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

New Logo... New Look

A lot has happened the past couple of days as all of you know (if you have been reading). Over the weekend we decided to switch our name. As mentioned before there is ton that goes into that. The past couple of days we have been working on better marketing techniques ( what we can offer you) that is fresh and unique. Also we have released our new logo design, (multiple color options).
You might also realize that the blog has a whole new feel to it also, What are your thoughts about it?

 Tomorrow will be all about the studio. We are coming up with some awesome new stuff for it.

New Blog Address

Just wanted to let everyone know that our new blog address is Wade Hilton Photography Blog Please feel free to subscribe and check back frequently!  Thanks for bearing with us as we going through this name change process!

A quick post from Jess...

Today has been good and bad... I (Jess) was up sick all night so finally about 4:30, I woke Wade up and had him take me to school so that I could make some substitute plans (side note--turns out the sub was my mom!!!).  Then we came back home and went back to bed for a while.  After sleeping as long as possible, we moved to the living room (Wade in his recliner and me on the couch) and we came up with the new logo.  I am not going to post it because I am going to let Wade do that when he is ready.  Wade probably didn't get to work on everything that he wanted to today because he was busy taking care of me.  

At some point this afternoon, I started wondering if this was more than just a stomach ache... turns out I have had a fever of 101.5.  I am trying to keep myself awake for just a bit longer and then I am going to knock myself out with some Tylenol PM.  I know this is short, but I wanted to let you guys know that we are still working on that name change and are excited about it!

Talk to you guys later,

Jess

Great news

When we started aperature pics a couple of years ago we wanted a name that would be really catchy. In some ways it has been, in other ways it has not exceeded our expectations. After a lot of debate we have decided to change our name to wade Hilton photography. Catchy right? This will not happen over Night. It is a very long process ( already getting a headache. Hahahahahaha). We believe it will be a great move for us going forward into the 2012 year.
Thanks for all the love and support from everyone

Please continue to spread the word.

Talk to you soon

Wade

More about us.... but from Jess...

Ok, so I (Jess) decided that I would tell you more about us today.  As Wade told you before, we met at church and had out first date on January 1, 2008.  One of his first questions to me was why facebook (yes, he had already done his homework and read through my facebook) said that my current location was Knoxville, TN.   Well, as he was just about to find out... I went to school in Knoxville.  I was actually getting on a plane at 6 the next morning.  Well, it was a fun first date and we had talked on the phone every day since. So, about two weeks later, I decided that I needed to come home again and see if this long distance thing was really something that I wanted to do.  So.... 11 hours later, I was seeing Wade for the second time!!!  This was when we had our first picture together...

Now, if you know Wade, you are thinking... wow she is as tall as him?!?!  Ummm.... no.  I was standing on a fireplace...  The second half of my master's year, I came home way more than I ever had before and we had lots of fun road trips...

Wade even came all the way to TN to see me!!!

On June 26, 2008, Wade asked me to marry him!!!  This was after a lot of convincing of my parents (I will have him share that story some time).  He had it planned out wonderfully!!!

Almost a year later, on May 30, I married the most wonderful man in the world, and I wouldn't change one thing!

Since that day, we have been working together to grow toward Christ and toward each other.  We love to have fun and laugh.  

Well, I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about us! Thanks for reading!

Christmas Pictures

You are probably thinking to yourself "why is he putting christmas pictures up in Jan." Well last month was a crazy month for me. I graduated from Pitt State, so I was busy making sure I was passing all my classes. Hahahaha But It is official . I received my Diploma in the mail yesterday.
One person that has helped me a lot with photography is my sister, from day one she was always behind me, probably for the pictures LOL. But she has some cute kids let me tell ya. Below are a couple of pictures that we shot in our studio a couple of weeks ago.

talk to you soon 

 Wade 

Yesterday I mentioned that I was going to share a couple snap shots of our family.Ha.  A little story about both of them.

 Jessica wanted me to build shelves for her classroom so being the great husband that I am, I agreed. Hahahaha. Like normal I always come up with an excuse (this one was epic). That morning while I was "supposed to be working on shelves" I got a call from my Dad telling me he found me a chocolate lab. AHHHHHHHHHHHH my dreams came through. There was no way I was going to let this go by without getting him. I remember Driving 85 mph all the way down interstate 71 to get him, let it be know the speed limit was 70. So I picked him up, and who calls me on the way home? Jessica, she asked me what I was doing and I said "building your shelves of course"

little did she know when I pulled up to her work I would be bring home our new family member Hank, she was very surprised, she will deny until the she dies but at first sight she fell in love with him.

Of course we cannot forget about libby. she is complete opposite of hank, she is a ball of fire. We got her from a friend of the family. At first we did not know what we got ourselves into. I remember making like 3 or 4 trips to pet smart to buy collars because her and Hank would get into fight and rip them off of each other... Let me tell you she is a lot different now. It took me and Jessica awhile to like her hahahahaaha (not really) but she is one amazing animal. 

 For now these are our only "Kids"

tomorrow be sure to come back and we are going to show some "belated" christmas pictures that we recently took

talk to you soon 

 Wade

Change of Plans.

So yesterday I mentioned we would show a little of our studio, Well we have decided to hold off on that until our new props are complete. Believe me, it is well worth the wait.
 Instead we have decided to talk a little about ourselves. To me it is always easier to take pictures if the person knows a little about who we are and what they are about. Not a session goes by without a full blown conversation throughout the shoot. By the end I could tell you a lot about that person and vice versa. Im not a person who like silence.
 Jessica and I were married in 2009, we started dating Jan 1st of 2008. So here is to 4 years of being with her. Ha. Our first date was to Starbucks ( low and behold did I realize her love for coffee was actually A BUNCH OF CREAMER AND A LITTLE COFFEE.) People ask me if I believe in love at first sight? well I did for sure. Nothing like seeing your date walk into Starbucks with scrubs on. hahaahhaha. If you see her be sure to give her a hard time.
This could go on forever, so to make it faster, we married in may of 2009 and she took a teaching job in Webb City School District, She received her masters from Johnson University that same month.
I continued school and received my Associates from Crowder College in Photojournalism, This past year I also received my Bachelors from Pitt State university, in Commercial Graphics.
As time goes on you will learn more about us. Favorite movies, Books, Tv shows.

Be sure to come back tomorrow to see some pictures of our pride and joy..

 talk to you soon

Wade

What would you like to see??

This year we are trying to come up with different ways to stand out among all the "photographers" in the area. What would you like to see from us. We want to hear from you. We are working on some current ideas that we think will work really well.
 Be sure to check back tomorrow for a sneak peak of our new studio items we bought..
 
 talk to you later

Wade

Fresh....

All the time we are asked by family and clients "how do you get your prints so fast?" Well that is a one word answer MILLERS. HAHAHA. Time and time again we have had shoots and people need the prints in the matter of days, most photo labs can take up to a couple of weeks on returns, not Millers, 24 hour turn around time. Just like us like Millers is always coming up with FRESH new ways to express passion in the industry.

 Whats also nice about Millers is they are just a few miles down the road. LOVE IT.

A New Year

With a New year here a lot of things come to mind. What resolutions did I make last year? Did I keep those , or were they broken after the first week? Im sure we can all ask ourselves those questions time and time again, year after year.
 Here at Aperature pics we want to wish you a happy new year. We hope that it is filled with many blessings. Start fresh and look ahead.
Thats what we are going to do here. START FRESH AND LOOK AHEAD. We are starting to look at new design concepts, new products that have or are starting to be released. Our number one goal is CLIENT SATISFACTION. In doing so, each and every day we will be releasing new blog post. So be on the look out.
 talk to you soon

 Wade