I have been thinking about offering this for awhile but I haven’t found any that met my quality standards until now.

These pieces are made with solid sterling silver. Each photograph is printed at a professional photo lab so the quality you expect in your wall prints will be the same quality you get in your jewelry. Every photograph is protected with an industrial strength, waterproof coating, so it’s safe to wear the jewelry in the shower or pretty much anywhere. I ordered some sample pieces and they are just beautiful

These would be the perfect gift for grandparents or any of those hard to buy for people!

Last week I attended a photography workshop with Leah Profancik. I have been a huge fan of her photography for a long time. I love her style and the gorgeous images she captures. One of the women from Clickin’ Moms hosted the workshop in Dallas, Texas. I thought it would be tons of fun to meet a bunch of my fellow ClickinMoms and learn from Leah at the same time.

I had a fabulous time! I have been to quite a few workshops, and I think this was the best one I have attended. I came back with so many new ideas about where I want to go with my business. I also learned so much. I can’t wait to use my new skills.

We has some amazing models and some fun locations to shoot. Our first night we went to a train depot. Unfortunately, it started raining and we weren’t able to do much shooting. There were so many amazing textures and locations to shoot there. I am jealous of every one in the area that gets to shoot there.

The next morning we went out again. This time we went to a more rural area with big grassy fields. We worked on shooting in full sun, and I really learned a lot.

I am so glad that I was able to attend the workshop. I love working on my photography and learning new skills.

My favorite photography board, Clickin’ Moms, had a contest last month. The challenge was to go out and take a new picture that represented each letter of the alphabet. You could enter one photo for each letter. They had so many great prizes, I couldn’t resist the challenge. I had such a great time with it. It really got me thinking creatively and outside of my normal thinking. I took more photos in the month of April than I have in a long time. I was able to come up with something for almost every letter of the alphabet.

I have been on pins and needles watching and hoping that I would win something. Today I checked the blog and found that they have awarded prizes for letters A through T so far. Tomorrow they will announce the winners for U through Z.

Guess what?

I won two first place prizes and one second and one third. They only give out prizes for first place winners, but I am SO EXCITED! There were so many great entries and I am really honored that mine were chosen.

I won first place for the letter I with this photo:

I is for Invisible

I also won first place with this photo:

J is for Jump

I got second place with this photo:

G is for Grasshopper

Then I got third place for this photo:

K is for Kiss

I am really excited about this. I was really hoping that maybe one of my photos would win, but I am thrilled with these results.

I know some people wonder why I place my logo, or my watermark, on all of the pictures that I show online. I found this great article that I think answers that question perfectly.

Why Are Professional Photographs Watermarked?
by Cristy Nielsen & Yolanda Rowe

As parents, we do everything we can to protect our children. We teach them to look both ways before crossing the street and many other ways to be safe. Photographers have the same responsibility to their work. Each photograph is important–not just because they are our livelihood but because they are portraits of special people: our clients. To protect our work and our clients, we watermark every image that appears online. We hope to discourage unethical people who steal from photographers by copying and using images for their purposes without authorization or compensating the copyright owner and subjects.

For example, let’s say your photographer posts preview images on a social networking site such as Facebook or Myspace. These photos are intended to show the client a preview of what their session images will look like. If they are not watermarked they cannot be identified back to the photographer who created the image and they could be stolen by a third party and used without permission. This has happened on numerous occasions by companies who will use photographs for their marketing campaigns and then photographers or their clients have found their images and photos on the sides of buses, on billboards, etc. Imagine finding a photo of you or your child on a flyer or website for some random company when you didn’t give permission for it to be used in that way and you will begin to understand why photographers watermark to protect their work.

Federal law is very clear on the copyright of images. The creator of the image (the photographer) is the owner of those rights. A client pays the photographer to take those images, but it does not give them ownership (rights) to what is created. Even if the client purchases a file or print it does not give the client copyright to the image. They are given a license to do certain things. This is called a Usage License and it is illegal to scan or copy it and use it in any way other than which it was intended: displaying the print itself. Even purchasing prints does not give the client copyright to the image and it is illegal to alter, scan, or copy it and use it in a way other than its intent. Copyright is held by the image creator for 70 years by law and infringement is punishable by up to $150,000 in fines PER image.

While it may seem like no big deal to make additional copies of an image, or crop out watermarks in web versions of photos, truly it is a big deal. A photographer works very hard on their images, and this is their livelihood, source of income and how they feed their family. When you copy and scan images you are taking part of the income that they depend on to stay in business and serve their clients in the first place. Watermarking is a necessary evil to protect photographers, to protect their work and their job security. As Yolanda says “Copyright is like your vehicle. You can give someone the keys to drive it (granting permission to a client) but it doesn’t make them the owner of the vehicle.”

For more information on copyright, please visit Federal Copyright.

**Used with permission from Author Christy Nielsen**

If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me!

I love it when families coordinate colors, but do not all dress alike. It looks best when you have some variety. Many photographers recommend solid colors, but I love patterns. It works really well if, for example, one person has a busy or patterned dress or shirt and you dress other people in colors that you pull from that pattern. You can see that in my example below. The little girls dress is a cute pattern and the other family members are dressed in solid colors that coordinate with the dress.

I love layers and textures. Think about sweaters or jackets with shirts underneath. Corduroy and denim jackets are always great. I also love accessories like ties, scarfs, hats, boots, petti skirts, headbands, and anything else that adds a little something to the photos.

Enjoy!

Here are a couple of my favorites.