BLACK FRIDAY SALE!!!!

BLACK FRIDAY SALE From TODAY through MIDNIGHT Friday November 24th!

Select Class

Part ONE...Morning $79.00 USD Part TWO...Afternoon $79.00 USD BOTH Part One and Two $158.00 USD

My Award Winning Images from our STATE Print Competition! {San Antonio Photographer}

Every year I challenge myself to enter my work into Print Competition. This year I entered 8 images and 1 album (the limit has been 4 up until this year...yippee) and am proud to say that I merited all but 1 which got me the distinction of PLATINUM.
Here are the images and an excerpt from the Album as well.

If you happen to be an Approved PPA Juror, please stop looking and close this page. 4 of these images will go on to the next level...district.

Abandoned Beauty

Beauty and Grace

Dancing with Joy
Best Classic Portrait (no photoshop work) 

Mr. Sandman

Old World Charm, Modern Style
Distinguished Print

Summer Sunrise
Best Portrait of a Group/Family

The Lonely Path

Waiting with Grace

 Four Full Page Spreads from the Album "Our Adventure in Italy"

Best Album by a Master

Fiesta Queen La Reina Linda {San Antonio Photographer}

In honor of the first day of Fiesta, I thought I would share with you some of the portraits I created of this year's Fiesta Queen, La Reina Linda, Christina Martinez.

I have known this beautiful lady for decades and have had the privilege of photographing her for all the milestones in her adult life. Engagement, Wedding, Maternity, Newborn and countless Family Portraits. This girl is married to an equally awesome guy named Tomas. They are entrepreneurs, business owners, philanthropists and parents.

We were blessed with a beautiful day in San Antonio at the iconic Alamo.

Thank you Christina for always trusting me as your photographer.

Help for Haiti {San Antonio Family Photographer}

I want to let you know of a fabulous opportunity. A way YOU can help a family help a community in the impoverished, earthquake devistated Haiti. My sister, Allison Fletcher and her teenage sons, are going to Haiti June 18-25 with BGM ministries (www.brentgambrell.com) out of Nashville, Tn. This is something they have desired to do for awhile and are very excited to be a part of this incredible journey! 
I want to help them with expenses! So I have offered to donate ALL SESSION FEES for the MONTH of JUNE to the Fletcher Haiti Mission Trip. So NOW is your chance to get that family portrait you have been desiring AND be able to help a family help children in Haiti. It is a win-win situation!
Call the studio ASAP and get a consultation scheduled with me to chat about what type of session you would like to have. 210-497-3809. Be sure to mention that you want your session fee to be donated to the Fletcher Haiti Mission Trip.
If a family portrait is not in the cards for you right now, you may simply donate at www.brentgambrell.com. No matter what you do, please say a prayer for the family as they travel and work!
Thanks!!

Elizabeth

Here we go again...Outtakes from the Homan Easter Session

No matter how difficult it is, I still attempt to take portraits of my boys. Some sessions are better than others. Here is the anatomy of a Homan Boys portrait session. This time our challenge were those cute purple ties (Justin Bieber's favorite color...in case you didn't know). Jacob and his obsessive-compulsive chewing has a one-track mind....get that tie in my mouth!!!
So, next time your kids act up in a session, remember this post. I have seen it all, nothing scares or shocks me. But, my boys are awesome and a little rotten too!

 And finally...One of the good ones!

Secret Door Portraits 50% off in January

Just in time for Valentine's Day

Secret Door Sessions

50% off during the month of January!

Ladies, here is your chance to do that portrait that you have always wanted to do but haven't done yet. All Secret Door Sessions are half price during the entire month of January.

What is a Secret Door Session?

An incredibly artistic portrait of a woman, capturing her inner and outer beauty. It doesn't matter what age or size you are. A Secret Door Session is a celebration of YOU!

Elizabeth will personally meet with you for a one on one consultation to discuss your thoughts and get her artistic input on how to best photograph you. No worries, Elizabeth and you will be the only ones present during the portrait session and you can even bring your favorite wine if you wish.

Choose from these Sessions
Mini: 30 minutes                         $99    $49
Full: 2 hours                              $250  $125
Location : 2 hours at your home    $350 $175
or
Girlfriend session: you and a friend
share your chosen session
(not available with mini session)

What better gift for your honey than the gift of yourself!

Upcoming Holiday Hours and Events

It is hard to believe but it is only 11 days until Christmas! 

I feel pretty prepared...Christmas shopping DONE, Christmas cards are in but not addressed...but I am still not ready for the day to come, yet!  For Christmas this year, all three Homan boys are getting a TRIP to DISNEYWORLD! Shhh, if you see them before Christmas, it is a surprise and they will open up a big box on Christmas morning stocked full of Disney paraphernalia.  We leave Christmas night for a 7 day family vacation to the magical place.  We are so excited!!

So what is happening at the studio? 

We will be CLOSED beginning Christmas Eve and will reopen on Tuesday January 4th. All of the staff has been working overtime and will enjoy a well deserved break.

When we start up again in January we will hit the ground running with our

DOUBLE YOUR DOLLARS DAY

On January 11, 2011.

Don't miss out on this event! This is a great way to save LOTS of money on your

upcoming portrait sessions in 2011!

Keep your eye on your email inbox and your regular mailbox for all of the special events that are happening in January and February as well as some new Destination Portrait Adventures we have planned.

If you are not on our email list please email us at info@portraitsbyelizabeth.com. Emails are never shared with others and we promise not to clutter up your inbox!



Merry Christmas!

Happy Holiday....Problems?

Wow!  The Christmas season has been a busy one for us.  Between all of our Christmas Collector's Series events, Home for the Holidays events at the Missions, Weddings and regular portrait sessions (including hiking 10.6 miles at Lost Maples State Natural Area) there has been no time to update my blog!
With all of these sessions under my belt, the next step is editing and getting them prepared for you, the client, to see. I did a rough estimate and not including the Christmas Collector's Events from Nov.19-28 I took about 7800 images!  That includes two weddings in one weekend, 16 family portrait sessions and 2 high school seniors. Now let me tell you, I am not getting any younger. This spending hours and hours staring and concentrating at the computer screen has NOT been a good thing for my poor eyes.  I have always had great vision, but this year I hit the magic number that caused my eyesight to start failing me. Thank goodness for those auto focus cameras!!
So off I went to my trusty eye doctor (Dr. Diana Gonzales at Vision Source) for her to share with me the bad news.  How bad was it?? Honestly, not too bad. It turns out I just need a stronger prescription for my reading glasses while I am on the computer. I am hoping that this helps take the eye strain away and I can continue my quest to finish the work that still lays ahead of me.
In the midst of all of this, some lovely person has decided to hack my Artistic Images Facebook Page and send out free iphone/ipad links every few hours to all of my fans. Sweet! What is in it for them??? Who knows!  I have changed passwords and emails 3 times to no avail so have had to close it until time allows me to start all over again! Bummer. I still have my personal account under the name Elizabeth Cruger Homan if you would like to "friend" me, I will accept. I am sending updates regularly and I do some special things that are only good for my Facebook Friends.
All in all, the Holiday season has been a fabulous one!  I am blessed to continue to do what I love and love what I do!

My Family Portraits (San Antonio Portrait Photographer)

I love my job....LOVE LOVE LOVE it!  But photographing my own family is about as challenging as it gets.  Let me paint you a picture:  Sunday morning 6am- I am up getting showered and ready to look as good as I can look for a family portrait. 6:45am-My kids are up getting dressed...or rather I am getting them dressed myself since they are too tired (aka lazy) to do it themselves.  Get Jacob up, fed, dressed, medication. Trey can get himself ready and does a great job helping me get the kids ready too...He deserves some credit here!
Get my camera, CF cards ready, batteries charged, etc.  Load up the car.  I am in charge of coffee (why do I do this to myself?) so we take a detour to Starbucks to get a Traveller.  Live and learn...Travellers should be called in ahead of time...15 minutes later, a Pumpkin Spice Nonfat Latte and a Traveller and we are off to Guadalupe River State Park!
I made it on time! Yay...me!  Whatever happened to the cool weather we had?  Humid and hot and I am sweating my rear end off (oh...I wish) layered in a sweater jacket to hide the multitude of chocolate and lack of working out that I do. My sweet friend Karrie is there to photograph this crowd...Mom and Dad...Brother/Wife/Two Grown Boys...Single Sister...Sister/Husband/Four Boys ages 4-14...Me/Trey/Three Boys with bad attitudes and One with obsessive-compulsive chewing disorder!  We are a sight to see!
My mother has some trouble walking down all the rough terrain and is quite funny to see a train of people coming down the hill to get her to the water's edge.
Luckily my brother's two boys brought their sweet girlfriends who sang(if you can call it that), did power ranger kicks, climbed trees and almost anything else to get these little boys to smile.  Ahhhh the fun!
To top all of this off, Jacob (with the OCD biting disorder) bites my mother right on the leg...drawing blood and a few tears.  Needless to say, we are DONE! 
Fun times!  And luckily we have some awesome photos of the whole event, since it might be awhile until we attempt this again.

So, if you are thinking your brood is just not photo worthy, THINK AGAIN!  I have seen it all and my family generally is worse than any other family I have ever photographed.  Call me today to book a session that will freeze time and create a wonderful memory that you can cherish....or at least laugh about later!

September Secret Door Sessions 50% off

You are beautiful!  You are amazing! 

Secret Door Sessions are artistic portraits of women designed to

truly capture your inner beauty!

A Secret Door portrait is designed specifically for you during our personal consultation. It matters not your age, size or shape.  I will capture you at your best and create a work of art that you can be proud of!

Retouching is always included and is done tastefully and beautifully.

Here are some samples of some Secret Door sessions.

Humbled by Generosity

I want to tell you that this week I have a lot to be thankful for.  I have an amazing husband who has had to rearrange his life to take care of the kids since our nanny quit with no notice over the weekend.  I have an amazing sister, Ali, who has stepped in to watch our children so my hubby and I can go in to the studio and try to accomplish something.  I have parents who will do anything they can to help (like make the homemade frosting for Joshua's birthday cupcakes). A brother and sister in law who have helped to entertain by taking my kids to the Zoo and Six Flags! I have a business that is thriving despite a "weak" economy and wonderful clients to work with that make my job soooo much fun. I have 3 beautiful sons (one of whom is going to be 5 on Saturday).  And I have some of the most amazing friends that a girl could ask for.
I recently returned from a trip to South Carolina for the Phelan McDemid Syndrome Foundation conference (now known as PMSF).  We were all inspired by the research that is happening in the field of genetics.  Specifically the Shank 3 gene which has been discovered that our PMS children and many children with autism are missing. So much more research needs to be done but it all costs money. That is why the foundation has come up with the $22 for 22q in 22 days.  This fundraiser started August 1st and will go until the 22nd of this month.
I posted this to my facebook page and within minutes I had friends, aquaintences, clients & peers posting the info onto their page and going to http://www.pmsf.org/ and donating.
What was even more amazing was that several of my photographer friends actually took it a step further. For everyone who donated $$ and brought the receipt to their studio, they are giving their clients DOUBLE the amount they donate as CREDIT to their studio!  Isn't that Amazing???
Words can not express the gratitude I feel towards everyone who is helping these beautiful children.  The least I can say is THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart....And keep it going!!!

Together we can make a difference!!
Elizabeth

Dear Blog

Dear Blog,
I am sorry I have neglected you over the past few months! Christmas time is a real blur for me and I just haven't had any time to post anything!
Please forgive me, I will try to be a better blogger.

Here are some highlights of what has gone on the past few months:
I have taken MANY family portraits...I have lost count!

I have taken MANY portraits of children with Santa Claus and MANY portraits of children without Santa Claus.

I have created MANY, MANY Christmas Cards for my clients, all have been AWESOME and will be the talk around the dinner table!

I have been busy booking HOME for the HOLIDAYS! In fact, I have completely booked Dec. 26 and have opened up another day on Dec. 27! I only have 2 appointments left!

I have been busy booking MAUI! Yes, we are definitely going to MAUI June 4-11th 2010 and already have one family booked and 3 that are working out the details.

AND...Trey and I would really like to go to Venice, Italy for a cruise with friends, but the only way we can go is if we book at least one portrait session while we are there. So, all you world travelers, call me ASAP so I can book this trip of a lifetime!

Oh yeah, I also went to Paris. Had a blast and I have AMAZING images, just no time to show you, but I will be showing them off soon!

Trey and I will be going to Nashville for Imaging USA 2010 where we will be a platform speaker. Our program is The Power of Projection, Jan 10, 6-7:30pm. We will also be giving a studio seminar to professional photographers Feb 21-23.

In the middle of that, our nanny resigned and we had to find a new one. Thankfully, we now have a new nanny, Sarah.
So, you see, it has been a busy few months. I am BLESSED to be so busy and to have awesome clients, friends and family who help me with my crazy life.

Just remember, when the craziness gets to you this Christmas Season...

Jesus is the REASON for the Season.

May you all have a Blessed Christmas!

Congratulations Kristen!

Our very own Kristen Schneider has been accepted to the MBA program at Rice University! We are very happy for her but sad for us as she was a wonderful addition to our Artistic Images Family. Don't worry, you still have time to wish her the best of luck as she will not be leaving us until the middle/end of July. This leaves us some time to find someone wonderful to take her position.
Kristen's position includes Wedding Coordinator. Collectors Series Coordinator, Portrait Design Consultant and Photographer's Assistant. If you could be the perfect addition to our staff, please fax your resume to 210-490-0343.
We wish Kristen the best of luck in her future endeavors and know that she will not be a stranger, since I have photographed her and her family since she was 12 years old!

Trey 's 40th Birthday!!!!

I just want everyone to know that my awesome husband Trey is turning

the big 40 on Saturday May 2nd!

So don't forget to post a comment below to send your condolences on the loss of his youth!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREY!