Here’s a sneakpeak from Taylor’s senior session this week.

We just got the natural light studio put back together and ready for shooting again. My Aunt Nita of “Two Girls and a Brush” has spent the last two weeks priming and painting the interior and has it looking fabulous. We’re staining the exterior of the natural light studio to match the house, garage and main studio. Next we plan to tackle the landscaping project between the workshop and the natural light studio. It seems never-ending, but we’ll get there.

Matthew Kessler, pictured a few posts back with his sisters, hauled out and spread two loads of river rock from Flora Ready Mix.  He did a great job spreading the gravel evenly and getting rock close to the natural light studio without getting stuck.  Thanks, Matthew!

Check out my new website at http://www.brittbailey.com

It’s still a work in progress because I’m having to resize images for this portrait site vs. my old portrait and wedding one, but hopefully I’ll get it populated with more images and text soon.

I’m on two different senior photographer internet forums to keep an eye on the latest trends in senior photography across the country. One thing that I keep reading and resisting is that I need to send out direct mail to seniors, not just once, but at least three times, preferably more. I’m not opposed to spending money on advertising, but I hate junk mail on so many levels. So, I’ve come up with a plan to try to give my advertising budget back to clients rather than to some big postcard company and stamps.

First off, senior sessions are half price until August 1. Now for the give back part. Any senior who has a session before August 1 can choose between getting 16 free wallets of the same pose (my regular summer promotion) OR they can get 50 double-sided color business cards that have cash value. One side will have an image of the senior with their name. The other will have a second image of the senior along with www.brittbailey.com and that the card is worth 8 free wallets if it is brought back in by another client. Each card that comes back in generates $25 cash back to the senior pictured on the card.

So, a summer senior in my give back program chooses to get the 50 cash back cards. He or she gives them out to friends. Friends who schedule after that accumulate as many cards as they can from their friends and bring all they have to me. Say the friend finds five cards from seniors who came here this summer, then they bring those to me, I photocopy them, punch them and give them back. Then that person would get five free sets of wallets (8 each) of any pose they ordered as a print. Each person whose card shows up, gets a $25 cash credit or can qualify for products. December 1 of this year, I’ll add up all the credits and send out checks or products to those whose cash back cards showed up. If I got back 5 cards from one senior, then that senior will get a check for $125. Alternatively, with 5 credits, they can get a 10 image 4×6 album of poses they ordered prints from their session, a $250 value.

The cash back cards are good for any portrait session, not just seniors. However, they need to be back in by December 1 in order for the senior to get their cash back.

Second, there is no limit on how many cards a person can bring in or how many credits a senior can accumulate (other than 50 ) My only requirement is that the free wallets have to be of poses ordered in another print size.

I plan to print the give back program cards until August 1.

I think this will be fun!

Hard to believe that three weeks ago we were wearing jackets. It has been so wet that the fields have set fallow longer than usual and annuals like yellow rocket have had time to bloom.

I first met Ashley at Morgan & Stephen’s wedding. And Justin works with his dad at Carson Auction and Real Estate. I really enjoyed spending time with them during their engagement session and am looking forward to their wedding this summer.

Just one for now of Amanda and Cori’s newest addition from our session last weekend. Isn’t he adorable?

We just got home from a quick trip to Chicago. I had a one day photography workshop, which we turned into a little three day family vacation. I have more images to post, but here’s one for now of Ada at the Shedd Aquarium.

This is a sneak peak for Holly, of one of her soon-to-be four-year-old twin boys, Jack and Sam. Jack and Sam are as serious about Spider-Man as my daughter, Ada, is about 101 dalmations. They love to wear their Spider-Man outfits and I wanted to honor that obsession. Anyway, I’ll add a picture of Sam as soon as I can, but for now, here’s Jack, the up and coming face of Spider-Man.

I’m adding the image below only because my five year old walked by, saw it on the screen and said, “Let me look at that again!  How did you do that?!”  Using her as an indicator, Jack and Sam will find it equally amusing.

I’ve been moving my bee hives around and set up a new hive last week. In the process I threw out an old bee hive super because the corners rotted out. We burned the bee super in the firepit in our backyard last night and at the risk of making it sound like we’ve gone trippy down here in Bunnyville, I have to say that the bee box burned beautifully. I went and got the camera, figuring it was going to be interesting if I managed to melt or otherwise mess up an expensive lens taking pictures of a bonfire. Anyway, here’s our fire dog, and in case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t photoshop it to make it look more “dog-like.”