A beautiful mother and daughter image to start out this post-- Chelsea is from Waynesville, and you can see where she gets her good looks (no offence, Dad! . . . I know you are proud of both of them!)

This is my first post in over a month. It has been a "crazy" senior season for me (and it's not over yet), but I believe I have still managed to keep my standards intact. You see, I am a bit of a "fanatic" about quality, or standards, or whatever you might call it. I try to hold true to what the byline on my logo that says "Where photography becomes a work of art." If you were to look at my "raw" images (straight from the camera) and compare them to what my clients see when they come back to view and order, you would know that there is some significant time involved with each subject. We spend approximately 2-2 1/2 hours getting the images captured, and then the real work begins. I spend anywhere from 12 to 20 hours on each client's images, because I want them to look their absolute best.

Many thanks to all my wonderful clients, especially those seniors and family portraits who have been so patient these past few months. I AM catching up, and I really do love those tears of joy, exclamations of wonder and, as a Camdenton senior who came to pick up his order today said, "Awesome!"

Lea, I hope this satisfies your desire to see some images of your beautiful daughter . . . There will be many more Monday afternoon, and they will look pretty stunning as 40x50's on the "big screen."

--- Till next time . . .

Wow, have I been busy! I have received a tremendous response from my latest Senior card I mailed out. Hey, busy is good--it pays the bills and keeps me out of trouble! I have been meaning to update this for days, but now is as good a time as ever.

Fall is always crazy and filled with High School Senior appointments and Family portraits. This blogging thing is new for me, and I really enjoy the ability to share with everyone my thoughts and news. Sooooo, I am going to try something ELSE to see just how many people might be reading this in their search for a photographer.

If you have read "my testimonial" on the front page of my website, you know how I feel about family portraits. Too many people think they will "get around to" having a family portrait made, and yet it never seems to happen. Face it folks-- Not one of us is going to live forever. TODAY is the day to have your family portrait made. If you call and schedule your family portrait sometime before the Christmas deadline (December 12), I am going to photograph your family for FREE, and offer you a FREE portfolio to display your photographs. Yes, you will have to purchase images to place in these folios, but you will receive these 12 images for $120 and the 8 image set for $80. This is a savings of over $100, but I will ABSOLUTELY limit this to the first 25 people who call me on this . . . You must pay for the folio photographs at the time we schedule the portraits. Of course, you are welcome to purchase other sizes and prints; we all know that is exactly what I am here for. I believe that EVERYONE needs to have a professional family portrait taken. There is a minimal charge for travel if you want me to photograph you at your home or another location.

There . . . I did it. Let's see how fast these appointments will fill. I have no idea . . . Are you really reading this???

It seems I am getting lots of requests for horse photography as of late . . . That's great because horses are usually very photogenic, especially when you get their full attention focused on something--Nothing worse than a horse that looks bored in the photograph!

The image on the upper right was one I fell in love with, and I had been looking for the perfect photograph to display in my studio above the couch. I tried a new lab that offers a unique service to photographers-- They will print a gallery wrap canvas in ANY size, coat it with a protective UV coating and it arrives ready to display in your home. I now have this photograph displayed in my studio in the Lifestyle Canvas finish (40x60), and it is pretty awesome. Everyone who stops by seems to really enjoy this canvas; even my 12 year old daughter, and she has seen a lot of Daddy's images over the years. I believe this finish goes beyond photography, and fulfills my desire to create "A Work of Art," just like the tag line in my logo. An added bonus is that the lab tells me that these gallery wraps will last 100 years--WOW! Now that is what I call a family heirloom.

Composites (like the one above) are offered by out studio as a 10x20, mounted to a heavy art board and ready to frame. This seems to be a popular choice for our Seniors, second only to our Image Collection Albums.

Well, I've finally done it! I've set up my own "blog." I find a lot of people don't know what a blog is, so I'll simply say it is my personal web page. Now, most of you have found this by looking at my professional web site, and know that I am a photographer by trade, so I'm sure you are looking to see the latest news and photographs from clients and even some images I take just "for fun."

Here are few images I took just last week of a Lebanon senior and his beloved filly (that's a horse, if you didn't know :-) . We met at his farm in the pre-dawn hours to create these images. I hope you enjoy them.

I am extremely right brained, and would love to pen my first novel someday, so I get to practice my communication skills on all of you. I hope you enjoy this, and Welcome to "Images by Doug." This may be somewhat simple for a while, but I want to make it interesting, and will try to post often and be informative. I will even be offering "tips" on photography for all you budding photographers out there, because we all know that everyone wants to be a photographer someday!

Seriously, photography is a fun and exciting pursuit--I should know, for I have been holding a camera since I was in high school when my aunt loaned me her Pentax K series camera for a trip to Europe. I almost lost that camera, but that is a story for another time. For all the excitement that photography holds for me, it is still a business and demands a lot of my time, much of it spent on things OTHER than taking photographs. If you can't create awesome images, capture an individual or family's personality, and do whatever it takes to make them unique and simply the best images they have ever seen, you won't last long in this business. I have had my shingle out now for 18, going on 19 years, and I am still learning. I will forever be a student of photography, people, and life . . . Most people have NO idea what goes into creating an image and making it the best experience ever for a customer. O.k., enough of that. You know a bit of my "philosophy" of operating a photography business. Now, on to some more light hearted thinking.

I just recently abandoned my camera of choice for years, and I am the proud owner of Canon camera equipment. What finally convinced me to sell all my Nikon and Fuji equipment and switch to Canon was the "full-frame" advantage. I know that it is not very important to the average camera owner, but the 5D offers me a much closer representation of the quality, depth of field, and "feel" that my Hasselblad cameras from the "film years" offered my clients. I am LOVING the difference and my clients are really appreciating the results!