Hope Helms: headshots {frisco, tx engagement and wedding photographer}

It's always an honor when another artist asks me to do portraits for them. . .not to mention a little nerve-wracking ;) Hope is a photographer based out of Ft. Worth and a friend of mine for going on 4 years now! She's this adorably petite little cutie with head of curly hair (I may or may not be slightly biased towards clients with curly hair;) You might remember her from this shoot I did for her about a year and half ago when she originally launched her blog and site. I love repeat customers! ;)
She is currently rebranding her business and doing a little bit of redesign on her site, so she wanted to get some new pictures for it! We spent the afternoon drinking coffee, laughing, talking about life and what God's been doing in our lives over the past year. And taking pictures of course :) Enjoy looking at these and then go check out Hopes work and leave her some love, she's pretty awesome!


















Absolutely amazing light + beautiful girl = happy heart

Much Love.

Jessica Shae

Portraits 2010: contest {dallas, tx portrait and wedding photographer}

It's December!

Christmastime!

Holiday Cheer, Christmas music, parties, and most importantly celebrating the King of Kings coming to earth in the form of a little baby. I still look forward to this time of year almost as much as I did when I was 7 counting down the days to each exciting holiday event, and especially counting down the days until the BIG DAY (it's only 23 days away, in case you were wondering ;).

I'm also excited about this month because I've decided I'm not booking anymore clients until next year, so no more portrait sessions until next year, and other than second shooting a couple of times, I wont really be doing much shooting this month, other than for personal projects! I've needed this break for quiiiite sometime, and I'm looking forward to working on alot of the projects that get pushed aside when I'm just trying to keep up with editing, etc. I'll also be mixing things up here on the blog this month, doing a lot of fun stuff, starting today!!

I've wanted to do this for a while, and since we're now coming to the end of the year, I think this is a great time to do it. This past year has been crazy, fun, amazing, hard, stretching, wonderful, stressful, and in a lot of ways so much better than I could have dreamed it would be. I've booked/shot more weddings than I thought I would in my first year of shooting weddings, my business has grown so much faster than I dared to hope it would, and I've gotten to travel WAY more than expected. And I know that the biggest thank you for all of that needs to go to God, who does above all that I could ever ask or think time and time again for me. He opens doors and pushes me out into new things that scare me to death, but that I know I need to be pursuing ;) I'm grateful for His guidance, and provision that He's given time and time again this year, I am where I am because of His grace!

But the second big thank you has to go to you, my family, blog readers, clients, and friends. You've written me sweet emails and blog comments, referred your friends to me, booked me to shoot your wedding when I hadn't even shot one wedding yet, and I can't thank you enough for all of that! But, this is my little attempt to say a HUGE thank you to all of you. I'm going to be holding a contest on my facebook page for all of you, my faithful clients!

And here's how it's all going to work ;)

I've gone through and picked out my favorite pictures from portrait sessions, engagement/couple sessions, and weddings I've shot in the last year. I'm going to post them in three different facebook albums/blog posts over the next couple of days, and then let all of YOU vote on which ones you like the best. And the client with the most votes on their picture by December, *12th will win a professional quality 10x13 print of their photo. And THEN, the 3 winners of the 3 different categories (portraits, engagement/couple, weddings) will be entered to win a free gallery wrap canvas of their photo.

Phew, I hope that all made sense ;)

So without further ado, I'm going to start it all off with some of my favorite portraits from the past year, have fun looking through them, and then don't forget to go vote for them on my facebook page! Any votes I get here in the comments won't be counted.

The Manney Family

The Mills Family

The Self Family

The Chaney Family

They Farney Family

The Crain Family

Rachel Leigh: senior

Tim & Jacquelyn: maternity

Daniel & Kaela: maternity

Ashley Hall: senior

Nellie Ayon

The Piper Family

The Morris Kids

Hope Helms: headshots

The Green Family

Ready to vote!? You can click here to head on over to the facebook page and click "like" if you haven't already, and then decide which one is your favorite picture in this album and vote for it! And remember, it only counts as a vote if you comment on the picture you like, and say "vote"! "liking" the picture doesn't count as a vote ;) Can't wait to share all of my favorite couple/engagement pictures with y'all tomorrow!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Much Love.

Jessica Shae

*Because votes are coming in so quickly, and because I don't want to drag it out I've shortened the contest, so now all votes have to be in by December 12th! :)

Denver Portraits: Ayon Kids

I call them my Colorado family.

I've always loved the Ayons, (pronounced I-own, like "I own you" ;) Krista has been one of my best friends since I was 17, and after visiting them 5 times over the course of the last 9 months (usually for about two weeks at a time) they definitely became more than just good friends, they became family.

So getting to take individual pictures of all the kids while I was there last time to update Mrs. Ayon's wall of pictures in her living room was obviously so much fun. Who wouldn't want to take pictures of gorgeous/handsome people with great smiles?! We ended up taking the pictures over several different days because everyone's schedule was different and we couldn't get everyone together at the same time, which meant that I wasn't able to get any group shots. But that was fine because all they really wanted were individual pictures of everyone to frame.

Desiree

She laughs alot (but then again, everyone in the Ayon Family laughs alot! ;) sings beautifully, has blonde moments just like me and Krista, and can quote You've Got Mail and every other important chic flic that you should have memorized right along with the best of us. I like her alot ;) She is married to a youth pastor and lives in Oklahoma (doesn't she look like the most adorable little youth pastors wife?!) and I was so glad that it worked out for us to both be visiting Denver at the same time last month.

They can work it as good or better than any models I've seen! Look at the fierceness ;)

Stephen

Stephen and I were a part of the same graduating class in '07 (Woot Woot!) and have been good friends for years. He puts up with mine and Krista's non-stop laughter when we are together, he valiantly ate burnt pancakes back in the day when Krista and I decided to try our hand at cooking. (I can cook people . . . my defense still remains that I was working with faulty pots and pans ;) And every time you hear his laugh you want to laugh too, even if you don't know what you're laughing about. He's a pretty awesome dude.

Krista.

My dear darling best of friends, laughing buddy, chic flic quoting, gorgeous, matter of fact, hilarious friend. I have so many good memories/inside jokes/and embarrassing moments with this girl. It seems that every time I'm with her something crazy happens. She is almost 4 years younger than me but that has never hindered us being the best of friends and having the greatest times together. (In fact, I think I like it because it gives me an excuse to pretend I'm in Highschool all over again;) I can't believe that she's all grown up now and headed to college this fall...now who will I come visit in Colorado?!

Eric

So one time I visited them, and he was just a little 12 year old boy....I come back 2 months later and he's grown a foot, gotten braces, and all of a sudden doesn't look so much like a little boy anymore! How on earth did that happen? Eric is fun, because he lets me treat him like one of my little brothers. I tease him, and he teases right back. He also happens to be a pretty good lookin' dude, a heartbreaker in the making ;)

Janelle

Better know as Nellie (unless of course she's in trouble) and this little girl is just about the cutest thing you will ever see. I know I say alot of my clients are cute, and they are! But honestly....she tops them all. 3 going on 25 she has me (and everyone else pretty much!) wrapped around her finger. She knows how to get what she wants, (like the time Krista told her that if she wanted ice-cream she was going to have to give her daddy puppy dog eyes, so Nellie promptly turned to her dad and started barking and blinking her eyes. Pretty sure she got the ice-cream ;) and she alway has a very clear idea of what exactly it is she wants. Namely: "yip-gloss" (translation = lip-gloss) preferably pink, with sparkles in it. You will notice there are just a few more pictures of her than anyone else in this post . . . because I don't think anyone can argue the fact that she's the cutest ;)

Please note the shiny pink lip-gloss that had to be applied before pictures began. I'm not even kidding . . . she insisted.

I love my tiny friends . . . I think Desiree is about as short as me. And even cooler actually ;)

Everyone has different things that they notice first about people, and I'm pretty sure eyes are one of those things for me. I think it's so amazing how different everyone's can be, the different shades, and ways they can change colors etc. Well, Nellie here wins the award for the absolute coolest eyes I have ever seen, because they are completely black. Honestly there is no color difference between the middle of her eye and the ring of color around it . . . it's so amazing!

I told her to open her eyes bigger for me . . . she's so obedient ;)

This is my favorite of Stephen . . . just chillin in the front yard.

I think people are going to start getting suspicious that I make sure and pick model-ish looking best friends just so I can take gorgeous pictures of them and have an awesome portfolio. I promise that's not what's going on . . . it just happens! Lucky for me ;)

I think every boy should have a pair of converse, or "cons" as Eric calls them.

No, not praying, just . . . blissful?

That's it . . . I want to eat her up she's so stinking cute.

Aaaaand my favorite favorite favorite. :)

I had to add this picture that my friend Evy took of us when she flew out to Denver to second shoot a wedding for me. I love getting pictures with all of my friends whenever I can - because I'm usually the one behind the camera.

I Heart these people - alot.

Much Love.

Jessica Shae