Birmingham’s Got Talent Portrait Event! All Stars, Honor Bands, Show Choir, Recitals, Plays and Competitions are all coming to a close for the school year. Do you have a portrait to commemorate the event? Session fee is $49 and includes our basic keepsake portrait package. Additional packages available including wall portraits! Outdoor portraits available weather permitting.
Call 205-807-1223 to schedule your session today!
I hope that everyone is having a wonderful Mother’s Day! Whether it is celebrating with your mom, wife or children, enjoy this day and take every opportunity to tell them how much you love them!
After 20 years of working out of my basement, I am moving into studio space! EXCITING! We will be located in the Galleries on John Hawkins Parkway, next to Scandinavian Design and across from the Galleria. It is a great space, perfect for a photography studio and I am so looking forward to working out of it!
We will still be doing sessions on location and I will upon occasion do a session in my basement. (Can’t let it go completely! LOL!)
We have been so busy with the new photography studio and plans I have failed to tell you about our May Promotions.
In honor of Mother’s Day we are offering free frame & framing for portraits 16×20 & larger. Session may anytime before December 31, 2013 and must be booked before May 31st, 2013 (the end of this month). Great for that special family portrait, high school senior or a special portrait to mark a milestone in life. Call me at 205-807-1223 to schedule your session today!
Did you know that we offer Gift Certificates? Gift Certificates for all occasions, anniversaries, weddings, baby (shower or birth), birthdays, employee gifts, Christmas and…. Mother’s Day!!! For more information about our Gift Certificates, call 205-807-1223.
There are so many talented youth here in the Birmingham Metro Area! We have had All Stars, Honor Band, School Plays, Show Choir, concerts of all kinds…. Do you have a professionally made portrait of your youth as a reminder of the season or the event! If your answer is “no”, well now is your chance! On Friday May 17th we will be having a Birmingham’s Got Talent Portrait Event! The session fee is $49 and will include our basic keepsake package and a webpic. So bring your costume, concert gown/tux, uniform, sports equipment, musical instruments or performing props, award metals and trophies! Show your talent in our Birmingham’s Got Talent Portrait Event!
I woke up a few minutes after 5:00 AM at the sound of weather alert siren. It is about a 1/2-1 mile away and we can hear it well when it goes off. Bad weather had been in the forecast and there are always tornado warnings in the northern part of Jefferson County and of course, we get the warnings… I rolled over and went back to sleep. 5:45 AM I wake up to a noise that sounded like a freight train going through our yard. I was up in a flash! My husband was in the shower. I hollered (southern for yelled) at him to say, “Tornado!!!! Get downstairs!” Banged on my daughter’s door (she was already up) and we grabbed our animals and headed to our “safe spot” downstairs in the basement.
By the time we were situated downstairs, it was long over… And the neighborhood was a mess. But just a mess.
Here are some photos of a tree that boarders ours & neighbor’s property. It was a very old, very big hardwood.
Landing on the neighbor’s driveway and cars. But no one’s house and we all still had power.
My husband is standing next to the tree holding an umbrella. It is still raining at this point. Still a tad dark. I had to set the camera on a low light setting.
Twisted and snapped like a toothpick. Our neighborhood is full of old hardwoods and this was pretty much the scene through out. Many pulled out by the roots. Some houses and cars had trees laying across them. 
This was only the beginning. You see, this tornado had been in Tuscaloosa, Alabama just a short time before coming to visit us and most of the people there were without power…. that includes TV and radio. As memory recalls, even some of weather alert sirens were down.
I cannot remember if school started on time that day or if we had a delayed opening. I do know that our school got out early because of impending weather forecast for that afternoon. From there we were all glued to the TV. Coverage is so much different than it used to be… Instant and live!
I can remember watching this news station as they were reporting live and feeling helpless.
This weather system heads towards Birmingham….
And we are again horrified as we watch live video on TV. The cloud cover stretched for miles. We went outside to watch what was debris, torn leaves all with the smell of fresh cut wood “rain” down upon us.
Before heading to Birmingham (actually skirting around the northern side) the tornado hit an area called Pleasant Grove. And nearly wiped it out.
This is what it left in it’s path.
This road used to be full of houses.
The area pulled together. Kitchens were set up everywhere. National Guard brought in. Volunteers started coming in from all over the country, just to help were ever they could.
Collection points set up all over. Donations of all kinds.
In a moment, lives were changed. And we persevered because that is what we do! I have heard more testimonies and stories of how God used this horrible weather to His glory and honor.
I love it!
God Bless America!
Last fall I received a phone call about scheduling a session. I became so excited! It was Briana Kinsey’s mother scheduling a portrait session for Briana!. (A student of the University of Alabama [Roll Tide!!!], was away at school at the time.) Studying biology and pre-med, she is the daughter of Robert and Velda Kinsey of Hoover and was Crowned Miss Hoover on July 16th, 2012.
One very exciting fact about Briana is she is one of Hoover’s Own! Trace Crossings Elementary, RF Bumpus Middle School (where my daughter currently attends) and a Hoover High School Graduate! When we went through the clothes that she brought and I saw this orange linen dress, I knew we had to get at least one photograph on a black background “Bucs” style. :-)
Briana’s platform is Daring to Defeat Diabetes. Since the diagnoses of her mother and several family members, diabetes education and prevention is near and dear to Briana’s heart. She recently raised over $6000 for the Sugar Falls Day Camp with a Sugar Free Sweetheart walk at the Winfrey Hotel. She also raised $2500 with the Dance Away Diabetes in the fall of last year.
Is how I describe this last photo, which is my favorite. She wanted one in her evening gown with her banner for the Miss Alabama Program Book.
The Miss Hoover Pageant is the precursor to the Miss Alabama Pageant. And the new Miss Alabama will go on to represent Alabama in the Miss America Pageant. Briana will represent our city the week of June 5th-8th at the Wright Center on the Samford University Campus. Our thoughts and prayers go with Briana during this exciting time of her life!
The next Miss Hoover Pageant will be July 16th, 2013. To find out more about the Miss Hoover Pageant go to http://www.misshoover.org/index.php
There are several causes, organizations and charities that we love and support with our studio through donations, pro bono work and community service. April is the month for Autism Awareness. Our studio joins other studios and photographers all over the country in a community service event that we call “Focus on Autism”. We set aside one Saturday in the month of April to take portraits of those living with Autism. The sessions are complimentary and include an 8×10 to those who participate. 
We understand the difficulties involved with photographing many of those living with autism and know how to work around them. This year we are offering the option of photographing not just the child or adult living with autism, but the whole family! Sessions will be about 20-30 minutes in length and here at our residential studio. If the weather is agreeable we will have the option of taking portraits in a setting outside. And we will still have the option of the studio. Many of our Focus on Autism participants allow me to spotlight them on my blog and share their stories. We hope to do that again this year. Here are a few links to the blog posts from last years participants. Focus on Autism Sessions
Sessions are limited and by appointment only. To schedule a session for yourself, child or family, please call 205-807-1223.