and the busy season begins!!!!

Our busiest season for taking photos is usually in mid to late summer. The last two weeks have definitely been the start of the busy season. We are booking up VERY quickly with seniors and other portraits. With our new studio we are hoping to "return to our roots", so to speak, by photographing a lot more kids and families. This type of portrait used to be a large part of our work, but has tapered off over the years as we invested more time into senior portraits. I really love photographing seniors, but families (and especially) kids can really be rewarding. The kids can be so cute and so much fun.
Over the last month or so we have had quite a few family and children sittings. Here is one of my favorite photos from all of those. Isn't she just too cute?
Of course we have begun the busy senior season and we are really enjoying that also. We have so many cool things we can do in the new studio. This was a fun photo from today.

SUMMER THEME SPECIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111

Okay....we are finally ready to do our first themed shoot of the year. We wanted to make a special "set" and theme that had a really nice summer feel to it. What says summer better than "the beach". There will be NO SITTING FEE for these themed shoots!!!! Just call and schedule your appointment

July 11, 1pm -3pm
July 12, 1pm - 4pm
July 13, 10am - 6pm

Take a look here at our sample of the summer theme! Bring your kids 6months - 5 years old in their swimsuit, shorts or any other summer clothes and we will take several poses of them on our beach themed background. (individuals or groups of 2 max.) We will upload the photos to our online proofing website where you can view them and place any orders at your convenience. CALL TODAY AS TIMES WILL BOOK UP VERY FAST!!!!!!!
If you have any questions...give us a call at 765-429-7145

Africa Pendants on Etsy.com

In my previous post I mentioned the Africa Pendants that I have been making. My wife put up a little shop on Etsy.com last night so they are available for sale there.
MWASilver.etsy.com . Just in case anyone wondered how to get them!

Jewelry Photography and Africa...

Sometimes it is great to use those photography techniques that I haven't used since college. In my studio photography class (somewhere in the early 90's) one of our assignments was to photography jewelry, or at least, something very shiny. This can be tough because you have to use a "lighting tent" to keep from having a bunch of specular highlights. I of course don't use this technique in my daily photography since people aren't usually all that shiny. However, I recently had to remember all this stuff from 15 or so years ago.

For those who don't know...my wife and I are adopting a baby from Ethiopia. Hopefully sometime in the next year we will be home with our little boy or girl. We are very excited and very impatient. In order to pass the time, I decided to make my wife and I a silver necklace in the shape of Africa to wear as a daily reminder. After I finished ours we had an outpouring of interest in purchasing them. So....I went to work and made a few more and we will see how they sell. Thus...why we needed a photo of a piece of jewelry. I don't think it came out too bad!
We are still trying to decide what to do with the profits from selling the necklaces. We would like to use them to support (at least in part) some African educational charity. Anyway, life leads us in circles sometimes and I had to go back to my past to remember how to do a photo that will affect our future.

Welcome To Ashley!

As I am sure you all expect, the summer season is a crazy time for a studio that specializes in Senior Portrait photography. It has been very busy around here, and I have neglected my blog. First and foremost, I want to introduce everyone to the newest member of the team here at Ailor Photography.... Ashley Blissitt.
Any of you who had your photo taken 4 or 5 years ago may remember Ashley as she worked for us while in High School. She recently graduated from University of South Florida with a degree in Business, and decided to return to the photography business with us. Ashley has always been a very good photographer, in her own right, so we decided to bring her back as our Children and Family portrait specialist. She is wonderful with kids and has a creative modern style that makes for great portraits. She has already helped us to start a milestone program for the first years of your childs life, and some new "Theme" shoots that we will be announcing very soon. (Our first is going to be a "summer, beach" themed shoot scheduled for sometime in July. Check back here in the next week or so to get exact information). We look forward to Ashley helping us out and giving us a boost of fresh, young energy. We hope to use that to keep us on the cutting edge of portrait style.

Vacation

Well, we wrapped up most of the 2009 senior photography season last week and it was time for a little vacation before all the craziness of the 2010 season starts. With us handling the Lafayette Jeff senior contract we know this year is going to be a wild ride.

My wife and I decided to make a trip out to visit her family in Lancaster Pennsylvania over Memorial Day weekend since it is in the gap between senior seasons. It was a nice trip where I got to go trout fishing for a couple of days and even get to see my father-in-law fall in the creek. Fun for me....not so much for him. We also got to see our nephews Brandon, Andrew and Mason and spend some time having fun with them. I took the camera along to take some photos of the boys playing soccer and do a portrait session for them also. Here are a few of the best.

Here is Andrew on the "Pump-track"

And Little Mason on his scooter just before he flipped over the handlebars and crashed

Here is Brandon posing for his portrait.

And here is the best (and only) photo of all the boys...Mason just wasn't going to do what we
wanted him to do.

In all we had a really good time even with the 11 hour drive each direction. It may take a few days for my back to recover, but that is okay. We have our photos of the boys and trout in the freezer!

A fun couple of shoots!

I just wanted a chance to make a quick blog entry so I could post these photos. On Monday I had one of my senior REPS come in for a sitting and we got a chance to use my new "lockers" background. I have to say that it came out really cool. I have been working on getting this background together for a while. Thanks to Main Street Mercantile I got it finished last week. I am really looking forward to seeing what ideas we can come up with using the lockers.
Today I had a sitting over at Purdue. It was an engagement sitting and they had hired the Boilermaker Special to be there for some of their photos. I think every one of their photos came out great, but this is one of my favorites. I can't wait for them to see all the photos.