Tie Dye Cupcakes and First Winner of Help Me Pay My Bills

Congrats to Elen for winning the first Help Me Pay My Bills Face book Deal. She got a great photo session for only $46.49 (plus tax).  Since so many people are loving this idea I will be doing another one next Tuesday at 8pm CST on my face book page. 

I am trying to be a little bit craftier since my daughter is getting older and loves to try new things. On Halloween night I decided to bake tie dyed cupcakes. She loves cupcakes and I just had to try these out. I got the idea from Little Hero Capes Blog. I did cupcakes instead of the cake so instead of pouring the layers into a pan, take one tablespoon of the first color and pour into all of the cupcake trays, the one tablespoon of the next color and so on. I used a different spoon for each of the colors. At the end I used a tooth pick to swirl the colors in the molds before popping into the oven. I also recommend using super moist cake mix because I heard that using the food coloring can make the cupcakes a bit tougher. Bake the cupcakes as it says on the box and this is what you get….

 

New Afforable Packages and Halloween Fun

Hey everyone! I hope you had a fantastic Halloween! This year Halloween was amazing. The past few years we have not had very many trick or treaters and last night BAM! We had well over 100. I don’t know where all of these kids came from but we LOVED having them stop by. We pulled out our lawn chairs and passed out candy for hours. When we ran out my little monkey didn’t want to go to sleep. So, we walked her up and down the street to see all of the kids and dogs dressed up and Daddy took her into a haunted house. My daughter is 16 months old and LOVES to be scared. My husband use to build haunted houses and perform in them for his old fraternity at Southern Miss. Evie got to the end and she didn’t notice that our neighbor was trying to hand her candy. She turned her head just in time to see this bright red glowing face right at her level and flipped out lol. I was standing at the end to rescue her and when we started to leave she actually kept pointing to it and acted like she wanted to go back. What can I say it is in her blood muah ha ha ha!

So, I have this idea. As my husband says when I get an idea RUN! But this idea will benefit you all and myself. If you guys don’t know my situation let me give you the cliff’s notes version. I was on bed rest for 6 month due to my water breaking early followed by other complications; my daughter then developed Sandifer’s Syndrome which is fancy for saving the worst colic you have ever seen followed by spasms. I had to quit my full time well paying job to take care of her. I then took on photography as a full time job. Not the best idea in the economy but it is the only thing that I knew I could deliver to people that would be worth being paid for.  I am not the craftiest person on the planet. Anyways, with the mounting medical bills we were forced out of our home by our own will and moved back in with my mom. We actually converted her garage into a 400 square foot room and that is where my daughter, my husband and myself stay. This area will eventually become my studio YAY! We are renting out our BRAND SPANKING NEW home to a nice, single mom of three kids. So, I am HUGE on spread sheets and listed out all of our bills. Not our every month bills but our in collections and we want to sue you bills. I have been thinking how can I get these bills to go away with the small amount of money we have left over after our normal bills, the remainder of the mortgage that the renter is not paying (we didn’t charge enough), we still have tons of medical bills every month, car note and ….you get the picture. So this is where my bright idea comes in. I decided to formulate packages just for my social media friends that reflect the bill that needs to get paid ASAP or else!  This will be an affordable way to offer my services and feel like we are getting out of a hole. So this will benefit you as a client to get affordable packages and me because I will be able to get back into my home eventually. We are aiming for January of 2013. 

So, if you love or like this idea, please post this on your social media sites. I will be posting the first one tonight @ 8pm CST! Now these packages are just to pay off one bill so there will only be one package available at that time.  I will post the package on my wall located here: https://www.facebook.com/EmotionalAccordPhotography and the first person to comment on it will get it! You will have to pay for the package immediately through PayPal to hold this for you. You will have one hour to pay for the package or it will go to the next person that posted a comment.  Thank you in advance for just taking the time to read this and spreading the word around. 

Now for a few pictures of my Little Monkey. Please pray for her. We are hoping there is not a surgery in her near future. 

A night on the town with Blink 182

I won tickets to see my favorite band of all time Blink 182. I have always loved the poppy punk beats and the singers have the most unusual and charming voices ever. Not to mention if you ever listen to the words of the songs they just make you smile. 

My husband, my brother, his friend and myself all met up at the Cynthia Mitchell Woodlands Pavillion where  I was to be able to listen to my favorite band live for the first time. I was a little nervous they wouldn’t sound as good live as they did over the radio but they did not disappoint. 

When I walked through the gates I became that excited high school girl again. My mind fell away from the fact that I was 31, married and with a 15 month old daughter at home. Tonight I was relieving my high school days and would dance until the show was over.

Matt & Kim started the show and I quickly became a fan. They are a hilarious duo with some mad skills. Plus Kim shook her bootie for us so who could complain!  They were followed by My Chemical Romance that had a killer set and made me fall in love with their music all over again. The energy of that band is amazing... not to mention how cute they all were in their Halloween Costumes. The night ended with of course, Blink 182! I never wanted them to get off of the stage. They sound better in person than on the radio and pulled out some new songs and didn't disappoint us by bringing back all of their old ones that we all love. Travis' drum solo was simply AMAZING. I wish I could watch them play every night. I could never get sick of that band.

I wasn’t able to take in my professional camera so I took my back up point and shoot. This is a Sony Cybershot that has an amazing zoom and great pixels. It is the next best thing to when you can’t take a professional camera. Below are some of the pictures I took of Matt & Kim, My Chemical Romance and Blink 182.

P.S. I did remember to buy my daughter a Blink 182 onsie before going home. I wouldn’t turn back the clock in a million years if it meant spending the entire night away from her.  Like Blink 182 says, I guess this is growing up"!

XOXO

Kimberlee Peterson

CEO / Emotional Accord Photography

Headed Down County Road 101

I spent all day charging my batteries, cleaning my lenses and trying to get into the sounds of County Road 101 by listening to all of their songs on their website. My cousin, Dwayne Holt, is the bassist and I wanted to make him proud and take the best photographs I could of them playing in the Silver Spur Club at the Pasadena Rodeo. I knew they had a pretty good following and recently won Fan Favorite at a local Battle of the Bands Show.  These pictures had to come out perfect!

As we drove south in the middle of rush hour traffic I was getting more nervous as the minutes passed. What if they hate the pictures? What if my lenses aren’t good enough, what if I am not good enough? UGH! I was giving myself a headache. My husband did what any husband would do. He reached over and turned on the radio to drown out my pity party. At least that did take my mind of the nerves a bit. He patted my leg and told me that everything would be fine. Like always, I just really wanted these pictures to be fantastic. 

For you photographers that want to know what was in my bag that night, I had my Canon 5D Mark II, the extra battery pack with the two Canon batteries, my flash (just as a back up), my Canon EF 50mm 1.4 and my Canon EF 24 – 105mm 4.0 L IS. Now why didn’t I have a 70 – 300mm 0r a 70 – 200mm. Well that is simple….I am broke and can’t afford to even rent one.  So, I took what I had and was going to make the best of it. By the way ladies, all of this fit into my teal hobo Kelly Moore bag. LOVE that purse/camera bag. I was able to fit my keys, inhaler, eye drops, paid meds (because my right eye is still jacked up), ID, phone and makeup. It is a fantastic bag!

So, when I got there I was introduced to the rest of the band and they are super sweet guys and a pretty good looking group. They are all married with families but hey nothing is wrong with a little eye candy right!? They began to set up and I started to get a feel for what lens I was going to use. The place was pretty dark and my 4.0 wasn’t cutting it. Thank God my Canon has a good wide range of ISO so I could crank it up without a lot of noise showing in the pictures. I mainly used my 50mm 1.4 since I could open it up more without using the flash. I had to get clever for the 4.0 to get the close up shots. I had to take the pictures when their yellow and orange lights would flash. That is the only time I had enough light to use that lens. But hey, it got the pictures that I needed. 

So all in all it was a great night of good music, good food and good company. I hope you guys enjoy these shots. I love photographing bands. I have now added into my budget enough money to rent my 70 – 300 and I plan on being able to buy it in about a year. I refuse to buy anything on a credit card so I am saving up for it. 

To see the full gallery click here:

 XOXO

Kimberlee Peterson

CEO/ Emotional Accord Photography

Big Announcement and Little Miss “R”

I have been meaning to write this blog for a week but these wild fires are keeping us all on our toes. I am sandwiched in between two major fires. I am lucky that I am twenty miles away from both. Please keep all of the families that have lost their homes in your prayers. This community has really pulled together to help each other out and I have no doubt this will continue in the weeks to come. 

For the big announcement, I have been thinking about my business and how chaotic everything has been. I really would rather slow down and take my time with each session. So, I am now only doing maternity to one year old pictures as well as doing engagement, bridal and weddings. These are the two categories I am most passionate about. I will book one session a week so that I can take my time with each client during the session and post production as well. In a few months we will be revamping the entire website bringing my clients a more clean and classic style.  I appreciate all of my clients, friends and family for sticking by my side as I live out my dreams. 

To end on an even happier note, here are a few pictures of Little Miss “R” from this past weekend. Her clavicle was broken so I kept her on her back and swaddled. Once she was sound asleep and wasn’t moving around as much, I was able to capture some of her without the swaddle. Even though she must have been in some pain she didn’t show once sign of it. She was a sweetheart to work with and had the most adorable pouty face I have ever seen. Her big sister, who is two years old, was so proud to show her off and made sure I was not going to hurt her baby sister. I hope everyone enjoys these pictures as much as I do.

Have a great night

Kimberlee Peterson

CEO Emotional Accord Photography

Never Leave Home Without It

No silly not your camera, but that is a given. NEVER leave home without your camera. Act like that camera is your right hand. However, this time I am talking about your business cards. I will be the first to admit I hate walking up to people and saying something like, “I am a local photographer in the area. If you are anyone you know is looking for a portrait session, please keep me in mind”. It sounds corny and they always look at you like OH NO what is this person trying to sell me on. On top of that, what if they say the dreaded, “No thank you” and totally reject me.  Well here is where I tell you that we need to put on our big girl or big boy panties.

Part of the business is being rejected. Let’s face it, not EVERYONE is going to like our style of photography or editing. That is okay though because there are plenty of people that will like our style. We just have to find them. Plus if they hear a friend is looking for a photographer, they already have your card and will hopefully hand it off. It has taken me MONTHS , yes months, to get the courage to say that simple sentence and hand out my cards. However, I have been selling lots of baby items on Craig’s List and every time someone comes to look or buy an item, I hand my card out to them. I show them my pictures of my daughter proudly posted on my wall and 100% of the people that have seen her pictures say they love them. They could just be saying it to be nice, but I don’t think so.  That brings me to another point, if you aren’t proud of your photography, how can you expect anyone else to be. Post your pictures on your walls, desktops and walls of phones and ipads.  This is a great conversation starter. 

So where do I get my cards? Look I am broke B-R-O-K-E. So I am on a budget for my business. I refuse to put my business in debt so I only order with the money I have in my account. The only place I have bought my cards from is vistaprints. They usually have specials and I can design it and get them pretty fast.  I order 250 and I try to give all of those away in 2 to three months. Now don’t go wasting them just to get rid of them. Put them to good use. Give them to your hair dresser to pass out, nail salon, friends, family and yes I even hand my card to the check out guys and girls because a lot of them are Seniors in high school. It is like passing out flyers. Not everyone is going to call you but eventually you will get someone that bites. When they do and when they fall in love with your photography they will tell their friends and family. When it comes down to it, the business cards are just getting your foot in the door. Your pictures will be your best advertisement and bring in the most customers. 

If you have any funny rejection or embarrassing stories, please post them below. It happens to everyone and once you get through one of those nothing seems to bother you. Like when I gave my card away to another photographer lol. But hey, we are good friends now and share ideas for our businesses. 

Home Sweet Home

I know as soon as I have people come over, rather it is friends or family, they always want to see the room we live in. Just a brief recap for the people reading the blog for the first time. My daughter has Sandifer’s Syndrome, which means her reflux is so bad she has body spasms from it. They almost look like small seizures and are often misdiagnosed. If you want to see what they look like click here and you can see my daughter having a few in the ER. Anyways, it took over a year to diagnose it, going through a variety of testing. She is doing much better now and has almost outgrown it. However, the medical bills were piling up and I had to quit my full time job to stay at home with her.  So, we rented out our home…our first home that we had only been in two years and moved in with my mom. Now I am very happy my mom allowed us to do this. This meant I could continue to stay at home with my daughter, have a roof over our heads and get caught up on all of those bills. We are actually doing the Dave Ramsey FinancialFreedom at home course and that is helping a lot. Since both of my little brothers still live at home as well, my husband and I converted the garage into a small loft. It has a sink, a closet, a door and a window. We put A/C in there and made sure to weather proof the floor. I think by 2013 we should be back in our home and this will become my new studio. Her medical bills started at $60,000 and that is with insurance. We also got behind on a few other things because if you don’t pay those doctors they can refuse to see you.  I was going through pictures and found a few of when the construction first started and the finished product. In the pictures my daughter was only six months old and she is now fourteen months old. So, welcome to my home!

When to just set it on Program and let the camera work for you

Sorry I have been MIA lately. My father passed away August 27, 2011 from cancer. I had to take a leave of absence from school with no penalties.  My father served in the ARMY from 1967 to 1969. He was in Vietnam at the age of 18 – 19. He was in the fourth infantry division and also was a tanker. I knew his wish was to have a full military service.

When we got to the Houston National VA Cemetery I was surrounded by family that I haven’t seen since I was a little girl. My father left when I was three and had been in and out of my life since. He was there for major events like graduation from high school and my wedding, but I never received calls on birthdays or holidays. He had a severe case of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome which affected his entire life after the war. When 10:00 am approached we all got into our cars and had a funeral procession to where they would hold his service. It seemed to take forever and fly by at the same time. I kept looking at the casket in a little bit of shock that my father was in there. I was waiting for him to open it up and climb out and say, “Gotcha”. Of course that never happened. While listening to the minister talk about my father I would have brief flash backs of fishing with my dad, remembering the day he left, remembering him walk me down the aisle and all of the funny stories he would tell me as a child. I was in no condition to shoot pictures this day so this left my husband to do this daunting task for me. I typically could tell him about where to set the camera manually, but today I was just not in the right frame of mind. So, I set it to P or Program and let him do his thing. 

This made me think about other times I do use P or Program to snap some pictures.  If I am doing an actual paid shot I always shoot in Manual. However, I usually keep my camera sitting out on my table set to P. Why, because I have a toddler that refuses to sit still for a second. So putting my camera to P allows me to capture those brief moments without fiddling with the settings. If I took the time to do that, I would have lost that moment.  At my father’s funeral, I wasn’t thinking straight and didn’t want to risk losing the shot because my mind wasn’t focused. So, set it to P and make sure I can capture the day. Of course setting the camera to an automated setting will not turn out as well as manual, but I can fix some of those things in PS later. For instance, the images were way too cool so I just warmed them up with the Florabella actions. I also used the sharpen and defog action from Florabella. Other than that, I increased the blacks and lifted the midtones in a few pictures. I typically don’t use color fill on b/w pictures but there was one I thought made a statement that I posted below. 

Basically, if you are ever in the position where setting your camera to manual will cause you to lose your shot, just set it to P and roll with it.  There are a lot of photographers that won’t agree with this, but I got my shot and you be the judge of how they came out.

I want to add that my hubby is in no way a professional photographer. I am very happy with the pictures he took of this day for me. Thank you Pumpkin xoxo.

Sympathy Pains and New Sessions

It was a bit of a hectic weekend…A family shoot, a product shoot and my mom’s birthday all rolled up into one weekend! Not to mention to killer tooth ache I have.  Okay side bar: When I was pregnant, Craig had sympathy pains. I know a lot of people think I am crazy when I say this but he felt nauseated, he got headaches and he gained the weight. In fact if I hadn’t had to take the P17 shots, he probably would have gained more than I did. We ate healthier and at first we were both walking a lot. It was so funny to see him feeling my pain…I know that sounds mean but men get off so easy on the whole pregnancy thing.  So tonight, I have this huge tooth ache and he looked at me and started rubbing his jaw. Now he is feeling sharp pains in the same side of the jaw I am. Craig and I are the disgusting couple that can finish each other’s sentences, hang out with each other all of the time and say the same things at the same time. 

So, back on track. I had the pleasure of holding  a Family Session with Alex, Ronnie and their 3 kids. This family was so much fun to work with. I was digging their laid back casual wear and their sassy personalities. The kids got out of their car and walked right up to me to show off their new kicks. I guess they digged me back :). We talked about Justin Beiber, school and turtles. I was a little bummed when I first got to the location because it had just started to pour down rain. It only lasted for 15 minutes but it made for one hot and muggy shoot. Thank you Coffee Shop for your free redness remover. It works great for days like this! Ronnie is actually my hair dresser and I look forward to working with her in the future.

Anyways, I wanted to share some of the product photography and family shoot I did. My grandma will be putting this stuff up on Ebay in September. I will be posting the links to all of it then.  I hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoy.