Courtney’s sister was on hand, along with mom, for Courtney’s session a few days ago. And in the end, I think she probably had almost as much fun as Courtney! (Hopefully, she will herself be calling us in another six or seven years!)

Here are a couple more from Courtney’s session:

It’s back to school time, and summer is almost over. I’m truthfully not a fall or winter guy…I love spring, and summer comes in a very close second. So I thought it would be nice to do one card before this summer’s just another set of memories, that would really have that summery look, loaded with light, cool, breezy colors. I did have to go back two seasons to find a shot that just shouted “summer”, but Emma does indeed pull it off here without even trying!

So starting tomorrow, look for Emma’s brilliant blue eyes to greet you as you open your mailbox:

Something else to greet you on that card is a $75 off special offer. Just book us before Sept 5th, with photography completed before the end of September, and you’ll get $75 off your portrait order. You do need to be on our post card list to get a card to redeem for the offer, though. If you aren’t on the list already, you can fix that right now, and have a card in-hand in a day or two!

In the next couple of days, those of you on our post card list will be receiving the latest mailing. With this latest card, we’ve introduced a new series of special offers that will appear from time to time on our post cards as a reward for being a subscriber to our post card list. Most of our seniors still come from referrals, but anyone in the Northern Nevada/Northern California area may join the list (unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t offer a setup option to open that link in a new window or tab, so just right-click and do it with your mouse) at any time, and your subscription will begin immediately with the current card. Most cards in the past have had special offers of one kind or another, so it really benefits you in the end to be on the list (a list we share with no one!).

Each offer will have a value of around $75-$175, and may take the form of extra prints and/or wallets, a discount on your print or package order, a wall print of a certain value, or free retouching services for additional images. When you sign up for your senior session, you’ll receive a certificate for the offer that you can redeem when you place your print order. Post cards don’t have a lot of room, so usually only the basic offer will be listed on the card, and you can then easily obtain any specific details by calling us at 356-5550. (Some offers are simple to explain, or need no explanation, but with sliding-scale pricing on our package orders, some offers may need their details listed separately for each package–and besides, esthetically, post cards look terrible when they lose their simplicity by crowding them with lots of text!)

Remember, these offers are made only through our post card mailings, and you’ll need a card-in-hand to redeem the offer, so make certain you’re on the list to receive the mailings, and then be sure to bring that card when you sign up for your session. These offers begin with the current post card mailing (cards postmarked August 6th-9th, 2010 and later).

A new post card goes out this week–probably Thursday. We’ll actually print the labels the day they go out, so you still have a chance to receive this card by signing up here.

Kellie and her family had to make two long trips from Carson to finally get her session completed this past weekend. After 40 minutes or so of makeup and only about an hour of shooting in the first session, we lost our sun to an overcast sky. Now, an overcast can give you some nice even lighting, but on the minus side, you also lose the snap and crispness that sunlight provides. I’m a firm believer that without good lighting, photographs suffer, so when the sun stops working, so do we! (I think there may be a motto in there somewhere…) But don’t you agree from this photo that the wait was worth it?

Kellie’s sense of style really comes through here! Blog photos are a bit small to see some details, but check out the way the color of her shoes work with both the blue of her jeans and the greenery in the background. And the detail on the shoulder straps of her top—although an admittedly small detail—really adds to the closeups. And her colors are simple: solid black for the top, the blue of her jeans, and the spot of color that pops from her shoes. All in all, her choice of clothing demonstrates perfectly the overall sense of elegance that she exudes. Kellie shows us, in just this one image, how your choice of clothing can speak to an aspect of your personality, and why it’s so important to make your clothing choices carefully!

A new post card will go out over the weekend, and just as a special offer was announced here to go with last month’s post card (look a couple posts down this page for the details), we’ll make a special offer for this new card, too: Just bring it to a senior session consultation before August 15th 2010, and receive a free set of 16 additional wallets that will be added to your print order.

There may be a short overlap of perhaps three or four days in the effective dates of this new offer and the last post card offer’s effective dates, so it should be noted that in cases where dates may overlap like this, “bring-in-the-card” offers are valid for just one offer per commissioned senior session (your choice of which in-effect offer you’d like to claim, of course)!

Now, if you aren’t yet on the post card list, you can sign up here. And if for some reason your consultation takes place before you receive your post card, don’t worry: As long as you’ve signed up for the list, we’ll honor the new offer even without the card, so just mention it when you come in if your card hasn’t yet arrived.

Thought you’d like to see a little something from two sessions we completed recently for Johnnie and Kendra. Makeup by the wonderful Gaynel!

Just a few minutes ago, the post cards from the printer arrived for the next mailing, and I immediately noticed a typo! There’s actually very little text on this card, and despite checking and rechecking, I managed to find a way to send a mistake to the printer! (It’s a usage error, really, as technically the word is correctly spelled, and it’s probably a fairly common error at that. At least, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself!)

So here’s how I’m going to make myself appear to be a brilliant marketing strategist:
Find the error when you receive the card (no, sorry, it’s not in the image of the card above, this is the front of the card, and the error is in the text on the back), and bring it with you when you book a senior portrait session between now and July 15th. You’ll either get $30 off your senior session fee, or 16 extra wallets on your print order (your choice). You just need to show me the error of my ways between now and July 15th!

The cards will go out in groups over the next few days, some perhaps as soon as tomorrow (Friday 6/11).

To make sure you’re on the mailing list, or just to be included if you haven’t already put yourself on the list, you can sign up here. If you know you’re already on the list, and think you know the answer and just want to receive your card in the first batch that goes out, send an email to Oops@hildebrandstudio.com with your name + address, and we’ll pull your label and make sure it gets out in the first batch.

Remember, it’s ok if you aren’t the first to get here with an answer! Anyone getting it right and bringing in a card before July 15th is eligible for the reduced session fee cost or extra wallets when booking a new senior session.

First, I want to clear up a possible misconception of the update photos I’ve been posting. I don’t want anyone thinking these are photographs of *the* area we use for shooting! The photos you see as “greenery updates” show the condition of just one corner of the broader stage we use in many outdoor sessions. Yes, portions of the area shown are used, but the particular spot shown is actually an entrance to a much larger area. Also, this area is used for just one part of a session. But it’s also the slowest developing of all our locations, so makes a perfect barometer to tell us when to start shooting each spring. When it’s ready to go, everything is ready to go!

The photo above is from May 16th. (Shot around noon, so of course the shadows are short and the light looks harsh. We begin our sessions a bit after 4:00, so consequently the shadows are longer and the light softer when we’re actually in a session.)

Compared to the photo last week, you can probably see that all the branches now have leaves, and when we’ll actually be shooting (we’re officially starting our first sessions the week of the 23rd), the trees in this entire area will have leaves large enough to make a nice, solid canopy of green.

As reported before, I’d still estimate we probably have through most of June before the grasses begin drying out and the green starts turning to shades of tan. So, plan your sessions accordingly! Green grass? Book us for June. Straw-colored grass? Book us for July or later! Just call us at 356.5550 to get things rolling.

Things are coming along, but aren’t quite there yet. The shot above was from Saturday. The grass is still a bit short, but the main issue is a lack of leaves on the trees. As you can see from the tree on the left, leaves are beginning to sprout, but need another week or two to provide fill for those bare branches.

Looks like the weather is finally going to hit some sustained 70s later in the week, so perhaps this will speed things along.

While it seems good weather is really taking it’s time getting here, a check of photos of this same area from exactly one year ago today shows almost the very same degree of progress.

So hang in there, get your outfits finalized, and we should be shooting very soon!

This post may at first seem unusual for a blog about senior portraits. But a good senior portrait is not just a pretty picture, it’s something that shows a bit of your personality, and maybe even a little personal style, too. So let’s examine how a jazz singer named Anita O’Day did just that on one summer’s day back in 1958.

Anita O’Day was at the top of her game when her appearance seen in the video below was captured at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. It’s considered a classic performance, not just for the lasting impact of the performance itself, but for her unique look, too. Not only was it elegant, it was absolutely striking, even in a day when big hats and gloves were common. If you mention the name “Anita O’Day” to any serious jazz fan, I can guarantee the image you’ll see of her in this video is what jumps instantly to mind. (And, yes, we think differently fifty years later about using things like the exotic bird feathers on O’Day’s hat and dress, so just remember this was a different, less enlightened time, and recognize her individuality and stylistic choices that go beyond the selection of the actual materials used.)

While the fashion itself may scream that it’s the 1950s, it’s the flair with which she dresses that makes the statement. With her all black+white ensemble, right down to the white feathers on her black hat, and those white gloves, Anita O’Day made an indelible impression that day we can still learn from, even more than a half-century later.

(And the outfit was last-minute: It was only after Anita arrived for the festival that she learned she had an afternoon instead of an evening slot, and the usual evening wear wouldn’t have been appropriate for a daytime appearance. So she had to completely re-think what she was going to wear.)

Now, I’m not suggesting that you need to dress outrageously for your senior portraits! But if your clothing and the way you dress is an important expression of who you are, make sure that you bring at least some of that to your portrait session!

The clip below is just a few minutes long—with, unfortunately, a *lot* of audience shots dropped in. (It sometimes seems Bert Stern was making a film about the festival audience, with the performances simply providing the background, instead of the other way around.) But there’s certainly enough Anita time to get a great idea of how she brought her personal style to her clothing, and I think to even get a telling glimpse of her personality.

Now, check out some classic Anita!

And while we’re on the subject of personal style, don’t forget to check out Lookbook to see what other teens and young adults around the world are wearing.

Thanks to everyone responding to the special offer outlined in our last post!

I took a small tour around the area last Thursday to check on the greening of our favorite shooting locations. Leaves are sprouting out all over Reno and Sparks, but some outlying areas probably have another ten days to two weeks to go until we reach ideal shooting conditions. A lot of the tall grasses we like so much have a good start, but is still a few inches below the dead stalks left over from last year. So again, another ten days to two weeks.

I’ll be heading off on another tour this coming weekend for another status check.

While I do like the tall grass after it dies out and turns tan (for one thing, it’s a nice neutral color that goes with all sorts of clothing colors) my favorite look is against the tall grass while it’s still green. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last very long. Yes, we have to be a bit more careful in making color choices for clothing when we’re shooting against green, but the lush, fresh look is well worth it if you like the look:

We can most likely fit another half-dozen or so sessions safely into our schedule between mid/late May and mid-June before we’re in danger of our green grass beginning to turn tan. So, here’s another small, off-the-cuff special: Book a session during May to take place before mid-June, and we’ll increase your wallet order by 16 wallets at no extra charge! This can be 8 wallets each added to two different wallet orders, or 16 wallets added to one wallet order. (They do have to be ordered at the same time you place your Print Collection order, however.)

So call me! Let’s do some photography! 356-5550.

PS: Don’t forget to join our mailing list!

The post cards I mentioned in the last post are hitting the mailbox Monday (April 19th), almost a week later than expected—sorry. A late idea to devise a special offer to work in conjunction with this first mailing of the year meant holding off until the details were worked out and posted here, in place and waiting for your visit!

So, here’s the deal: When you receive your card, save it! (What if you don’t get a card? Hang on—we’ll get to that in just a sec!) That card is worth $20 off your senior portrait print order for Collection One, $50 off your order for either Collections Two or Three, or $75 off an order for Collections Four or Five! No, that offer isn’t printed on the post card, it’s only detailed here. And for this specific offer, the session date must be reserved before April 30th for a session that will take place before the end of May, with the print order placed within two weeks of the session.

To claim the offer, just bring your post card with you when you come in to book your session date.

And if you don’t receive a post card by next Wednesday (April 22nd), or know you haven’t joined the mailing list, you haven’t lost out. There’s still time to get on the mailing list and get a card to use for this offer. But don’t forget, before the end of April you’ll need to have a May session booked. Details? Call 356-5550!

Here’s a link to the mailing list form. Even if you won’t make this offer’s deadline for getting your session date booked or order placed, there will be different offers associated with other post cards over the course of the summer—such as $$ off a print order, like this current offer, or free retouching on an additional image, or perhaps some additional free wallets. There will even be one or two you can still be able to take advantage of even if you’ve already had your senior portraits completed, and your prints in-hand! (Now, why would anyone offer an incentive after the fact? That’ll have to remain a mystery for the moment!!!)

So even if you can’t take advantage of this current offer, be sure to sign up for those yet to come!

Our first post card of the season will be going out sometime in the next ten days. If you’re not already on our post card mailing list, there’s still time to sign up! (It includes a special offer for early season sessions.)

Along with a canopy of bright young leaves, the warming season will soon bring tall, green grasses and budding wild flowers. But it’s a season that lasts only a few weeks before those fields of green begin turning to toasty browns, tans and yellows, and the wildflowers disappear for another year.

We’re happy to photograph you in any season (our peak season for senior portraits is June through August), but if you’d prefer a lush green look, or just want to beat the deepest heat of summer, it’s time to schedule your consultation appointment, plan your session, and standby for the weather and the colors of spring to hit their stride!

And to kick off the Class of 2011 senior season, we have a little something extra for you: Book your session before the end of April to take place before the end of June, and you’ll receive one extra image retouching and an extra eight wallets for free! (That’s a minimum savings of $51!)