Holiday contest.

Ok this week I will be holding 3 holiday contests. Starting today and going through next Friday. Keep checking back because you get 3 chances to win.

Today's contest. E-mail me by Monday night with your funniest holiday gift, memory, or story. It can be about anything, I will read them all and maybe even post a few. I may even share my own, just to give you a laugh.

The person with the funniest story will win a complimentary session anytime from January 14 to February 14th. You will also receive 5 5x7 prints of your favorite images from the session on me. (Of course you are always welcome to purchase more, you are in no way obligated to do so.)

It's that easy. Nothing else to do but tell me your funniest holiday story. (Just make sure it's 'family friendly' ok?)

Have a great weekend. I can't wait to read the stories you send.

Spotlight on Monica

I have had the privelage of photographing baby claire when she was a baby and again this year. Here is what her mommy had to say.

1. First name & city:
Monica, Mobile, AL

2. How many children, first names and ages:
1 child, Claire, 16 months

3. What's on the top of your Christmas list?
Gaudy Xmas village scene from Lowe’s

4. What's on the top of your children's wish lists?
Pink Cozy Coupe pedal car with play cell phone

5. The gift you are most excited to give:
PBR tickets to my mother

6. What is your favorite family holiday tradition?
Attending Christmas eve services with the kids pagent

7. What's something you *don't do* during the holidays?
Caroling

8. Black Friday- are you out before 6 am?
No, I refuse to get up if the clock says anything with a "6" in front of it

9. Shopping- stores, online or both?
However I will stay up til 3 am shopping online. The 6 am rule is just out of principle

10. One store getting a lot of your business for gifts this Holiday season:
Amazon

11. Favorite holiday food?
Divinity

12. Favorite places to go with your children in the winter months:
Christmas in the Oaks – New Orleans, LA

13. What was the last book you read to your children?
Carl’s Christmas and Good Dog Carl

14. What's on your nightstand?
Mardi Gras beads for my daughter to play with, hand lotion, cordless phone, lamp

15. What are your favorite websites or blogs to visit?
This is my first "blog" so yours would be it

16. What are your 3 favorite local restaurants:
Monument, Dukes, The Creamery before it died

17. What is your favorite Salon?
Breeze

18. What local groups or causes are you involved with? (Do you belong to or support any volunteer organizations?) Making my photographer’s car payments :) (hee hee I LOVE this.)

19. Any business or fun stuff you want to share? (Give a link if you have one, or contact info!) Dauphin Island Sea Lab – we do marine research and outreach to K-12 kids.
Summer programs, day camps, etc. http://www.blogger.com/www.disl.org

Claire's mommy sent this pic in. Come on, you know the only time you can show your hiney like this and people think it's cute is when you are a baby. ;-)

Blog game: Maureen

1. Maureen Hanson in Round Rock (formerly Georgetown)

2. Reilly - 8 years, Jack - 5 years, Kate - 21 months

3. I got my present in September - moving into our new home ;-)

4. The kids want anything related to American Girl dolls or Star Wars. 5. I'm excited to give the kids a Wii, a basketball hoop for the driveway, and a play kitchen for Kate

6. My favorite tradition - making apricot shortbread cookies - yum!

7. My husband and I don't buy presents for each other. We focus on the kids...it's saves money and stress, and besides, we truly already have everything we need!

8. I am not a Black Friday shopper...

9. I shop in the stores, as well as online. (I love free shipping!)

10. Target gets most of my business!!11. My favorite holiday food - the apricot cookies, of course!

12. I love taking my kids anywhere there's snow - they're fascinated and thrilled by it!!

13. Over the summer, we read Trumpet of the Swan by EB White as a family.

14. I have pictures, an alarm clock and a baby monitor on the night stand.

15. Always check in with nytimes.com , coolmompicks.com and metacritic.com16. Favorite local restaurants...Monument Cafe, Dos Salsas, Main Street Grill

17. Favorite salon...Halina's in Round Rock I've attached a photo from our summer trip to San Francisco...it was SOOOO cold, and the wind was wild!! ;-)

Blog game: yours truly.

Ok, here I go.

1. First name & city: Stephanie, Georgetown

2. How many children, first names and ages: Evan 10, Wesley 7, Noah 5, Josephine (Josie) 3

3. What's on the top of your Christmas list? Front porch rockers.

4. What's on the top of your children's wish lists? V-bot, all things transformer (the boys) all things princess (the girl)

5. The gift you are most excited to give: I can't tell you that yet. ;) Really LOVE. Love is the best gift ever.

6. What is your favorite family holiday tradition? Driving around and looking at lights on Christmas eve.

7. What's something you *don't do* during the holidays? We DON'T have turkey.

8. Black Friday- are you out before 6 am? nope.

9. Shopping- stores, online or both? Both, but mostly online.

10. One store getting a lot of your business for gifts this Holiday season: As always Amazon.com

11. Favorite holiday food? cookies. :)

12. Favorite places to go with your children in the winter months: Well it's Texas so it really doesn't feel like winter here. It's the same year round. I would say the movies.

13. What was the last book you read to your children? Barbie island princess. I know I feel my IQ dropping as we speak.

14. What's on your nightstand? A lamp, a clock radio, about a half dozen books. Water.

15. What are your favorite websites or blogs to visit? Blogs: Because I said so. Silly pipe dreams.

Dooce. Websites. Several photography websites. Amazon.com (I have a problem) all kinds of shopping sites. Williams Sonoma.

16. What are your 3 favorite local restaurants: Dos Salsas. Wildfire. Down the Alley Bistro.

17. What is your favorite Salon? Breeze.

18. What local groups or causes are you involved with? (Do you belong to or support any volunteer organizations?) I am working on that as we speak.

19. Any business or fun stuff you want to share? (Give a link if you have one, or contact info!) If you are here you already know it. ;-)

Photos taken by my great friend, John Beauchamp, who really knows that he does not want to me a children and family photographer. ;-)

Holiday baby.

Don't you just love this???? She makes me wish I had my own giant lammy to snuggle up on. Especially on a cold day like today.

I hope everyone is getting ready for the Holidays. We are slowly getting there. The tree is up and that makes the kids happy. Get ready for my just for fun special Christmas blog survey. Keep checking back to see what fun things everyone has to say. I will go first, probably later today.

Keep warm.

~S

A sweetie.

Oh wow. I got to photograph this sweetie when she was just a tiny thing. Now here she is a bit bigger with bit more and a LOT more energy.

What a doll baby. She had a ball at the park, but was pretty tired when we were done.

Maybe I will get to see her again next year. =)

American Girls

It's not all that often that I get to do a session with 'big girls'. By big girls I mean bigger than babies and toddlers and smaller than seniors.

Gosh, They have so much personality and are just so camera friendly. I love it.

Now, I only have one girl, and she falls in the toddler area. I truly believe my husband would never sleep at night if I had 3 beautiful girls like this.

Bad bad blogger

Ok so I have discussed this before. I am pretty bad at keeping up with this thing, especially when I am busy.



But I ran into one of my very favorite clients/people today at the store, and while i will forgive here for making me feel bad for not buying that Playstation for my kids, it got me thinking how it really had been awhile since I had posted anything here.



I was also thinking that that was so very wrong when I had these beautiful images to share.....

Ok. I feel better now. Don't you? ;-)

It's not too late.

There are still a few openeings left for guaranteed holiday delivery. If you are interested please give me a call or e-mail me at stephanie@srevellphoto.com

The busy time.

Wow. Who stinks at updating her blog??? Sorry everyone. It's not for my lack of thinking about it. Too bad thinking about it and blogging in my head doesn't mean it actually happens. To say I have been busy the past few weeks would not even do it justice.

Look at this crisp, beautiful fall day. How blessed we have been to have such great weather this fall. I don't expect it to last much longer, but it sure has been nice.

So October is over and it's on to November, can you believe that?? I can't. There are only a couple of weeks left to get portraits made in time for Holiday delivery. I only have a few openings left so call me asap.

No words.

Really. How much sweeter can any baby be? I am beyond in love with these images of baby G.

October is almost totally full.

I can't believe the month is half way over. The sessions I have for the entire month of October are almost totally booked. I have two opening for a weekday session in the next 2 weeks. That is all I have for the rest of October. Please contact me if you are interested. If you book today or tomorrow I will take $15 off your session fee.

Also I know I say that word of mouth is my best advertising, and now I would love to give some of that word of mouth back. Last week I had my hair done at Razzmatazz Salon in Georgetown. It was a great experience and Laura was beyond fantastic!!! So if you need a new doo before your photo session, or maybe some rocking color, go see Laura at Razzmatazz and tell her Stephanie sent you. I love my hair and I love my new color.

And on a last note I am thinking of maybe doing one more last minute mini sessions the first weekend in November, say the 3rd if you just want something quick for holiday cards. I am putting this out to see if there is any interest. If you think you might be interested please e-mail me at stephanie@srevellphoto.com. I won't do this unless I get at least 5 people who are interested.

Thanks and have a great week.

Hooray October

Here is another super sweet baby. Goodness it's no wonder babies are my favorite.

Well here it is October already. Finally today it feels like fall weather. What a treat. October is booking up fast. I only have a few openings left and after that there is only a short period in November for sessions with guaranteed holiday delivery. To be sure don't' miss out please contact me as soon as possible.

Some exciting news.

I am now a member of the PPA. The Professional Photographers Association. They are an organization dedicated to bringing you the finest quality portrait photographers. It's great because there is more education in photography for me and a lot of other things that can benefit me and all my wonderful clients.

Oh baby.

This is what it's all about for me. Newborn babies. Hands down newborns are the hardest and yet more rewarding subjects to photograph.

It's just amazing, because they are so tiny, and new, and fresh. They will never, ever be this little again.

Mini session announcments.

Here are the details on the holiday mini sessions. There will be 2 Saturdays set aside solely for these mini sessions. The dates are

Saturday, September 22: Sessions held from 9:30-12. (5 sessions total) At Berry Springs Park.
Saturday, October 6th: Sessions held from 9:30 to 11:30. (4 sessions total) Location still being decided.

Sessions will be 20 minutes each. You will be shown 10-12 finished images in an online gallery. The cost of the mini sessions will be $125 and you will receive a $50 print credit and 8 wallet prints (of the same image).

I expect that these mini sessions will book up fast, since only 9 are available and these are the ONLY mini sessions I will be offering this year. Please contact me at stephanie@srevellphoto.com for full detail information and to book your session.

Business talk

Ok, the time is here to talk about the holidays and some other business stuff.


If you want to book a session, and receive your images in time for Christmas, your session MUST take place by the second week of November. If you plan to order specialty items, such as canvasses, coffee table books, purses, etc, they take a bit longer. Please keep those things in consideration when thinking about booking a portrait session for the holidays.

Book any session by Sept 14th and you will receive 10% off your entire print purchase.

I have some new announcements about some big changes coming soon. So keep checking the blog. I will be announcing 2 mini session dates, the only ones I will be holding this year. They will be VERY LIMITED and only announced here on the blog. I will also be announcing a new pricing structure with special collections, print credits, and incentives. I am very excited about it, and I can't wait to share it with you.

My love/hate thing with the blog

Sorry it's been so long. This thing was not letting me log in and eating my posts. Ugh.

But it's all good now. No worries.

Now here we are in September already. The kids are finally back in school and the days are getting shorter. Now is the time to really start thinking about family holiday portraits.

I already have some bookings for October and November, but there are still some availability. Please call or e-mail me to talk about setting up a session. You will be glad you didn't wait 'till the last minute.

And for those of your who book by September 14th, you will enjoy 10% off your entire print purchase.

Class of 2008

So, first off let me say, this is my 100th post to this blog. Woo Hoo. So to celebrate, the next person who books a session will receive a special leather mini album with their session. Just mention the 100th blog special when we talk.

I know everyone is getting ready for next week's back to school. What a better way to celebrate back to school than with a great Senior session. This was my first Senior session and I loved it. We had so much fun.

It doesn't hurt that I had a fun and fantastic model to work with. Hannah was great, and so easy on the camera. It was fantastic just driving around to all the different places and seeing all the different 'looks' we got to capture. This is for sure what photography should be about. Having a great time and getting some fabulous images.

There is still plenty of time to book a senior session. Call me today!!

Congratulations!!!

Our summer blog contest winner is baby Kiera. Congratulations.

Contest

There is still a few more days left of the summer blog contest. Don't' forget to have all your friends and family vote for your favorite image.

The winner will be announced on Monday.

Did you know???

Hello everyone. Just kicking it into gear as school is about to start and I have a few things for you to be thinking about.

CHRISTMAS!!!!!

I know, I know. Really? You want me to think about Christmas in August? Well I do, because sessions for the holidays are booking right now and they are filling up fast. The deadline for Christmas guarantee delivery is the second week of November. Specialty items such as canvases, coffee table books, custom photo bags, and jewelry can take up to 10 weeks to order. I know that people usually wait all year and only get family portraits made for the holidays. So book now, because I don't want you to miss it.

Also, just so you know how much I love my clients, did you know that returning clients receive $50 off their session fee? It's true. Just a little treat for my special families that I love so much.

I hope you are all done with your back to school shopping. That way you can take a few days to relax and enjoy your kids before they go back to school.

2007 Summer Photo Fave Contest.

So, I know I have been promising this for awhile, and it's finally time. Here are the contestants for the 2007 summer blog photo favorite contest.

*As with any contest there have to be rules, right? So here are the rules.

*You may cast your vote by using the contact page on the http://www.srevellphoto.com/ website. There will only be allowed ONE vote per e-mail address. This keeps in fair. The contest will start today, Sunday, and go until next Sunday at 5 p.m. The winners will receive their image in an 11x14 mounted print and everyone who votes will be entered into a drawing for a half price session.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

#9

#10

Good luck, everyone.