Ella’s family will be receiving an 11″ x 14″ print of this image. Congratulations!!

This will be the first picture inducted into the new Hall of Fame gallery. Joining it will be the eight other nominees that each received five or more votes. They are: #2 (Just Hangin’ Around), #3 (Mama and Her Little Guy), #4 (Guarding the Guardhouse), #8 (Just Married), #11 (Baby on a Bookshelf), #19 (Just a Little Snooze), #22 (A Mother’s Love), and #24 (Tutu Sweet). Congratulations to all of you!

We had a total of 147 votes for the contest, so I turned to Random.org to find a winner of the $25.00 Jen Marriner Photography gift certificate. As you can see, it chose #73. Congrats to you!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who voted!

Earlier this month I hit the four-year mark for this business. It’s really hard to believe that it has been four years already. I’ve met so many wonderful people and worked with so many great families that the time has just flown by. And over the course of those four years I’ve taken a lot of pictures. I love them all, but some just stand out in my mind and hold a special place in my heart. While I like to keep my website galleries filled with more current work, sometimes I just don’t have the heart to take an older photo out. So, I’m going to be giving some of these older photos a new home, in a new gallery. A Hall of Fame gallery. And you are going to help me choose which ones get in!

I have been accepting nominations for the Hall of Fame gallery over the past week. I have received numerous emails and comments filled with great nominations. Now, it’s time to vote!! Voting will be a pretty straight-forward process:

How to Vote
• Look at the 25 images below and pick your favorite ONE photo. All images are numbered. An image’s number appears directly above the picture.
• Leave a comment on this post with the number of your favorite picture. In the event that you list more than one number, I will take the first one listed as your vote.
• The image with the most votes wins!

The Prizes
• The person or family in the winning image will receive a free print of that image (up to 11″x14″).
• In addition, I will randomly select one voting comment and will award that person a $25.00 Jen Marriner Photography gift certificate!
• The winning image will be the first inductee into the Hall of Fame. Other nominees will also be added, depending on the number of votes received. So even if your favorite image doesn’t win the contest, it may still end up in the Hall of Fame!

More Rules and Info
• Each voting comment must be accompanied by a valid email address. Don’t worry, you won’t go on any sort of list. This is just to ensure fairness in the voting process.
• Only one vote per valid email address will be accepted. Any additional votes will not be counted.
• Voting will be open now through Sunday, July 24th at 11:59pm (Eastern time).
• If your comment does not show up right away, please don’t enter it again. I moderate all comments on this blog and it may take a little bit of time for me to process your comment.
• Make sure you send a link to this post to all of your friends and family members so that they can cast their vote and have a chance at winning the $25.00 gift certificate!

That’s it! Just remember that the number of your favorite picture will appear above the image! (Edited to add: I’ve added titles to each of the images to make it easier to choose the correct number for each picture.)

One additional note: Please be sure that you are leaving your vote in the comments section for the correct post! There are several posts on the first page of my blog, and I’ve been receiving votes on some of the other posts. I have moved those comments over to this post, but please be sure you are commenting on this one in the future!

Now, ready…set…VOTE!!

SICK!

I ended up in urgent care with severe bronchitis last week. Well, at least that explains why I’ve been coughing for over a month.

But after a round of antibiotics I’m feeling much better, and gradually digging myself out from under the mountain of work that’s accumulated. Fortunately today was my last of work at school, and I am now officially on vacation!! I got caught up on all of my emails today, and I only have one gallery left to finish. Then a few book designs, and I’m done! Just in time for the summer rush to begin.

Speaking of summer, if you are planning to schedule a portrait session in July or August, contact me right away!! I was checking my calendar earlier today, and things are booking up fast. While I still have several dates to choose from in July, there is only one remaining weekend session in the month of August! Go here to check my availability for the summer months. And please note that the website with my calendar on it is still under construction. I’ve set it up for client proofing and the calendar, but none of the galleries have been added yet.

I’ll be back soon with a couple more posts, but for now I’ll leave you with a picture of our puppy, Otto, discovering that he does NOT like to swim in our pool.

Mini Sessions: This month’s Mini Session theme is “Rock the Frock.” Have a prom dress in your closet and don’t know what to do with it? Don’t just let it hang there, let’s have some fun with it! Not sure what a Rock the Frock session involves? Well, first check out Taylor’s session from a few weeks back. Then pick a location that you’d like to rock, and give me a call! And if you want to take it beyond just rocking and into full “trash the dress” we can do that as well!

The cost of a Mini Session is just $125.00. You get a 30-minute session, 2 free gift prints (up to 8×10), and 20% off all other prints that you order. Call me today to schedule yours!

Clicks For Conners: This program has been extended for the month of June! Details of the program can be found in this post. Anyone who schedules a Rock the Frock mini session this month will automatically have 10% of their session fee and their print order donated to the Golisano Children’s Hospital. Want to help donate but aren’t interested in rocking a frock? No problem. For the month of June you can call me and let me know that you’d like a Clicks For Conners mini session. It can be any kind of session you want – family, just the kids, senior, whatever. But due to time constraints, no newborn sessions please. Contact me soon if you want to take advantage of this offer. I only have a few session dates remaining for June!

June Session Dates: To help me maintain my sanity while I get through the rest of the school year, I am going to be limiting the number of portrait sessions that I do this month. And if I find that this works well, I may do something similar next month, as I try to balance my photography work with my home life. As I mentioned earlier, the boys have a number of summer day camps that they will be involved in this year, and Mom’s Taxi Service will be working overtime!

Here is what I have available for the month of June (I will update this post as the dates are taken):
• Saturday, June 12th – 8:00am
• Sunday, June 20th – 8:00am or 5:00pm
• Saturday, June 26th – 8:00am or 5:00pm
• Sunday, June 27th – 8:00am or 5:00pm

I am not going to be starting my weekday sessions until July, with one exception: if you live in the Fayetteville-Manlius area and are interested in a portrait session the week of June 28th, please contact me. Grant will be attending MPH’s summer program that week and I will be looking for something to do while he is there. I don’t relish the idea of driving from Fulton to Manlius and back TWICE every day, so if I can book some portrait sessions in the area during that time, it would be great! He will also be at MPH the week of July 12th, so contact me if you are interested in doing something that week as well.

Gift Registry: Expecting a baby soon? Want to create beautiful portraits of that precious little one that you will cherish forever? Then you need to get on my Gift Registry! This has been a hit with expectant moms since I launched it at the beginning of the year. Call or email me for details!

That’s about all the news I have this month. I’ll end with a more personal update on the newest member of our family…

Otto: People have been asking about how our puppy has been doing lately. He is growing like a weed, and we have determined that he is going to end up being one big dog!! He is now housetrained, and he likes being in his crate, so life is pretty good. He loves having his sister living next door and they love to play together. But if for some reason he isn’t able to have his “play date” with her on a particular day, watch out! He gets very hyper and whiny. He’s also not happy when the boys get on the bus to go to school. He used to just sit and whimper, but now he totally freaks out! Running around, jumping up on the door, barking like crazy. He misses his boys during the day! Here’s a recent picture of the Otto-bot:

Weekday Evening Sessions

Now that the sun is staying up later, I can open up weekday evening sessions. If your weekends are jam-packed with activities and you just don’t have a spare moment for a portrait session, how about an evening session? The light at that time of day is just gorgeous – perfect for portraits. I can schedule sessions most weekday evenings, except for Wednesdays.

May Mini Sessions

Speaking of portrait sessions, this month’s Mini Session theme is “Mommy and Me.” Hey dads, want to get her the perfect Mother’s Day gift? How about the gift of beautiful portraits of her and the kids! You know she’ll love it. And moms, here’s an idea for a great surpise Father’s Day gift – schedule a portrait session for you and the kids this month, then next month you can present him with some great pictures for his desk at work. You can’t beat the price – for just $125.00 you get a 30-minute session with me, 10 fully-edited proofs to choose from, 2 gift prints (up to 8×10), and 20% off any additional prints that you order. And since I love doing all kinds of family sessions, we can do some “Daddy and Me” sessions this month as well.

Clicks For Conners

If you live in the Fulton area, I’m sure you have heard about how leukemia has hit one of our own families. Tim Conners, a freshman at G. Ray Bodley, was diagnosed at the beginning of April. He has been doing battle with this disease with the help of his family, his friends, and the wonderful folks at the Golisano Children’s Hospital in Syracuse. You can follow Tim’s progress through the journal on his Caring Bridge site. Be sure to leave a comment in the guestbook! You can also show your support on the Tug For Tim Facebook page. And since the Children’s Hospital has been helping Tim so much, I think we need to find a way to help them out in return. So I’ve come up with a new program called Clicks For Conners. I will be donating 10% of the session fee of all May Mini Sessions directly to the Golisano Children’s Hospital. I will also donate 10% of all print orders that I receive from those mini sessions. I am very excited about this new project, and I can’t wait to see how much money we can raise! Be sure to click the “Share the Love” link below this post to send it to everyone you know who might be interested in a May Mini Session!

Taylor, my beautiful Class of 2010 senior rep, was the first one to try rocking the frock. And she did a fabulous job! We went out to Fair Haven, where she delighted all of the little girls on the playground. They all thought she was a princess.

And can I just say that Taylor has the most amazing dress ever??

I think this is my favorite shot of the day…

So if you would like to try out the Rock the Frock session, give me a call or email me and we’ll set one up!

Anyway, I thought I would give you all a peek at one of the photo books I offer. This is the SeniorBook. It is a 20-page, 8×8 hardcover book with nice glossy pages. This book comes as a part of the Senior Style collection. A larger version (10×10) is part of the new Senior Class collection.

This book just came in today. Tomorrow it will be going home with Taylor, my beautiful, sweet, and just generally awesome GRB Class of ’10 Senior Rep. Maybe I should wait to post these pics till after she gets the book??

Nah.

My favorite part if these books? The cover. Pick any image you want and I’ll put it right on the front for everyone to see. You can also choose from various leathers and fabrics for your cover, but I think the image cover is much more fun.

A couple of different spreads. You can have several little pictures on each page, or one big one.

You can even add text. Song lyrics, quotations, poems, you name it!

Here Taylor chose one of my favorite poems – The Road Not Taken. (Yeah, totally not in focus, and I totally didn’t care at this point. )

Another nice thing about these books is the binding. You know how in a regular book you sometimes get that part of a picture that gets lost in the spine? No such problem here. The bindings on these books are designed to lay flat, so you don’t lose any part of your image in the middle.

A couple more pics of the outside. Yes, you can even get a picture on the back!

If you are high school senior (or will be next year) and are interested in getting a SeniorBook with your session, just email me or give me a call.

I may feature some additional products here in the future, if I ever get brave enough to try to photograph them again. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see!

Yes, mini sessions are here!

What’s a mini session you ask?

They are just what they sound like – a smaller version of a regular portrait session. Don’t have the time to spend on a longer session? Just want a few quick pictures? Then a mini session is perfect for you. They are great for:
• that family portrait you’ve been meaning to have done
• headshots
• maternity pics
• documenting that first lost tooth
• a quick birthday session

Now here’s the fun part – each month’s mini sessions will have a theme! I’m still working out the details for some of them, but here’s what I have scheduled so far:

April – SPRING!! Do you have a garden full of daffodils and tulips? The perfect flowering tree? Call me! I’m thinking about girls in pretty dresses and boys getting grubby running their trucks around in the dirt. And tutus! I have a bunch of tutus to fit little girls of all ages. Let’s get creative and have some fun!

May – Mommy & Me In honor of Mother’s Day, this month’s mini sessions will be all about the moms. Just Mom and her little sweethearts. Or even a mom with her grown children. Or maybe three (or more!) generations. A session like this would make a perfect gift (hint, hint for all of the dads out there).

June – Rock the Frock These are going to be awesome! Perfect for all of you young ladies looking to do something more with that prom dress that you’ll likely never wear again. We’ll dress you up and find a place that you wouldn’t normally go all dressed up. I’m thinking about a playground, a beach, an old barn, or maybe even riding a horse! (But you’ll need to supply the horse.) These sessions would be great for brides as well.

July – Summer Fun A trip to the beach, a family picnic, playing in the backyard swmming pool, or checking out a baseball game. Pick your favorite summer activity and we’ll get some great pics!

This is just a taste of what I have planned. Stay tuned for the themes for the rest of the year!

The fine print:
• Due to time restrictions, no newborn sessions please.
• The cost of each mini session is $125.00. Payment is due in full when you book your session. This fee is non-refundable. In the event that you are unable to keep your appointment, you may transfer this fee to a different mini session date, or apply it to a full session.
• Your mini session includes a 30-minute portrait session, two free gift prints (up to 8″ x 10″) and 20% off any additional prints ordered from the session. The 20% discount applies only to prints. Albums, canvases, and other items are priced at the normal rates.