were baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.....

So it is April 1st , where has the year gone? We wanted to take some time off from writing the post so we were not becoming repetitive.
To catch everyone up on some stuff that has happened. We are 99 percent sure we have locked in a spot for the Webb City Prom for the end of this month.  We are super pumped.

talked to you soon,
wade

 just a little reminder we are still looking for some street team members

coming back....

This week we have hit and miss on the blog. We wanted to take a little break from it. We knew a lot of people would be out of town. Come Monday we will be hitting it every day again.
We have a lot of fun stuff coming up. The first part of May we have a wedding in Indiana. We can not wait.  At the beginning of June we will start shooting a ton of 2013 senior sessions (street team) CAN NOT WAIT.

Thanks again everyone

talk to you soon,
wade

rain rain go away....

Wow... I dont know about you but we are ready for the rain to go away for awhile. One good thing about it though, everything will be nice and green for pictures. We are super glad that Spring is here. Don't forget about our 25 percent discount off of any package. That is a super deal.

 Talk to you soon,
Wade

starting fresh

So we have taken a couple days off to regroup. We are coming up with fresh new ideas on what to write about. We want this blog to become something fun. Yes, it is about photography, we will be showing a lot of pictures, but we want to reach out to the photography community also.
Tomorrow is the beginning. You wont want to miss it

talk to you soon
wade

our goal

If you keep up with the blog you probably notice we don't write it until the day/night is almost up. We are very very sorry. We are going to try to have the blog written by 5 pm each day. If for some crazy reason we do not have it done, we want to say sorry in advance.

talk to you soon
wade

something fun.

You could say Me and Jess like to play on our I phones. I mean who doesn't. There are so many fun games out there to play, here is one that Jess ran across a couple weeks ago. Be sure to add me Wade1820 . Not sure what jess' name is.

talk to you soon

wade

photo tip...

So yesterday I did not write a blog. My fault, but we did write 2 in one day a couple days ago. Any ways today we wanted to share a quick photo tip from our fellow friend.

Tip o' the Day: Dare To Be Different! Got that Not-So-Fresh feeling?  Today's tip will take care of that! It seems like a decade ago… because it was.  College was a fun time for me; I chewed up photo classes like daily vitamins, growing stronger with each one. My favorite college photography professor told me something during one of our independent study class sessions that I’ve never forgotten: Every single session you do, I want you to do something completely different that you’ve never done before. That was easy at first.  And then it got really, REALLY hard.  Since then I’ve photographed 350ish weddings and more than a thousand portrait sessions.  For that reason alone it’s easy to see how difficult it would be to do something new and that I’ve “never done before” for every single session.  Let me just say this, though: it is possible!  I know because I’ve done it. The second reason this is hard is because you’re clients usually see images on your blog or website and, to a degree, choose you based on those images.  You might be afraid that you’re not meeting client expectations if you don’t give them the shots they’ve seen, want, and love.  However, you have to take care of YOU.  I believe my professor instilled his meesage in me to keep me fresh or, more importantly, prevent burnout.  I believe that if you keep the creativity part of you burning white hot, you’re not going to experience burnout. Above and beyond, friends! P.S. One of my subscribers suggested to me to include a link where you can forward this to friends so they can sign up (thanks, Brent!).  If you like this tip, send it to someone you like and have them subscribe!  Let's lift each other up!

Leading lines

Today I'm going to chat about another composition tool I use a lot called leading lines. What it is, essentially, is including some sort of line in your image that subconsciously makes your eyeballs examine the entire frame. That, after all, is the goal of an image, You can mix, match, and combine these composition tools for ridiculously cool pictures!

You can use pretty much anything as a leading line, and it doesn't even have to be a straight line. A river flowing throughout your image... a gripping horizon line... street lines (even the dotted ones work!)... all are examples of using this in your photography. Cool tip, eh?

Already everybody! Line up!!

something fun....

this is a super quick post. ( I have a bit of a headache) be sure to come back tomorrow. we will be sharing a picture and telling you how we created the lighting...
talk to you soon,
wade

tip o the day starts back up tomorrow too.

our tip to you...

On the weekends we want to take some time to give some photography tips to fellow photographers. Todays tip--- Know your clients before the shoot. Your shoots will go 100 times smoother and more fun for both you and your client if you know more about them. Your pictures will turn out better also cause both you and them will be relaxed.

talk to you soon,
wade

2 post today

Hey we wanted to put the tip of the day out here for ya. Just to let you know we will not be posting these on the weekend do to our fellow photographer being swamp. So instead I will be writing photo tips for ya on the weekend.
Talk to you soon
Wade
If you got the tip from yesterday... YAY! It was a toughy but goody! Today's tip is much less instense in terms of jargon and technical settings. Hooray for that!

There are two other ways to get that yummy shallow depth of field (or, as my friendly moms with cameras call it: blurry background). The first is to get CLOSE to your subject. No... really close.

Everybody do me a favor: hold your hand four inches away from your eyes and stare at it. Notice (without looking around) how blurry the background is. Cool right? Now... extend your arm all the way out, still looking at your hand. Notice that the background becomes a little clearer? Mega cool! The same principle applies to photography. The closer you get to your subject, the more your background will go out of focus.

The final way to get a shallow depth of field is to increase the focal length of the lens. Wait! Say whaaaat? What does that mean? Oh, easy... it means "zoom in." Yep, that's my final trick... zoom in. What it does is compress the background. Now, you can really do this with the 17-55 kit lens that comes with a camera. We're talking 100mm, 200mm, or 300mm. (the shot above was shot at 135mm at 2.8, fyi!)

Okay! There we have it! Now you know three great ways to get a beautifully shallow depth of field

Hello Spring!!!

As I'm sure you can tell from the weather, Spring is pretty much here! This is one of our favorite seasons to take pictures in! It's not too hot but yet the colors are all bright! The grass is green and most of the flowers are starting to bloom! We LOVE to shoot outside and have some great outdoor places! Please contact us to set up your sessions today! Talk to you later, Jess

we are at 100......

So yesterday the post was on the handy I phone. I was away from my computer all day so I didn't have a chance to look at all the fun stats that I like to keep up with. Long story short WE HAVE WRITTEN 100 BLOGS AS OF YESTERDAY. So today is 101. We want to celebrate by giving a free 8x10 for the first 10 people to comment on this blog post.

Here is the tip o the day.

Tip o' the Day: 3 Ways to Attain Shallow Depth of Field (part 1) I'm going to teach you how to be shallow today.  :)  The GOOD kind of shallow.  At every Shoot Your Kids workshop I do, the number 1 question I get is: "how do I get a blurry background in my photos?" Today, I have your answer!  Well, part of it.  I'm going to explain a LOT in this email, and tomorrow I'm going to share the two other (EASIER) ways to get a shallow depth of field (or blurry background). Lenses have apertures, or a mechanism that adjusts in diameter to allow light to pass through to your camera.  The size of the opening refers to an f/stop, and have common numbers such as f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11 (notice they're either whole numbers or decimals - that's important to remember, especially when we're going to go over shutter speeds down the road!).  Okay, all that might be mumbo-jumbo, so let me clarify! As a photographer, we get to adjust the aperture to regulate how much light goes through.  We do this by changing the f/stop.  Easy enough.  We set our camera's f/stop (check your manual, all cameras models are different) to a certain number, which affects depth of field.  Okay, did you get that? "Okay, so... what f/stop do I need for a shallow depth of field?" Answer: the lower the f/stop NUMBER, the shallower your depth of field! Some lenses (the ones we use, and that I include links to below for your convenience!) have really LOW number f/stops, so we can get super shallow depths of field!  The image above, for example, was shot at a f/1.8.  (Meredith used the 50mm 1.2L lens on that shot) On a side note, if you want a LOT in focus, you're going to set your aperture to f/11ish.  See how that works?  Low for shallow, high for deep (just think of it in terms of water if it helps. Deep water is high.  Shallow water is low.  MAN I'M GOOD!  hahaha!) For portraits, I'm always shooting at f/2 or below, and a lot of the time I'm shooting at 1.2!  Sometimes it's so shallow that noses are out of focus when the eyes are in focus (so I shoot a LOT and bracket focus).  Got it?  Good! Now, let's all go be shallow photographers! talk to you soon, Wade

Rule of thirds

photogs - and who are we kidding... sometimes veteran photogs, sadly - think they need to be centering up a subject in a photograph. Say whaaaat??? (I blame darts, archery, and other bullseye-ish games) That's not good composition! Using the rule of thirds means this: when you shoot your photograph (or design your poster, or book cover, or whatever!), mentally divide your image into 3rds (horizontally and vertically), and then place your subject on one of those imaginary lines. That's it! Pretty easy right? I've given you an example above, and then another below with some 3rd lines overlaying. If you want a constant reminder, I suggest getting a grid focusing screen put in your camera. I've linked to a couple different Canon camera screens below (sorry Nikon users, find it yourself - haha!); they're only like $30 on Amazon, and are pretty simple to install.

Now that you know the rule of thirds, two things are going to happen.
1) you're going to all of a sudden SUCK at darts.
2) you're going to notice rule of thirds all over the place! Seriously, it's everywhere

Talk to you soon
Wade

lighting /tip o' the day

One thing that really crawls underneath my skin is when "photographers" don't pay attention to their lighting conditions. We have a thing called Photoshop that we should be using. :-)  ( a little rant to start the  blog off) hahaha.
On a different note. My last semester of college I took a whole class just on color reproduction. Walking into the class I thought I knew everything that anyone should know about color. After the first class I was proven wrong. Believe me when I say it was a long semester. Correct color and lighting means so much in the photography world. If you would like help let me know. I would love to pass along some knowledge to ya.
Now it is time for tip o' the day

Today, I'm going to share one of our lighting tips with y'all.  We love to use video lights as a (sometimes better) alternative to flash!  When we shoot indoors we have to deal with terrible venue lighting by overpowering with something.  Sometimes, flash is perfect.  But when we want to control the amount of light, the angle of the light, and even the color of light, it's MUCH easier if we use a video light!  Sure, you can have custom white balances and rig up a fancy off-camera flash system, but honestly we don't always have time for that on a wedding day (or even during bridal sessions, engagement sessions, and portrait sessions).   The Lowel ID light is a great light (the battery pack is heavy though). The color is great and it's dimmable and you can get barn doors to adjust the light (we don't normally use these, but have in the past).  The Litepanels light has a hot shoe attachment and comes with gels so you can shoot out some color balanced light!  Another great thing about the LP is it runs on 4 AA batteries!  Nice! When you shoot with these, you can play around with shadows (and see it while shooting, which is hard with flash!) and brightness.  I usually have an assistant hold it off at a 45 degree angle, and sometimes a 90 degree angle, for interesting light. Okay!  There you have it!  Enjoy!  And grab your own video light - you really won't be disappointed!! Let your light shine bright!

tip o the day.

A couple days ago I mentioned that we would be sharing with everyone something fresh. One of my friends/ mentor is starting TIP OF THE DAY. We will be sharing these with everyone each day along with something from us. Here is his tip (for the photographer)

talk to you soon,
wade

Tip o' the Day: Pay Attention to Your Background I'm not gonna lie... I spend WAY too much time looking at photographer/mommy blogs!  I love looking at pictures (duh... I'm a PHOTOGRAPHER).  I've found that the more I look at pictures, the bigger my pet peeves get when it comes to images.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when photographers don't pay attention to what is in the background of an image.  Why is this a problem, you ask? Have you seen an image where there are tree branches growing out of a dude's head and he looks like he has antennae???  All it would take to fix that problem is either a step to the left, or a step to the right.  C'mon... how easy is that? There are obviously scads of remedies for this problemo - my go-to fix is just to blur out the background. Goodbye, telephone poles, street signs, and other major annoyances... smell ya later!

something new...

instead of just talking about all of our pictures and stuff, we want to show you more of our work. It might be portraits it might be landscape or buildings. From now on at least once a week we will be posting "our favorite Picture of the week." We will tell how it was shot and etc. 

talk to you soon, 

wade

about me..

Today we wanted to continue with the about us.. This is Wade.
by far one of my favorite books would have to be Animal Farm, great book, I got hooked on it when I was a freshmen in high school. One of my favorite movies of all times would have to be sandlot. By far my favorite place to go on vacation would have to be Mexico, normally not much of a vacation when I go down though,
talk to you soon,
Wade

dont forget starting monday we will be tagging one of my friends in the post, he will be giving photography tips, we want to pass it along

A little more about Jess...

So tonight, I thought I would share a little more about me... If you didn't already know, I am an elementary school teacher. Most of the time I love my job. It seems that there is never a dull day. I keep getting told that I need to write a book. Something else you might like to know is some of my favorite movies... I live comedies! National Lampoons Christmas Vacation is probably at the top of the list, but I also have a goal of quoting one of the Home Alone movies daily!I don't always get the quote in, but I sure like to try! So... What are some of your favorite movies?!?! Talk to you soon, Jess

coming soon!!!

For those of you who don't know I have a friend that lives in Arkansas.....  Pretty exciting huh??? Well he is also rated one of the top photographers in the nation!! He has been a great mentor for me ever since high school. 

 Well on Monday he is starting a 365 day campaign on photography tips. We want to pass that along to all the photographers that follow us on here. We don't want to keep secrets. So be sure to read our blog.

 

talk to you soon,

Wade

 

YAY SENIORS!!!

I know we have posted about this before.. but we are once again we are inviting Class of 2013 seniors to be a part of our Senior Street Team!  With this, you will get senior rep card that features you!  You will get to hand these out to your friends!  Also, you get your own senior pictures at a discounted price!!!  Another benefit of being a SENIOR STREET TEAM MODEL is that you can earn GIFT CARDS or MONEY!!!  If this is something that you are interested in, please take a moment to check out our website.  The application for the street team model can be found on the website or you can fill it out here.

Talk to you soon,
Jess

stats....

With the month coming to an end here soon, we are excited to say we have had two full months of blogs. Something we set out to do at the beginning of the year. We want you to stay up to date with all that we do. Sometimes the blog has nothing to do with photography and sometimes it does. To us it is about building a relationship and friendship with our clients. Everything seems to flow smoother when you know a little about each other prior to a shoot.
Since we started writing our blog consecutive our stats have started to rise. We have had 2100 page views in the past month. If you are one of the viewers, thank you so much. Please be sure to tell your friends and family also.

Talk to you soon,
Wade

goals.....

yesterday I posted about my birthday...... I also mentioned I had some goals before I turn 26.  here it is...

1. Become a full time photographer
2. Be recognized as one of the best Senior photographers in the area.
3 reach the 250 mark on Facebook.

 those are the top three. we will start with that and see what happens.

 talk to you soon,
Wade

Happy Birthday.......

Today is my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!! the big 25. Wow how time flies. Earlier in the week I declared this was going to be a day of relaxation, boy did that turn the other way. below is a list of things I accomplished today.
 1. up by 7:15
 2. Smoked 6 (yes 6) racks of ribs. (yummy)
 3. lunch at grandparents.
 4. Event at church tonight.

 Yeah it's only 4 things, but four things that were great in the long run.
Here's to making 25 great, Hopefully I can accomplish a ton of things (that is going to be tomorrows post)

talk to you soon,
Wade

Tell Us...

We were just wondering what is most important to you?  Amount of prints? Price? Uniqueness of pictures? Number of people allowed on the shoot? Number of wardrobe changes?

We want to give you, the customer, exactly what you want.  We want to make sure we are the best photographers we can be for our customers... Thanks!

Talk to you soon,
Jess

Sad news...

Well, we were hoping to have a picture of the new senior brochure, but there are still a few changes that need to be made before we want to unveil it.  Thanks for being patient... Can't wait to show it to you guys!!!

talked to you later,
Jess

Great News.....

Hey we wanted to post real quick about something awesome. The past couple of weeks we have been working on a new brochure for Wade Hilton Photography. It is all about our senior photography line. Well today we got a proof back from the printer, got some work to do on it still. All in all it will be very nice.
Let me guess you want to see a picture of it? my answer to that is, TOMORROW.

talk to you soon,
Wade

One of MY favorites!!!

Hi friends!  It is Jess tonight...  I just wanted to share one of my favorite senior pics.  I know a lot of seniors are getting ready for the end of the year so if you need a last minute shoot, call us up... JUNIORS-don't forget to apply to be a street team model!!!  Check out the application on our website.

Here just one for tonight.........

talk to you later,
Jess

Kids pictures....

We love shooting kid pictures... They are so fun, never know what to expect from them. Today we want to do a quick post about our favorite kid picture.. These were the first Easter pictures of my little nephew cooper. Believe me his is not innocent. Hahaha

 talk to you soon,
 wade

Happy Birthday....

If you remember a couple of weeks back I talked about one of my all time favorite photographers, Ansel Adams. Well today is his birthday. For many of you this video will do nothing but put you to sleep. LOL... To me it was a pretty cool video, def old school. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZND3eczqoIA&feature=share

talk to you soon,

 wade

 by the way it is someone else's birthday this week too. (He likes cameras too)

Hurry!!!!!

This past week has been crazy busy. Not shooting photos, but booking senior sessions. We met with a ton of seniors for the 2012 2013 school year already. If you are interested in having your senior session this summer or in the fall, don't wait to book it, call as when you think you have a date picked out.

talk to you soon,
Wade

One more time

Today we are going to post another senior rave.. I promise this is the last one for awhile. We just wanted to show everyone what all the seniors thought of their sessions.   Here is a little note from Bri Davidson

My senior year was packed with so many

memories, if it was being on the varsity

cheer squad at CJ, or just hanging out with

my friends. I wanted to make sure I could

keep those memories with me after high

school was long over. That’s why I chose

Wade Hilton Photography for my senior

pictures. Wade made my senior session

more than memorable. He took the time to

get exactly what I wanted in each of my

pictures. The pictures turned out great, the

shots were fun and it was just over all an

great time. I would for sure do 

it over again!

talk to you soon, 

Wade

Seniors!!!!

We will finish up our senior raves tomorrow. today we wanted to give a shout to Hunter Luna..

My experience taking pictures with Wade was really great. I enjoyed the time getting everything set up and brainstorming ideas on what I should do for the pictures. Also, I enjoyed how comfortable I was during the process. He made it fun and exciting with the experimental poses and a few jokes on the side. 

All in all, working with Wade was a great experience and I’d definitely recommend him to anyone around who wants to have a great time while taking great pictures. 

talk to you soon,

Wade

Another Senior Rave!!!!!

We have decided to take the next couple of days to go through some of our previous seniors that have used us for their sessions and blog about what they thought. Today we want to show some pictures from Brooke Dodsons photo session, along with her awesome friends.

Here is a quick Rave from Brooke!!
My senior session with Wade Hilton Photography was everything I could have asked for and more. From start to finish I had a blast. I was able to bring along 3 of my best friends, they even jumped in some of the photos with me. I would highly recommend Wade for senior pictures. I would do it over in a heart beat. Thanks Wade for an awesome and rememorable shoot. 

talk to you soon,

Wade

Senior Rave.......

We love keeping in touch with past seniors to see how they are doing after they graduate and open another chapter of their lives.  Today we are going to show a couple pictures of a senior from last year, she also wrote a section of our new brochure that we are putting together, which is written below. Thanks to Presley Goff.

I chose Wade Hilton Photography to take my senior pictures because his photography is amazing and the prices for pictures were very reasonable.We drove to a few nice places to take pictures so there was a large variety of different poses and scenery. He had the best ideas to show my personality and I had so much fun with Wade and his wife Jessica. They make you feel so comfortable and I think that helped make my pictures turn out so great. I loved my senior pictures and I would definitely recommend Hilton Photography for any type of special occasion. 

talk to you soon, 

Wade

engagements and weddings.

Today we wanted to mention a little about our engagement and weddings. We are starting to book weddings for 2012 and 2013. If you have your date set don't wait very long to book your wedding, we would love to shoot your wedding for you. Be sure to check out our website for all of our pricing information. If you are wondering if we have your date available give us a shout at 417.629.6907 or 499.5216. 

talk to you soon, 

 

Wade 

SNOW DAY.....

Today is a snow day for many, I would like to call it catch up day. LOL. It is nice to set back and drink a TON of coffee and work on pictures. If you keep up with the blog (which I hope you do) not to long ago I hooked up with Art Feeds to take some pictures for them. I posted a couple pictures but I wanted to post a couple more for ya. It was a great day, Im so glad that I was able to give back to a great program.

talk to you soon, 

Wade

NEW!!!

 A couple of weeks ago we talked about how we love using Millers Lab for all of our printing. Well once again they have pushed it to the next level. they are now offering luxe frames... How awesome? Pretty awesome if you ask me. What better way to show off those awesome photos than to put them in it. If you would like to order these, just let us know..
 

Talk to you soon,

Wade

recap.....

If you read the blog yesterday you saw that we have recreated our senior packages. We wanted to simplify our packages and also make prices that are reasonable.  We also listened to YOUR input and just made the most requested packages! As always, if what we have created doesn't fit you, we will create something that will! Here are the new packages:


**Remember--there is no setting fee with the senior packages!





Terrrific 2 $120

2-8x10

2-5x7

2-sets of 12 wallets

online proofing for family and friends



Fabulous 4 $175

4-8x10

4-5x7

4-sets of 12 wallets

online proofing for family and friends



Super 6 $250

6-8x10

6-5x7

6-sets of 12 wallets

online proofing for family and friends
*Additional prints and sizes can be purchased.
If you have already looked at and settled on a previous package, we will still honor those through May 1, 2012.
Take a look at our website for all prints and product pricing! Wade Hilton Photography



Talk to you soon!

Wade

NEW SENIOR PACKAGES!!!

So as you heard last night, we have revamped the Senior Packages!  They are WAY easier to understand.  We also listened to YOUR input and just made the most requested packages! As always, if what we have created doesn't fit you, we will create something that will!  Here are the new packages:
**Remember--there is no setting fee with the senior packages!


Terrrific 2     $120
2-8x10
2-5x7
2-sets of 12 wallets
online proofing for family and friends

Fabulous 4     $175
4-8x10
4-5x7
4-sets of 12 wallets
online proofing for family and friends

Super 6     $250
6-8x10
6-5x7
6-sets of 12 wallets
online proofing for family and friends

*Additional prints and sizes can be purchased.

If you have already looked at and settled on a previous package, we will still honor those through May 1, 2012.

Take a look at our website for all prints and product pricing!  Wade Hilton Photography

Talk to you soon!
Jess

Fresh Pricing......

Tonights post is going to be a quick one. We are in the process of revamping all of our senior packages. YES!!!!! This is something that we have been wanting to do for quite some time. We are going to release all of these packages tomorrow night!!!!!!!!! (got to get the website updated too) Be sure to check back. Believe me when I say the prices are to hard to pass up... Especially if you get your fingers on those business cards that have a 25% discount on them too.......

 Talk to you soon,
 Wade

inspirtation.....

One of my all time favorite photographers would have to be Ansel Adams. For those of you who don't know who Im talking about here is a picture.

His work was astonishing. What was so amazing about it all, was it wasn't digital, I think he is looking down at us all right now probably wondering what the heck we are doing with all of these different techniques.
Ansel Adams used the dark room as we would use photoshop today, he would use chemicals to go into the pictures and burn certain areas to create the shadows, he would do the same on the highlights too. I.E. the clouds....
 Pretty good I would say. So many times it is good to look back and to see what all has come about, it is the click of a button now that can reset our pictures, but back then it was throwing it away and starting all over again.

Talk to you soon,
Wade

throw back....

I can't remember a time that I was on a photo shoot and a client did not ask me "how did you get into photography?" I always laugh then go onto telling them. 

I have always been enthralled with pictures, so many different ways to go about taking one. I remember growing up playing with my grandparents camera. It wasn't even 35 mm. Hahaha. (Im laughing just thinking about it). It was a Kodak Disk camera for those of you who have no clue what language Im speaking here is a peak.

here is the film that went this beauty also.

Time went by and of course I had a 35 mm also. I became super curious about cameras when I went to Mexico every summer. One of my best friends taught me so much about SLR cameras. I finally broke down and bought a digital SLR, you could say my life was forever changed. Pictures that I was taking started getting better and better, all I wanted to do is take pictures. I decided pretty quick that I wanted to be a professional photographer. I liked it enough I spent most of my time in college with my face behind a camera.

I cant think of a better job out there. (maybe this is why everyone is "trying to become a photographer.")

Talk to you soon, 

Wade

Just a reminder...

today we wanted to take the time to remind of a little something. STREET TEAM..... We are super excited about the Street Team. It is a great way for seniors to earn FREE stuff. Gift cards, Money and much more.. If you are interested in this go to our website http://www.wadehiltonphotography.com/ and click on the Senior Street Team app. 

Talk to you soon, 

Wade

p.s. we are starting to receive a ton of applications, so be sure to get yours filled out..

Best commercial......

To me the best part of Super Bowl each year would be the commercials. It started off rough but slowly got better as the night went on. I've always like VW Bugs (maybe that comes from seeing so many in Mexico). If you did not get a chance to see it, or you would like to see it again, click the link. 

http://www.vw.com/en/commercials/2012/game-day/dog-strikes-back.html?sem=google

talk to you soon, 

Wade

SUPERBOWL SUNDAY

As you probably know, friends and family are very important to us!  So.... tomorrow we will be watching the big game with friends!!! However... we do want to know about you guys out there that are our friends as well!!!  We want predictions!!!  Who is going to win? What is going to the be the best part of the game--the actual game, the commercials, or the halftime show?  Any score predictions?  Just a fun way to see how everyone out there is spending their day and to see what you guys think will happen tomorrow!

ART FEEDS....... My Camera

Today was a day that I've been waiting for for quite some time. I always thought Art Feeds was a great program, but never thought about getting involved with it. If you don't have a clue what they are about, you should go to their awesome website and watch there video. www.artfeeds.org.  be sure to check everything out, even buy an awesome shirt from them.
When the Extreme Home Makeover Joplin Addition aired on t.v. it hit me pretty hard that I needed to give back to my community in some way. What better way to give back than to use my camera I thought. Me and Meg were in contact pretty shortly after the show. I told her what I would like to do, she was all about it. :-).
 Below are some of the pictures that were taken today.  The project today was found poetry. You can still see that kids think about how their lives were changed from the tornado even in art work. ART FEEDS EVERYONE DIFFERENTLY.  How does it feed you? We would love to hear.

Talk to you soon,
Wade

A fun day.

There are so many days that I get to see my wife walk out the door at 6:30 in the morning and sometimes I don't see her until 9 30 or 10 at night. You could say she is a pretty busy person. Well this morning I decided I was going to take her to breakfast before she went to work. After that I decided to pull the camera out and go on a small hike and take some pictures. (perfect morning for it).
The picture that you see has a lot of meaning to me, It is the bridge that I proposed to Jessica on. :-) that was a great day.

talk to you soon,
Wade

tomorrows post is one you wont want to miss. (giving back to the community)

how we stay organized.

This is going to be a super quick post today, we are in the midst of working on a new brochure.
When we first started our business we had tons of paper work every where you looked. sticky notes on side of computer screens, had notebooks in our camera bag, the list could go on and on.
 Well this past summer we purchased an I PAD. God bless Apple for this great product. we have eliminated all the sticky notes and bulky notebooks in our camera bag. We never go on a shoot without it at hand, we keep everything we ever need or could think of on it.

Talk to you soon,
Wade

never ending.....

What is so nice about our "mother ship" Millers imaging is they are always coming up with something new. Every time we turn around something new is popping is u. :-). That is what we like. We have to stay fresh.

One of our new favorites is the metal wraps. These have a clean fresh look to them. If you are interested in ordering one with your photo session just let us know.

Later this week we got some awesome post coming up. Wade Hilton Photography is "giving back to the community" (hint this friday you wont want to miss)

Oh by the way: WE HAVE GONE A WHOLE MONTH OF NOT MISSING A BLOG....

talk to you soon,
Wade

Accepting Credit/Debit Cards

There are many photographers that require cash or check because they do not have the capabilities to accept "plastic."  We wanted to make things as easy as possible on our customers.  We know that there are many people who do not carry cash (we are some of those types of people!).... Thus we made it a priority to help those customers out as well.  We accept cash, check(local only), credit/debit cards.  We hope that will help making lasting memories easier for you.  

Talk to you soon,

Jess

Join the Wade Hilton Photography Street Team!!!

If you have been following our blog lately, you know that we are beginning our search for our 2012-2013 Senior Street Team.  If you have not had time to read about what a street team is, please take a minute and read this blog post on our street teams.  If you are one of our street team models, then you will receive your very own senior rep cards.  These are cards that feature you and only you.  You can pass them out to other friends and classmates.  If they bring that card back to us (or let us know that you referred them) you can earn great rewards!  Here is a preview of what the rep cards will look like as well as a cool tin case that you can carry them in!

If being a part of our street team sounds like something you or a friend might be interested in, take a moment to fill out this application! Spread the word!!! 

Talk to you soon,

Jess

Just another quick sneak peek!!!

As you know from yesterday, we had a great shoot with one of the cutest little girls!  She is turning one very soon!  She had the cutest little outfit (which her mom made!!!).  If you couldn't have guessed it, her birthday party is cupcake themed!!!  Enjoy another quick pic from last night!

PS... We love the new back drop and floor...what do you guys think?!?!

Talk to you soon,

Jess

Turning One.

This evening was we had a fun shoot. At first Paislee was as stiff as a board, would not move, would not smile. Within minutes that changed, hahaaha. She was super fun. We are still in the process of editing the photos but here is a sneak peak of one of the photos. The next couple days we will be posting a couple more photos from this session.

Talk to you soon,

Wade

they're in.........

A couple weeks ago we showed the business cards that we designed. Well they came in today... You will see them starting to make their way into schools and businesses.
Just a reminder what to look for.

Talk to you soon, Wade

Baby photo shoot tomorrow night, be sure to check back for sneak peak..

more than photography......

Day in and day out we talk about photography. For us it is super exciting, we love what we do. I could not imagine life without a camera in my hand. I could not imagine this world without design either. Since day one of this worlds creation there has been design. Pretty cool to think about. (sometimes I can think pretty deep about things like that).

I love design  enough that it became my college degree, I have a degree in Commercial Graphics (major emphasis in photography) from Pitt State. To me it is super cool to start with a blank computer screen and work for hours and hours and have amazing piece of work at the end. 

 Design is something we want to start bringing into our photography business. So if you are looking for baby announcements or graduation cards, or if you own a business and you need promotional material, we would love to help you out..... 

You might have seen this around town. Promotional piece for House Of Hope and Rufus Racing.

This was My graduation Announcement. Gotta love Gus the Gorilla.

Just let us know if you need anything designed. We would love to help you out.

Talk to you soon, 

Wade 

packages...

Today, we just want to talk a little about what sort of packages we offer our customers.  We are just highlighting a few, but if you want the full details of the packages you can always find that information on our website.
For Seniors, our packages start out at $175 and go up from there.  We have created senior packages with lots of different options.  We have some that have more larger size prints to give out to families, and we have some that have less larger size prints but more wallets to hand out to friends.  Of course, we also have packages with both.
For children and families, our packages start out at $85.  These packages range from just getting a few prints and going up into larger packages that come with a very nice memory book.
For weddings and engagements, you also have a few options.  Our wedding packages start at $900 and our engagement packages start at  $100.  For the wedding packages, you need to make sure that the package that you get covers the amount of time that you want captured in lasting photographic memories. Also, some of our wedding packages come with a complimentary engagement package so be sure to check all the details!

The best news of all is that we are here to get you, the customer, what you need.  This is where the pick your own package comes in.  If none of our packages fits your needs, then you can pay a small setting fee and then just pick the prints that you are needing.

We hope you take a few minutes to check out our website and read more in depth about our products.  You can also find out information on our mini-sessions as well as our extra prints and products.

Talk to you soon!
Jess

locations we like to shoot.

Lets jump right in and say we like to find new locations all the time. this post wont have any pictures in it.  Just going to mention some types of areas that we like to shoot in. We will for sure go anywhere and try anything that our clients want. Some of our favorite spots would be rustic alleys, fields with tall grass, locker rooms, train tracks( we have some cool stuff we can do with train crossing lights). I know this is a super quick post but I wanted to mention a little about it today. We are on the brink of finishing our site. OH YEAH.
 talk to you soon,
Wade

new website coming...

A couple months ago we launched a new website and here we are again getting ready to do it all over. The past month has been so great. We under went a name change and everything we so smooth through the whole process. In doing so we thought we would start with a fresh website. We have worked countless hours on it. We believe it has more of a professional feel and look to it and also easier to navigate through it.
We are within 2 days of launching it. Believe me I cant wait either. So be on the look out for it. wadehiltonphotography.com

talk to you soon,
Wade

a good read.

One of my Christmas presents this year was the Biography of Steve Jobs. Once you own a piece of Apple  equipment I think it is a must read for everyone. The book is a little over 600 pages, so I you could say Im no where near being finished. One of the best quotes that have stuck out to me (enough I even highlighted it) but Steve mentioned that "I did not create Apple to become rich, but I created it to produce a product that will last." 

You might call me cliche but that is what we want to do also, we want to create images for our clients that will last forever. We want people to be able to look back and say "we had a great time on that photo shoot, and our images are amazing.We strive for nothing else than perfection, hours upon hours go into post production to make sure the photos are 100 percent before they hit the hands of the clients. 

talk to you soon,

Wade 

Calling ALL 2013 Seniors

Last week we mentioned that we would be looking for 2012-2013 Seniors for our street team. We are super excited about this. It is a great chance for Seniors to earn some awesome stuff besides their senior pictures. I remember being in a senior and participating in a street team, it was a ton of fun. Below is a poster that we created, If everyone would pass the word along for us. We hope to get some of these printed before long and get them into local businesses.

Talk to you soon,
Wade

New Look...

Being done with college now I have a lot more time to dive in and get things accomplished. The list is still continuing to grow but Im able to get things marked off too. I believe any business owner would agree with me 100 percent when I say "it is all about word of mouth." Think about your favorite place to eat, most people would say a family member or a good friend told me about it. Am I right? To us that is how photography is too, all about word of mouth and getting capturing those images. One way we decided to get the word out to people is by vehicle graphics.  We are so happy with the way they have turned out. Here is a picture of Jessica's car.
Now help us get the word out, tell your friends, family and co workers about us........
Talk to you soon,
Wade

Family...

If you know Jessica and I at all you know that family means the most to us. We would honestly do anything for our families.  Last week my sister asked me if I would like to take my niece to school. Of course I said yes, basically I was supposed to take her and let her show me around and eat a donut with her. We both had a blast, I even asked her on the way there if she wanted to skip school, of course she had to be the party pooper and say "NO".
Of course while I was there I had to take some pictures, what can I say Im a happy uncle. I can only imagine how many pictures I will take when I have my own kids. hahaha. Below are a couple that I took.

Bailee at her desk with a present she made.

Showing me all the books in her classroom.

All the other kids in the class.

Talk to you soon, 

Wade

for the photographer

todays post is more for the photographer. Every once in while we will post a blog that pertains to photographers. Got to keep it fresh.
 A couple of months ago I was skimming through different websites and I found the coolest coffee mug ever. It was a camera lens, how cool is that? To me it was pretty awesome. I love drinking coffee.  So one Christmas me and Jessica were making coffee to take with us and I mentioned to her, "hey I found this really awesome coffee mug it looks like one of my camera lens." She told me "you should get one." Long story short I got one for christmas.
It keeps my coffee nice and warm and it also reminds me everyday that I see that Im blessed to have an awesome job as a photographer. Nothing better than to see people get their photos back and see there awesome expressions while looking at them.  Of course the one on the left is my lens.

talk to you soon,
Wade

Modern!

Do you remember when you were a kid and you had school pictures taken in the wicker chair? Hahaha I sure do. Just like everything else in life, you have to stay up to date in photography. When we first decided I wanted to go into photography I told myself I would never do studio photography. NEVER NEVER NEVER. My wife slowly but surely changed my mind. I guess you could say I was truly convinced last year when we got 2 foot of snow on the ground and I still wanted to shoot. Like most we always like outdoors better but it nice to have the studio also.
If you remember a couple days ago when I mentioned I was building something new for the studio, well it is still in the final stages, but in the picture below you will see a sneak peak of it. it is the Old rustic floor!!!!!!

The main thing we wanted to show you is our newest backdrop that will be complete here really soon. It is really modern. We are super excited to add it to our collection.


Talk to you soon,
Wade

Business Card.

Yesterday morning I spent a some time designing a new business card. Within the next few weeks these will start making their way into schools, and area businesses. When you see one of them be sure to get a hold of one, not only are these good for senior photos but also good for family and children packages too.
We ordered around 500 of them so there will be plenty of them to go around. So you know ahead of time this is what they look like. We are super excited, just another way to grow.

talk to you soon 

Wade 

Street Team.

We believe a huge marketing technique is getting out into the schools. One way of doing so is by our street team opportunity. Every year we choose 5 to 6 seniors from the surrounding High Schools to help out.  In doing so they will get better pricing on their senior sessions along with other cool benefits( like before cant spill all the beans on here), but it is for sure worth it (not kidding). 

We are looking for 2012-2013 Seniors to join. Applications will be available sometime next week and will be due by June 17th. Seniors will be notified shortly after this time, so they can do a late summer early fall photo shoot. 

here are a couple photos from a 2011 senior from Webb City High School.

Talk to you soon 

Wade 

Life Changing.

May 22, 2011 will forever be engraved in our memory. I will never forget how long it took to get a hold of family and friends that evening. I will never forget hugging my Grandparents when I arrived at their house 3 hours after I left mine ( which was a normal 15 min drive).
From the second the tornado lifted cleanup began, community came together, the Nation came together to help. Lives were forever being changed and molded in a whole new way. Then the news came. EXTREME HOME MAKE OVER WAS COMING TO TOWN.
Watching over 10,000 volunteers come together to help was amazing, I was like a kid in a candy store watching how everything came together so fast. 7 House in 7 days, Wow.
Tonight was a very special time to set back and watch the season finale of EMHE. To hear all the stories of how so many lives were changed, to see how businesses came together as ONE to help out. It was hard not to cry at times and it was easy to laugh at times.
What a great community Joplin is, Im proud to say that Im from Joplin. We as a community have overcome so much in the past 8 months, and so much more to come.

talk to you soon

Wade

tomorrow we will go more in depth about senior photography and Street team opportunities.

Bummer.

The title says it all. We were going to have a really awesome blog post today of a project that I have worked on all day. A couple minor set backs on it so most likely it will be posted tomorrow or saturday. You wont want to miss it, it deals with the studio. 

On the other hand we want to announce that we are starting to look for 2012, 2013 senior reps. What is a senior rep? Well let me tell ya, basically you get your senior pictures at an amazing price ( to low to even put on here) :-). The more friends that you get to have there pictures taken with us, the more stuff you also get. Cant spill all the beans on here. We would love to talk to you about it if you are a upcoming senior. 

 Talk to you soon 

Wade

 

Elegant...I think So...

With the world of Photography growing so much you have to find ways to stand out. Some things you want to keep a secret, like marketing techniques. Certain things you just have to get out there and let people see. 

 Jessica and I have been on a mission for some really cool chairs for quite sometime. Everything we found was amazing, but we didn't want to jump at the first thing we looked at. Until today when I had some spare time. It was like love at first sight. HA Just kidding, I really liked them from the second I saw them. 

Perfect size to keep in our studio or even better to take on location with us. When we bought the chairs all the info that they could give us is they are from the early 1900's. Yeah the color is a little off the wall but nothing Photoshop cant fix. :-)  or you might like it the way it is. Up to you.

we have two of these chairs.

love the detail that is in the woodwork.

the piece that I like to call amazing....... 

Want to be the first to get your picture taken with one of these? Call us up and we can make that happen.

talk to you soon.

Wade