is the proprietress of a culinary treasure-trove called Three Lumps of Sugar. She mixes and markets fresh blends of loose-leaf tea, spices, and artisan sugars and salts for creative cooks and bartenders.

You can – and SHOULD – learn more about her business HERE

To kick things off, she needed a new headshot and we leveraged her session to the next level. While staying true to her personality and style, we created a lovely variety of story-telling images that she can use in her social media, website, marketing materials and more. And we had a great time doing it.

Here’s what LaShan had to say —

“We’ve all heard the expression, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. As an entrepreneur, building a brand is crucial. Customers respond not only to your products, but also to you as the business owner. The business really is an extension of you and your imaging conveys a lot.

I was so pleased to work with Shelly. She managed to capture the true essence of who I am and what my company means to me. Both my company and I are fun, playful, and creative. I think my pictures say exactly that without any words at all. At Three Lumps of Sugar we create and sell teas, spices, and artisan sugars and salts for bartending. Our images need to appeal to those who would purchase our products.

I arrived for the day and had a consultation with the makeup artist and looked at possible backdrops. We even gave consideration to clothing choices. Shelly took the time and effort to try new things and incorporated my suggestions. I am not a makeup kinda girl, so I was unsure about the makeup. But, when I came to see the proofs – WOW!!! There were so many that I loved and it was hard to narrow it down to just 1 or 2, so I picked 5!! “

Thank you, LaShan, for trusting me with your image and for the very kind words. I can’t wait to sample the whole line of your yummy concoctions very soon.

Total Woman Portraits for Jessica – Houston Katy Photographer for Women

by Shelly | Aug 16, 2016 | family, women |

THIS post is about my copper-head soul sister, Jessica, and her Total Woman Portrait session.

Hair and makeup: Brandie Seifert – Hollywood Hippie Cosmetics, LLC

There’s a special sisterhood that we redheaded women share. It can’t be described, but if you are one of us, you know it well. You might catch a glimpse of it in our eyes as we give each other a silent high-five at the grocery store. We connect because we understand. We know sunburns, and freckles, unruly curls. People always ask us if our hair color is natural. Our perfume of choice is SPF 30-plus. If two of us are in a room at the same time someone will inevitably ask if we are related. In a sense, we are because we truly know how hard it is to be so blinkin’ awesome. I LOVE my redheaded sistah’s and when I’m fortunate enough to have one walk through my doors, good stuff is bound to happen.

Just a phone-pic selfie: Here we are hanging out on my front porch with my highly prized Redhead Barbie! — She looks just like us, doesn’t she?

Because women are so fascinating and multi-dimensional, I developed these Total Woman sessions to capture many different facets of an individual. We are more than just a pretty face. We are powerful. We are fun. We are joyful. We are intelligent. We are mysterious. We are strong. We are sexy. We are compassionate. And through it all, we are BEAUTIFUL — but sometimes we forget that part. Total Woman sessions bring a woman from the BOARDROOM to the BOUDOIR and capture that special beauty forever. These sessions are good for a woman’s soul. The images we create also warm the hearts of our husbands and children, whether they are still young or have already grown up.

Jessica is one amazing woman. She’s a cross-fit trainer. She’s a wife and the mother of five fantastic sons. That’s just one more reason to adore her. Red Heads who can raise five sons could rule the world if we wanted to.

It was beyond fun working with her to create these heirloom images.

Can you imagine her sharing these with her grandchildren in the year 2046? Won’t they love this? What a TREASURE!

What would you give to have lovely photographs of your mother at the age that you are now?

And … as we often do after these sessions, we met up at the park with the loves of her life, her husband and boys —

because — well because we just HAD TO create a portrait of the family on the same day we put together Jessica’s heirloom collection!

We only had about 10 minutes before the skies opened up and rain started pouring, but that was enough.

These images have been translated to a canvas collection for their beautiful home.

These kids will grow up, but this precious moment in their lives has been frozen in time and they will cherish it — because they will always be able to see it.