St. Louis Photographer » A Journal by Holly McCaig

I’m pretty wiped out. It was a long weekend with so much of me shooting. I’m now doing what I love and that’s editing and proofing images. This always makes me happy. Lots of emails to catch up too. It’s all good. I’m starting to visualize how my work week schedules and processes should be before it gets busy again this summer. These are the things that make me smile and drive me to wanting to do so much more.

This Saturday, I teamed up with the ever adorable, Elisabeth Cutshall – Makeup Extraordinaire! – and we did three boudoir shoots. We LOVED IT! It was a great learning experience when you try to figure out the best way to schedule these and not let our creative minds take over and take longer than we should. We are starting to prepare for our Christmas Boudoir Marathon and it will happen some time in the Fall. Keep watching for dates. We won’t schedule more than five ladies in one day, so spots will be limited if you’re interested!

I captured some images of Elisabeth putting on makeup on our clients. There may be some sneaks of the boudoir images to come later. Our clients have to give permission for this to be on the blog and tell us which image they don’t mind. We keep this very private for them so they always remain comfortable with the nature of their images. Go check out Elisabeth’s new website too!

So sweet, so tiny (well, 9 lbs tiny) but the coos and the noises…adorable. Lucy was born last Tuesday and is the newest family member for one of my clients. We had her come into the studio so we could utilize all the amazing vintage furniture and other pieces I have. Talk about so much easier to shift things around with all that space! While Lucy didn’t want to keep her eyes closed much, she was such a good baby. My BFF, Amy Kant, was in town and assisted me. As always, you cannot do these things alone. She helped get props and move things for me. I think she just needs to move here from Milwaukee, right?

Anyway, here are the photographer favorites of the most darling little girl, in my studio!

We celebrated our family Christmas last night and it was nice. Except for eating WAY too much, I think we all had a great time. Santa brought me the ever so cool Fuji Instax Mini – now to load up on tons of extra film. I have so many plans for this camera with the studio! Some pictures from yesterday:

For those seeing images of my dogs in crazy “get-ups” no fear. They don’t stay on very long. Unless it’s a sweater to keep them warm when it’s cold outside.

That’s Jake & Andrea’s gianormous dog, Pirate.

OMG – best dessert ever. Chocolate Truffle Mouse Cake. Yah, I said that.

Poor Andrea was sick.

The camera – and some funny pictures. 10 film packs go fast!

My brother’s beer – gotta love Schlafly! Too bad we didn’t have any Christmas Ale.

This afternoon we are heading out to St. Charles to my uncle’s home. The extended family will be together. This year, we opted to do no gift giving except to the little ones. I’m so glad for this. It helps keep the focus on family and enjoying company rather than feeling pressured to buy gifts for so many people. I like keeping things simple.

Merry Christmas.

I’m gearing up to work all winter on my fresh high school senior ideas for the business. Many are card designs, like the one here. Seniors should have FUN grad announcements to send out, featuring their awesome senior sessions, don’t you think? I used Brittney’s dress as inspiration for this design. Loves it! Clients, you can buy this card in the Client Lounge when you order your prints! Grad announcement orders should be placed in April so we can be sure to get them approved and delivered in time for you to address them for graduation. When you order your grad announcements at your preview session, you can take $10 off! P.S. Photogs…you can purchase this design at Pink Ink Studios for your business outside of the St. Louis area.)

Two things. 1) I love traveling. And, 2) I love Arizona.

In April of 2008, I made my first trek out there after Audra and I hung out the summer before in Chicago at CHA. She invited me to come stay with her family and made plans for us to drive up to Sedona for the night. This is a dream for two photographers. The weather was absolutely perfect. And, I left Arizona with my heart tugging, wanting to relocate there. Even though the first thing I said as we left the airport was, “everything is brown!” I still loved the fact that you never have to fight with rain or snow. Okay, maybe they have a short monsoon season, but that’s okay. Ahhh. I can get used to that. I’ve been out there three times and am working on my fourth trip this October.

Being a southern girl – growing up mostly in Texas, Florida and Georgia; living in St. Louis, Missouri was NOT on my top list of places to make home. If I didn’t have family here, I’d be gone in a heartbeat. Seriously, this humidity and lack of lengthy springs and falls is for the birds. I kinda miss the fact that we had a swimming pool and an ocean outside our backdoors in the south. Le Sigh.

So, Audra’s mom let us use her timeshare in Sedona and we made the drive up on Saturday morning. But, not after I stopped to buy brand new sunglasses at the Ann Taylor outlet. Audra’s new iPhone was tempting me the entire trip too. Once we arrived, had lunch and mozied around. We took our sunset Pink Jeep tour. Our guide was fearless and awesome. The families that were on our tour was amazing too. However, when we got to dinner, I realized, my brand new sunglasses were gone. This is becoming a running joke for me. I can’t hold onto a pair of sunglasses. They were on my head during the Jeep tour, but because it was a sunset tour, when we came off the rocks it was getting dark – so they went in my shorts pocket. Or so I thought.

I absolutely LOVED the Jeep trip! As we braved the bumpy ride and protected all our expensive camera gear (we took a lot up on the rocks with us) we knew it was the best thing ever. I am shocked I didn’t take more photos – I think I was just in awe of the beauty of nature and how things have evolved. Now, we wait for Audra and Jeff to deliver their beautiful new, baby girl…then, next Spring, we hit the Grand Canyon in another Jeep tour!

Last fall, I started prepping some of my more fine art/travel photos for sale. I put a few on some jewelry – my Missouri ones like Ted Drewe’s, Route 66 icons, funny signs in Missouri. They were all pretty popular. I just ran out of hours in the day. Now, I want to make them for sale again. I love these treasures. So, I am starting out with selling the prints first. Then, as time permits, having more jewelry made with them.

Here were some of my favorites as we made our stop over on Jerome on the way home that Sunday…where I immediately had Audra drive me to the Apple store so I could buy my first iPhone (yah, so, I’ve purchased four already…don’t judge my necessity to rely on all things Apple). I’ll be sure to share some Sedona ones in the coming days too:

I’ll be selling these online but they take a while to get uploaded. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night having a Linda Blair, Exorcist moment and am nursing today. I’m not sure if it was food poison or it’s the flu. I don’t feel awful, but exhausted.

Now…to book my trip to Phoenix. I am scheduled to be there for a week in October. I get to see the new baby and take an amazing workshop with Melissa Jill! Very exciting! I may not come back this time…shhhh, don’t tell!