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! :)

Accidental Awesomeness {personal}

I can't stop laughing at this picture.

I was at my grandparents house this weekend, trying to take a picture of this really cool chili plant my grandmother has. And I totally didn't see my little bro who was inside the house - doing what little brothers do best, acting like a dork ;)

Sometimes the picture you were meaning to take and the picture you come out with are two different things. And sometimes the accidental picture is the best.

And by the way - I love my brother, he's the coolest dork I know ;)

Much Love.

Jessica Shae

Random is my life: personal

This blog post is what most people call random.

And while random is not something that you can write a cute little blog post about and tie it up neatly with a bow - random is exactly what my life is made up of these days - so that's what you're going to get ;) It's kind of like my life threw up on my blog, or something. So settle in (because I have alot of randomness - therefore the post is rather long) and try not to be to bored.

I went to New Jersey last week - another state to check off my I've-been-there-list! I actually drove up there with my brother. Alllll the way from Dallas. Yeah, it was a crazy long trip but so much fun :) What could be better than a 24 hour road trip with your best friend, fun music, almost zero sleep, stopping for food at 10 PM in a scary little town in TN, being awake for both the sunset AND the sunrise, and playing with your new iphone?!? Very few things I tell you.

One of the main reasons I went to Jersey was because I was shooting a wedding there last Saturday, with a wedding party of - 24 people. Oh yes, we definitely had fun with that! Can't wait to post about it :) You can see a few more pictures of their wedding on my facebook page.

While we were in Jersey my brother and I stayed with friends that live there and they took us to Ocean City the first night we were there - If you could package up Summer, all the sights and smells and beauty of it, I think it would turn out looking alot like this place at sunset. It was just so gorgeous.

And my favorite picture that I have taken to date with my cell phone.

Oh laaaands, I just love it so so much.

And then another day we went to Philly - a place full of amazing sights and history, and I got to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall for the first time! Admitting that that was exciting for me probably classifies me as a total nerd, I know ;)

Some of you may have read my tweet about being in the "City of Love" (and my brother corrected me later and said that it was the "City of Brotherly Love" - but I like my version better ;) photographing the cutest couple ever. Yes, they were definitely the cutest - and I'm going to be nice and let you see a little sneak peek of them.

On another completely random note: I've started trying to take more nature/detail pictures. Taking pictures of flowers and the gorgeous outdoors is what originally got me hooked on photography, but these days I feel like I don't do nearly enough of it.

This beautiful girl (yes, the same one in the picture above) let me take some portraits of her one night when all this yummy light was just kiiiilling me. . .

. . .and then in turn practiced some of her amazing photography skills on me :)

And that is just a peek into the random-ness of my life right now. I'm also playing Soccer mom to 5 little rugrats - er - darlings for a week while my parents are in Colorado celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary! Mom (I know you're reading this;) and you'll be proud to know that I've kept them all fed and clean(ish) for the past 3 days, and I forgot Emma at the store yesterday but realized within 15 minutes that she wasn't in the car so it was no biggy really.

I kid, I kid, it was more like . . . ten, at the most ;)

Much Love.

Jessica Shae

***Update: I was toootally kidding about leaving my little sister somewhere, but apparently alot of people thought I was serious. I was a joke people - it was a joke. I'm waaaay to responsible for that! ;)

[ promise reminder ]

Dusk is my absolute favorite time of day.

I love the way the light turns this golden yellow color and dances across the grass and makes you feel like you are basking in the warmth of a great big dandelion. I love watching the light fade from golden yellow to the colors of cotton candy, light blue, pink and lavender. It never ceases to amaze me, and during the Summer, almost every night I find an excuse to be out in it - to watch all the magic happening around me.

And I never never get tired of it. How could I, with an infinitely creative God designing each one every night? These pictures are from one of my favorite sunsets of the Summer so far, (taken with my cell phone) because it seemed like a special sunset - designed just for me, by a Creator who knew just what was going on in my heart.

Something I've been focusing on alot lately is trusting God, not only because He commands me too, but because I really want to learn to believe He is worthy of my trust. It may seem simple, and cliche, but it's alot harder than it sounds . . . for me at least. And so because of that, I have been thinking alot about His promises, and how He has fulfilled or is in the process of fulfilling every promise that He has ever made to me.

So when I saw this rainbow in the sky while swinging on the swings at the park the other night with my little siblings. . .I felt like God had put it there just for me.

The same summer sky - in 3 different directions. Isn't it just gorgeously amazing!?

Much Love.

Jessica Shae

[real pictures . of real people]

Once upon a time there were people.

And they were real.

Mom's ran around all day kissing booboo's, making peanut butter and jelly and hot dogs, and sometimes there just wasn't time to put on make-up or curl their hair.

Dad's came home tired from a long day of work, put on their favorite t-shirt (which happened to be very hole-y. Apparently it's called, "just broken in".) some shorts and crammed a ball cap on their head.

Little kids ran around shirtless all day. . .

. . .sometimes with food on their face.

And life was happy.


And they took pictures just like this.

They had acne, bad hair days, and sometimes their clothes didn't even match.

But guess what? They still took pictures. Usually with a little throw away camera. And they printed them out, framed them or put them in photo albums, and then every holiday or maybe just on random rainy days, they would pull out those photo albums, and relive the memories. Peering at the somewhat grainy, slightly off center, usually blurry pictures, they would laugh and sigh, remembering back to those happy days. They would giggle at so-and-so's nap hair. Or point out that dad was wearing socks with sandals - agaaain.

And then, slowly but surely something started to change. All of a sudden, everyone wanted one of those crazy awesome new digital SLR cameras. And then it seemed that there was this new un-spoken rule that any picture that went anywhere (i.e. Facebook, blog, picture frames, etc...) had to be photoshopped (or at least touched up in picasa for crying out loud!) And pictures were no longer stored in photo albums, where they could be pulled out at random and looked through, but instead were stored neatly on hard drives, to be lost and forgotten.

I posted a new album of pictures on Facebook the other day entitled "[life's not always picture perfect.]" and in the description I said this:

"Sometimes as a photographer there is this pressure to make every picture you take, everywhere, at all times, a work of art. But guess what? Life doesn't work like that. It's not always picture perfect. There are times when all you have is a cell phone camera, or a little point and shoot camera, or maybe even one of those little throw away film cameras from Walmart. And sometimes that's all you need to capture the moment. Yeah, it might be a little grainy, or underexposed, or blurry, or whatever, but who cares. They are memories - documented. Sometimes you just need some real life pictures where everyone looks a little messy and un-edited, where the kids have pb&j smeared everywhere, where you've already taken all your make-up off for the day and you're in your pj's, those are the pictures that you will take out with the grandkids someday and talk about. So - in honor of preserving memories no matter what the equipment, these are just pictures. Of real people. Some taken with a film camera, some with my point and shoot, and maybe a few from my cell phone."

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not advocating the turning away from ever having any professional quality pictures taken (and thus neatly doing away with the need for my profession) and you aren't going to find me showing up to your wedding with a little point and shoot throw away camera (although I might have a Polaroid camera lurking somewhere nearby for creative use ;) and I'm also not saying that photoshop is evil and you shouldn't be using it.

no, no, no.

Here is what I am saying.

Let's start taking and printing and framing real pictures again.

I realized a while back that I was getting so stressed out with making every picture that "perfect picture" that I was missing moments all around me.

Sometime last year I came across Chase Jarvis's work, and quickly became enamored with what he calls "iphone art" and his philosophy behind it. He says: "I hope to underscore--perhaps legitimize--the idea that an image can come from any camera, even a mobile phone. Inherently, we all know that an image isn't measured by it's resolution, dynamic range, or anything technical. It's measured by the simple--sometimes profound, other times absurd, or humorous, or whimsical--effect that it can have on us."

The first time I read that (and every time I've read it since!) my heart started clapping! Because it's so so true! Yes, beautiful pictures can be taken with really expensive equipment and made even more beautiful with really nice editing software, but the same impact can come from a picture with the little 3mp camera in your pocket on your phone.

All those pictures at the top of this post, were taken with a throw away film camera. And guess what? I LOVE them. They make me happy just looking at them. They bring back memories. I don't look at them and think, "Omw--the exposure is waaaay off on that one." Or, "I can't believe they didn't take the time to apply the rule of thirds in this picture."

Here recently on my last few trips I have bought a throw away camera to take with me just to snap random pictures with, and it's been so much fun to experiment with it a little! Instead of spending alot of time thinking about f/stops and shutter speed, I just see something that makes me happy, and take a picture to remember it.

So, my challenge comes in two parts. First--go take pictures. Wherever you are, with whatever you have. And second--just because you are using a cell phone camera or a throw away camera, don't try to take ugly pictures, try to take good ones! Some of my favorite pictures that I've ever taken are ones that I took before I had a really nice camera, or knew how to use editing software, or knew what aperture and shutter speed even meant. In our ignorance, I think we can take some of the most beautiful pictures just because we are shooting on instinct, and not based off of what the back of our camera tells us.

I've decided that to hold myself accountable to do this I am going to start posting a picture once a week that I love (and the reason I love it) that was taken with either my phone camera, point and shoot or my old school film camera. And no editing allowed ;)

And yes, if you are looking for someone to take those once a year professional pictures for your family, or need someone to document your wedding day, I would love to do that for you. But in the in-between times . . .

[pull-out-your-camera, and click.]

Much Love.

Jessica Shae