Not Your Boring Company Head Shot

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Stephen is, for the record, one of the most fun people you could ever meet in business. If you think meetings are boring, you’ve never sat through one with Stephen. One simple comment full of his dry humor can transform a group from boring to fun. I was fortunate enough to be in a networking group with him when these photos were taken, and our weekly meetings were full of hilarity. He was a favorite of the group and when he changed jobs and had to leave the group, we felt his absence.

Now when I use his photos for promotion, such as for my head shot events, I get lots of people passing by and pointing out his photo. We collaborated on the look of these to capture true personality and fun, and the result was a head shot that stops people in their tracks.

So, what if your head shot stops people in their tracks?

Employers for instance?

Clients?

Do you think it’s worth it, then, to create a professional, personalized head shot experience?

Call us at 501-517-0962 and let’s talk about what we can create for you!

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Resistance

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There in the distance was the mountain.

It was August 2016. I had stepped out of my little hotel room in Manitou Springs, Colorado to savor the early morning, and there it was.

Pike’s Peak. In only a couple of days I would attempt to run up there, and back down, in less than 10 hours. The Pike’s Peak Marathon. My dream, my nightmare, my struggle for the past six years. The last time I had tried this, in 2010, I had failed. It had taken many years and a lot of personal challenges to find myself back here.

Some nights, I would literally dream of the mountain in frustration. The mountain took many forms in my dream, but it was always an impossible goal, and at some point during my dreaming I would realize the achievement was beyond me. I would awake out of breath, frustrated, yearning, despairing.

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And yet, for years, the real accomplishment eluded me. In fact, I couldn’t even manage to qualify for the marathon, even though I had run it before. I needed a certain time on a previous marathon to qualify. I was too slow, too out of shape. I ate too much; I had no self-control. I had no time to train, no will to go beyond the comfortable.

Pike’s Peak Marathon had become a symbol of everything that was wrong in my life. I had allowed myself to settle, to believe I would never run this race again. I would never summit the mountain among my fellow runners and look out towards the countryside spread out before me. I would never cross the finish line and feel that sense of accomplishment. I had fallen into patterns that assured I would stay right where I was: patterns in my health, in my success, in my relationships.

I know exactly when things began to change. It was a week-long workshop with an amazing business coach, Steve Saporito of Intuition to Succeed. In that one week I went all the way from “can’t” to “can” (that’s a long way!) I came home and less than a week later was running the Little Rock Marathon with a time beyond my wildest dreams — fast enough to qualify me for Pike’s Peak.

Why this story, now? Because this week I’m reading about resistance.

This mountain is what resistance looks like for me.

We all experience resistance, especially when we are going for the really big things in life, which also happen to be the things most worth having. Maybe we want to lose weight, start our own business, run a marathon, write a book. And yet, we don’t. Day after day passes and we haven’t done the things we need to do to accomplish our goals.

The reason is resistance. Resistance really doesn’t look like a mountain. It looks like that next step in the climb, the one we are too tired or too distracted or too heartbroken to take.

We want the goal. We can imagine the goal. We can dream of the goal. But the next step toward the goal, and all the subsequent steps mounting before us: that’s what seems impossible.

That day at the Little Rock Marathon, when I finally broke through and was able to qualify, I realized: there’s really only one way to run a marathon. There has only ever been one way to run any race.

One step at a time. Then another, and another and another.

What’s the next step, for you, right now, today? Don’t look beyond that. Just do it. Then do it some more.

See you at the summit.

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Beautiful Chaos

I’m a private person. I’m not one to bare my soul on a blog. That’s one reason that many of my clients, and even some of my friends, don’t know that I got divorced on the last day of January, this year.

On a scale of “private,” if I’m, say, an eight, then my ex-husband is a “ten thousand.” So I’m going to try and stay away from talking about him any more than needed.

But divorce is hard, and I know that a lot of people go through it. And, it can feel very, very lonely. It can be a harder grief than death, because you get less sympathy.

One reason is, our culture has a very strong idea about what life is “supposed” to look like.

You grow up in a cozy two-parent home, go to college, meet that someone, get married right after college.

You take your college-educated selves into the workforce and establish yourselves professionally. Then after a few years you have a couple of kids. It’s your happily-ever-after, and you live it until you grow old together.

Except, real life isn’t like that.

Real life is messy.

Real life might be realizing that you’ve been very, very unhappy for a very, very long time and if you don’t do something about it now you’re just going to keep getting more unhappy. So you make the hard decision.

Real life isn’t picture perfect. Real life gives you storms. It gives you wind in your hair and sand on your face. Real life isn’t retouched. It’s raw and beautiful and crazy.

I’ve come to realize that even when someone’s life looks perfect from the outside, it never is. There are tragedies, losses, unexpected challenges. Maybe it’s a couple who wanted kids and never had them. Or had kids but lost one (or more). Or someone who had the seemingly perfect family, but then saw a child succumb to drugs and alcohol, or depression.

It’s someone who never found the “right person” or someone who found that person and then lost them tragically. It’s someone who had kids early and struggled financially. It’s someone who did well financially, but sacrificed closeness with their family.

I’ve heard all these stories, loved all these people. There’s one thing all the stories I hear have in common: they go on. We go on. We get past the loss and find a new beginning. We learn, grow, continue to hope. We become stronger, wiser, more generous, more loving.

There’s no “perfect.” If there were, how would we become these things that we so need to become?

In the middle of all the chaos, there’s beauty. We lead ourselves astray with the fairy tale, and we use it to make ourselves unhappy. But we can go beyond the fairy tale, and that’s where there’s a fierce joy that you never knew was there … until you reach it.

The fairy tale was what kept me mired in discouragement and self-abasement for so many years. I was going to “make my marriage work.” I wasn’t giving up! I would see this thing through. I won’t go into all the things that made me change my mind. I’ll just say that by the time it ended, the unhappiness was a physical ache in my chest. I lived in a constant state of anxiety, until I finally was pushed over the edge and had to do something different.

It’s unpopular with some people when you resist the fairy tale. We’re all supposed to buy into this, if only for the sake of the people who are still trying to buy into the fairy tale.

The more I look at how life unfolds, the more I realize it isn’t a fairy tale. It isn’t a clear-cut story.

Instead, it’s beautiful chaos. It’s a song that keeps changing keys but it is lovely for all that. It’s a poem where the words don’t make any sense until we’ve been willing to lose something, let go of something. It’s a picture where we don’t prepare, where we let the wind blow and the waves crash and all the craziness happen, and we just enjoy.

Spring Family Photo Sweepstakes

One Grand Prize: $1000!

10 Runner Up Prizes worth $250 Each!

Congratulations Heather and Brandon!

Congratulations Heather and Brandon! It’s a girl!

It was a long wait for this little one to finally make an appearance, and Heather found out she was finally expecting just as Brandon was receiving a long-term assignment to Djibouti.

Brandon is really excited to finally be an expectant father — excited enough to be persuaded to come along to a photography session. We incorporated some military themes, as well as the couple’s two dogs. Having two active puppies made for a fun session and lots of hilarity. We got both dogs looking in the same direction and sitting up, even though the downtown traffic was pretty distracting for them.

Best wishes to this couple as they get ready to welcome this little one into the world!

This Post Has No Photos

This post has no photos.

Why? Because I’m currently experiencing a hard drive failure on my main editing computer.

Don’t worry though! I’ve spent several thousand dollars on backup systems both on-site and off-site to keep your artwork safe.

And for the most part, everything you love is printed and on your walls.

Right?

Or did you leave something behind? Did you (either with the photos we took, or with your personal photos) tell yourself “Later.” It was too expensive now. You needed to wait.

What if I didn’t have backup systems? How much would it have cost you to lose, forever, the memories that we created?

Yet, so many people are at risk of this. They have pictures sitting on their hard drive, on their phone, on a disk in their drawer. They’ve never been printed, and they have rarely even been viewed.

There are some pretty precious photos on this computer that I’m used to seeing on my desktop and my first reaction to the crash was panic (before I remembered all my backups.) Lesson learned: I just sent through a bunch of photos to the printer a minute ago.

Please, whether it’s personal or professional, remember that printing your photos is the only way to be sure of them. It’s the best way to share them, by displaying them in your home. It’s the best way to revisit them, by putting them in an album or on your walls. Don’t let your memories die — either on my hard drive or on yours.

Kloee Visits the Studio!

This is beautiful Kloee. She is part of our Rescue Tails book project.

Part of the reason Kloee is special is because of her age. While most Great Danes live to be about six or seven years old, Kloee is a wise old 12 years! She’s a beautiful dog, but the story of her adoption starts with her being deemed “not up to breed standard.”

She’s a sweetheart, though, so the breeders decided to keep her. Unfortunately, her owners eventually got a breeding dog that Kloee didn’t get along with, so she was put up for adoption by North Mississippi Great Dane Rescue.

She was already advanced in age, but she was adopted by a sweet couple in Little Rock who figured they would give her a couple of good years before they had to say goodbye. Luckily, that didn’t happen!

Kloee is an old girl who knows what she wants, and how to get it! She will trick her owners into getting out of bed to check on something, only for them to come back and find that she is in their spot! On the other hand, she’s a big puppy who will still thinks she can sit in someone’s lap.

We enticed her with chicken and she got pretty excited about that. Her sweetness is beyond belief and we were so glad to meet her and create beautiful memories for her human mom and dad!

Feel Beautiful

Have you realized how amazing you are? As women, we can be consumed by the demands put on us day to day, and forget how to feel beautiful.

In the process of creating new artwork for the studio, we want to give some REAL women from Central Arkansas the chance to look and feel like a star! The session will include an interview to plan your experience and find out what we can highlight about you to make you feel your most incredible self every day. Then, you’ll come into the studio to have your makeup professionally done before your session. We will offer you styling advice to help you look your best in the photos. Immediately after the session, you will be able to view your photos and select your favorites, and we are providing $350 towards your photographic artwork.

We have a limited time and a very limited number of entries we are accepting, so don’t delay!

Why Photos?

Note: I’ve been waiting years to share the following story. It’s not that I’ve been keeping it from you. Until recently it was too hard to tell; there were too many reasons not to tell it; I was scared; I was sad … on and on. But it’s too important. It’s why I do what I do. It’s my driving force, my passion, my reason for picking up a camera, not just once, but day after day, week after week. It’s my reason for finding out what’s special about people, for capturing expressions and not just images. It’s my reason for getting in deep with my clients, for diving into their lives and their loves. It’s everything. My love, my life’s work, my mission. And the story I’ve been scared to tell you about myself? Here it is.

In college I met an amazing guy named William. He changed my life, my perspective, my feelings about myself. We dated for a while in the Fall then split up for a while. Then in the Spring, we started getting back together.

I’ll never know if it would have worked out, because in May William was killed — murdered.

In the days before smart phones and cheap digital cameras, I had taken the last photos taken of William. Two nights after he and his friend Robbie went missing, I made a hasty visit to a campus photo lab to print photos for the “Missing” poster.

We never used those photos for their intended purpose, because the next night one of the murderers confessed. They found the bodies buried in shallow graves near a bridge in a rural part of Mississippi.

Some of those photos instead sat next to the casket during his funeral ceremony, and then went home with his mother as her last visual record of her son. This was in the days before smart phones and “selfies” so no one had taken good photos of him for months.

What she told me was that I had captured the essence of her son. We were just goofing off, testing to see if I knew how to use my new flash, but William was making silly faces and grinning from ear to ear. Celeste, his mom, said those photos would allow her to remind William’s niece, then only six years old, to remember her silly uncle as he was when he was alive.

Photos can capture the essence of a person. Photos that do this can make it seem as if that person were in the room with you. They can bring you back to the emotions you felt when you actually were with that person. They can transport you in time.

The printed photo is the only photo. Until I printed those photos they didn’t exist, and they couldn’t help anyone. After I printed them they became the most important thing in the world, to several people, including me.

Here’s what else happened: I hid this journal from my ex-husband when we were married because I figured he would get upset if he saw it (he had already read another journal of mine without permission, before we were married, and gotten upset.)

After I divorced, I couldn’t find this. I’ve been looking for months. I’ve dreamed about it. I’ve hunted through the whole house while cleaning and organizing things along the way.

Wednesday night, late, chatting with friends on Facebook, I found it. I think they could tell I was crying even over Facebook Messenger. I found the most precious, irreplaceable item in my house, and now it’s by my bed where if anything happens I can always grab it.

This is my story. Everyone has one. It’s a celebration, a passion, a thrill, or sometimes an ache buried deep. We all just need to find the person who is willing to listen.

I want to listen. I want to listen because I want to be able to create the most precious thing you will ever own.

Your Love Won’t Die. Why Should Your Gift?

Your love won’t die. Why should your gift? couples session collection

Flowers are great; we aren’t knocking them, but why not add something that will outlive the week? That will, in fact, be treasured for a lifetime, passing down to your children and their children!

A Forever Session for you and your love will capture the way you feel about each other right now: the passion, the intensity, or the comfort, laughter. Whatever it is about you that makes you glad to be together, we want to celebrate that.

For the next few days only we are offering a Valentine’s Day Special of a $250 Luxury Photography Gift Certificate for only $35.

The gift certificate will cover your session fee and give you some money to put towards your artwork.

Your photo session will be customized to you and what makes you unique as individuals and as a couple. Then, we will take the photos we create and customize stunning artwork for you to display in your home, to treasure, and to document your love for future generations.