Seniors 2010

With school about ready to start it means that Whitlock Photography is in the middle of a busy High School Senior season. We always enjoy getting to photograph each senior that comes to us. The High School Senior session is always interesting and often unique is a special way. This year we have done the Jeep in the mud, the Paramount Art building session, the old train station and several of the alleys in Ashland, the snake in the grass session and the farm/horse session. More of the farm/horse session will be posted later. The weather has caused us to worry about working outdoors, but we have only had one outdoor session rained out. We went to photograph Heidi at the farm and as usual the weather was threating all afternoon. Once we arrived at the farm we photographed Heidi at several locations with her beautiful horse and even with a calf. It is great to work with Seniors, there are alot of ideas that these young minds have and to get to talk to them about their plans and to learn that we still have students that are really excited and are preparing for careers in every job field makes us continue to love our work.

Meet Baby " B R A D Y "

How precious is this baby Brady?!?! I actually missed out on helping Bill with this session but from looking at the images I can tell he is adorable. Oh my goodness, I bet he has grown so much just since Griffin & Danielle brought him in for his session. Well, I would guess that he couldn't help from being anything else but cute.............look at his Daddy & Momma!!! LOL!! Bill said that he was kinda' hungry during the photo session and they had to take a few breaks to let him eat, then take a few more and eat and take a few more. LOL!!!! Yea, these little guys need lots of lovin' & attention and I'm sure thats never a problem. I know that Marilyn just has to be gah-gah over him and enjoys spoiling.....oops, I mean spending time with Brady. But hey, isn't that what grandparents are supposed to do?!?! I thought his little cowboy outfit with the fringe was just toooo cute! And the little bare butt one was precious too. The blanket that they brought in with them said "Thank Heaven For Little Boys", and isn't that the truth. I guess I might think that way since we do have an 18 month old grandson. I hope that everyone enoys this little preview of Brady's photo session. :)

Back to school

In just a few days school will be starting again. It was only yesterday that it was the last day of school. Since most of our photography is photographing high school students I'll let my thoughts be on them. Now is crunch time for some of the seniors that just graduated. Hopefully all of them have decided to continue their education. Back to my thoughts about the new school year. For the incoming freshmen now is the time for the nerves to be barking a bit. Being a freshmen is a big change for them. For some the change will be very difficult but for most of them it will be about watching the varsity, with their classmates playing, every Friday night on the football field, going to dances and experiencing the life of a high school student.

For the Seniors in the class of 2010 it will be the start of a fast and demanding senior year.
Decisions that will affect their entire life will be made in the next few months, but during the course of the year lifetime bonds are being made and have been made. Several of my classmates took the riverboat luncheon cruise Saturday and on Sunday Theresa and several of her classmate meet at Armco Park for some food and a lot of memory sharing and laugher. This wasn't for any other reason than enjoying the company of friends made long ago.

Theresa and I love photography because we make friends with these students often in their freshmen year and continue to photograph them for events and activities throughout their high school years. Prom is one of the high light days of the entire for us. We love seeing the couples come in with the girls in their beautiful dresses and the guys in tuxs.

Yes school is about to start and Theresa and I are looking forward to seeing our friends again.

"Distinguished Leader" Rachel

Rachel was one of the first seniors from the BC Class of 2010 to come in this summer. Well as you can see, she is "SO" gorgeous and had an absolutely fabulous session! I thought the black & white close-up pose was amazing & could be on the cover of a magazine or something!!! I think it is so fun to have the wind blown hair goin' on. She is very photogenic & we were so excited after her session cause we could just tell that her images were gonna be GREAT!!! Since we knew that she was getting ready to leave for Governors Scholar & we were a bit anxious for her to see her images I immediately posted a couple of them on FB & MS the very next day. WELL...........I got a little ahead of myself and did things out of my normal routine. Generally it takes at least a week or longer after a session before I do that & at the same time I usally write a little something along with some images on our blog. So needless to say, I completely forgot to post anything about Rachel after doing that. I'm so sorry Rachel, if I only had a brain honey!! LOL!! I seriously didn't mean to leave you out, but with all of the other things plus the added computer problems that has been going on around here lately anything could happen. Thank you all for being so nice and understanding about everything and we do appreciate your kindness. I know that she has probably had a wonderful time at GSP and should be about ready to come home by now. I can't believe school will be starting in just a couple of weeks or so! Where has the summer gone?!?! Well I hope that you all enjoy this little preview of some of Rachel's images from her session. =)

The love for computers

As I stated a few days ago we have been having computer problems. We got one computer back up to speed without too much grief. We don't have all the software in it but at this time it's business as normal.

However the other computer has a completely different story. First it wasn't kind enough to just die, it has to go with a lot of misery. Maybe it didn't want to go to the scrap heap, maybe it was just tired of having to work too many hours per day and sometimes seven days a week, whatever the cause it went down fighting. Maybe it was just fighting us or just enjoying all the grief that it caused us for several days. I thought the purchase of a new computer would cause the grief to stop. First there is Vista 64, this is one sorry OS. Almost all the software refused to work with 64. This meant getting new software or a least updating almost all the software.
The SECOND source of grief was the purchase of Photoshop CS4. Since this is a 833 MB file a special downloader software was needed for the download. I will admit that most if not all of the download problems were caused by me. I'm going to say that I knew exactly what I was doing and did not cause the download problems. I started trying to download CS4 midday on Monday. No progress Monday, no progress Tuesday and Wednesday started out the same. I would like to now tell about the Customer/Tech Support that Adobe has. Actually I don't even want to think about it. While Adobe has support people in the USA they don't want you talking to him. The first 8-10 calls landed me in India. Now I don't care where you live and what language you speak!!!!!!!!!!!!!!until I need help with a problem. I want my help person to speak the America version of English. Over the years my hearing has adjusted to understanding the America version of English (I do have problems with the Boston version). The first 3 or 4 calls contected me with someone that I couldn't understand at all, then the next call the woman could speak good English but the connection was bad. Then I started demanding a refund and was told that it would take 2 billing cycles. 2 billing cycles means at least 1 month for my refund. That is Adobe's refund policy, to this I polity informed them that my refund policy was: NOW. They took my money real fast for the purchase, they could do the same for the refund. Of course the person in India didn't agree with me. Finally on Wednesday afternoon something in CS went wrong and I got connected to a man in the good old US of A. In a few minutes he had directed me how to fix the problem and I finally got CS4 loaded. I did tell them that I had plenty of time to burn since I had nothing to do with the computer not working and I would try my best to cost Adobe all that I could by spending alot of time talking (yes Talking) to them. So if you are planning to buy CS4 I suggest that you call a reseller and have the program shipped to you. This way you will avoid needing drugs to calm down and it will be quicker than trying to download. Then Adobe was nice enough to allow me to fill out a survey about my level of customer satisfaction. Don't they ever learn. I actually think I'll be back to normal about Tuesday or Wednesday of week.

I can remember the days of film and how we thought that Digital was going to solve all our problems. Kodak must have had really bad customer for us to think that life was going to be better after film.

"Heidi" BCDL 2010

Heidi was the last of our BCHS Distinguished Leader seniors that we photographed this summer. She and her Mom stopped by the studio a few weeks prior to her session to just ask a few questions and to schedule her appointment. At first I think she probably thought that she didn't have anything to bring with her but after talking with her briefly and looking at samples here in the studio she realized she had lots of interesting stuff! She is very active in her youth group at church, and is in both the marching band & choir at BCHS. Heidi is one very busy girl!!! She spent several weeks or months in Japan a couple of years ago and had lots of things from her travels there. The kimono, japanese shoes, fan, pottery pieces, chop stix and Pokemon characters & books were just some of the things she brought along. And she is very involved with 4H and she had stuff to go along with that too. She mentioned during her consultation appointment that she had horses, so we went to their farm & photographed her with "Oreo" (I think that was her horses name?!?). I know they had lots of animals and she told me all of their names and it made me kind'a hungry....... LOL!!! No really some of the names were like Sugar, Butter, Oreo & stuff that makes you start craving some kind of dessert or something LOL!!! I hope that you all enjoy this little sneak preview of her session, ENJOY!!

Shelby "FHS" Sr.Salute

During the last few weeks we have been having some computer issues and hopefully we have them all resloved now. During all of that, somehow Shelby's images were lost in the shuffle of things so now that we are back up & running we just wanted to make sure that we got her up here. I'm not sure if these are all of the same images that I had posted before. She is such a "cutie" and I'm sure that everybody who knows her already has found that out by now!!! She has the most bubbly type personality and was so easy to work with. We just had the pleasure of meeting the rest of her family the other day. She has an adorable 3yr.old brother Isaac & a little sister Faith. They think their BIG SIS is the greatest, and it was funny how excited they were watching her DVD. I think Faith will grow up to look exactly like Shelby one day........... she definitely has a great role model!! Shelby's Dad had been wanting to share these with people at work so I hope that you guys enjoy these! :)

COMPUTERS AND HAVING FUN

Within the past 6 weeks we have experienced problems with both of our primary computers. The first computer failure was with the old computer that is primarily used for customer invoices. It wasn't to hard to fix, a trip to the big box store and the purchase of one of their baseline machines and all is well. Well, except for the fact that this computer had Vista 64 on it and then all isn't well. Vista 64 won't accept most of the software that was on the old machine, but it did take the one program that we really needed. After two or three days all is better. Not too much expense and not too much stress.

The primary computer that keeps Whitlock Photography running decided to just give us fits. It has shut down enough to compete with Circuit City on shutting down. The big blue screen of death became our best friend. Theresa has taken a beating. She works extremely hard getting our images ready to be viewed and to lose them because of a computer that seemed to shut down everytime you turned around. She had a lot of time doing multiple images and all the other hard work she does on the images, to have this happen was awful. But because of how the computer was set up for the work that she does it was difficult to do anything. But the problems got to the point where changes had to be made. So a trip to the huge box store and we hope that the hardware problems have been fixed. Again we had to work with Vista 64. Very little of the software that was on the old machine will work on the new one. Some of the software will not work with 64 the rest of the software will work after installing new drivers and saying a prayer.

Again we apologize for falling behind with our work. We hope to have everything up to full speed very soon. At this point Theresa is working feverishly to catch up. So I think that the best thing I can do is to get out of the studio, guess I'll just cut the grass.

Bill

The Loss of a Friend

Monday evening my wife and I went to the visitation of Faye Clevenger. We met Faye about 6 or 7 years ago while we were photographing Ashley at several school events. They came to our studio many times over the years with the BC Dance Team, Proms & Homecoming Dances, as well as Ashleys Senior Portraits. I believe it was right after Ashley's high school graduation when Faye learned that she had cancer. We had seen her several times after that, sometimes everything seemed to be going real good and other times we knew that she was having problems. The last time we saw her was about 3 weeks ago with her family enjoying a dinner together at Cracker Barrel. She would never complain about anything and always was looking on the bright side of life. I went to high school with her husband Mike, also we had photographed their grandaughter Sam last summer. Faye will be missed dearly by her family, friends and her former students. Our prayers and thoughts are for the comfort of her family in the days ahead.

BC Distinguished Leader 2010 "ERIC"

Eric came in the studio last week for his senior session and was selected as Distinguished Leader at BCHS. We are so proud of him and all of his accomplishments in the last few years, not to mention he is a fine basketball player as well. I think he really has a pretty mean 3 point shot, that others in the area better watch out for it!!! The reason I can say all of this is he just happens to be related to us, well actually his Mom & Bill are first cousins. So I'm not sure if it's the "Whitlock" that comes out in him on the ball court or not, but he is a lot of fun to watch during BC Varsity basketball season. Plus while he was at Kentucky Boys State this year he was also elected as GOVERNOR, which is the highest honor that I think they award. So, way to go Eric you make the family proud!!!! I know that he is at the beach right now and probably just having a blast, must be nice! LOL!!! With basketball there isn't a lot of time off and he works hard all year long, so I guess he deserves a little R&R. I hope that Jill & Ritchie enjoys this little sneak preview of Eric's session, and all of the rest of the WHITLOCK's who are down on the beach soaking up all the rays & enjoying the sand & surf..............yea, you all know who I'm talking about!!!! LOL!! Enjoy and have a great time everybody and a safe trip home!

Holly 2010 "BOYD CO."

Oh what a great session we had with Miss Holly!! We have had the pleasure of watching her grow up, photographing her in sports and all of the BCHS dances over the last few years. It seems like just yesterday she was about 8 or 10 years old & now she is a S E N I O R! I remember when her brother Dustin came in for his senior portraits, Karen & Stan had us to photograph Holly with him as part of his session. I can still remember what they were wearing, Khaki's & white button down shirts......I know that was at least 6 or 7 years ago but somehow that stuck with me. It's funny how many people that we photograph over the years and we feel so blessed to have made many friends along the way. Okay, I didn't mean to get all sentimental and sound like I'm old and talking about old times or anything like that!!! LOL!! But I guess it is true, somebody used to tell me that I was older than DIRT........ But I forget all about how old I am when somebody like Holly comes in for a session. She was so fun to work with and brought in such a good mix of clothes & things for her session. I could just tell how excited she was and how much she had been looking forward to having this done. You can really tell when people have taken a lot of time in planning and preparing for their session, it definitely shows up in the images. Also it makes it a little easier when people come in that have been coming to us for years. I really can't wait to get working on her DVD, she had some other close-ups that were FIERCE!!!! She brought in a coat with a fur hood and we got some really nice images of that too! Karen's sister from Huntington came along for the session and we really appreciated all of her help. Bill & I really enjoyed spending the afternoon photographing Holly and seeing all of her family again. Enjoy this little sneak preview of her session..............

BCDL 2010 " C O R E Y "

Corey came in last week for his senior session that is part of the BOYD COUNTY DISTINGUISHED LEADER PROGRAM. Oh and by the way, doesn't Corey have a pretty sweet ride?!? Who wouldn't wanna sport around town driving this MUSTANG!! I don't think that Corey was real thrilled to be having photographs taken at first. But after just a few minutes into his session he said "WOW, this is really getting a lot easier than what I thought it was gonna be"!! He had only been here once before and that was just for a few minutes when he stopped by and spoke to his Mom while she was here on a previous session we had done of his 2 sisters. So it is understandable why he might have been a little nervous in the beginning, not really knowing us or anything. He probably had the idea we were gonna be asking him for cheesy smiles in every single pose and then he realized that wasn't the case. We take lots & lots of images and try to take a variety of different expressions, and some of my favorite poses are the more serious ones. Plus, I think that the trend with most seniors is they typically love those serious poses for wallets to hand out to friends. You know, most people don't go around smiling from ear to ear all of the time, so if we tried to get all "SMILES" in every pose that just wouldn't be natural. Plus they say that a real smile is only good for just a few seconds. Corey and his family are big Ohio State fans, and yes Bill had to give them a hard time over that one. LOL!!!! We enjoyed getting to visit with Cindy his Mom again, it had been almost a year ago that we photographed Shelby & Lexi ( I think, but maybe longer.....WHEW time flies). Also it was nice to meet Corey's girlfriend, I think her name was Taylor (I hope I didn't get that wrong)! I hope you guys enjoy these...........