Shutter-Happy Photography

Saturday night was amazing!!!

 

Shutter-Happy sponsored a table at the Boerne Education Foundation’s gala, as well as donated a portrait package worth over $2000!

 

We filled our table with my favorite people- my husband Nathan, studio manager Emily, her husband Lewis, marketing guru Lindsey, her husband Greg, and my best friends Myk, Marli, Josh, and Melissa.  We got to hang out, visit, and eat all night.  And some of us kept our dancing shoes on until midnight.  So much fun!!!

And our donation to the silent auction- a portrait session and any size art piece was won by one happy bidder, and raised hundreds for our schools.

 

We love being able to support the Boerne community and our kids’ future in this way!  If you have never heard of or looked into what this wonderful organization is up to, please do your research and do all you can to help.

For the past two years, our studio manager Emily has been doing everything behind the scenes… and she can’t keep doing it all!  Since her favorite part of the job is sales and all things related to the print orders, we’re choosing to create a new title for her- maybe “Sales Queen” (or whatever else we come up with). 

So that leaves us with all the phone duties, doing all of our scheduling, and consulting with clients to get them ready for their sessions.  Maybe just 10-20 hours a week.  Work from home or the studio.  

Personal qualities wanted:
professional, personable, punctual, self-motivated, caring, detail-oriented, courteous

Job duties:
answer phone calls and questions
know the details of our portrait clubs
book portrait sessions
help clients decide on details of their session
know and stand behind our policies and procedures
treat every client as a VIP
stay on top of the limited edition schedule
completely fill out each client’s flowsheet
be able to take payments in quickbooks
keep studio clean and functioning
send mailings
read (and respond to) ALL of Amy’s e-mails 
join staff for walk/run/visit every Wednesday evening
enter all of our vendor receipts into quickbooks quarterly
keep track of all work hours and submit to Amy monthly

Job perks:
free portrait sessions
50% off print orders
free t-shirts
freedom to decide your own hours
freedom to work from home
free entries into local walks, 5k’s, etc
free lunches during staff meetings
free continuing education, training, and conferences
fun with staff and spouses at the Boerne Education Foundation gala every April
fun with staff and spouses at the Cibolo Nature Center gala every October
great Christmas get-together with all of our families

We’ll be accepting and reviewing resumes throughout May.  So mail, e-mail, or drop them by the studio soon!

Back in January, I entered the NAPCP image competition.  Winners were announced yesterday.  Today, scores and critiques were released.

Was very excited to have these few favorites receive Above Average and Excellent scores!

The National Model Search is over; voting is over.

And we have four of our Shutter-Happy kids as finalists in the competition!!!

Congratulations to:
Lillian Carollo
Joseph Carollo
Peyton Grasso
Molly Klutts

We are so excited that your adorable/beautiful/handsome kids have won the title of Finalists and are moving on to the final judging round.  Good luck!!!

Click here to see the Finalist gallery

Oh, what fun!

We had a great time participating in this event on Saturday! 

We had a booth, complete with a table full of our prints and products, fliers to hand out to the moms, a bean bag toss for the kids to play, and helium balloons for the kids to take.  Lots of our clients and friends came by to say hi.  And we got to visit with the community.

Emily, Lindsey, and I were wiped out by all the fast and furious activity of the morning.  But, we feel like the event was a success… and we always love any chance that we get to work together like this.  Great day!

Last year we had 31 entries in the National Model Search.  This year we have 49!  I’m thrilled with the community participation!  But with so many adorable kids, it will be very hard to choose who we think is the “Cutest Kid in America.”

So we’re counting on you to go vote too, to choose your favorites.

Click here for the model search site.
Type Shutter-Happy Photography in the Photographers Name field.
Then all of our cuties will be pulled up for you to vote on.

As always, votes are $1 each, and benefit Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

(Voting ends at 11:59pm mountain time on Friday, March 23rd)

We love offering our clients more ways to save on their portraits.  But just like most things, trial and error take a while… 

1- We’ve tried giving away great deals with the online deal sites.  But with every one we tried, we found we were actually losing money.

2- We’ve really wanted to treat our most loyal clients.  But the giveaways we were doing through facebook just weren’t doing that.

So???  We’re trying out Qliq, the newest smart phone app!

Check it out now!  And see how easy it is to earn qliq points and save….

To get $100 off one of our portrait plans:
All you have to do is drop by the studio to visit with Emily about the details and scan our barcode.

To get your session’s slideshow link to share with friends and family:
Just scan our barcode at your session, get points when you purchase, and earn the last of the points you need when you rate our business and write a quick review.

Look at these outfits and color combinations and tell me they wouldn’t look amazing in a portrait session….

Jeans or khakis + awesome colors = one happy photographer!  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emily, Lindsey, and I signed up for the Bah Humbug 5K on Saturday.  We woke to temps in the los 60’s and drizzle.  Despite the rain, we all got dressed and made our way to the start line.

Lindsey was off and running right at start time; I fumbled with my phone, music, and headphones for a couple of minutes; Emily headed back home. 

Results- Lindsey got 1st place in our women’s age group!  I got a good time- 34:46.  And we had the privilege of being one of the main sponsors of the event.

Welcome, Lindsey!

Lindsey Toth is our new Marketing Director.  And she is going to be in charge of so much around the studio!  She is currently super busy learning about advertising, marketing, photoshop, customer satisfaction, successful portrait studios, press releases, portrait plans, the studio policies, and more!

We are putting a lot on her plate, but I expect she’s going to be an incredible asset to our business.  We can’t wait to see how she puts new life into Shutter-Happy!

I entered images in the NAPCP image competition back in July.  Critiques, scores, and winners were supposed to be announced by mid-September.  As the last days of October are about to squeak by, I finally got an e-mail with all the results!

Am very proud to say that some of my favorites received Above Average and Excellent scores.  Here they are…..

Thank you to all the clients who sign our model release forms to allow me to use their images for advertising and competitions.  I appreciate you letting me show off your beautiful portraits and helping me to learn and grow as a photographer.

Despite a vacation/work trip to the beach, packing up and moving into an apartment and storage unit, aching knees, and getting very little time to run and train for the next 5k, I did it anyway… and so did the girls.

Fabra Elementary’s event yesterday was great!

It started with a family 1-mile Fun Run/Walk.  Ben did great, ran almost the whole way.  And Evan jogged and walked with Nathan.  He’s such a trooper; he did awesome!  Both boys got medals for participation. 

Then, Emily, Beth, and I had our 5k.  Goal was just to do better than two weeks ago.  And we did!

My time two weeks ago was 38:09.  Yesterday was 33:56.  Yay!

Last time we all finished under 42 minutes.  Yesterday, we all came in under the 41 minute mark.

SO proud of us!  And I’d say I’m totally excited about the next one… but it’s in December… and it’s going to be so cold.  Brrrrr! 

Race results

We are now official sponsors of:
*Curington’s Walk-a-Thon
*Kendall’s Run the Gauntlet
*Fabra’s 5K
*Cibolo Creek’s Country Fair

We love being able to support our local elementaries!

We also donated a gift certificate to the Race at the Ranch event that went on Saturday night.  They had a 5k, auction, and bbq dinner.  We were unable to attend, but we hope our gift certificate for a portrait session and large art piece (which was worth about $500) helped them raise much-needed money for the Dutton family here in our community.

And Saturday night we supported the Cibolo Nature Center.  I purchased tickets for all the staff and husbands to attend their gala.  And we donated a gift certificate for a free portrait session and any size art piece (worth about $1000).  We all had a wonderful time at the event and hope our donation was able to raise funds for the preserve.

(Attached it the pic of us girls all “prettied” up for the event) 

The Fabra 5k on October 15th was presented to us a couple of months ago.  Figuring we had plenty of time to train, we decided to go for it.

We all downloaded the Couch to 5K app on our phones.  And we got Pandora rockin’ with our favorite music.

On track to be ready for the 5k on the 15th, another 5k (St. Peter’s) popped up.  It was two weeks before any of us were really scheduled to finish our training, but we decided to do it anyway.

Emily and I were able to jog the whole way.  All three of us finished within 42 minutes.  Really, not bad for our first one.  So proud of us!

Race results 

We did it!  Pulled it off… and are calling it a success!

Ready for name-dropping?

Decor and food…
*The floral bouquet from Artistic Blooms (thanks to an awesome deal from Juice in the City) was beautiful!
*The potted plants donated by Dream Image Tree and Landscape Service were gorgeous!  And we love that we were able to give them away as door prizes!
*The desserts from Sweet Beginnings were fabulous!  Amazing pineapple cupcakes, chocolate truffles, chocolate chip cookies, and snickerdoodles.

It was so much fun to have all of these businesses participate in the event…
Willowhouse- Christina Martinez
31 Gifts- Sarah Martin
Take Shape for Life- Ryalin Hughes
Juice in the City- April Cerda
Cutie Bow Tooty- Mandy Jones
Tomboy Tools- Bonnie Tom
Scentsy- Tonya Vicknair
Pampered Chef- Tracy Adair
Tupperware- Yvette Adair
Premier Designs- Tricia Hotchkiss
Mary Kay- Beth Archilla
All of their tables, displays, and products were amazing, and our guests had so many wonderful things to say about them.

Goody bags…
*Game pieces from us (that gave all ladies the chance to win door prizes)
*Chapsticks from us
*Information from Pet Butler, Boerne Wine Company, and Dream Image Tree and Landscape Service
*Koozies from You Name It Specialties (my son Ben was so excited we were giving away “jacuzzis” to all attendees) 
*Pens from Annie’s Apothecary
*Jelly beans from Candy on Main
*Great coupons from Willowhouse, Take Shape for Life, Snowflake Donuts, Cutie Bow Tooty, Chilito’s Express, Tupperware, Premier Designs, Candy on Main, Tomboy Tools, Soda Pops, and Salon Infusion
*A microwave brownie recipe card from Pampered Chef

And I got a handful of good pics in between all the visiting and snacking.  If you want to view, they’re posted here!