More photo news

So...I got two photo orders today. One from Red dress's aunt in Pennsylvania, and another from her family. Woohooo! Now I have a lot of work to do to get it ready. Then, this week I am going home for Thanksgiving. I'll be busy there too though doing some more senior pics for my niece (she is my willing guinea pig) and some pics for the kids on the other side of the family: semi-posable kids!- Not that I particularly like posed pictures - but at least they wont be running wild like my kiddos, and a three month old niece - which means possible sleeping baby pics :)
Fun fun fun!!!

Happy happy!!

Well, on the one hand happy. On the other hand I am at home right now because Jonathan came home sick from daycare - diarrhea and feeling bad :(
But, I was really really happy yesterday because the parents of the girl whose senior portraits I did that I blogged about (complained about) finally called! They said they were sorry for not getting back to me before, but they have been having trouble picking which pictures they want - with talking to family members to see which they want, etc. They actually are planning to buy one of my packages plus the CD!!!!! I am so happy. As you may have read in my previous post, I was really bummed about not hearing from these people for over 3 weeks. I thought they must have not liked the pics and went with someone else, since my rule is if you don't buy anything you don't pay anything (no sitting or session fee). But the mom said they really liked them all and were just having such a hard time picking which ones they wanted and how many of each, etc.
So, there we go. I am a worry wart. I can finally rest easy about this!! And maybe I am becoming a good photographer?

My new toy

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Originally uploaded by Sweet Portrayal

Chuck got me a black backdrop for my b-day. I've been forcing Gracie and Jonathan to model for me : )

Good Business?

So I decided what to do about the red dress girl. I am going to send her an 8x10 of the one of her on the bench and wallets of her in the letter jacket, just so she can see how the pictures will look printed. I will also tell her I can send her a pic for facebook if she friends Sweet Portrayal. At least maybe that will guilt her dad into at least let me know what's going on. Any more suggestions? This is so much harder than just taking good pics...(not that that is incredibly easy)

Me and my insecurity

Click on the one above, it looks really nice full-screen.



There are a lot of things that I could write about now, but I am going to write about the most selfish and conceited one.
So I did this senior photo shoot almost 3 weekends ago. I thought that the pictures turned out really nice. Of course, they could have been better, I suppose, but to me they were definitely worth the price. As soon as I posted them to my website, the parents seemed very pleased. They wrote, "there are too many wonderful pictures to choose from." Then that was the last I heard from them! I emailed the father (the one who contacted me in the first place to do the pics) twice now and he hasn't written me back. Monday, I resorted to calling, just to see if they wanted any special effects or anything (like darkened borders or something) - at least that was my cover. I wanted to know - were they really not pleased - did they go somewhere else? I still haven't heard anything back from them. Usually people email me after the session quite a bit. And they always respond to my emails - I'm really worried. On the other hand, their online viewing doesn't end until December 17th, so maybe they are just procrastinating - too busy to write back.
I feel like a single person again, waiting by the phone or something. I know I'm obsessing, but this is important to me.
Let me know what you think. I posted a few of the pics to the blog, and you can see the rest at www.sweetportrayal.com, then online proofing and "Jennifer." The password is "senior".

Yay Fall, and yay Gracie!

Thursday was Gracie's first birthday!! I got some cute pictures to commemorate:





On my wonderful Wednesday, I took the kids to Creve Coeur Lake. I pushed Gracie in the stroller as Jonathan rode his bike. Speaking of wonderful Wednesdays, I have begun to consider going back to full time. After all deductions, paying babysitter, etc, we would be netting another $500 per month. We could really use it, but we can live with what we're making now...tightly. Is it worth it?? I am going to poll the audience - look in the sidebar and vote, please...I need some guidance.




In other news, I received my first paid photo order this week. It may be the last for awhile since it is getting cold outside and I'm an outdoor only photographer for now. I did book a session this week for the end of November. Then I realized I would be out of town for Thanksgiving, so I'm going to have to reschedule.
Oh, I almost forgot! Gracie is now a walker!!! She has been stumbling around for awhile, but on her birthday she really started walking on her own! Yea, Gracie!!!