This is a double-dose blog post today!  Little Miss K has been my client from even before she was born!  I have been so blessed to get to know and work with Shelby and Josh since they hired me for maternity portraits in November of 2009 and their baby’s newborn pictures.  They chose the grow.baby.grow 1st year portrait plan that I offer and picked three dates in Miss K’s first year:  6 months (see here) and then her 1st birthday party and 1st year portraits at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum.  Here are some of the shots from her party and her 1 year portraits.  A-dorable!

Until next time…

FIND ME AT:

I just added this post as a page to my  blog to show the difference between the stages a portrait goes through from start to finish.   Thought I’d also make it today’ post.  This may help explain the reason you wait for your proofs, why custom portraits cost more and why it is important to choose a photographer skilled in all aspects of digital photography.  I’m not going to get too technical here, but keep it straightforward and simple.  The easiest way to explain is to also show, so I have some examples below.

For my Senior, Engagement and Portrait Clients:

Every picture that will be presented to you in your proofs and your presentation in my studio will be ARTISTICALLY EDITED in color and some in black and white.  I wanted you to see the sometimes subtle, but powerful, changes that take place from start to finish.  Beautiful girl, right?  There’s really not much to do, but  brightening and smoothing her skin add a healthy, radiant BUT realistic finish.  My style is to not “over-do” this stage.  I don’t want you to glow like an angel or be  smoothed out so much that your nose disappears or your skin looks plastic.  I want you to look like YOU – the REAL you.  I won’t be applying make up to you; in my opinion, if you wanted make-up on, you would have worn it to your shoot.   I will, of course, remove any blemishes, under eye circles or bags, crazy stray hairs and brighten up your smile and add a twinkle to your eyes.  All the time, being careful to keep things true to you.

For my Wedding Clients:

Your wedding package with Thrive includes a flash drive loaded with hundreds of full-resolution, edited images that are ready to print.    These digital files are ready to go and I have great labs to recommend so you get amazing printed products.

During your wedding day, your two photographers will shoot thousands of shots.  Those shots will be downloaded and backed up (twice) immediately following your wedding.  Those shots are the RAW IMAGES or SOC (straight out of the camera).  You will never see these.

After your images are downloaded, Heidi will carefully go through every shot and eliminate duplicates, bad shots, unflattering shots, etc. and eventually get down to a very rich assortment of shots from the whole day.  Every single one of those hundreds of images will be EDITED.  They will be vigilantly perfected for exposure, sharpness, cropping and color-correction.   A percentage of these will also be converted into black and white.  They will be ready to print.  These will be the images on your on-line gallery and on your flash drive.

Any image from your day that Heidi blogs about (and that is usually close to 100) or puts on her website, will be ARTISTICALLY EDITED.  These will also be included in your online gallery and on your flash drive.   Each of these images will go from the EDITED stage and be brought into Photoshop to be completely perfected, and maybe some special effects added.   This is where skin is smoothed, stray hairs are removed, light is made flawless, and many other things done to create a true work of art.    ANY image from your online gallery that you or others ORDER from Thrive or that you pick for your album will be ARTISTICALLY EDITED.

In the example, you can see that it is a great picture in the edited stage.  In the Artistic stage, I gave the picture a bit of vintage color to it, the skin was smoothed, the bride’s arm was contoured and the groom’s chin was made a little more defined.

First of all, take a look at my blogging TO DO list! (taken with my phone)  This could take awhile….

This little family stole my heart!   Momma, Erin, used to actually babysit my kids when we first moved to Kansas and then I was privileged to be her youth pastor before she graduated.  Now, she is a wonderful wife and mother with a brood of boys.  It’s always so incredible to see these young people grow up and see them fall in love, get married and then start families.    It was a hot August morning when we did their family portraits and little Jackson was just a bit camera shy, but they rocked the whole thing!  Thanks guys!  It was so fun.

Until next time…

FIND ME AT:

It’s time for Thrive Creative Studio’s Annual Mini Session Day!   Scheduled for Saturday, October 30th at Sar-Ko Par Park in Lenexa.  This beautiful park has big, beautiful trees, a pond, a old red barn, bridge, gazebo and even a caboose!  There are plenty of spaces to create portraits perfect for family’s or senior pictures.  It’s a great deal!   For only $300, you get a 30 minute session, 12 proofs to choose from and 3 digital files with which you can print, print, print to your heart’s delight!  Perfect for creating wall portraits, Holiday cards, posting online or what ever you want!   There are just a limited number of spots available, so call soon to get on the books!

Until next time…

FIND ME AT:

You may have thought I had fallen off the face of the earth!  No blogging for almost an entire month!  Well, to say I have been busy would be an understatement.  My business has been blessed and “thriving” and I just simply had to let something wait.    Not only has business been a boomin’, but I have taken a big and exciting step into moving my business from my home and into a studio!  I will hopefully have more on that to share with you soon.  I have had the lease for one month, but even today, I am not fully moved in.    Since keeping my promises on my deadlines is so important to me, I haven’t felt that I could take the time to shut down for a day or two to move my office.    Even though things have not slowed down, I am hoping to make the move this week.  It’s all very exciting….and tiring!  But, I am thanking God for all his good and precious gifts and His hand on my life.  Truly, all the glory belongs to Him!

So, I decided this morning (after my daughter texted me and said “mom, you really need to update your blog”), that I would make an entry!  This beautiful family had their portraits taken way back in July on a hot, hot day.  We even started at 7:30 am, but it was a steamy one!  They are simply an adorable family and I had a blast taking these pictures.  They make me smile…a lot!

Until next time…

FIND ME AT:

I was so thrilled to get to see and photograph the King Family again!  They booked Thrive Creative Studio for a Belly & Baby Session last year and had a super adorable maternity session in November and then a newborn session in January.    When they called to book a 6 month session, I knew they would bring the fashion and the fun to their shoot and they did not disappoint! 

 Until next time…

FIND ME AT: