This last week proved a huge milestone for Laura Frnka Davis, APR and we are beyond delighted to celebrate with her. This month she celebrates one whirlwind crazy busy and successful year for her new public relations agency, LFD Communications. As part of her celebration Laura came to SPCcreative for a curated portfolio of studio portraits to use in promoting herself and her business. Special thanks to Cintya Velderrain for Hair and Makeup!
It was just a year ago that life kicked Laura in the teeth. She lost a job where she had worked diligently for nearly ten years. The loss came as a shock and sent her reeling — but not for long.
This powerhouse of a woman didn’t sit around feeling sorry for herself — not for a minute. She picked up the phone, started calling colleagues she had worked with in the Public Relations profession, and began making connections. Within a year she not only founded LFD Communications, she has achieved a phenomenal success rate for her clients by developing extensive communications plans, booking television, radio, and online appearances, and placing written articles in The Houston Chronicle, Houston Business Journal, and trade publications.
LFD Communications offers communication strategies, writing and editing services, digital marketing, media relations coaching, and social media for nonprofit organizations as well as corporations.
If your organization has a story to tell and wants results, give Laura a call. She can help.
Oh yeah, I nearly forgot to mention … she’s an avid supporter of her Alma Mater, Texas A&M.
You may have heard that we’ve got a new Grand Dane. That’s right, our kiddos made us proud grand-pup-parents again with this handsome guy, and we couldn’t be happier.
They brought him over for dinner last week so we had to dash up to the studio for a few quick baby portraits. He is a Great Dane, so we know he won’t stay this small for long. Get a load of those PAWS!
We don’t play in the studio often together when the kids come over, but decided this would be a great occasion for our daughter in love to step into the gorgeous lilac dress that we recently added to our studio collection. Isn’t she a dream?
Laughter and puppy breath. Sooooo sweet! We had a wonderful time playing together and it is going to be so much fun watching this pup grow up. His name is Dos, and he’s the second official mascot of Grateful Dane Distilling Co. right here in Houston, Texas.
The next time you are enjoying a cold locally craft distilled beverage and wonder if there really is a Dane behind the label, now you know!
The original Grateful Dane, Jaeger, will never be replaced. He left a pretty big pawprint on our hearts to fill, but I believe Dos has begun filling that space quite nicely.
I’ve always believed that God sends us exactly what we need, precisely when we need it, in His absolute perfect timing. The man you are about to meet, Pastor Leo Tyler, is a prime example of this. He came to lead our church at just the right time a little over two years ago.
I was honored to create a series of portraits for for him so that our church could put his face on social media and printed materials as we share our many growing ministries.
A little over two years ago our congregation at Bear Creek United Methodist Church seemed adrift. Oh, we had a firm anchor in Christ and wonderful people who wanted to to do great things but we simply couldn’t seem to catch the wind in our sails. From my pew, it sadly looked as if we had become another of the dying churches across America. To be honest, we were a lot of gray haired white folks with very little to offer the younger generations or the diverse neighborhood that had developed around our building.
Thankfully Leo came in equipped to change all that. He has a God-given gift of relating to people on an individual level, finding their skill sets, and putting them to work — together — for good. His enthusiasm and joy for Jesus are downright contagious.
In the two short years since Leo took the helm of our ship, we’ve done things quite a bit differently than in the past — and the change has been dynamic!
Whatever you do, do it as for The LORD.
We have grown in numbers and in spirit. Our youth and children’s programs are flourishing, and we have become a very well-respected resource for our members and for the community. We’re even in the process of becoming a flagship community health center, educating and equipping the our neighbors to make better nutrition, lifestyle, and medical choices. As our community learns how much we care about them, they are learning to trust us as their spiritual family too.
I love what I see happening in our little church these days and would love to invite YOU, dear reader, to be our guest. Whatever worship style speaks to your heart, we have one for you. Traditional worship starts at 9:00 a.m., and our contemporary bi-lingual service begins at 11:15.
Just come. You’ll find Jesus through the joy, acceptance, friendly people, and sincere prayers. Maybe you’ll even find a new church home of your own.
You’ll also find Pastor Leo.
And I know what he will say.
He would LOVE to be YOUR pastor too.
Bear Creek United Methodist Church is located at 16000 Rippling Water, just off HWY 6 near Keith Harrow in Katy, Texas.
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.
