Memories Portraits {blogged} » Peeks into Memories | Knoxville Photographer, Nancy Belden

This little girl holds a special place in our hearts here at Memories. We have known her mommy for a long time, and Maggie is just the sweetest little girl you could ever meet. We love having her come in with the bunnies every year and are simply thrilled to see her every time. During this session, it was extra special to photograph Maggie in the same rocking chair her grandmother was photographed in at this age… what a precious girl!

…so we’re taking the weekend off. We’ve gone ahead and rescheduled our sessions, and are going to enjoy the snow and we hope you do too!

…our Gallery Wrap Sale, that is.   Time to book your ordering sessions because this is one great sale! Gallery Wrapping is normally an extra $150 on top of the regular Portrait Canvas price, but for the month of February this upgrade is FREE! Come on, who doesn’t love FREE?!

What’s the difference between a regular Portrait Canvas and a Gallery Wrapped Canvas, you ask? Both canvases are printed on the same luxurious surface, so the difference is in the stretching. A regular Portrait Canvas is stretched on a 3/4″ stretcher bar and stapled on the side (thus requiring a frame) and a Gallery Wrapped Canvas is stretched around a 1 1/2″ stretcher bar and stapled on the back (thus NOT requiring a frame). They look gorgeous hanging and our clients are always pleased with their finished pieces. A while back, we took several shots of one of our Gallery Wrap studio samples so we’ve reposted the image so you can see just how amazing these pieces are.

Last summer’s Gallery Wrap Sale was a big success, so hurry and don’t miss out. This is an excellent savings for those of you who have been thinking about using one of our Wall Collections or even designing your own (like I did!) If you’ve been thinking about coming in for a session, you still have time to book and order before it’s too late. Call us at 357-5800 to book your Portrait Session or Ordering Session, we look forward to talking to you soon!

Hey guys, just wanted to pop in and say that we’re taking a snow day today. The kids are out of school, so we are too! Providing melted snow and no ice on the roads, we’ll be in tomorrow (don’t worry, no sessions were scheduled for this week!). After tomorrow (Saturday), Nancy, Michelle and I will be in Nashville for a few days attending Imaging USA. We’ll be back in the studio on Wednesday.  We are sooooo excited to go and catch up on all the latest, you’re gonna love our new products this year!

Till then, enjoy the snow and be safe!!

ok, so we’re a little late with this announcement… but we’ve been more than swamped to say the least, lol. We’ve actually had this in the works for a bit and been promoting it here in the studio… just not so much advertising. whoops!

The Halloween costumes out there are much too cute to only take a photo in the dark of night on Halloween, so come in for a Costume Mini Session and get a great photo of your cutie dressed up as a ladybug, ballerina, ghost or goblin or whatever you’ve come up with this year. We promise, this will be a short and sweet studio session of your kiddos in their Halloween garb. We’re looking forward to a fantastically fun day, and all supporting a great cause (100% of the proceeds go to Knox County Humane Society)! So, call the studio to get on the schedule for this Saturday, October 31.

**edited to add — want to clarify on the big question of the day… There are NO Session Fees for the Costume Mini Session and 5×7′s are only $10. This all goes to charity, and is our way introducing Michelle to the Memories team! Give us a call as soon as you can at 357-5800, slots are quickly filling up!

Hey guys, it’s been awhile, ay? Well, the flu kept me out for over a week and this week has been all about Tinsel & Treasure… and tomorrow both Nancy and I will be working it, so the studio will be closed. But I wanted to give a little peek at some of the sessions that I’ve been working on. Just a few of my faves from Autumn in the Old City… there are still several sessions from that day that are still on my To Do List, but I do want to say that they all look great guys! Promise we’ll get back on the blogging track next week, everyone have a wonderful weekend!

HOLY. COW.

That pretty much sums us up right now. 

hmm… where to begin…  Well, we’ve been busy.  Which is great. Really, we’re not complaining.  Then, we decided to splurge and get a couple of new computers (and they are gorgeous!).  Woohooo!  Then, one very important computer bit the dust the night before all backups and switching were to take place.  Not so great.  Now we’re having a heck of a time with some of our processes (credit cards to name one).  Just when we’re almost completely restored, I get a phone call that my daughter has a fever of 102.  The next day, I take her to the pediatrician and she is diagnosed with the flu.  They’re pretty sure it’s H1N1 but not positive.  Poor thing has been miserable since Thursday and doesn’t look any better now.  And now I have it… I think.  I actually feel fine but I do have a fever.  So, I’m not coming back into the studio until the fever is gone for over 24 hours (don’t worry, I haven’t even been in at all since last Thursday).

Did you get all that?  Yeah, so now you know why I say HOLY. COW.

Thankfully, my non-infected husband went into the studio a couple of nights ago and picked up a bunch of stuff for me, so now I’m working from home.  Proofing newborns out my yin-yang, and loving all of these so very much.  I’m also working on a surprise.  Some of you know about it…  Hopefully, if all goes well, we should be ready for the big announcement in time for Tinsel and Treasure.  This is something we are very excited about.  Maybe this is why I don’t feel so bad, having the swine flu and all… it’s that good.

I’ll leave you with one of my faves from yesterdays editing.  This new mom and dad were completely convinced that they left with nothing at all.  See Megan, we told you we got it (plus, oh, about 19 other equally fabulous images of your little guy!)

And, I’d like to thank all of our clients for being completely wonderful while we are a bit overwhelmed. We’ll be back to normal soon… I hope!

Hey guys, just wanted to say I know the blog looks weird tonight. Performing some long overdue maintenance here… it should be a step up once I’m done though

**edited to add: Well, it’s mostly okay now. Got a bunch of my changes in but if you really look around, you’d see I’m not all there yet… it’s after midnight though so I’ll pick this back up as the weekend goes. Hope you’re enjoying your weekend! And sorry to the readers who saw the blog when it was a mess — all part of progress though… right?

I’ve finally got my Wall Collection hanging, and I’m ready to show it off.  We’ve lived here for six years, and up until now a very big wall in my kitchen has been completely empty.   It’s the biggest empty space in my house (no furniture covering it up or anything), and it really kind of intimidated me.  I was afraid that whatever I did would not be enough and it would end up looking dinky, and to further complicate my brain, the ceiling is sloped and I could not figure out how to deal with that. But then we took Lexi downtown for her Matilda Jane session, and I knew I was going to have to figure this one out.  We didn’t intentionally shoot this to match my kitchen… but it does.  Perfectly.  So, I sat on my countertops for an hour one night staring at this huge barren wall and formulated a plan.  Once I had the diagram in my head, I went to the garage and grabbed a role of wrapping paper (if you’re anything like me, you have tons upon tons of Christmas paper) and began measuring and cutting.  I knew I wanted to print these canvases as gallery wraps, so I did not have to add any extra space in for framing.  Once all of my pieces were cut, I taped them on the wall like this:

then I went to the computer and looked for the right images to go together.   I knew I wanted the 24×36 to be a full length shot and I really wanted the red brick wall since it would go so well with the room, then I worked the others in the series around that one.  And I layed it out on the computer like this:

Then, all I had to do was size them correctly and place my order.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

I am so impatient…

then they finally arrived.

And the angels sang.
ok, maybe they didn’t sing, but I did. I put my husband to work measuring and hammering. And when he finished I cried. I am such a sap. I love how the colors match, I love her expressions and her poses, and I love how it is sloped to match the line of my ceiling.  It all goes together fabulously!  For real — they look amazing! Pretty much, I’ve shown it off to anyone that I can drag into my house this week.  And I had to keep my mother-in-law from stealing the 16×24. Now she is demanding copies. Tons of copies for anyone that ever cared to look at my daughter’s pictures. hehe, I love that about her. I digress… so, without further ado, here is my new wall in all it’s glory. I love it, and no matter how many kids we have… these are important and will stay in whatever home we happen to be in. They show her ‘two-ness’ so very well. Here is Miss Sassy Pants herself:

I realize the canvases look a little distorted, they really aren’t.  But I had to use a very wide angled lens to be able to fit the wall into the shot.  And the color is a bit off due to the kitchen light… but the red brick wall is exactly the color of the red paint on the wall.  I love happy accidents like that

Anyhow, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my process, and maybe this will help you get brave with your walls too.  It is an investment, but a worthy one in my opinion.  This is art that you never get tired of looking at.

And, don’t forget, our next Matilda Jane Trunk Show is this weekend.  Come and bring a friend, these clothes are made for amazing photographs!

They’re here! We are ready to rock-n-roll for Christmas this year… and we’re offering a special. From now through October 31, if you buy two sets of cards you receive a free 5×7 or 5×5 print from your session. These cards come 24 per set and are printed double sided on a high quality linen textured cardstock. They make a great impression when sending to friends, family and clients, and we look forward to designing yours this year!
Click here to view our entire 2009 Christmas Card Collection