The New Kid on the Block

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post as I was invited to a session with Stefanie Murphy Media.  All opinions expressed are my own.

Many of you already know Stefanie, you have seen her on the Facebook pages posting her specials. Some of you know her from another photography gig at another studio.  Without even knowing, maybe you have already had her take precious photos of your family in the ten allotted minutes.  Then when you were unable to decide on the three you were allowed, you folded and purchased the whole CD, all thanks to Stefanie’s talent.  Yep, that’s how it went down for me.

I purchased a deal to have pictures taken of my kids, with my Step-Mother who was in town for one week. Ended up purchasing the whole CD because they were so cute.  A month or so later, I saw her on Facebook and we started chatting, neither of us had made the connection yet.

When I met Stefanie I was impressed with her maturity and with her talent. She has a great eye.  I first saw her work on the local mommy Facebook pages (so I thought).  I was impressed.  Knowing my love for all things photographic, we were a perfect fit.  We scheduled our session, and paired it with the review for Denise at Facewear’s makeup application.  They work together really well, Denise (read my review) making us beautiful by enhancing our natural features, then Stefanie captures if on film.

We chose a local farm for the pictures. A country girl at heart, I love all things old.  A rusty tractor, a weathered farm, an old picture frame, a family quilt.  All part of the plan and executed beautifully.

An old tractor makes an awesome prop!

Extremely nerve-wracking for me I usually don’t participate in the photos, too self-conscious.  I did though really want some nice family photos for my walls.

Stefanie captured the family beautifully.  I am so glad to put these up on my wall!

Working with Stefanie is great, we text, email and go back and forth with ideas and locations often. It was during one of our nights of texting that she came across the pictures of my family at her other job.  She sent me the photo and said “I knew you looked familiar!”

I like her hunger, her work ethic, I love that she edits and sends you one or two teasers ASAP (although she should probably sleep more).  I’m no good at waiting… it’s awesome to see a little something so soon.

My teasers, which I received about 24 hours later!

Stefanie understood and loved my vision for the pictures immediately. She came with some of her own props, and orchestrated us the ways she thought it should go.  You also get more than ten minutes with her, which is awesome.  You get the edited photos in an online gallery from which you can choose your favorites.

When I received my photos I had no words. I love them.  I love the vintage feel of them, I love that you can see our personalities, I love that my family quilt is in them.  It’s interesting to me that some of my favorite photos, are ones where we aren’t even looking at the camera, we are just being us.

I had a tough time choosing what to show you, so you have to see quite a few!

Keep an eye out for Stefanie, she is already in high demand, selling out her fall mini-sessions, she has just announced her holiday minis which have a great vintage feel that I cannot wait to see (Oops! They have just sold out!  She is looking at her schedule to see if she can do late additions so keep watching for that!!).   As I watch her material posted on her Facebook page I am more and more impressed as she really comes into her own style and I know that others are too.

I would also like to add an unsponsored shout out to the Carters store in the Spring Valley Marketplace.  The hardest part of these photo shoots for me is finding coordinating outfits for the kids.  I went into the store when they were getting ready to close (literally 5 minutes left) in a panic, and they walked around with me, and worked together to put together the look that they kids are wearing, which I must say I love!