8/19/2017 0 Comments Autumn Exclusives!!!As a Southwest Michigan photographer, I get asked a lot by my clients about fall portraits. However, when I tell them that I have booked up for Fall they always have the saddest expression. So this year I have already began to put together the set up that I will be using by purchasing little things all through out the year. This allows me to provide you guys with the best experience, while also providing you with the best quality images possible!
This year I will only be working with specific time frames, such as earlier morning hours and then later hours in the evening. This will allow for less availability BUT it will allow for me to give you guys better images from the start that you walk away from your appointment with. Like I said before I will have a goody basket available for the kiddos. This is not just candy. This will have other goodies in it as well but it will mainly be at the parent digression as to what their children will be allowed to have. If you prefer your child not receive a goody from the basket let me know before your appointment and it will be put away so that there is no confusion. The set up itself will be in an area here on the property, on the other side from where it was last year. This is mainly because my studio is currently being built where we were last year. I cant wait to share that with you guys but that's for another time. Back to availability. We currently have a waiting list for those who want in on our Autumn exclusive and will be able to have first pick from the dates available. The dates are October 1-15 and the times are 9 am to 10:15 am and then again from 4:30 pm to 5:45 pm. I can if necessary make additional times available if we need to. I will only open additional dates if all of the times and dates are completely full in the original schedule. This is to ensure other clients who would like full sessions are able to get their times in. IN NOVEMBER WE WILL BE DOING CHRISTMAS MINIS! I am looking into doing an old truck as our prop. If you know someone who has an old ford or chevy truck that would allow us to park it on our property for two days I would greatly appreciate it! There are perks if they do! We are debating on having Santa in December here on the property as well. If you would like to see Santa here with us comment on this post! I would love to hear your thoughts!!
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As a child photographer here in Michigan, I get to meet some of the cutest kiddos in this area. Then sometimes I get even more blessed and I am able to meet little ones from cities a little further away from my area. This little guy and his family traveled an hour and 10 minutes to just work with me and I feel so blessed and grateful I got to meet them! Isn't he so handsome! This my friends is his beautiful baby sister! Isn't she gorgeous! Look at the smile on that little face!! I could photograph those beautiful little cheeks all day long! This sweet girl is 8 weeks old and was so adorably cute. She had such personality and let us know what she needed and when she was ready to move on to the next set! Such a sweet baby!! The love this family had for each other was just beautiful. Mom and Dad greeted me with smiles when they came in and this little guy did too. So much joy in a family makes my heart swell with excitement. When we put this sweet girl in her big brothers arms it was very apparent that he was smitten with his little sister. How could you not absolutely love these precious moments captured of these sweet faces!
8/16/2017 0 Comments BABY L.|MI NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHERAs a premiere Southwest Michigan photographer, I have had the privilege of working with the most adorable families you can imagine. This little family was no different. Mom and Dad were super helpful in capturing these absolutely beautiful images of this sweet girl.
When I am working with a newborn, safety is always first. If I feel that I cant get a photo without sacrificing the safety of the little one I do not do it. This little one always had someone with her while we were photographing. Her cute little expressions and grunting were the most adorable thing. She has the cutest little cheeks and the way she laid so peacefully when she got comfy was the sweetest thing ever. My favorite from this session has to be the one of her in the crate with the rainbow hat on. I just love how the colors pop against her "new baby tan". If you want to see more of this gallery head over to our portrait gallery tab and check out Baby L. and all her cutness!! There is no greater compliment as a photographer, then when client is happy with their final product. This family from North Carolina booked me for an appointment and we had to change the schedule due to timing of me leaving to come back from North Carolina and rain coming in just as we had already changed the schedule. I was flattered that Mom was willing to go where ever and when ever just for me to photograph them. I was honored to be able to work with this beautiful little family and the cutest little boy ever!
We went to a small place in East Lumberton, North Carolina, to capture these images. We battled against tractor trailers coming in and out a road that is typically not used. Even though the trucks came through heavily, this mom and dad duo were so easy going. I loved being able to work with them and hope to see them again in the near future! 8/8/2017 0 Comments FRESH AND NEWAs a Southwest Michigan newborn photographer, I get to see a lot of beautiful babies come through my studio. The most recent are these two sweet boys. They were born very early and spent almost 2 months in the hospital. Just recently they both came home and I had the pleasure of traveling to North Carolina to photograph them. They are so tiny and sweet. Even though they are older they are still like newborn babies. I was able to capture some sweet precious moments with these two yesterday and I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. I cant wait till tomorrow when I finally get to put them both together in a twin session! This is just another reason why I love my job so much!
Please be careful when choosing your newborn photographer. You must have patience first and foremost when working with newborns. As always choose someone who puts safety first. Never let anyone who does not have at least 50 newborns under their belt attempt any stylized poses with your little ones. This could be very dangerous! This year we are hosting our FIRST EVER Back to School Event! This is really exciting for us because we finally have a space where we are ale to host all of these events for your guys!
As a Decatur Michigan photographer servicing the Southwest Michigan area, I am always looking for the next best thing when it comes to photography. I spend hours and hours, researching, studying, photographing, purchasing new props, working on new set ups and always trying to take it a step further than I did the year before. That's what I hope to create with the back to school event. I want to provide you with adorable memories to be able to share with your little one when they're all grown up and their little on begins Kindergarten or preschool or starts the first grade! Like any other mini event this will be held annually in August right before your little one starts school! The Back to School event consist of a 20 minute session with your little one to capture the cutest images to celebrate them moving up the educational ladder. Celebrate your little ones achievement by booking with us! This event will be taking place from August 13th to August 31 from 10 am each day to 6 pm. There will only be roughly about 3 shoots per day depending on the number of children per family. The event cost is $35 per child ($65 for a family of 4 children) additional children add $5 per additional child. 20 minutes for individual children 40 minutes up to 4 children. 1 package per child, this includes; 1- digital file 1-8x10 2-5x7 8 wallets If you have any questions please message me by clicking here 7/28/2017 0 Comments WHERE TO GO TO GET YOUR HAIR DONE?When you live in a small town or a large city it is always nice to know that you have a go to person when you need your luscious locks trimmed or to touch up that beautiful new color you just had applied weeks ago.
I dropped into Classic Cuts last week to speak with the owner of Classic Cuts, Julie Hammel. She invited me to come sit and chat with her while she had a bit of free time between appointments. When I pulled up to her salon, I was amazed at the beautiful picture windows letting in so much beautiful sunlight. It was so inviting and felt fresh. I was a bit nervous I have to admit. It has been a while since I have had any business meetings with other business owners. After walking through the door and being greeted with a huge smile, I immediately felt welcome. I have to take a minute to talk about the inside of their salon. This place is immaculate! It had to be the cleanest salon I think I have ever been into. Nothing felt like it needed to be updated. After taking in my surroundings I sat down to talk with Julie about myself and my business. While sitting down talking business, we drifted off in conversation about our families and it was so nice. She was such a super sweet and friendly person. This was truly an experience I wanted to share with your guys! I had so much fun showing her all of my prints and telling her about each one. I have a tendency to be a talker and I wear my emotions, so she could probably guess that I was very excited to be meeting with her. So in short, if you guys need back to school hair cuts, hair for a wedding or you need a new do for your next session with me, please go check those ladies out!! They do walk in appointments as well!! Tell them Dee sent you! 7/23/2017 0 Comments NEW CHANGES COMING SOON!As some of you may or may not know I have recently updated some of my equipment. With this upgrade new changes will be coming to the pricing. I have been asked by many of you why pricing is the way it is and if there would be an specials any time soon. Well I am in the process of reformulating the pricing so that I can accommodate more of my clients.
Also, we are in the process of building the floor to the new studio. It has been a slow process but it is coming along beautifully. I am super excited to get it up and finished so that I can open it to you guys! The last thing I would like to share with you guys is that I have not 1 but 2 mini sessions in the works! One is our back to school mini sessions and the second is I have something for our fall minis that is just as awesome as last years set up. I will be posting these fall minis in September! The back to school minis will start in August! Summer vacation is quickly approaching. Some places have already released their students for the summer. My kiddos however are still in school and will be released for their break in a few weeks. When we think about summer vacations, how many of us think to thank the teachers for their outstanding jobs as mentors for our little ones. They are a vital component to who our children will strive to be when they grow up. I know that there were teachers in my life that were valuable figures in my life. One in particular was a teacher who taught my clothing and interior design class. She was my mentor and I felt I could talk to her about anything. I trusted her. This teacher I will always remember as long as memory allows. Teachers are the unsung hero's of our childhood and I feel at times that it goes unnoticed,and for that reason, today I will tell you a little about why I am so grateful my children have the same valuable experience that I had as a young adult.
Each of my children have their own individual struggles. My son has had a hard time with trusting authority figures. He has had ocd tendencies as well as struggles with trusting authority figures. His teacher this year, although he struggled in the beginning, was able to bring out the good in him and made him push his boundaries when it came to his education. OK was not good enough, she pushed him to make it great and for that I as his mother am very grateful for her teaching techniques and her passion to push the envelope and helping these children realize their full potential. That is what being a teacher is all about. My oldest daughter has encephalomalacia of the frontal lobe. This makes retaining information hard for her. She struggles with reading, forming written words and it can make her very emotional and sometimes make her feel as though she isnt as smart as the other students. Her teachers never let her quit. They told her she could be anything she wanted to be. They pushed her to try harder and gave her every opportunity that every other child had. When there was a question as to if she would be able to continue on with her class they assured both my daughter and my self that they would never give up on her and they upheld that promise and showed her that she was capable of great things. She has never been classified as special needs, and as long as she has great teachers like these will probably never have to deal with that stigma. For that I am eternally grateful. These two ladies showed her that she can do anything that she sets her mind to no matter what a diagnosis says. My two sweet baby girls had the most amazing Kindergarten teacher I think I have ever met. With my oldest two children, kindergarten was a complete and utter nightmare. The first teacher was hateful and kept my son so upset that he would physically get sick and be sent home every single day. My oldest daughters kindergarten teacher was arrogant and condescending and would find ways to make the parents feel less than involved and with my oldest daughter and given her situation they never tried to help her or intervene. However, when we met the girls kindergarten teacher it was a breath of fresh air. She was so upbeat and worked with us to make sure that the needs of our oldest twin daughter were met, because she has epilepsy. When we told her she needed her bag on her at all times it was no issue at all. My girls hate to miss school because they miss their teacher. That says a lot about a person considering this is their second go at Kindergarten. This teacher feels more like family to us than a teacher. She is every mothers dream start to school. For this I am so very very grateful. It is so nice to meet someone like her in a world where you have to keep your guard up. The first time around with kindergarten, my two girls were tormented by their teacher, I am not a confrontational person by any means but the first teacher, a man, ridiculed my then 5 year old and made comments about her being lazy and not paying attention or spacing out in class. He was even overheard calling her the "s" word. I spent many days at the school speaking with all the members of staff before we finally moved to a new city and were able to home school them. Enrolling them in this school was a very very nice experience, they both thrived. Teachers aren't given the credit I personally feel they deserve. Teachers like these 4 ladies are truly what being a teacher is all about. They teach because they love these children and want to see them be successful. I feel like we have been blessed this year and I hope that next year we are just as lucky and have the opportunity to meet more great teachers. Thank a teacher and let them know that their hard work is appreciated and that they are valued. They are educating our future doctors, lawyers, teachers and parents. You never know which teacher will be the one that is teaching our future presidents. Memorial day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembering the men and women who died while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. The practice of decorating soldiers' graves with flowers is an ancient custom. Soldiers' graves were decorated in the U.S. before and during the American Civil War. Some believe that an annual cemetery decoration practice began before the American Civil War and thus may reflect the real origin of the "memorial day" idea.[7] Annual Decoration Days for particular cemeteries are still held on a Sunday in late spring or early summer in some rural areas of the American South, notably in the mountain areas. In cases involving a family graveyard where remote ancestors as well as those who were deceased more recently are buried, this may take on the character of an extended family reunion to which some people travel hundreds of miles. People gather on the designated day and put flowers on graves and renew contacts with relatives and others. There often is a religious service and a picnic-like "dinner on the grounds," the traditional term for a poltluck meal at a church. Following President Abraham Lincolns Assassination in April 1865, commemorations were ubiquitous. The sheer number of soldiers of both sides who died in the Civil War (more than 600,000) meant that burial and memorialization took on new cultural significance. Under the leadership of women during the war, an increasingly formal practice of decorating graves had taken shape. In 1865, the federal government began creating national military cemeteries for the Union war dead. The Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper claimed in 1906 that Warrenton, Virginia, was the location of the first Civil War soldier's grave ever to be decorated; the date cited was June 3, 1861. There is also documentation that women in Savannah, Georgia, decorated Confederate soldiers' graves in 1862. The 1863 cemetery dedication at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was, of course, a ceremony of commemoration at the graves of dead soldiers. In addition, local historians in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, claim that ladies there decorated soldiers' graves on July 4, 1864, and Boalsburg promotes itself as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Historian David W. Blight, citing an observance after the end of the Civil War in Charleston, South Carolina, on May 1, 1865, has claimed that "African Americans invented Memorial Day in Charleston, South Carolina," based on accounts in the Charleston Daily Courier and coverage by the New York Tribune. But in 2012 Blight stated that he "has no evidence" that the event in Charleston inspired the establishment of Memorial Day across the country. The Federal Government has designated an "official" birthplace of the holiday. On May 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the presidential proclamation naming Waterloo, New York, as the holder of the title. This action followed House Concurrent Resolution 587, in which the 89th Congress had officially recognized that the patriotic tradition of observing Memorial Day had begun one hundred years prior in Waterloo, New York. There is no dispute that the holiday gained national recognition after the American Civil War in 1868, when General John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans founded in Decatur, Illinois, established it as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the Union war dead with flowers. By the 20th century, various Union and Confederate memorial traditions, celebrated on different days, merged, and Memorial Day eventually extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service. In the North The Tomb of the Unknowns located in Arlington National Cemetery. Copying a practice that began in the Southern states, on May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the veterans' organization for Union Civil War veterans, General John A. Logan issued a proclamation calling for "Decoration Day" to be observed annually and nationwide. It was observed for the first time that year on Saturday May 30; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of any particular battle. According to the White House, the May 30 date was chosen as the optimal date for flowers to be in bloom. Memorial Day, Boston by Henry SandhamMemorial events were held in 183 cemeteries in 27 states in 1868, and 336 in 1869. The northern states quickly adopted the holiday. Michigan made "Decoration Day" an official state holiday in 1871 and by 1890, every northern state had followed suit. The ceremonies were sponsored by the Women's Relief Corps, the women's auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), which had 100,000 members. By 1870, the remains of nearly 300,000 Union dead had been re-interred in 73 national cemeteries, located near major battlefields and thus mainly in the South. The most famous are Gettysburg National Cemetery in Pennsylvania and Arlington National Cemetery, near Washington, D.C. Memorial Day speeches became an occasion for veterans, politicians, and ministers to commemorate the War and, at first, to rehash the "atrocities" of the enemy. They mixed religion and celebratory nationalism and provided a means for the people to make sense of their history in terms of sacrifice for a better nation. People of all religious beliefs joined together and the point was often made that the German and Irish soldiers had become true Americans in the "baptism of blood" on the battlefield. Ironton, Ohio, lays claim to the nation's oldest continuously running Memorial Day parade. Its first parade was held May 5, 1868, and the town has held it every year since; however, the Memorial Day parade in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, predates Ironton's by one year. In the South Confederate Memorial Monument in Montgomery, AlabamaA Memorial Day holiday was in practice in the South since 1866. The U.S. National Park Service, as well as numerous scholars, attribute its beginning to the ladies of Columbus, Georgia. Originally called "Memorial Day," the Southern commemoration appended the label "Confederate" to the title when northerners co-opted the holiday in 1868. The tradition of observances which emerged in the South were linked to the "Lost Cause" and, they served as the prototype for the national day of memory embraced by the nation in 1868. Specifically, on April 25, 1866, women in Columbus, Mississippi laid flowers on the graves of both the Union and Confederate dead in the city's cemetery. The early Confederate Memorial Day celebrations were simple, somber occasions for veterans and their families to honor the dead and tend to local cemeteries. By 1890, there was a shift from the emphasis on honoring specific soldiers to a public commemoration of the lost Confederate cause. Changes in the ceremony's hymns and speeches reflect an evolution of the ritual into a symbol of cultural renewal and conservatism in the South. By 1913, Blight argues, the theme of American nationalism shared equal time with the Lost Cause. Historians acknowledge the Ladies Memorial Association played a key role in these rituals of preservation of Confederate "memory." Various dates ranging from April 25 to mid-June were adopted in different Southern states. Across the South, associations were founded, many by women, to establish and care for permanent cemeteries for the Confederate dead, organize commemorative ceremonies, and sponsor appropriate monuments as a permanent way of remembering the Confederate dead. The most important of these was the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which grew from 17,000 members in 1900 to nearly 100,000 women by World War I. They were "strikingly successful at raising money to build Confederate monuments, lobbying legislatures and Congress for the reburial of Confederate dead, and working to shape the content of history textbooks." Memorial Day is a day to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. To remember those who have given it all here are a compiled list of some of the men and women who we remember today....
Senior Chief Petty Officer Kyle Milliken 1st Lt. Weston C Lee Sgt. Joshua P Rodgers Sgt. Cameron H Thomas Staff Sgt. Mark R De Alencar Staff Sgt. Austin Bieren Air Force Staff Sgt. Alexandria M Morrow Sgt. 1st Class Robert R Boniface Pfc. Brian P. Odiorne Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens Army Spc. John P Rodriguez Lt. Col. Flando E. Jackson 1st Lt. Anais A. Tobar Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan D. Burris Air Force Maj. Adrianna M. Vorderbruggen Air Force Airman 1st Kcey E. Ruiz Marine Staff Sgt. David H. Stewart Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler Sgt. Joshua P Rodgers Pfc. Tyler R. Iubelt Air Force Staff Sgt. Michael A. Cinco Marine Sgt. Thomas Z. Spitzer Marine Staff Sgt. David H. Stewart Navy Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Yeshabel Villot-Carrasco Army Pfc. Jacob H. Wykstra Army Sgt. 1st Class Roberto C. Skelt Wyoming Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer 3 Andrew L. McAdams Air Force Capt. David I. Lyon Navy Construction Mechanic 1st Class James L. Smith These are just a few of the names on a list of over 6,000 U.S. Men and Women who gave their lives for our Country. Remember them today. |
Dee F.With over 8 years of Photography experience, Dee treats every client as if they are family. She strives to make every client feel special during their session time together Archives
August 2017
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