First Grade Already!?!

Someone at our house is really excited about starting first grade. It is only the third day, and he has already started making friends and doing homework. He even has a pretty major crush on his teacher!

When he was doing his homework last night, he was supposed to be writing about his summer vacation. His answer to every question (like what was the most exciting thing you did on summer vacation) was his teacher. I couldn't let him answer every question that way, so he had to switch gears and actually think about the summer. He would rather focus on his teacher, though. So cute!

High School Senior Image Package

Want some fun and creative images to remember your Senior year by? Read the information below to find out about my Senior Image Package.

Plan on having a lot of fun. Bring a few outfits -- something outrageous or really cool that you want to be photographed in, something more traditional for the portraits for grandma’s wall, something casual and fun. Bring something that represents your current interests – an instrument or athletic gear, your car, or pet (and someone to watch it while we work)… We will talk either over the phone or preferably in person before the shoot so I can understand what you want the images for and how you plan to display them.

There is a $275 image appointment fee. The entire amount can applied to the purchase of images and products. The fee needs to be paid up front to hold the appointment time. Senior portrait sessions are one-hour in length at any location (that allows photography). There is an extra fee if I need to travel further than 20 miles from Paradise Valley Mall.

Print prices start at $25. I can also design custom announcements or inserts for announcements as well as pages for yearbooks. Prices vary.

I will create a custom package for each Senior. We will have fun and will create a combination of images to please the parents and images to please the Seniors. The majority of the session will be focused on capturing the fun/cool images.

I can give a $50 discount for two outgoing seniors from each school who are interested in becoming image reps. Image reps will receive image rep cards to distribute to their friends and classmates. They will be asked to post an image slideshow to their Facebook page (or other personal online site) and contact at least 25 students and promote my images. They will also receive a $25 image credit for each referral who books a session.

Come, join in the fun. Check out the Teens and Tweens page on my website www.bymelinda.com for more images.

Fun in the Sun

Here are a few of my favorite images from Saturday's Fun in the Sun.

Fun in the Sun from Melinda Kolker on Vimeo.

No Posts in July - Got too busy

July was a crazy busy month! I feel like I say that a lot. I'll try to be a better blogger in August.

I attended Image Explorations, a photography school in Canada, mid-month. It was a great experience. I have a lot of new marketing ideas that I'm excited to start trying out soon. I also learned a lot about lighting. Just before the course, I paid off my credit card. Now it is charged up again with lighting equipment purchases.

About a week after I returned from Canada, we left town again for a family reunion at Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. It was a great trip. We all had a fantastic time - especially the kids! I can't imagine a better place for a reunion where there are so many kids. Here are a few pictures from the reunion. See what I mean about happy kids!

Catching Up

Graduation pictures are posted at www.backprint.com/bymelinda.

Hopefully, I will have wedding sneak peeks for Connie and David by the end of the week!

Birthday Bash

The images from the birthday bash are now available at www.backprint.com/bymelinda. You will notice that the birthday girls are mostly absent from the images. I want to save something as a surprise when I meet with their Mom.

Unexpected benefit

At first I was a little disappointed that the yearbooks didn't arrive until the night before graduation, but someone had the idea for the kids to sign each other's yearbooks. They were running around after graduation in little groups signing their names by their pictures. It made me soooo happy!