by Shelly | Jan 9, 2011 | musician, senior gals, senior portraits |
How exciting for the class of 2011! You have just started your final semester of high school. It’s going to fly by too, so buckle up for the ride and have a great time.
When I get to schedule band kids for senior portraits, I always get super excited. It means they’ll probably show up with musical instruments and maybe even their letter jackets in addition to a great selection of clothes and personal props. Fort he record, flute players always hold a special place in my heart. That’s because I was once one myself, — but that was back in the day when we rode dinosaurs to school.
It doesn’t hurt at all if these kids are drop-dead gorgeous like Hillary. She was such a natural, self-assured and fun to work with. We changed clothes several times, and laughed lot while we tried out some of the brand new background sets that my wonderful husband recently built for me.
The end result? Some awesome wall portraits for her parents, personalized graduation announcements, and a beautiful hard-bound coffee table book that I am delighted to share here.
by Shelly | Dec 24, 2010 | family, special project |
It’s Christmas Eve 2010 . . . and I want to wish a very Merry Christmas to my friends, families and clients.
Enjoy your family gatherings.
Laugh. . . . Play . . . Eat . . .
And most important, Take time . . . be still and KNOW that Christ is Lord. He is our gift. We need nothing else.
I’ve been dying to share a few of my favorite SPCcreative Photography Christmas cards, but also wanted to wait until the families had time to send out their greetings first. Enjoy! These are a few families that I photographed recently and created custom cards for this year. 
by Shelly | Dec 20, 2010 | event, family |
When the Ramsey/Trapane/White family hosted a milestone birthday for their beautiful mother, Addie Mae, they invited me to document the occasion.
Since getting everyone together in good clothes is a challenge for any family, one of our priorities was to set up a backdrop for some group portraits, both traditional and fun . . . and of course, we enjoyed a little cake and punch with some of Addie Mae’s lovely friends.
After the party, we created a little hard-cover brag book for Addie Mae to carry in her bag so that she can always be ready to show off her lovely family. What a perfect gift!
. Happy Birthday Addie Mae. We wish you many happy returns.
by Shelly | Dec 17, 2010 | family |
The Waller girls and their mom were in town visiting grandparents a while back, so we met at Katy Peckham Park for a photo session. Such pretty and very sweet little girls.
by Shelly | Dec 12, 2010 | business, event |
Dear Santa,
Plese Helpe Peple.
Little Erik’s letter absolutely made my day so I couldn’t help but share it with you too. Erik was one of many kids across the country participating this week in Macy’s “Believe” campaign to help raise funds for Make-A-Wish.
My friends, Jennifer Evans and Susan Schmaeling, who are handling Houston area public relations for the Believe campaign asked me to come take photographs for their media activities. No way could I turn this down and miss an opportunity to hang out with Jennifer or Susan for the morning! On top of that, the twenty-plus years that I spent working in public relations for nonprofit organizations still courses pretty heavily through my veins.
I loved that some of the kids had started writing their letters the day before we arrived so we would have letters rather than blank pieces of paper in our pictures. I loved Erik’s letter. It was short, sweet, and to to the point. But above all, it was generous and all encompassing. I also loved Adrianna’s picture. She must have some understanding of the serious issues that Make-A-Wish kids face, because she drew children with thick healthy heads of hair, bottles of medicine, and magic carpets of $100 bills. I loved seeing the artistically talented young lady who offered to help the other kids embellish their letters with drawings of Christmas trees and ornaments. I loved chatting with the little girl who told me she had made spaghetti and meatballs for some people who didn’t have any food. I could have sat in that elementary school library visiting with my new friends all day long.
Do you Believe? There’s still time to write YOUR letter.
As it has for the past two years, Macy’s “Believe” campaign invites children to mail letters to Santa using Macy’s Santa Mail Letterboxes. Macy’s donates $1 for each letter received, up to $1 million, to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Make-A-Wish grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. With the help of generous donors and volunteers, the Make-A-Wish Foundation grants a wish every 40 minutes and has granted more than 200,000 wishes in the United States since its inception in 1980. .
For more information about the Make-A-Wish Foundation, discover how you can share the power of a wish.
by Shelly | Nov 21, 2010 | wedding |
The wedding album from Meagan and Mike’s Dallas summer wedding is complete. At this very moment it is probably in the UPS truck on its way to Meagan’s parents house so that they will have it in time to enjoy over the Thanksgiving holiday. Meagan chose a simple classic panoramic album with a white crocodile skin cover.
I have just started offering albums, so I was a bit skittish about placing the order for production. In fact, when it arrived I was so nervous that I left it in the box and didn’t open it for three days. Silly me — it was stunning.
I designed the album in a chronological order to tell a story about the wedding day, and I hope it sparks beautiful memories for years to come. So, sit back , scroll along, and be a guest at Meagan and Mike’s wedding.
by Shelly | Sep 20, 2010 | event, family |
You know your kids are going to be the cutest ones on the block.
After all, you’ve been planning their costumes since before the Fourth of July.
Do you really want to trust these precious memories to a telephone snapshot? Of course not.
Come on out to the park and let’s do this right.
Once you reserve your time slot, we’ll meet at a Katy area park on Sunday afternoon, October 24. The exact location depends upon who signs up and of course, weather and park conditions. Come dressed and ready to go because we’ll only have about 15-20 minutes per child. That’s long enough to relax and mug for the camera, but still quick enough to accommodate most young attention spans.
Afterward, you’ll receive your very own online password-protected photo gallery and a coupon for two five-by-seven prints per child or an equivalent value that you can use toward larger prints or gift items.
Now that’s one sweet deal!
Call 281.773.7465 or e-mail to reserve your time. We’ll have a SPOOK-Tacular time.
by Shelly | Sep 15, 2010 | personal |
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” — Albert Einstein
An albino praying mantis paid us a visit today. He made me smile, so I had to stop and share this friendly little fellow with you as well. I was on the phone with a colleague when my son came home after his classes and told me to go outside and look. To me, that was worth checking out. We enjoyed watching him for a while . . . and then he was gone.
by Shelly | Sep 7, 2010 | event, sports |
Last week we officially marked the END of “NOT Football Season.”
With the beginning of the school year, schedules become jam-packed and action-filled but the best thing is that it is finally time for football. As much as I have learned to enjoy the game, it’s the overall experience that really revs my engines. As a certified “Band Geek,” for years I felt like the only reason for a football game was to provide an opening and closing act for halftime.
Then I realized what I had been missing for so long.
NOW . . . I love it all: Pickup trucks with antenna flags. Drum cadences and marching music. Shimmery pompoms and pretty girls jumping up and down. Waving at old friends in the stands. Inflatable helmets. Cool breezes, although we don’t usually feel them in this part of the country until several weeks into the season. The sound of football pads and helmets crashing into each other. Hummingbird-sized moths and crickets dive-bombing the fans. Teenage boys who have just discovered face paint. Band kids who have written their own cheers for different instrument sections. “Too BAH . . . Tooo BAH!” . . . Scrumptious sunsets. The smell of sweaty kids intermingled with freshly popped corn.
And one of the best feelings of all . . . TOUCHDOWN! MUSTANGS SCORE!
One of my favorite images from 2009. I sure hope to capture more of these this season.
One of my favorite parts of football, naturally, is photographing the games. I feel incredibly privileged to be allowed on the sidelines at our local high school games, and I truly believe that each of the kids on the field should have access to quality photos of themselves in their shining moments. This means that in addition to the athletes, I need to capture images of the student trainers, the band, the cheerleaders and mascots, the drill team, the fans in the stands. Hopefully they will be sharing these images with their own kids 15 to 30 years from now.
Not too long ago, the Athletic Booster club at our high school asked me to help with the program that they sell each week at the football games. Now, these programs are not your standard stadium leaflets with just the names, numbers and positions of each player. Our boosters sell ads — LOTS of ads — to local businesses and to parents who buy half and full page spaces honoring their kids. The printed programs are spiral bound and bigger than most high-fashion magazines that you find on he newsstands today.
Maybe I’m a little bit crazy for what I did, but since the team had to print a new cover each week any way, I suggested that they change it up a bit with new action photos on the front rather than the same basic design week after week. They LOVED the idea and while I bit off a pretty hefty project, it pushed me to develop my graphic art layout skills. Remember . . . I am a PHOTOGRAPHER, and not a graphic artist. Still, I know what works.
We started creating a new cover for every game and also stepped up the print quality. In the center of every program a couple of other very talented photographers and I provide bold and shiny color-plate pages with action photos from the previous week’s game. I usually provide two pages of football action and two more pages featuring the band, cheerleaders, drill team and fans. Quite a few parents have told me how much they love these programs, and because they never know if their students will appear inside, they have a little added incentive to purchase a new book at each game. This raises a nice tidy sum of money for the Athletic Booster Club. Once a year we dedicate a program cover to the band as well, acknowledging the grit and determination of approximately 300 more students who take to the field as if going to battle. I was in MY high school band (Go Midland Lee Rebels) and my sons were all in band too. I KNOW how hard these kids work. Thankfully our football coach and the board of our athletic boosters know how hard they work as well. They have been totally supportive of the band issue, which I think is REALLY cool.
In 2008, the first year I was involved, our program chair entered one of our books into a competition for the National High School Sports Publication Awards and we won the Gold Medal for schools over a particular size with parent involvement. We chose not to enter in 2009, opting instead to let another school somewhere else enjoy the prestige and excitement that we enjoyed so much. I’m proud to have contributed to that award but the real thrill I get every week is looking up into the stands and seeing parents and students studying the new programs, looking for photos, and showing them off to each other throughout the evening.
Here’s the program cover for our pre-district season opener this year . . . followed by the inside “action” pages.
Imagine my surprise this year when a couple of photographers from other parts of the country contacted me, asking for tips on creating collages and layouts for their own local schools. WOW! I still feel like a bit of a newcomer in this area,. Still, because I spent so many hours in the School of Hard Knocks working on these projects, I believe I have an obligation to help others with their work . . . to the extent of my capabilities. The color pages on the inside are always a little different each week, but here are the ones that we included in the first program of the season in 2010.
Each week as new programs come out, our new covers and action pages will appear in the Sports section of my web site. It’s kind of fun to look back at programs from the last couple of years and wonder what path we’ll take in the days ahead.
Okay . . . I’m having issues making my links work on the blog page, but if you’ll go to THIS LINK: Cut and paste it if you have to . . .
http://www.spccreative.com/Sports/Program-Covers-Collages
You should be able to see all published covers and action pages from the last two years as well as new pages as they are released.
Happy Football Season Everyone. Enjoy FALL!
by Shelly | Aug 28, 2010 | family |
“Didn’t I just walk them into Kindergarten last week?”
It’s something I’ve heard my friends all across the country saying over the last few days as they’ve sent their kiddos off to college. Truth is, the time really does fly and our nests begin to empty before wer’re really ready. Betty, however, is a very wise mom. She knew that her college age daughter who was home for the summer would be out the door again in a few short weeks and that her two younger sons would be right behind her in the blink of an eye.
We met at Peckham Park for a portrait session earlier this summer, and our portraits with all three kids together will only become more and more precious over the years.
I absolutely love to see how different families interact with each other. They laughed, shared private jokes and all had a wonderful attitude.
Barefoot portraits are something I love for a number of reasons, and that’s what we chose to do for this session.
Still the flip flops that we used to move from one location to the next were just hard to resist.
And there’s nothing more fun or endearing than a memory of kids who aren’t afraid to ham it up for the camera.
Kudos Sis! Thanks for the eyes! And guys, thank you for playing along.
