St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

What can I say? She definitely made shooting easy! Cady attends Fort Zumwalt South and hired me to come out to Main Street in St. Charles to take her photos for her senior year. She’s a dancer and cheerleader – her personality is fun and I love when these kids are up for my crazy ideas. I often wonder if they think to themselves, “what is she doing with this, now?” but I know in my head that the end results are going to make it all clear to them. I try to remind myself not to take a few shots, take a quick peak, and then gush. I do that a lot.

So, I give you, the adorable, Cady’s senior portrait peeks!

We were working on shooting some dance poses and moves, but poor Cady was so sore from a hard-core day of dancing the day before. We talked about some ideas and we’re going to do some fun stuff this spring with some of her dance costumes. Really excited for that!

Thanks Cady! You rocked it!

Seniors, today is the last day to take advantage of our $100 creative fee special! Don’t miss out! We have three more lined up and we’re so excited! Visit the senior website at hollymccaigseniors.com.

A few weeks ago, I did a few mini sessions in the studio, and Nikki and her family stopped in. I died over these adorable kiddos! I love how parents dress their children…seriously, the shoes and tights and – oh my so adorable! Anway, I’m excited about a project in October where Nikki is hiring me to do a shoot with her oldest “F” – it’s gonna be amazing! Here’s their cute family.

This was ONE busy weekend! We’ve been doing our Class of ‘11 Model Search and all weekend have been doing headshots of our applicants that have scheduled to come in. I am SO excited about these kids. So adorable, excited and outgoing. Love that!

After yesterday’s, we headed back over to Old St. Charles to do Cady’s Senior Portrait session. Little did we know, it was Octoberfest there – but, luckily, it was clearing out as we arrived. Ahhh. My mission on this shoot was to make sure that we didn’t copy Brittney’s session (since we were in the same location) and make it as equally cute. I think I pulled it off. Yah. Here’s just one peek!

People ask me about which lenses I use and I have to say, I did Cady’s entire session with my 50mm f/1.4 lens. I’m ready to upgrade to the 1.2 next. The only edited I did on this image was some white balance correction to warm it up. That lens makes my heart swoon. And, Cady was an excellent subject! Don’t you think?

Yesterday, we did an update on our Holly McCaig Seniors website. Now, when you click on “Portfolio” from the main menu, you will notice the submenu has separate galleries! You can see complete sessions of three of our seniors now! We’ve also updated a bit of information on some of the description pages too. We’re looking forward to photographing our first Senior Model Search contestants tonight too! Visit http://www.hollymccaigseniors.com .

I absolutely LOVE albums. I mean, look at those luscious, thick pages, printed on Fuji papers. And, those gorgeous bindings with a custom cover. Oh, the design and goodness of a square album.

I don’t sell enough of them. But, I intend to. I think when people see them, they are in awe. They fondle them and want to hug them, just like I do. Okay, so maybe that’s a little over the top, but some things just do it for me. It’s the perfect way to display your entire session, especially when you aren’t sure how you’re going to decide just which images to purchase. I shoot a lot. I offer a lot of proofs. I want my clients to have all their images. This is probably the most affordable way to get them, and have something amazing you can treasure for years to come.

Dream albums are my favorite squared albums. This new company started this year, and when I got my first sample, I died (in the words of Rachael Zoe). I did, I die!

The insides are always custom to fit your images, but the outside, I like to have a few, amazing options pre-designed and have been planning on doing this for my Client Lounge for some time now. So, I present my first design. Photogs can buy this design at Pink Ink Studios if they want. My clients, you can choose this for your square album cover. It’s designed for a 12 x 12, 30-page album which retails for $990. It can be resized down to a 9 x 9 ($750) or a 6 x 6 w/ 20 pages ($450). This one came to me because of being inspired by Brittney’s dress. The warm tones, with the woodgrain texture – perfect!

Anyway, I just love albums. You can see that it’s a perfect keepsake from your session!