Don’t you love how the 2010 highschool seniors are so clever and they came up with that fancy “SEN10R” thing??? how cute is that? we had nothing like that in ‘94!

So today you get to meet the lovely Miss Lizzie. Oh, how I love thee. I first met Lizzie when she was just a young thang..8th grade. How old are you in 8th grade? Yes, I had taken on the brave role of leading this 8th grade group of girls in our youth program at church. As much as I would love to write all sorts of craziness here about them, the truth is they were an astounding group of young women. The group was full of leaders and Lizzie was definitely one of them.

We are going on 4 years together now and Lizzie is still a leader. This year is definitely bitter sweet for me as I watch my girls enter their senior year and prepare to face the world. I know they are more than ready to get out there but it’s always hard to let go. They have blessed me beyond any words I could ever write here.

We had a little mini session for Lizzie back in the summer and I hadn’t gotten to post them so I’m happy to finally get to share these!

So proud of you Lizzie!

I love love when my clients return to me. I love it even more when they are so excited and stoked about their session that they are literally gushing. That’s how it is with Renae. Renae could quite possibly be one of the most cheerful people I’ve ever met. Rare is the day this woman doesn’t have a smile on her face. She has been so good to me, my business & my ego with her constant praise and genuine love.  She is a beautiful soul…and her girls are GORGEOUS! Three girls! THREE!

Her oldest, Brittany was a ‘08 senior and my first and still one of my favorite senior sessions to date. Brittany was responsible for referring in 100% of my senior clients that year and it was a good start to my senior business! Renae loved Brittany’s senior images so much she opted out of the standard school photos for her younger two girls, Sarah & Lisa and brought them to me for a little mini session to grab some shots for the school year. She told me 1/2 a dozen times that as soon as Sarah was a senior she wanted her to be my Braken Christian School Senior Rep.

Welllll….Sarah is a senior!!!! A 2010 grad at Braken and just as stunning as her big sister! We shot her mini rep session a couple weeks ago and got some supa shots for her rep cards.  I can’t wait for her full session and am stoked that she is working as a rep for me this year! Thanks Sarah (AND Ranae!!!!) You two rock!

It’s my favorite time of year! Time for next year’s seniors to start thinking about their senior pictures! I *heart* my seniors and this year has already started out fabulously! I’ve had some fun already…and it’s still early!

To start it off I shot a couple mini sessions with some of my senior reps. The girls are amazing and I know they are going to rock the senior rep roles this year. I’m looking forward to a great year with these beauties!

The beautiful Deanna

the gorgeous Mallory

The stunning Kristin

and finally the ravishing Heather

This is the first round of Studio Girls but I wanted to get these up since it seems like forever since I’ve posted photos!  Hope to get a few more posted up later next week.  In the meantime, I’ve got two weddings to edit and I haven’t even started to look through my NCY pics yet.

Enjoy these until next time!

“Mom look! Mom LOOOK!!!”

Brooklyn came rushing in tonight as I was giving Parker a bath and she is literally ripping open an envelope as if it contained tickets & back stage passes to the Jonas Brothers.

“Brooklyn! What are you doing?” (I’m a bit frantic because she totally better not be ripping MY backstage pass to meet Joe Jonas).

“I got a letter from Alex” ….I sit there confused …Joe, Kevin, Nick…um, no Alex.

“Alex who?”

“MOOOOOM!!!! Alex…ALEX!!!!”

“Oh, Alex Burton?”

“I don’t know her last name…Alex, from youth…my piano teacher!”

“Yea, her last name is Burton…she sent you a letter?”

“Well, it’s to our family but I opened it” As the last of the shredded envelope falls to the floor

“um, yea…I see that..what is it.”

“i don’t know..here…but I’m keeping these pictures.” and she BOLTS. Literally, leaves me in a pile of paper and tosses a card at me.

I picked up a Reagan High School graduation announcement and see where half of the inside is ripped out which I’m assuming is where a photo was onced adhered.

Alex is Brooklyn’s piano teacher and she is also a member of my youth group. She is such an amazing young lady and I’ve been so blessed to have spent the last few years watching her emerge as a strong leader in our youth program.

She’s a gifted pianist & she plays soccer for Reagan. Last year she started teaching Brooklyn piano. It’s been awesome to watch Brooklyn get so excited about something and Alex has become THE role model for her.

I have been trying to get Brooklyn back involved in soccer. She played a couple years ago and she liked it but she hasn’t wanted to play since. She just kept telling me that she wanted to play piano. I finally figured out she thought she had to do one or the other. It was either become a great pianist or become a great soccer player. And that was ok with me….but I still wanted her to play soccer.

After a couple weeks of piano she finally realized that Alex did BOTH..piano & soccer and she decided quickly she wanted to sign up for soccer again. We were so happy. She loves soccer and is having so much fun and working so hard at both her piano & her soccer skills.

I digress….

Once I finally managed to pick up the 82 million pieces of paper in the bathroom floor I asked Brooklyn if she would kindly share with me the contents of the envelope she had confiscated.

“Well, these are my pictures…but you can look at them”

“for the love of pete girl, I’ll give them back..just let me see them”

She handed me Alex’s senior picture…stunning of course.

Then she handed me a 4×6 print of a screen shot of  THIS!!!!!

When I saw it I forgot all about the backstage passes to the Jonas Brothers. I was so stinkin’ excited for Alex! So cool.

“Why are you so excited Mom?”

“Alex was named Soccer Player of the year!” ….followed by a 15 minute “look what you can do when you set your mind to it” lecture.

“Mom, I’m totally going to be Soccer Player of the Year when I play for Reagan!  And do you think they have Piano player of the year?” 

And because all blog posts are better with pictures I swipped some images from Alex’s facebook account to share with you. ( i didn’t take any of these nor am I claiming them as my work…simply sharing)

CONGRATS ALEX!!!!!!!!!! So so proud of you!!!!!

For six months you’ve heard me talk about changes and updates and new sites, blah blah blah. Yet nothing has happened. I will admit that for 4 months of that there just wasn’t time. After some initial problems with the new wedding and senior sites I was finally able to begin working on them and loading all of the content. Well, I should rephrase that. I was able to begin work on the wedding site. I’m still waiting to begin the senior site because of a few *cough cough* technical problems that are out of my control (trying to resist the urge to bash openly here though I totally have reason to).

at any rate, you will be noticing some serious goodness around these parts of the blog as well. thanks to theresa at blogs for photogs who did the original design and set up of this blog. i’m supa happy to be working with her again on some updates and really, when i say we’re working on it I mean, rockstar theresa is working on it while i rattle on and on about ideas and colors and she does all the technical amazing work.

the new wedding  site will launch without the senior site because i can’t wait any longer and as soon as the technical stuff gets ironed out Studio 423 will have three total sites and a new blog.

happy days are just around the corner. woot!

I had the most fun on Saturday. I got to go hang out with Jenny, Margaret and Ryan….and yea, I totally still hang out with kids 1/2 my age….ok, not quite half. it still feels good that i’m not quite old enough to be their mother yet.  of course, by today’s standards who knows.

i digress….

jenniy was referred to me by my little rockstar heather, whom i love and adore beyond words. (thanks girl…i totally owe you a coffee….or something…then again, doesn’t matter if i owe you one or not cuz if i show up anywhere with one you just take it…so really, i think you owe me one)

i digress….again…..

jenny called me to get the hook up on the senior rep gig. she also mentioned that she had an adorable little hottie cousin that wanted in on the action too. awesome! we headed out on saturday to see what we could come up with. i love shooting down on broadway and we got so lucky. we basically walked in a giant circle behind some buildings and hung out in the parking lot but we got some awesome shots. jenny brought along her boyfriend, ryan….who, poor guy was injured the night before in the reagan v. churchill football game…and yet, he managed to show up and cooperate when i threw him in a few shots. he also helped carry my bag and kept the girls laughing the entire time.  i won’t even hold it against him that he has plans to go to A&M….um, jenny either.

so without further ado…because i know they are stalking the blog for their sneak peeks (hi guys!) here are some of my faves.

 here’s miss jenny…when did highschool seniors start looking like runway models???

this is margaret…apparently the model gene runs in their family

ryan & Jenny….young and in love….ya gotta love that

Thanks guys! I had so much fun and you are all so amazing! Best wishes on your senior year!

*let me preface this entire post with the fact that I HATE using “seniors”( cuz don’t you think “over 65″? )when referring to highschool seniors. yet, “highschool seniors” seems so redundant…and graduates or grads doesn’t really apply as of yet. for instance if i titled this post “attention GRADS!” you would automatically think i was referring to the graduates of this year right? what’s up with that? it’s the same as I hate referring to doing “belly” sessions as “maternity” it’s so matronly….but when you say “belly” not everyone knows what the heck you’re talking about….and pregnancy…again…too redundant.  just a lil’ something to ponder peeps.

So, it’s JUNE! And though I’ve been talking up my senior rep program for a while to many of my clients i haven’t “officially” launched anything…..so here it is.

If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Senior Rep for Studio 423 pass this along! It’s good stuff!

Not only will each rep get their rockin’ session for FREE you’ll also get your own rep cards with one of your favorite images to hand out to your friends. With each and every friend that is referred in you then will get a $10 credit. But NOT another photo credit to be used here with me (though i’d love for you to spend as much as you’d like with me…i highly encourage it actually…it just feels good… ) because let’s face it…how many photos can one person really have of themselves?

 Nope, with each friend you send in you’ll get a $10 credit that is cummulative over the course of your entire senior year. At the end of the year we’ll add it all up and you’ll get a gift card to one of Studio 423’s favorite vendors!  Some rockstar places like Francesca’s or Veronyka’s. 

I’m assuming if you’ve made it this far in your academic career you can do basic math but let me break that down for ya….um, that means

10 friends – $100
20 friends – $200
30 friends – $300
and so on, and so forth….

do you even know how many cute freakin’ tunic dresses you can buy at Francesca’s for $300?

And guys….don’t worry! this isn’t just for the chicas! There’s plenty of love to go around for you too! so MAN UP!

I’m only taking 2 reps for each school so DON’T WAIT! If you’re interested email me for a quick lil’ application and get ready to have some serious fun this summer! Sessions are booking NOW! When fall hits you’ll be able to sit back, pass out a couple rep cards and watch the $ start addin’ up!

so kick off the summer with some seriously good fun! email me TODAY!

or tomorrow…

or the next day…

WOOT!

this is jennifer. jenni. the “other” ms. jennifer. she goes by them all.

jennifer is celebrating the fact that she is graduating w/ a degree in education this may. yup. just one month away. woot! she will be teaching kindergarten…..BA-RAVE BA-RAVE woman! i couldn’t even hang as the room mom last year in Brooklyn’s kinder class. um, no. i could handle 12 4 year olds anyday…..22 five year olds….hopped up on ABC’s and popcorn words, yea so not about that.

but jennifer…she’s a natural. i was excited to get to get some shots of her to celebrate her graduation.  i had found the most amazing church ( thanks to jana ) it was old, abandon and gorgeous. i’m working on a whole series of churches so it fit perfectly into the mix.

anyway…w/out further adieu here is the gorgeous ms. jenni from the block.

congrats girl!

got the chance to hang with another great senior from BCS a couple weeks ago. i so love this group of kids. they are all so level headed and fun to be around. i love that. tyler has plans to attend utsa for a business degree and then he’s on to seminary. awesome. he brought his guitar to his session and i was amazed. found it hard to concentrate on doing my job because he has such a natural pure voice and a confidance about him as he plays. it was quite cool.

congrats & best wishes tyler!

i know i said i was going to post pics of the new do but tyler is far more interesting so this is what you get today!

when matt’s sweet mom called to schedule his senior session with me i was super stoked. he was going to my my first male senior session. as we got closer to his session i started to freak out a bit. girls are so easy to shoot. they totally want to be there. a million outfit changes, gorgeous makeup and hair, they’ve spent hours watching america’s next top model so they can nail the poses. um, guys? what the heck do i know about making an 18 year old guy feel comfortable while i’ve got a 10 foot lens hanging off my camera and i’m touting them around a busy hill country town while people gawk at them? i was a tad nervous as i headed to greune one saturday in december.

i was totally set at ease when i met matt’s family. his mom, dad and sister were all there to gawk….errrr, support him. and he was totally honest and told me he was suppose to take his SAT’s that morning, and he honestly was looking more forward to that than having me play deranged paparazzi girl.

it was one of my favorite sessions. honestly. so easy going. i loved talking to him and as we talked i could visually see him become more comfortable in front of the camera. after we were done he told me it “wasn’t as bad as i thought”

that completely rocked.

take a peek.