wee bittles
kiddoes
teens
For being so wonderfully supportive, and to show my gratitude I am not only going to extend the 25% discount on all print orders for those who booked a session this weekend, but also to anyone who books a session through September.
Please note:
- Half the session fee is due at booking, and the rest at the time of our session.
- You may book now for a time in the future.
(sorry my voice is so loud on this)
And the winner is… NUMBER 11.
CONGRATULATIONS APRIL BAILEY!
But other contestants do not fret, as a consolation prize you may receive a 25% print order discount when you book a session.
*BTW… my old be-loved clientele/friends… did you notice that my returning clients have a discounted session fee?
(As a side note: you may be wondering why my daughter is in the video. She’s home sick… tummy issues. Originally I had planned to video tape myself, but dragging my sick daughter out of the house was so much easier.)
Having a photography business has been a dream come true. Some of you know my struggles, and some of you inspired me to get through them.
It is a true blessing to do what you love. It’s a true blessing to have your friends supporting you along the way. When I think of how I have gotten here, I am amazed… almost to tears. From my friends who helped mold me as a photographer, to the photogs who helped mold me as a business woman, to my way awesome friends who believed in me so much that they hired me (who knew you could get PAID for this?)… to all my “invisible” internet companions who helped get me through the roughest 2 years of my life… to my siblings and parents and family…to my beloved husband who has mopped me off the floor a time or two when I thought I couldn’t go on… to my children who have been my little BIG cheerleaders… and to my sister, Deb, who is and always has been my biggest BIG cheerleader…
I could not be where I am today without you all.
Thanks you! All of you!
And for those who I am newly getting acquainted with, I will have you know that when you meet me, you meet a part of everyone who has been with me in this journey. I hope to represent them well.
(((WHEW)))
Nothing like a moment of overwhelming gratitude to get you all besides yourself…
Now let me show you around the place:
- Click the Galleries above … to check out my galleries
- And HERE … if you want to check out my proofing gallery including some of my print work
- HERE … you can see why photography is such a good investment (it’s a little mushy, so… be forewarned)
- If you want to find out more about little old me… click HERE
- And finally, because it’s the internet and all, and not everyone knows me on the WWW, I would be besides myself if you could write a short little something nice about me,
HERE, so my future friends can see that I’m an okay chick.
Sorry… I could not get the comment link to work on my testimonial page, so I you are feeling extraordinarily generous towards yours truly, could you write a short little testimonial and send it to: jenna@jennawhidby.com (By doing this you give me to use it on my site, please specify whether you would like me to use your first name only or first and last name.) Thank you in advance.
AND FINALLY… I think some of you would like to win something, right? Click HERE to enter my contest. Just click on on the link and make a comment, make sure you fill out a real email address, so I can contact you when you win.
ALSO… for everyone who BOOKS a session this weekend (Sept. 10th-13th), you may receive a 35% discount on all print orders. If you would like to book a session with me this Fall or Spring, contact me @ the contact sectiona. Once I receive 1/2 your session fee, your spot will be held, no one else may have that date. Everyone who contacts me this weekend, will receive the Special Discount whether I get back to you this weekend or next week.
Better chances to win my contest than to win the lottery… unless, of course, if 1,000,000+ people enter, then that’s not true anymore… but surely the server will go down before that happens.
THE PRIZE:
- For Houston Area residents*… ONE 35-45 minute Photo session, with pick of 1 high resolution digital file or a 8×10
OR
- ONE of my ART PRINTS, (any size up to 11×14)
OR
- Send me on assignment in Houston and I will shoot WHATEVER**, with pick of 1 high resolution digital file or a 8×10
TO ENTER:
- Leave a comment below.
- Make sure your email address is good. (I can see it, but no one else can.)
- IN THE COMMENT BOX, tell me WHAT you’d like to WIN and your CITY, STATE
THE RULES:
- I make the rules.
- My contest opens Friday, Sept. 10th @ 10 am Houston time (CST) and ends Monday, Sept. 13th @ 10 am.
- Please ONE entry per person, (I don’t want to throw your entry out because you entered more than one time.)
- This prize IS TRANSFERABLE, use it, gifted it, donate it to a charity, but the same rules applies to the person you give it to.
- Winner has until May 30th, 2011 to redeem prize.
- *If the winner lives in the SAN ANTONIO, AUSTIN, TEXAS or LAKE CHARLES, LOUISIANA area, and if you pick to have a photo session, you will need to schedule it when I am in your town or you need to come here to Houston.
- **WHATEVER in rated ‘G’ terms… if you do not want your request to be blasted all over the internet, then it’s a safe bet to not ask me to shoot it.
Thank you again for being part of my life, I really value your support.
When: TOMORROW, Fri. Sept. 10th, 2010
Where: HERE, www.jennawhidby.com
Time: 10 am – 1 pm
While you always are welcomed at Casa de Jenna Whidby Photography, and obviously some of you have already popped in, I am going to be here, on-line, tomorrow between 10 am and 1 pm (Houston, TX USA time… Google that if you don’t know when that is in relationship to where you live.)
I’m going to be chit chatting it up, answering questions AND if you enter my contest, I’m giving away either a FREE 30-45 min. PHOTO SESSION (open to peeples in the Houston area… or somewhere else that you know I travel to… like Austin or San Antonio, Texas, and Pensacola, Florida or Lake Charles, Louisiana… but you, out-of-towner winner, are subject to me visiting your town), OR a copy of one of my prints (up to a 11X14), OR if none of these fit the bill… you can send me on assignment in Houston, and I’ll photograph WHATEVER*.
This may be quite nice considering Christmas is right around the corner and well… photographs make GREAT gifts.
Or perhaps you are the owner of a local business and you know the value of other sites linking to your site. I’d love to come out and shoot your business (and then photograph it… ~JOKE~,) and then write about it on my blog with links and everything.
Perhaps you have a new litter of puppies that are so gosh darn cute and may not think of hiring a professional photographer to come out to photograph them, but you might, if you knew it was FREE.
This prize is transferable as well, so if you want to seem like the angel of generosity and gift my service to your Houston area Rich Uncle Rowland who is on death’s doorstep… well hooty hoot, I won’t tell him that you won me in a raffle… and perhaps moved by your seeming munificence, he’ll bequeath you ALL his fortunes. (Or perhaps he’ll bequeath me his fortunes… I promise, I’ll give you a cut.)
More details to come mañana… the contest will be opened from Friday 10 am to Monday 10 am. I won’t necessarily be here ALL weekend long. But I know that not every one can get to a computer between 10am and 1pm tomorrow, and I want everyone to have a chance to enter…
Hope to see you soon!
(*By WHATEVER… I mean the Houston sky line, a fire hydrant, a charity event… those kinds of things… let’s talk and we can work that out.)
**Prize Expires May 30, 2011
Yesterday I met with my h.s. senior’s mom, and she made this comment, “I asked my friends to help me choose the best pictures from the session, and thought that they would all pick the same ones. But instead, what they like were all over the board.”
It’s true. Different people like different things. What I choose as my favorites from a session may be entirely different than what my client likes… what the daughter likes may be so different than what grandma likes. Daughter may like one because her hair looks fantastic, mom likes another because she loves how beautiful her daughter has become, but grandma likes the boots and dress pict because it reminds her of when her granddaughter was a little girl sporting a similar look. Three different picks. Three different people and viewpoints.
The above collage is something I have never really offered with my business, but starting this fall I’m creating custom storyboards, cards and albums. It’s going to be really fun to collaborate with my clients.
Here I was just playing around… play is good… especially when you are an artist. It allows you to explore, create, see what works and what does not. Please, let me know what you think…
This is the question that I’ve been pondering, oh… let’s say, the last year or so. The reason why I’m talking about it is because I got a rather urgent email from a good friend of mine basically saying that it is not good for my business to post, “I hate boys,” if I actually ever want to get business from those boy’s mothers.
It’s true… it is not good for business… she makes a lot sense… and she knows her stuff as she is rather successful in the field we both share.
However, I’m on this quest to be authentic, and the real me was so taken back by what that group of boys had to say. Honestly, I don’t hate boys… I have a boy, I love him. He has friends, and I love them, too. I’ve had 100′s of male students and youths who have all been decent human beings, not perfect, but good and I have love them as well.
My point of yesterday’s blog was… I was taken back by the raw animal and cruel nature that those teens displayed. It was rather intense, and how they talked about girls hit me hard in two ways…
- It arouse my momma bear instinct to protect those girls that they were discussing in a derogatory manner.
- It reached down to the spot of my soul that is still that hurt 16 year old girl that I allowed some fool boy to trifle with.
It’s not that all boys are like that, and I can see, how in a large group, it’s not easy to stick to your convictions and give in to some seemingly humorous female objectification.
So what does any of that have to do with photography… well nothing really… or at least nothing that I want to address today. It has to do with this photographer… me. It’s part of my life experiment, which is to answer the question:
How authentic can I be in my business?
In the last year, the people who have hired me, for the most part, know me. They know that I am recovering from the devastating lost of my sister. They know that maybe I voted for a different President than they did. They know I am a messy house keeper. Some know I nearly got divorce last year, but through a miracle… God saved our marriage (with a lot of foot work by us.) And yes, I talk about God, Jesus, abortions, and whatever spiritual tangent that happens to be on my heart at the moment.
People know my business… personal business. People know that I have opinions. People know I am not perfect… and amazingly enough… they still love me and still want to hire me… even the ones I have said the stupidest crap to… ya know what I’m talking about… when you say something, and then you say to yourself, “Why the hey, did I say THAT?”
It would probably be a good thing if I learned how to self-censor a bit more, but that’s not entirely me. And after a long while of deliberating, I’ve decided to be more open about what is on my mind. This is not your typical photo business blog, but you know what… I just never seem to do things the typical way.
My sister, Deb, once said, “Jenna you’re weird… but in a good way.”
I think that’s true… I am weird in a good way. And if no one ever hires me ever again, well that’s okay, too. It’s a free country. I am a big believer that if you don’t like the business practices of a company, then you don’t do business with them. If anyone in the Houston, Cypress, Jersey Village Area wants to hire someone else to do their photography, they can email me, I know quite a number of wonderful photographers I can refer. However, the core of my being says, “Jenna, you have something to say… you add value to this world… and that’s something you need to share… and you will continue to be blessed with wonderful clientele and friends.”
So peeples… that’s it. Day 3 of my photoblog… yeah… it would probably make more sense to keep things light and fluffy, but I’m telling you… I’m not the light and fluffy sense maker sort of person… not at least ALL the time.
(Maybe I’ll work on that light and fluffy part… but probably not.)