Apple Blossom Festival – 2011…

I know, I know…this is a bit late…ok, more than a bit, but please indulge me. Other work projects and some personal issues have required extra attention over the last 8 weeks or so.

Now, we have lived in Winchester for about 6 years now and have never really, fully experienced The Bloom before this year. I was contacted by a member of the committee and asked to be one of a handful of photographers that they bring in each year to cover the various events and activities involved in Apple Blossom. Well, now I have been well and truly immersed in The Bloom. Wow, what a week!

My week started off with an event that my wife specifically requested that I ask to cover, Pumps & Pearls at the George Washington Hotel, on Monday evening. This was quite an experience with a crowd of about 99% women, many who had personally, and in some cases painstakingly, decorated their shoes to compete in the Shoe Contest at the end of the evening.

From there we covered the Breakfast Walk on Thursday, which due to the weather became just breakfast, but was fun none the less. Thursday night brought us to Disco Fever. This was an experience with many people dressing up in their finest disco era apparel, to include a KISS – Gene Simmons look-a-like and a great ’70s band from Virginia Beach, The Right On Band.

Friday we covered The Bloomers Luncheon at the Sprint Tent. This was another event that was virtually all women…and they were having fun. One of the event sponsors, Handyman Connection, had 4 young men dressed in hard hats and company t-shirts walking around as servers. It was like a toned down version of Chippendales! Friday evening we covered both the Fire Fighters Parade and The Queen’s Ball at Shenandoah University.

Saturday brought us a few memorable characters at the 10K Run. We later covered the Grand Feature Parade and The Oldies Rock-n-Roll dance with Patsy Cline and Elvis tribute artists, the original line-up of The Rhondels and another KISS – Gene Simmons look-a-like.

Our final assignment was to cover The Bluegrass Concert at the Sprint Tent on Sunday.

We had a great time, met some great people and got fully immersed in The Bloom. If you have never been, I suggest you think about taking part in at least some of the events one year soon. In all, we covered 10 different events and took well over 4,000 photos! I have uploaded a half dozen or so from each event, we hope you enjoy them. If you or someone you know was at any of these events, you just might find yourself, or them, in one of these photos.

Will Work for Food…

An interesting idea…Will Work for Food; portraits for pet food.

I got the idea last year reading an article about a fellow photographer in Tennessee that was doing something similar. We talked it over, added our own personal touch and worked out some details with the SPCA of Winchester, Frederick and Clarke Counties. We settled on them because they do not have a dedicated funding source. Their only funding comes from adoption fees and donations; this made them ideal partners to us, because we felt they were trying to do the most with the least and really needed the help.

With the downturn in the economy, especially during 2010, they were stretched to capacity by people who had to give up their pets because they couldn’t afford them any longer. This is a very sad thought for me. I can’t imagine having to give up our 2 furry children.

Here’s how the program works; we offer our clients a 30 minute portrait session and a complimentary 5×7 print for the donation of a bag of dry pet food. For our last round of sessions we required a minimum 25lb bag of dry pet food. Not a bad deal if we do say so ourselves.

Our first round of sessions was in September 2010 and we managed to raise about 300 pounds of pet food. A good effort for the first time out, but we wanted more…much more. We did more marketing this time around and had a much larger response and booked about 50% more sessions than the first time.

We had some repeat clients from the first group of sessions including Kimberlee and her gorgeous German Shepard, Zar (pictured above). Our good friends Rick & Michele came out with their kids and their Pug, Mollie Pearl. This session was very special for all of us, not only are they very close friends, but this was the first portrait they had done as a family after adopting their beautiful baby boy, Evan. Samantha and Adam came out with little 7 month old Cheyanne. We were absolutely captivated by Cheyanne’s big blue eyes and beautiful smile. The portrait of her sitting in the leather chair is one of my new favorite images ever. We photographed several other old friends and made some new friends as well. We hope we have the opportunity to photograph all of them again many times in the years ahead.

All of that amounted to 600 pounds of pet food during this last round of sessions. Now, most people would be thinking that doubling the amount of food is great…and it is. We are deeply grateful to our clients for helping us make this happen, but…you knew it was coming…we want more.

For the next round of sessions we are working on a partnership with a local retailer in an effort to get our food total even higher and see if we can stretch the capacity of the SPCA’s storage area instead of their shelter.

If you are interested in staying informed about the next Will Work for Food or any other Story Tellers news, you can subscribe to our blog or visit our website and use the signup box on the home page to receive our email newsletter.

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Meet Miss Sarah Michelle…

Recently we had the pleasure of doing a newborn photo shoot as a gift to a friend and her new daughter. Mom brought along a small home-made blanket that Grandma had stitched together from fur pelts that Daddy had skinned. It was a true family craft project and made a wonderful backdrop for some of the photos. My ever resourceful and creative wife was the brains behind the images of Sarah with the ribbon wrapped around her. She has a flair for that and I use it!

We hope you enjoy looking through the photos as much as we enjoyed creating them. Miss Sarah Michelle was an absolute sweetheart to photograph and we hope to see her back again and again over the years.

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A snow storm means snow pictures…

After digging ourselves free this afternoon, we decided to go in search of some snow pictures. At first I wasn’t feeling it and we had a hard time finding any location that drew me in and made me want to pull out the camera. After about 30 minutes we found an area near Opequon with a small stream and the sun shining brightly. Later we went to The Virginia Arboretum on Route 50 and found some beautiful spots. I hope I did nature justice with my images. In the end, the most important thing is we had fun and got to enjoy some family time as well.

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