It’s finally here! The big contest I’ve been hinting at.   Starting at midnight EST (don’t blame me… I’m limited by the site that provides the software to host the contest) Sunday, April 29th, you will have a week to get as many entries as possible. At the end of the week, a random winner will be chosen. The prize is $200 to use towards services and products from Joyful Heart Photography!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

There are a few details… the prize may not be substituted for cash and can not be used towards previous or current sessions or orders. The winner will be notified on this site and will have 48 hours to claim their prize. After that time, if the winner has not claimed their prize, they will forfeit and another winner will be chosen. If the second person also forfeits, there will be no winner chosen.

Have fun and check back each day to earn more entries!

I won’t be at the studio on Thursday, Feb 2nd, as I will be out taking photos for the Headstart classes all day. If you need to reach me, I will be in the studio during my regular hours on Friday. 9am – 3pm. As always, I’m available via email 24/7, but don’t be surprised if it takes me a few hours to get back to you if you email me at 3am.  You can also reach me by phone. If I don’t pick up, just leave a message and I’ll call back as soon as I can.

I hope everyone is having a great week!!!

I don’t usually use my site as a sounding board on political issues, but this is important.

There is a bill coming up before Congress soon that at first glance sounds good. It’s a bill to help stop online piracy. I’m all for that. Many people absolutely nothing about stealing things online. After all what can one song, or movie, or photo really harm? (NOT MY WORDS PEOPLE! LOL) Downloading a movie online is absolutely no different than walking into a store, taking it off the shelf, and walking out without paying for it. Downloading or copying photos without a photographer’s permission is stealing as well. So yeah… I’m all for stopping this! But…. NOT AT THE RISK OF BEING CENSORED! No way in this world would I give up the right to be able to say what I want, when I want, or to create and share any image I want, just because some dude in Congress thinks that he’s censoring me for the benefit of others because I might have pirated those words or that image.

This. Is. America.

We do not give up our rights that easy.

To show how  this  could affect everyone, I’ve censored the following, in protest of this bill. A bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/44838/uncensor

If you don’t ████ to ████ ████ █████ █████████████ ████████, ████ ████ you ████ ████████ to ████ no on ████. █████████, you may ████ to go ███████ all of ████, ████ to see ████ ███████ ████████ ████████.

I promise… next week I’ll get back to my regular fluff posts…… assuming they don’t get censored.

Work is still taking place on the new studio. Trying to get it fixed up and looking good for everyone takes awhile. So… here’s the deal! If you schedule a standard portrait session for the rest of January, I will take 50% off the price of the session. Orders places within a week of the session (whether by online gallery or in person ordering) will get an additional 5% off their purchase price. You can see all the pricing information here.

This isn’t the kind of sale I run very often, so don’t wait to take advantage of it!

Don’t forget, starting today (Thursday, January 12th) I’m now keeping studio hours! I’ll be in the studio from 9am to 3pm on Thursdays and Fridays! I’m still available for sessions outside those hours, just set up an appointment with me!