Personal: Richard” Dick” Stout, RIP, passed one year ago this month. Can’t believe it’s already been a year. Mr. Stout passed away just shy of his 82nd birthday, May 5th 2010. Mr. Stout was a unique father and grandfather and he is missed. I keep thinking I will hear him yell out as he comes into our house through our garage door “anybody home?” As a son in law I had a great relationship with Mr. Stout. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about him and how opinionated he was. There was “his way” and there was the “wrong way”. He had a different way of looking at things, especially when it came to finances. One of his famous sayings: “Every dollar saved is ten you don’t have to make”. Mr. Stout was a person who loved to eat and any time you sat down with him he always gave thanks to God first! He loved ice-cream and a mountain of ice-cream was never large enough. So as a tribute to Mr. Richard” Dick “Stout -sometime this month please have a BIG BOWL OF ICE CREAM in his memory.
Until we meet again Mr. Stout.
Meet Sara, class of 2012 from St. Cloud high School. Each year we are on the lookout for the next model/ambassador. Sara not only has met but exceeded our expectations so far. The photo shoot went well. I asked her to bring a variety of clothing and boy did she. Sara is very comfortable in front of the camera. So with very little direction we came up with some great images. If you want to see more go to our blog or facebook and check out her slide show. What does that mean to you? Savings… go see her and ask for her card so you can receive some incredible discounts off your session fee.
Taylor is our model from OHS. She had a calm presence about her during the photo session. I loved working with her. She has that look of the girl next door! She has discounted session cards that you can only get from our model/ambassadors. Soon we will publish her mini video portfolio.
I love the Christmas-New Year time. It really brings the family together and it’s just a different atmosphere than at any other time. Mrs. Belcher called and has been meaning to do a family portrait for two years now. Her daughter “Jennifer” is getting married this summer and she lives in California while her son David lives, where else but NY. Mrs. Belcher lives in the Lakeland area. We have completed their beautiful family portrait and now Mrs. Belcher can enjoy her "family" every time she looks at it . The photo session was complete when Mrs. Belcher came out of the dressing room with a black hat on, I had to do a few more images of just mom. The daughter said that mom wears a hat everywhere. That’s my job... to capture people when they are just being themselves.
Mrs. Duffy commissioned us to photograph her family just before Christmas. She then handed the details over to her son Billy who is very detailed oriented. Billy and I talked, pre-planned and awaited his arrival from NY City. His brother James was coming from Sweden. After all the pre-planning, one thing we did not count on was weather delays in the UK. Billy called me up the day before Christmas to tell me of the delay and at that point I didn’t think the photo shoot was going to happen. Billy was determined to have his family portrait created while they were all together, he went on to say “who knows when we will all be together again!" On the early morning of December 26th we met at the studio and photographed the Duffy family just in time for Billy and his sister Barbara to catch a flight back to NY. The moral of the story is "if there is a will there is a way". On the way home from the airport Billy was the 2nd to the last flight into NY. You may recall the huge snowstorm that hit NY just after Christmas. His taxi spun out of control and hit a guardrail. Fortunately he is a little sore but doing ok. Thank God we did the Duffy family portrait.
Jim commissioned us to create a portrait with his daughter, Alex, who is a first year student at UF. After our consultation Jim had a good idea of what he wanted so we scheduled the session at Chisholm Park just before sunset. According to the sundial app on my phone, sunset was at 5:34 pm on Dec 23, 2010. The weather was beautiful, hardly a cloud in the sky. I placed a strobe just out of camera view to the left at full power 400-watt sec underexposing the sky while exposing for Jim and Alex. This session lasted maybe 10-15 minutes. 3-different poses and the sun was gone. I couldn’t get over how fast the sun went down and with no after glow in the sky, I knew I had it (image). I love my job!
