Halloween Open House Highlights

So I am a self professed shutter bug! I love taking pictures. (Like 8,000/year) For as long as I can rember I have carted a camera where ever I go. I have some hilarious old 4-H conference photos ;-) - hee hee. Over the years I have been asked if I do portraits or professional. No, I do not. It's always been a passion - but never thought of professionally. I love taking pictures but also enjoy not having the stress of trying to get that perfect shot for a customer or the time it takes to edit! I like being in the background capturing the candids without the stress and worry! LOL Professionally, I enjoy landscape photography & creating digital art. I also prefer to design with photos for customers (scrapbooks, canvases, digital art, cards, photo gifts etc.) As once you have a great photo - the rest is natural to me- which is why I love scrapbooking (traditional & digital) and chose to turn that hobby into a business, as I can do it 24/7! If someone loves one of my photos or art enough to purchase as art for their home - I am honored - but I more take the photo because it captured my eye!

For amazing portraits I always recommend my dear friend Kendra from KITKO Photography & Dezine! She is awesome and fantastic at what she does and loves what she does. She can take photos and edit 24/7! LOL. For this very reason (and because she is one of my best friends) I leave the pro pictures in her very capable hands, while I provide the space, photo printing capabilities, scrapbooking, gift & art options - thus we have partnered for years doing Halloween Costume Portraits & Santa Photos or anything else we can dream up.

However, this Halloween event she was away with her hubby (darn her LOL), so I had a rare opportunity to "get out of my box" for a day and capture the cute little spooks GSIB Halloween Costume Portraits.

Halloween is a favorite of mine and seeing all the children dressed up, is so much fun and so easy to capture great photos! I took over 650 pictures - it was crazy. By Tuesday, I was all done editing and all orders processed and they should be arriving by the end of this week! I had so many favorite shots and I hope the parents enjoy them!

I had two of the most adorable little monkey's (literally) make me work my socks off to capture a good photo! I was sweating!!

Of course the hardest to capture was my own three. First, the girls showed up in NOT their costumes (they changed their mind on Dad), Noelle wouldn't let anyone touch her hair. And getting all 3 to look & smile at the same time has always been a challenge. But I think I got one good one of each! LOL

All in all the day went really well. The store was hopping in the cafe, kids crafts and more. I had so much fun being the photographer for the day. Editing the photos was tons of work (reminder to self - I really should take the time to edit a few of my own regularly from now on as they look sooo much better). I am very excited (& relieved) that Kendra will be back in house for our annual Santa Photos on Nov. 26th!! I can be back in the background capturing the "scrapbooking" moments again.

Thank you to everyone who came out for our Halloween open house and to the parents for letting me have some fun out of my comfort zone!! Also, a big thank you to my GSIB Girls for getting everything put together, great food, decorating and now packing everything up to switch over to Christmas next week!!