I had the chance to work with some amazing local vendors on this wedding, including::

Venue: The Estancia Club, Scottsdale Arizona

Flowers: Flora Europa

Wedding Coordination/Planning: Imoni Events

Cake: La Dolce Pesca

Invitations: The Invitation Lady

Entertainment/DJ: SKM Entertainment

Makeup: Linda Wagner

Bridal Gown: Destiny’s Bride

I also want to say a big thank you to my former bride Suzanne Dixon for her awesome quote she provided to the magazine! Ironically I had submitted their wedding some time ago and the chose one of the images from Suzanne & Mike’s gorgeous wedding last fall as their closing Bon Voyage page!

Congrats as well to some of my good photographer friends who had Real Weddings published – they know who they are :-)

Intern will provide assistance at portrait shoots and weddings with bags, lighting, holding gear and more. Occasional second-shooting opportunities may be possible eventually. Some knowledge of photography is necessary, however I will train you over time on shooting manually, using correct settings for the light, setting up off-camera flash, etc.

If you have any video editing software experience, that is a BIG plus.

Must Haves:

• Responsible, dependable and reliable (you show up when you say you will and on time)
• Motivated to learn and grow skills as a photographer
• General knowledge of fundamentals of photography
• Willing to work hard and do what is needed at weddings and shoots
• Schedule that allow you to work evenings and weekends
• Reliable transportation
• Computer skills (you know how to navigate computer files systems, use general software
• Sense of humor and positive disposition :-)

Skills or Experience that are a big plus:

• Knowledge of Lightroom and/or Photoshop
• Video editing software knowledge (can be as basic as a program such as iMovie on Mac)
• Experience with 5D Mark II video capabilities of similar HD camera

This intern position is initially not paid, however it could grow into a paid position within 6 months depending on performance. However, you will gain knowledge and experience about working at weddings and on photo shoots, working with clients, shooting manually and much more.

Interested applicants can email me here. Please include your skills level of the above and any other information you think would be relevant. I may not be able to respond right away to everyone, but I will get back with qualified individuals to set up a time to meet. Thank you!

Hello blog readers! This is Kelly Gill, Jennifer’s studio assistant, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to her blog. I am going to dive into today’s post with a confession: I have a bit of a totally appropriate and professional crush on Jennifer.  Monday mornings are always better because I know I get to head over to her office, share some coffee talk with her, commiserate about the perils of motherhood (as well as share the joys, of course!) and then delve into her world as a photographer. The joy, sweetness and poignancy of her photographs always take me on a journey that I look forward to and if you are reading this blog, we already have something in common- we adore this gal and her images!

Since Jennifer is offering mini- portrait sessions on April 24th, I thought I would pass on some portrait planning tips:

Tip #1: Don’t forget about wardrobe for the adults. I know many parents (and let’s face it, I’m really talking to the moms on this one) who spend hours agonizing over the outfits for the kids and then are left with what for themselves? A faded black shirt? The not-so-perfect necklace? You are going to scrutinize yourself in these pictures so make sure you are wearing something that gives you that little spring in your step, but something that moves easily and that you feel good in. You will be much happier with the end result. (I’ll be sharing some fun ideas for clothing here next week, so stay tuned…)

Tip #2: Shed the stress. I know how it goes the day of a shoot: the clothes need to be ironed AGAIN, your hair won’t cooperate, child #1 is feeling ornery, you get into a spat with significant other, and then you almost run out of gas on the way to the photo shoot. Photo shoots are stressful for parents, simply put. But try, try, try to forget all that and start the session with a deep breath. Look at your beautiful family and try appreciate the moment. Your pictures will show your happiness and love for your family — or your stress and tension. And remember that you won’t have to really think about any of this again for another year or so :-)

Tip #3: Be prepared, but manage your expectations (for your kids). I actually went to a shoot once at 9AM without feeding my children breakfast and without a snack stash. Hello catastrophe! Here is what I must pass on to you: bring water for everyone, snacks to bribe your kids (yes, we all do it, stop beating yourself up about it), and toys or lovies to comfort the kiddos. Jennifer is fully aware that a child’s threshold for “behaving” in photo shoots is roughly 15 minutes and she is an expert at going with the flow. Lower your expectations and go with the flow too. Logically, we know that firmly demanding (i.e., yelling through clinched teeth) that your child sit still, smile and be charming doesn’t work, yet our emotions get in the way and we just want it all to be perfect. If you let the kids do their thing, Jennifer will do hers, and you will see the genuinely charming side of your family reflected in the images. Promise!

JB fans, thanks for reading my debut post! I will be back at it next week with some clothing ideas for spring and summer portrait shoots.

Spring happiness to all!

Kelly

I think hiring her has been one of the best decisions I’ve made because she rocks, keeps me sane, and helps ensure the days fly by at record speed. Plus, she LOVES Chipotle as much as I do. We eat it like twice a week. And she is only here in the home-office with me three times a week, so that is quite a bit.

It’s not only wonderful to have someone help with all the behind-the-scenes business stuff that necessitates running a photography studio, but its especially nice to have someone who makes it all so fun. She has two children like me and can relate to the balancing act of motherhood, working and still trying to have some personal time in there somewhere, so we’ve been able to connect on that and so much more. Some days we both have heads down plowing through the processing or other tasks at hand, and other days I find the ability to process and laugh simultaneously works wonders for the soul. I’m always cracking up at her jokes; this girl is funny! But she is also extremely thoughtful, grounded, genuine, kind and an all around quality person.

Kelly is going to start a weekly “column” on the blog starting this week where she will share various photography-session related tips and suggestions, or perhaps even just funnisms of the week. Hopefully you’ll get to know her a little better and enjoy her posts in the process!

Order ANY PRINT in ANY SIZE from your online proofing gallery (portraits or weddings) and we will throw in an extra one FREE!

Expires Sunday, April 11th @ Midnight PST

*Free print will be exact duplicate & same size of primary print(s) ordered. No limit to number of prints you can order. Offer also applies to expired galleries*

How to Order:

Login to your online gallery with the password you have been provided from any session. (*If your online proofing gallery has expired, please send us an email to jen@jenniferphotography.com with “Re-Release my Event Please” in the subject header, and your name in the body of the email and the session you would like to order from, so we can re-release your event.)

Order any prints you would like. You will receive the same number of duplicates for any print you order, of the same size. For example, if you would like 4 copies of a 5×7 print, just order two (2) of that print and you will automatically receive four (4) copies.

All prints are produced at our professional lab, are archival quality and are guaranteed to last generations. Includes professional lustre or metallic images!

If you have any questions, or need assistance, please contact the studio at 602.402.5600 or via email.

Print sale ends at midnight on April 11, 2010. Any orders placed after that will no longer qualify for the free prints.

But Jennifer, it’s now OVER, you say. I know it’s officially 2010, but the fact that I’m just now able to do my yearly review kind of sums up my life in a nutshell this past year: playing catch up! 2009 was both wonderful and interesting, and busy. Busy with the kids and our family, busy in business, and with me personally.

In ’09, the biggest blessing of course was the birth of our second child, Alex in January. I cannot believe he is almost one! Holy moly. I wasn’t sure what to expect with two children and was honestly a tad nervous to have a boy (since I come from all girls and its all I’ve known), but I can look back on it now, almost a year later and say it has truly been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Two children has certainly been busier, of course, but also so FUN! I guess the biggest thing I was not prepared for was what having two would do to my heart. Before Alex, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to love the second child the same as I loved my first. How could my heart love another human as much as it loved Jordan? Now I understand why people desire to have 3, 4 or 5 kids. Your heart literally doubles with each new addition, and it’s just as amazing and powerful and passionate as it is with the first. And the added bonus for us is that the whole experience has been so much more relaxed and calm. I think we have been able to enjoy all the stages more the second time around because we know all to well how fast they go by and we just don’t stress about as much. While we won’t be having any more children (2 works great for us!), I can understand why others would want more for those heart/love/added person and soul reasons.

This REALLY feels like it was yesterday. It was, right?

Aside from that big deal for us, some other exciting things happened for my business as well:

In February ’09, I announced a new partnership with The Royal Palms by serving as their official photographer for the Babymoon Bliss Package. I was so incredibly honored to be approached by Erin Stremcha, marketing coordinator in late 2008 about this exciting opportunity and have had a lot of fun photographing beautiful pregnant mamas and dads-to-be at The Royal Palms this year. Erin just had her own first baby (Baby Parker) recently, so it was so fun to photograph his complete adorableness as well. Since I haven’t shared too many of these on the blog this year, here are a few of the sessions we did in ’09, and I have another full post coming soon featuring another super cute recent Babymoon couple.

It was also a very humbling, and exciting year of publishings and industry recognitions for me. First Ginny & Dave’s wedding was featured in Ceremony Magazine, a popular Southern California annual bridal magazine, then Arizona Bride Magazine featured some more of my images and included several of them in their Annual Resource Guide given free to all newly engaged couples registering at area department stores, and then the special 10th Anniversary issue of Phoenix Bride & Groom Magazine featured two of my weddings! Aimee & Matt’s and Christy & Josh’s fall weddings were included and each had a nice page feature.  The Wedding Chronicle featured Laura & AJ’s wedding in their Best of Weddings 2009 issue and earlier in the year Allison and Chris’s wedding was featured.

Much to my surprise, I was selected as a Winner of the Brides Choice Awards on www.weddingwire.com, Nominated for Best Photographer 2009through Arizona Bride Magazine readers, and most recently was selected as a Winner of Best of Weddings 2010 from the readers of The Knot. These last 3 are especially meaningful to me since I had no part in soliciting any votes for those – the readers nominated me and all 3 have been a big surprise. Thank you, thank you!!

I was also so thrilled to be featured on some popular wedding blogs in 2009: Southern Weddings Magazine Blog featured Aimee and Matt’s wedding, as well as Sheryl and Dane’s wedding, and The Bride’s Cafe featured some bridal party images of cute gowns that can be found at Twirl Boutique.

I had the chance to really get to know and work closely with some amazing vendors in town this past year, which has been especially wonderful. We are really lucky in Phoenix to have so many fantastic people to choose from, and I feel like I’ve had the chance to form some new friendships, which was been so great. I really want to thank the Sanctuary Resort & Spa for choosing one of my images for their wedding ad (wow – honored!), the Emmy award winning Serendipty Videography chose one of my images for their front page of their website (again, very honored!), and Twirl Boutique for hanging some of my work inside their two awesome stores (in Scottsdale and Chandler – thank you Keri and Jeni!), and finally to FlyJetbird, a corporate aviation company out of Ireland, who found me online and purchased one of my personal family images for their website.

In ’09, I also expanded the business by bringing on an associate photographer. In May we announced that Jenny Bishop came on board to help shoot portrait sessions. I’ll be doing a feature shortly on some of the great work she has done for me this past year and we’ll actually be expanding her role in 2010 to include wedding coverage as well, and will be adding one more associate photographer to also shoot weddings — details to be announced soon. I’m so excited to expand this part of the business!

Speaking of growing, I also hired Kelly Gill to come on as a studio coordinator and she has been fantastic. I’m soooo happy to have her on the team and love working with her. (Jenny is on the left and Kelly is on the right.)

In September, I launched a new logo and blog design (by the very talented and kind Ryan Brannen of One Red Key) as well as updated my current website with the new look. I also updated my packaging, ordered new business cards that I love, redid some of my branding materials (more are on the way) and implemented a new backend proofing site for clients (PickPic for you photographers.) I received so much positive feedback on the new blog and look, and for that I am thankful. It was a long time coming! While the new gallery website is still in the works because it’s proven to be SUCH a huge undertaking and I keep pushing the project back due to client driven projects that take a higher priority, I can say it will definitely happen in 2010! :-)

After coming back to my shooting schedule in March (post maternity leave) I shot 15 amazing weddings in ’09. Between my associate Jenny and I, we shot close to 70 portrait sessions this year and met so many new families this year – as well as saw many familiar and favorite faces.

My workshop partner Kim Jarman and I held another round of Create Better Images beginner and intermediate workshops in June and they sold out in record time for us – we were truly amazed! We plan to do these at least twice a year, if not 3 times a year, from here on out because we have just been getting great feedback from you guys who attend them and each have so many clients who ask us about when we plan to do more. So they are coming :-) Also very exciting, in June, Jeff Bills of Serendipity Videography came out and filmed our Intermediate Class and put together this fantastic video for us. Thank you again Serendipity for making us look so good!

The next two classes are scheduled for next week and while they are sold out, we are announcing the dates for the next set here very shortly. Hint: Mother’s Day Gift for all those Mom’s who want to take better pictures of their kids. Stay tuned!

Finally, it wasn’t all happiness – I did have a few sad family moments this year as well. In early May, my grandfather passed away after a long and happy life. I think one of the harder aspects to losing a grandparent is watching your parents deal with the profound loss of their own parent. Both of my paternal grandparents passed on years ago. In fact, my Dad’s dad died when I was just 4, and I vividly remember it being the first time I ever saw him cry. One of the few times later when we lost my grandma, his Mom, 10 years ago this March. Sadly, my Uncle Bob in Vermont also passed away this past summer. He too lived a long and full life, which was celebrated by much of my extended family at a family reunion of sorts shortly thereafter. Sadly I couldn’t go due to my schedule, but felt like I was there with all the pictures my family sent along.

As for 2010, I am SO excited and ready to go! Last year was a bit transformative for me as I had to find my footing again after adjusting to 2 kids. It has not always been easy, but we have settled into a groove again and the kids are doing great, I have found a good balance (on most days) and plan to kick things up a notch this year. I have some really fun products coming for more clients, a few surprises in store, some amazing weddings on the books and so much more. Stay tuned! It’s going to be a great year, isn’t it?

I must admit I am anxiously awaiting the release of the new website and image sharing service called Two Bright Lights. It is the brainchild of Rosalind Bordo and Siri Eklund, and promises to transform the way that wedding professionals market their business. I have a feeling it actually will. As a photographer, I always want to be able to quickly share images with vendors so they can in turn share them with their clients, but it can be a time consuming process. I think this site is going to make that process much quicker and more efficient, allowing vendors to quickly create storyboards of their favorite event images. I also love submitting my images to magazines and industry blogs, so I know this will make that process even easier! Im very excited about that aspect.

Industry professionals will want to be sure to check out the features behind this new site! And if you want to read more about Rosalind and Siri, and how this site came to be, hop on over to social media guru Liene Steven’s blog Splendid Communications for her in-depth interview with them.