I Heart My Sister

I was able to convince my littlest sister, Elaine, to model for me. I just couldn't wait any longer to get someone in that wedding dress! Not to mention the fact that Mat brought me home roses to use for the bouquet! Who can pass up on that, right?!?!
So the moral of my post is I love my sister for always being willing to model for me, give me new ideas to try for poses (and doing them). She is an AMAZING person and I told her she could have the wedding dress to get married in but I was quickly told NO. I guess a dress off EBay isn't high on her list! (Just teasing Lainer)

Thanks again for being a guinea pig for me!!!!

Wonderful Surprise

Today Mat came home with a arm full of groceries. He does this quite a bit for me since he works at Safeway as a meat cutter. What shocked me about today was when he and Kallie came back inside and she was carrying roses! It made me feel so special that he thought of me and wanted to show me how much he loves and appreciates me.

Thank you Mat. I love you!!!

Wedding Dress

I absolutely LOVE Ebay. I mean, I am addicted to it, I love the thrill of the chase. When those final seconds tick down and I am hitting refresh over and over again and see that You are current high bidder and then you have WON, oh it's so such a high. I had been looking into buying a wedding dress to have someone model for me just for fun. So when I searched on Ebay and saw this dress with 6 minutes left and a $12.00 bid I couldn't resist! So I bid and let the next 5 minutes drag on and on as I'm constantly hitting the refresh button on my browser. I'm thinking please don't bid, please no one bid, please don't bid. YAY I won! $20.50 for a WEDDING DRESS (with shipping $38.50) and not a ugly 80's dress either. So I have convinced my good friend Miranda, to model it for me and I am working on getting her hubby in on it but I don't know if it will happen. So here are some pictures of the dress.

Kallie's Big Girl Chart

Kallie has been going potty in the potty chair that my Grandmpa Land made her since she was 11 months old. We just have never really encouraged it over diapers or pull-ups. Well the time has come for all that to change! ROFL Kallie loves wearing her Princess panties that Auntie Jen bought her and the Melmo (Elmo) undies Mamaw Reba bought her for Christmas. She has her good days and her bad so we've decided that we're going to do an incentive chart for her (Thanks Miranda I'm borrowing your idea). So here are some pictures that we took today after her and I made the chart. Then after Mat got home we went to Wal-Mart and bought her first "prize" a Mickey Mouse toy! She is soo excited. She also picked out some new underwear and again was sooo excited! Don't you wish you were still 2 and little things like underwear made you happy?

Finding a Mentor

There are several people that attribute their success to their mentors. Finding someone that will help "baby and nurse" them through out their learning stages to help them realize their dreams. I believe this is true in most cases. I have been trying so hard on my own to make my business a reality, but the reality is you have to rely on other people to make you a success. Whether it be blog stalking another photographer (believe me there are several that I do this too) or finding a mentor that you can physically take your portfolio to and ask questions and be critiqued (sometimes they are harder to please than your family, hee hee) there is always something that drives you do succeed. During the month of December I discovered Jasime Star, an up and coming AMAZING wedding photographer out of Orange County. She has some of the most inspiring images one will ever see! Thanks to her and her generosity in sharing what she has learned as she is learning it I believe I can make my business grow. Maybe someday I will have someone saying these type of things about me and my photography. I would love to show you one of her pictures, but I don't feel it's appropriate to place one here so if you are curious about her, check her out she is amazing and knows quite a few other amazing photographers (click her name and it'll take you to her blog).




***EDIT*** OH MY GOD (in my best "Janice from Friends" voice) JASMINE STAR LEFT ME BLOG LOVE!!!! I'm going to passout...or...Just be really really cheesey all day! :o)

~Gena

Yep, another good day

I was able to talk to one of my brides for this summer tonight!! My long time friend from grade school, Danielle Hall. Whoop! I'm so excited to be apart of her day! It's just so amazing for me when people that I've known for so long give me the honor to be apart of their day. I am so lucky to be given the chance to capture such GENUINE IMAGES!! The last two words of the last sentence lead to another story. This is possible the new name for my business. My helpful Snapshotforum friend, Alicia, thought of it. She has been trying to help me think of new names because McMillan Photography as a domain name for websites has already been taken. So feel free to let me know what you think!! :o)

I'm going to leave you with a favorite picture from Keenan's & Kelsey's family portrait session. It was so cold that day we didn't to do too many pictures but they had just got a new puppy, Ebony, so we had to update their pictures! They also have volunteered to be models for me in kind of a "Trash The Dress" type of photo shoot for my portfolio! Thanks you two it really means a a lot to me!! :o)

An Exciting Day

Today has been an exciting day!! So many things have happened and I'm just bursting at the seams (literally) to tell people! My morning started off with a very early phone call (Thanks for waking me up TORY CORY!!) about our friend's Cory and Lorna and their wedding day. Cory asked me a few months ago to if I was interested in being his photographer for their special day and I am honored to do so...Then after I got up and going I found out my husband, Mat, is getting to come home today!! He's been up in Frisco, CO working for 3 weeks and before that he was in Monte Vista, CO. He is a meat cutter for Safeway and does a lot of traveling with his job. He was suppose to get home this weekend, but they had so much snow that he couldn't make the drive. So finally he is coming home! My other news would be I possible have a job a second shooter this summer! Kay Beaton from Summit County has taken my name for hiring a second shooter during the wedding season. Here is her website if you want to check it out! Beaton Photgraphy



P.S.
I just want to add that my husband shocked me by telling me he would be home later than he was!! I just finished posting this last night and then a half hour later he showed up!! I was also dumbfounded when he showed me that he bought me some clothes!! He's sooo brave! LOL

My Future Website

I am so excited to report that I am in the process of working with a friend in creating a website for my photography business. It's something that I know I need and that will help with the growth of my business but I am just too overwhelmed by the process. There are so many choices when it comes to domain names and where to host the site and what to have on it that I'm excited to have someone else to hand over the process too! I'm just not educated enough to build my own so Jessica McNett (aka Neuhold for all you Lamar people) will be designing it as well as a logo for me. Also check out some of her art work at Jessica's Art
Now as for the website it won't be up and running for a couple of months due to budgeting and timing for both of us! They are in the middle of moving into a new home and we are contemplating a new move!! So please pray for all of us and wish us luck!!!

Gena

Hope you all enjoy the picture of my daughter, Kallie!

Hey everyone!!!

I am going to start keeping a journal of my journey in wedding photography. I probably should have started this earlier but I honestly didn't think it was important. Right now I am to trying get my head on straight and get this business off the ground and running!

There are days when I feel like I can do it and others when I just want to sit down and cry from being overwhelmed. My new years resolution this year was to take each day as it is and enjoy it along with making sure that I take it slow. You can't expect to have a huge client basis or booming business over night. So please sit back and enjoy my ride! There will be bumps along the way but hopefully there will be some great oppertunities arising in the near future!