Jessica Shae

Happy Happy Birthday to Jessica Shae!

Not to Jessica Shae the person . . . O no, Jessica Shae the business.

Because you see, one year ago this past Saturday {March 13th}, a very momentous thing happened. I posted my first blog post. But it was so much more than just a blog post. It was a declaration. It was a new beginning. It was a hope and a wish and a whole lot of dreams all put on display (in a small way) for the whole world to look at.

And I have to send a HUGE thanks to y'all, especially to you who have been reading and commenting from the beginning. Because you are awesome. You have been so kind with your comments and words of encouragement, your sweet emails and Facebook messages. I started out a year ago, wondering if this crazy idea of starting my own photography business would even go anywhere, or if it would go splat - because really, who would trust me to take their picture? Much less PAY me to do it.

But thanks to y'all it has taken off. Because of y'all and the way you have referred my name to your friends or hired me yourself, I have been able to travel all over doing over 40 shoots in the last 52 weeks. I never would have thought that a year later I would have learned so much, traveled so often, done so much shooting, and be looking forward to a year filled with even more shooting and traveling, including 8+ weddings!

At the beginning of this year alot of other photographers did a post looking back over the past year at some of their favorite pictures that they had taken. I wanted to do something along those lines but January was a craaazy month for me, and it ended up just never happening. But I thought now would be a good time to do that. I always like looking back at my old work, and seeing how my style and skill level has changed and (hopefully) improved ;)

I hope you enjoy this little trip down memory lane. It was so hard narrowing down my favorites from a whole year of shooting. So this was the best I could do.

(I uploaded the photo's just like I first posted them, with whatever borders, watermarks, or signatures I was using at the time. I think it's kind of fun to see the evolution of it all :)

Alex was my very first official shoot ;)

Emma: when she turned 7

Cash: Family Portraits

Ben's: Senior Portraits

Krista & Kaela: Sister portraits

Rachel: Anytime Portraits

Neil and Jessica: Day After Session

Joe & Janette: Engagement Session

Caleb & Hope: Engagement Session

Bliss: Anytime

Priscilla: Anytime

Krista: Senior Portraits

Sean: Senior Portraits

Bailey: Senior Portraits

Phil: Senior Portraits

Emily: Senior Portraits

David & Esther: Anytime

Sarah: Anytime

Justin & Hannah: Maternity Session

David & Daniel: School Portraits

Manney: Family Portraits

Self: Family Session

Shawn: Senior Portraits

Mill's: Family Portraits

Farney: Family Portraits

Callahan Charles

Kim Hughes: Anytime

Rachel: Anytime

Elisabeth: Bio Portraits

When I originally began to be interested in photography, I mainly took pictures of landscapes, flowers, and things of that nature. That slowly turned into a love of people photography, but I still like taking pictures of anything and everything really, so although I don't normally showcase these types of pictures here, I thought I would add a couple of my favorites just for fun :)

Thank YOU all again for your amazing and awesome support this past year. You have made it fun, exciting and I have learned so much! As a thank you to each one of you, I am offering a free 8x10 print of your choice to each of my clients that have hired me over the past year! Even if a picture from your shoot was not a part of the post, as long as you had a shoot with me in the last year, just shoot me an email (jessicashaephotog@gmail.com) and let me know which picture you would like to have printed!

I am busy working out my shooting/traveling schedule for the next few months, April- June are already pretty cram packed! I have 8 weddings I'm shooting, 4+ portrait sessions, two friends weddings I'm attending, and another friends graduation. It's going to be craaaazy! Im so excited about it all, but if you are considering booking a portrait session or a wedding, now's the time to do it while I still have time available! I look forward to working with you all more in the future and making lots of new friends in the process!

Much Love.
Jessica Shae

Shawn was referred to me by one of our mutual friends Sean that I took Senior Portraits for, I guess Sean/Shawn/Shauns run in packs - or something??? ;) I didn't actually get to meet Shawn until the day of the shoot, but right from the begining I knew it was going to be fun. I'm always a little wary going into shoots with guys, because generally speaking, guys don't like having their picture taken. Most of the guys I have talked to would gladly forgo the senior picture ordeal, but there's this little issue of mothers and grandmothers that are just dying to see their son or grandson, all duded up in a suit or something nice and having their pictures taken. I must admit that I have been lucky to have guy clients who are - to put it plainly - the BOMB. Mmhhmmm. . .you know you're jealous.

I had absolutely nothing to worry about with Shawn. He was honestly so laid back, so fun, so easy to take pictures of, I thought about asking him to give lessons to all my future guy clients. Ok, so maybe I didn't actually think that . . . but he was really THAT good. There are times when I am on a shoot and taking pictures of people, walking from location to location, just talking and laughing, and I forget that I'm working. I love it when when clients who were complete strangers before the shoot, feel like old friends by the end of the shoot.

I just kinda love my job.

Alot.

But on to the thing you all really want to see, the pictures of Mr. Natural Model Shawn Cherian.

The location for the shoot part of the time was the back of this very old warehouse in downtown Denver . . . I loved it. It was so beautiful!

He is a guitarist that has only been playing for a short time, has taught himself mostly, but when he was playing for me on the shoot it was so good! People with natural talent like that just make me sick ;P Can I be like that when I grow up? Please?

Goodness, the light was sooo delicious, I wanted to eat it. I don't think I will ever EVER get tired of those last few minutes of sunlight before the sun goes to bed. It's my absolute favorite time of day for sure.