Christmas Cheer!

We are in full Christmas spirit here at the studios!!

We have started the 12 Days of Christmas, and if you haven't been logging on daily to check out the gifts up for grabs you are missing out!!!!!! Every day is a new surprise, a new location and a new gift/gifts/prizes/giveaways! Check out www.hillierstudio.com for all the fun details!

One of our favorite things to see is cards in the mail from our clients....and the best part is they are usually cards we made!!! LOL...love it! Today, we were excited to see Tori and her sister smiling brightly on the card that ehy picked up about a week ago!! =)

We have seen so many beautiful smiling faces lately that we can't even keep up!!! We want to share them all with you, but right now it would be next to impossible (once we get everything back for Christmas we can take a little more time to blog)! So in the Christmas spirit, here are some holiday portraits of just a few of our favorite smiling faces!!

Hillier Studio's 12 Days of Christmas

It has been a couple weeks Blog World...oh my!!! The holidays have us spinning and running in circles, and very little time for blogging!! One of these days we are going to post a massive blog of pictures that we've taken over the past couple of weeks, so be prepared Blog World...be prepared!

Sooooooooo....we are about to launch an amazing promotion thanks to the genius behind DeHaven Productions...Jeff DeHaven himself! "Hillier Studio's 12 Days of Christmas" begins this Saturday and is going to be a sneaky and fun scavenger hunt style promotion!! We are very aware that the economy has changed and that this holiday season may be a bit tough.......that is why we have pulled together to help out!!! We live in an amazing community Mid-Michigan, and this promotion proves it...TWELVE area business have come together to give back to the community that stand behind them, to give away 12 DAYS OF GIFTS, PRIZES AND GOODIES!! Every day you can enter to win the GRAND PRIZE $500 PORTRAIT PACKAGE FROM HILLIER STUDIO! Be on the lookout for maps, clues and all the details you will need to participate in the fun. It all starts THIS SATURDAY at www.hillierstudio.com!! See you there!

A time to be thankful...

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, we want to take the time to reflect on all the things we are thankful for. First and foremost in all situations is our three 'f's'...our faith, our family and our friends! Without them we would not be where or who we are today! And to all of our clients...you are included in our list of friends and family!!

Our studio has recently been recognized in a couple different instances, and we are so thankful to be loved! What we are even more appreciative of is the support from each and every client - past, present and future.

With community support, we were named the 'Applaud Program' recipient for the month of November by The Bridgeport Area Chamber of Commerce. Also through support and love from our clients we were sent a really sweet letter from BHS student, Chrystal Segura-Perez on behalf of the school's DECA Club in recognition of our business during Global Entrepreneurship week.

Achieving accomplishments like these doesn't just give us a good pat on the back, it reminds us of how fortunate we are to be part of such a supportive network of amazing people!

We hope you all take time out of your busy schedules to reflect upon your blessings, as you will find the thought of thanks to bring many smiles to your face.....and you all know how much we love smiles! =)

CHRISTMAS 2009

Can't wait to start Christmas portraits this year!!! You may or may not have visited our website for a preview of our new boutique backgrounds...either way, we just love our little model and thought we'd share this fun video with you all!!!!!

Playing a little 'blog catch up'!! Here are some more fabulous faces and adorable personalities that we have been blessed to photograph recently! LOVE all the tiny faces and big smiles that have been in our studio lately...sweet, sweet kiddos...so much fun!

LOVE...

We have not forgotten about you Blog World!! We know it's been a while and we apologize for our negligence to you! It's all worth the wait though, because we have A LOT to share! Where do we EVEN begin??!??! How about with a blog full of love - engagement, marriage, and anniversaries!!!

Starting with the sacrament of marriage...Kristie and Denny...better known as the 'McWuerfels'! You can sometimes just tell when two people are truly in love, and these two definitely are! Their ceremony was just as wonderful as the couple themselves, and the reception was a blast! The pictures in between were a ton of fun - as you can see from Denny's ol 'TP stuck in the pants' picture, both the bride and groom have great senses of humor and are just wonderful people to be around!


We have had the pleasure of meeting another couple who is just at the preliminary stages of planning their big day! Liz and Pat are recently engaged, and will be married in July of next year! Their engagement session was awesome - can't wait for the wedding!


We were also fortunate enough to capture three great couples on the opposite end of the Wedded Bliss Spectrum...The Morgans, the Bremers, and the Scotts have all recently celebrated one of the most incredible milestones in life and love...their 50th Wedding Anniversaries! Congratulations to all of these couples, and many years of love and happiness to all!

What a Spooktacular Halloween at the studios!! We had a ton of fun taking pictures and passing out candy during the Merchants Trick or Treating on Halloween night!!! We had to get in the spirit of the holiday of course, so costumes were a must!!
(and yes our photoshop skills are much better than what is demonstrated in this picture...so no worries.) =)

Also....we have a grand prize winner of the SPOOKTACULAR GIVEAWAY!!! Congratulations to Jenny Tapia!! She has won some treats from Connie's Cakes of Midland, some goodies from Karen's Hallmark, and a $50 gift certificate to Hillier Studio! Thanks to all who participated!

We're now gearing up for Christmas...we're almost all decorated and our backgrounds are ready to go!! Book your appointment today for our new Boutique-style backgrounds in November! http://hillierstudio.bookmonline.com/schedules/NovHoliday

We found Tony! ; )

So we finally found Tony today! With many reminders & threatening phone calls (ok mabye not the threatening phone calls) Tony finally made it to his appointment, yea!!! What a fun 4 hours we had, yes that's right, 4 hours. Ok so we did more talking & eating then photographing, but we had a blast! Tony is probably the funniest high school senior we have ever met!!! So we started off photographing Tony with his car parked in some random person's front yard under one of the only trees left with pretty leaves, then we ventured off to a secret location for some totally under control (not reckless at all) burnout photos & ended our road trip on a dirt road with a cool old bridge. We are pretty sure there were trolls & stuff living under the bridge! We are pretty sure we saw one riding off into the sunset on a unicorn but we were busy trying to save Tony from being hit by his own car, which was amazingly driving itself off the cliff. Good thing Tony has a Black Belt & whipped out some ninja type skills & did some amazing flips right over that car, it was AMAZING! So amazing that we shared a pizza dinner with him to hear all about his life story & struggles & how he changes his hair with every season.... Anywho, I hope you enjoyed reading about our adventure & find the following photos to be nothing less than spectacular!!!

It's been a while since we wrote a song, and we're feeling lyrically talented right now. (Plus we have this fun pic we need to post)... so here goes:

It's late, it's late!
We haven't photographed a Nate.
We think the name Nate is great
So if that's your name call before it's too late
oh wait...
it's already late.

Which is why we're writing this song
so...sing along!!

Here we go
when we say 'hey'
you say 'ho'
hey
(um.....hello??? anyone out there?)
moving on...

Denny and Kristie's wedding was a blast
It was nice to see some faces from the past.
Hope Travis is doing well with his cast
Wow - I can really type fast. (sorta)

Thanks to Adam for helping us out
Sad we didn't get to see you guys out and about
Saw the Mobile Boogie and thought it was you
But I guess it was a different crew.

Stef's husband is asleep on the couch
she made him spit his gum outta his mouth
he was at the other wedding havin too much fun
screw this rain...where is the sun!?

I think we might have gone crazy
maybe that 's why we're amazy-n
that's right, we make up words
cause we're two cool birds.
Not cool cats...we're too cool for that.

Our blog rocks
We don't wear socks
Feet are getting cold
This song's gettin old.

PEACE!

Most of the time when we imagine a nice portrait we see a smiling face, but sometimes the most beautiful portraits are a naturally contemplative expression. Of course we love to see our clients laughing and smiling, but it is also good when we capture the elements of a person when they are simply content. Baby Brynn is a great example of this! She had the cutest little outfits and the most innocently natural expressions today! Of course we captured the smiles as well...so we thought we'd share a little bit of both. We just love her and her mommy (and Aunt Denise too!)




One of our Senior Models came in today with his Mini-me! Jakob and his little brother Isaiah are too cute for words in these portraits that capture an adorable brotherhood. They may sneer at them now, but we are certain a few years down the road they will cherish the captured memory of their childhood!

Every day seems to bring another fun story or two (or three or ten) into our lives!

We started today off with a super nice surprise from one of our recent 2010 Seniors!! Jaimie brought us little goody bags and personalized cards thanking us for her session, and wishing us a happy Boss's Day and an early happy Halloween! HOW SWEET!!! Under the pic of our goodies are some modeling portraits we took of Jaimie for an upcoming ad. THANKS Jaimie!! =) And to all the bosses out there: Happy Bosses Day to you!!




The first session of today was an amaaaaaaazing twin baby session! These little ones have been through quite a bit in the first three months. They are more precious than words can explain, and we were so blessed to have had the opportunity to take their very first professional portraits! We could have taken pictures of them all day (but they had to get to the doctor, and cousin Jenny probably needed a break)!!


Out to Shields we went after that for another awesome session with one of our faaaaaaaaaaaavorite babies...Miss Maggie Mae (as Chris calls her)!! She was adorable as always, and she has definitely found her little legs to be helpful in her running endeavors...lol (...and her outfit was super cute by the way)!! Maggie is preparing for a baby brother to be born in just a few weeks!! Her mommy and daddy are excited, and captured the beauty of the late stages of pregnancy with maternity portraits! Mom is looking stunning!! (Dad too of course). And we can't wait to take the baby's newborn portraits!



People often ask us if we have children...our answer: We have a LOT of children. We see them every few months...we play with them a bit, get caught up on their lives, take their portraits, and then they go home at the end of their session. Sounds funny-might have even made you laugh-but it's true! Each and every child that we photograph, we do so as if they were our own and therefore we take temporary ownership of them while they are here...so yeah...we have lots of children!! Here are a couple more we have recently loved every minute of photographing (Baby Georgia and Baby Andre)!



We are truly fortunate to do what we do! We cherish every session, every client, and every day!

Fun Day!

Today was a fun day of editing, retouching, ordering, marketing, creative thinking...yup...there was lots of commotion in the production room today from Ketchup and Mustard (aka Stef and Chris)!

In the late afternoon we took a break from all of that to meet with some of our awesome clients!!

First, we learned about some REALLY interesting ways to capture your families heritage, and some creative things to do with old family pictures (how fun)!!!!

After that, Lindsey and Caleb came in for some fun portraits...they are the all-American adorable cheerleader/football player couple!! They are so super cute! (go ahead and saw awwwwwwwwww at the pic below!!)

It's raining cats and dogs!!!!

It actually IS...at the "Raining Cats and Dogs" store in Frankenmuth! Twice a year we visit our furry friends (and our human ones too) at the fun and pet-friendly boutique-style shop in the heart of the little Bavarian town, to take their portraits! Here are a few from our last visit...so much fun as always!!