It’s time to shake the dust off my blogging fingers and let the high school class of 2020 know that SPCcreative is back up and running and ready to create the perfect senior portraits for you.
The past two years have been hard for us here at SPCcreative. It was two years ago just last week that Hurricane Harvey ate our home and our studio, trying his hardest to knock us to the ground. The road back has not been a fun or easy one, but finally we are in a very good place and feel blessed beyond measure, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.
Over these two years, I pulled back drastically from my business to take care of our rebuilding efforts and to do my best to stay calm and focused. During that time period I did not actively market our services, and only took on a few select clients one at a time. As much as I love working with seniors, it was my choice that I only photographed SIX of them over those two years. Yep, just six. But that was good. Each session brought us new challenges that made me wonder if I should be shooting at all. Some days I could barely even find my camera. Still in spite of our need to wing it, every single one of these kids absolutely ROCKED their sessions. Check ’em out!
You’ve got to hand it to them, the kids who came to us for portraits in 2018 and 2019 were great sports. We improvised like never before, providing hair and makeup in among hanging painters drop cloths while balancing ourselves on paint buckets and hopping over stacks of flooring material.
Oh … and it was all dusty. SO.VERY. DUSTY.
We blocked up windows with black plastic and moved backdrops and lights into whatever room could offer us just a little space. We adjusted our outdoor angles to cleverly hide the contractor’s porta potty.
We laughed.
What other choice did we have?
Thankfully most of the outdoor sets in our Studio backlot survived being submerged. We tossed a few things, hosed the mud off the rest, added fresh paint here and there, and brought in a few new fun props to pull off some fun fresh concepts. Oh, and the piano! What a find! How many studios do YOU know with their very own outdoor piano?
Class of 2020 — Here’s Lookin’ at You.
This year’s gonna be so bright you’ll def need shades.
We’re currently booking senior portrait experiences for the class of 2020. With only a couple of openings left in October and November, it’s already time to plan ahead into spring break. The best dates are filling fast.
Let’s mix your look and personality with our expertise. Together we’ll create the senior portraits you’ve dreamed of. Call the studio today at 281.773.7465. Let’s start planning your portraits now.
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.
This is Brandon. He’s graduating in just a few short weeks from Kempner High School, and I’m so glad that we were able to photograph this handsome young man.
Planning his senior portrait session presented quite a challenge. He was scheduled to come in last fall, but because of Hurricane Harvey, our entire studio, both inside and out was a shambles. He and his mom graciously and patiently offered to wait while we mucked out and rebuilt our flooded home and studio, and we felt certain that we’d be ready to roll before Spring Break. Then spring rolled around, and because contractors and supplies have been in such short supply, we were nowhere near ready.
BUT — I had committed to photograph Brandon and by-golly, we were going to make that happen. I took it as added incentive to start whipping my studio backlot into shape. By the time his newly scheduled appointment rolled around, we had about half of our sets refurbished. Our landscaping was still a big mess for the most part.
YET — with creative camera angles and a lot of hard work, there is always a way.
It took a little extra maneuvering, but I”ll bet you would never guess that if Brandon (or the camera) moved just a few inches to the right or left, his portraits by the tree (below) would have included a…
wait for it… wait for it…
A bright blue PORTA-POTTY!
My absolute FAVORITE images, though, were the ones we created to highlight his weight lifting. I managed to rig up a makeshift studio in an empty room, and I’m so glad we did.
THESE simply couldn’t have come out any better.
I love working with dramatic lighting patterns!
Summer’s on its way in, so I hope Brandon gets a chance to relax at the beach with his family and friends before heading off to college
I also LOVE the fact that we managed to catch a sweet “mom-kiss” before everything wrapped up.
Brandon just might miss his mother and her home-cooking when he heads off to UT San Antonio in the fall — and I KNOW that she will miss him. This fun image should make the road home seem just a little bit shorter.
Did you catch my last post about the Inner Superheroes Revealed project? If not, Click HERE to read it.
I am not by any means finished with the project. I will continue drawing out the fire of bold and powerful women in Houston and across the country. Do you think may be you should participate? YES you should. You and your besties absolutely should, and there are several ways we can make that happen. Just call the studio and let’s do it.
But first, check out these fabulous women of Superheroes Revealed Part II. They are all gorgeously powerful and very exciting.
We’ll start with Nicky. Her fearless bravado prevailed long before I ever met her. The first thing I ever heard about this wild Canadian woman was that she was going to walk on the wings of an airplane WHILE IT WAS IN THE AIR.
Sure enough, she did it. She loved it. She wants to do it again. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see her start taking on stunt rolls for movies. C’mon somebody, write a movie script that calls for a gorgeous blonde to be climbing around on the wings of a plane in flight. We’ve got your gal.
We HAD to play with an aviation theme which quickly morphed into a stormy weather related series.
“There was a storm in her eyes, rocky seas from a hundred stormy nights…” — Atticus
Next came Carole. She is known for keeping a room full of young ninja wannabees under control and focused. She owns Fort Bend Tae Kwon Do.
You don’t want to mess with this gal — EVER — but you can send your kids to her so that nobody will mess with them either.
Giving kids the tools to become empowered.
Whether it’s with her creative personality or with actual electricity, Miriam, owner of Southern Voltage Electric Service will electrify you. She’ll also make sure your house doesn’t burn down for the lack of good wiring.
I stopped waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel and lit that b!7ch myself.
And Bobbe, beautiful Bobbe. As moms of boys more than a decade ago, we shared many afternoons centered around laser tag and nerf guns and carpools. Those boys are now amazing grown men. And Bobbe hasn’t slowed down, nor does she plan to.
Look for me in the wirlwind of the storm. – Marcus Garvey
How about gathering up four or five of your powerful women friends to unleash and reveal their super powers with SPCcreative Photography?
My latest project came out of a lousy Post- Hurricane Harvey Funk several several months after the main event.
No real back story here.
No poor me because my house and studio backlot are all in a shambles or because my studio is basically shut down due to the eminent domain of our salvaged personal property.
No bashing of our mortgage company for their horrendous red-tape policies and very-poorly run insurance claims department — Not even though I’d like to.
Nope. None of that.
Anyway, I could feel my inner bad @$$ boiling to the surface. Okay, she exploded through a series of raging phone calls and near meltdowns. She wasn’t pretty, and in fact it was making me physically ill to hold her in so I decided to redeem her. Release her. Let her fly.
With the help of my Favorite Boyfriend, the one that I married 21 years ago, I set up a simple gray paper backdrop in a front room of our empty downstairs. Then we dug out lights from the studio-turned-storage room and dragged them downstairs only to remember that we had NO ELECTRICAL OUTLETS below four feet. RATS!
“NEVER FEAR — EXTENSION CORD MAN IS HERE!” shouted FBF as he strung a heavy-duty cord and power strip over the stair rail and through our entry hall.
My Hero!
~SWOON~
Then, nothing happened. Nothing at all until a few days later. That’s when I dressed in black, applied my Jet-Set-Red-Bad-Girl-Lipstick and a vampy eye then recruited FBF to help direct my poses and click the shutter.
When I shared these pictures on facebook and instagram, the response was amazing!
Maybe other women would like to capture their own super power in portraits too! SO… I put out a call to a few special friends.
First to respond, Michi! YOW, she showed up with a black latex catsuit, killer boots, and accessories. With her wicked-bad makeup skills she actually painted the black mask on her own face.
Of course we couldn’t possibly resist adding my black cat, Pearl to the mix. She TOTALLY ROCKED it! Don’t you agree?
Those who play with cats must expect to get scratched — Don Quixote
Next up, the beautiful mother-daughter duo of Maria and Maddie Grace came in.
Oh how I love these two.
All I had to say was black clothes, red lipstick, BRING IT! and they were at my doorstep.
Maria has transformed her life from ashes to beauty. — Well, actually she’s been beautiful all along, but this woman has definitely walked through fire in the last few years.
She makes broken look beautiful and strong look invincible.
She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.
– A. Dancu
Maddie Grace is the quiet one, the gentle one. She mysteriously appears, and when she does — things happen.
Never assume that loud is strong and quiet is weak.
She has the mindset of a queen and the heart of a warrior.
She is everything all at once and too much for anyone who doesn’t deserve her.
She is you.
–R.H. Sin
STAY TOONED for some more amazing and gorgeous Inner Superheroes Revealed in our next blog post.
Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel.
Meanwhile —
Would you and your friends like to reveal YOUR inner SUPERHEROS? It’s fun and it’s empow-HER-ing.
I’m loving this project and hope that you are too. Let’s name your superpower and showcase it for the world to see! Contact me today.
