THE NEW BLOG HAS ARRIVED!!!

PLEASE REDIRECT TO MY BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW BLOG AT:

http://www.jessicastromblog.com

Check it out!! Tell me what you think by leaving a comment on the blog post CHECK IT (on the new blog!) and be entered to win a $15 iTunes gift card!! Contest ends Saturday night! Random winner! Rock the Tutu will be posted tomorrow night!! SNEAK PEEKS START SATURDAY!

I am SO VERY EXCITED to be debuting this new blog by designer who created my logo for me. She’s wonderful (and when she’s taking on new design clients I’ll plug her so you can check her out!!) and awesome, I got exactly what I wanted! I am still tweaking it and trying to import all these old blog posts from this blog, the new blog is where I will be posting ALL future information EFFECTIVE TODAY. Once this blog is phased out and the posts imported, I will be deleting in the coming months.

Enjoy!! And enter the contest, it’s simple easy and fun!!!

~Jessica

 

 

Back in Oz

Hi everyone! Just wanted to let you know that the hubs and I made it back safe and sound to our home in Overland Park. It was a 10 hour drive but 12 hours by the time we picked up an exhausted Duke from Camp Bow Wow in Olathe and ran a couple errands. Long long day. I haven’t even turned on my laptop.

I know everyone is anxiously waiting for sneak peeks! I’m excited to show you! My designer who is designing a fresh new blog for me is almost done and so I am going to wait a few days until it’s ready to post again. The blog address will be moving, but I will of course post the link here. You are going to LOVE IT!!!

ROCK THE TUTU was so much stinkin’ fun!! Oh my gosh, it was a blast! As I am processing the final images for voting (which begins FRIDAY evening and run for one week!), I am already planning the Spring Rock the Tutu 2009 for our Kansas City & Vicinity area. Oh my gosh, it’s going to be AWESOME. Can’t wait to share this first run, you’re going to have some tough decisions!

I’m calling it a night to rest up for work tomorrow and so keep an eye out for the next post, it’s going to be BIG!!!

P.S. Just want to let everyone know that the order in which I post Sneak Peeks is completely random and not in the order I shot over the weekend. So keep checking out the blog!!

For the love of Lily & India – Kansas City Pet Photographer

I was so delighted to get an email from Katie who found me online. She wanted to set up a little something special for her and her husband’s two very special dogs. Both little ladies are just GORGEOUS and cute and cuddly. Lily is 2 (the brown pointer) and being the younger gal, surprised me by staying the most still! Two whole minutes! That’s forever to a dog! India is a very special and loved girl who is battling cancer, but you would never know she was sick because she is just so HAPPY! She reminded us so much of our old dog Cash, a blue heeler we had as a puppy when we lived in Louisiana and drove 700 miles to the Nebraska Humane Society just to make sure he found the right home when we couldn’t have him anymore. Katie and Brad would go the ends of the universe for their two girls and the love they have for each other and for the dogs was so warm. We were blessed with a gorgeous fall day and drove over to Missouri to do our session by one of the lakes. Thank you Brad & Katie, for being so patient with us and the dogs! True champs!

And by the way, Katie makes INCREDIBLE custom cakes!! Look for her cakes in my sessions in the future!!

Enjoy your sneak peek! More to come while I’m in Texas!

Love in Kansas – Kansas City Couples Photographer

This is Kristin and Justin. Kristin won one of my contests on Facebook and this is our session together. I am privledged to be able to call K & J friends now, we (the hubs and me) love hanging out with them! They’re fun! We had a blast doing this session together on both the Missouri side and the Kansas side of the state line and then enjoyed a nice lunch from D’Bronx! The day was gorgeous and perfect for some picture love! This is just a SMALL sampling of photos from their session, you can see the rest on my Facebook fan page! Sign up and get privy to contests, casting calls, and free stuff!!

Conan the Big Bear Dog – Kansas City Pet Photographer

 

I had the pleasure of doing a complimentary photo session for Conan, one of the foster dogs in the Mid-America Bully Breed Rescue group here in Kansas City, MO back in September. This was the night before Conan was going to be adopted into a new family and his foster mom was just heart broken to see him leave after nuturing him back to health, so she wanted to do some portraits of the big softie before he left and drove an hour from Leavenworth to me in Overland Park. As it turned out, the new family decided they would argue that Conan did not adjust well to them and ended up giving him back. It’s people like that that frustrate me, because if you’re going to adopt a dog, make sure you can fit your life to the dog! It is not fair to be moving dogs back and forth on the basis of a perception of adaptation. Conan is a big sweetheart and I am pleased, however, that he found his forever home in his foster home.

ROCK THE TUTU PHOTO CONTEST in TEMPLE

So NEXT WEEKEND I will be in Temple to do fall mini-sessions and would like to have a cool photo contest for anyone with little girls 2 and under! ROCK THE TUTU is simple, quick, and lots of fun! Heres’ the run down:

Anyone can enter! This is seperate from my mini-sessions!

Each little lady will put on the Fairy Queen royal purple and royal blue tutu and matching headband donated by Tutus 4 Tots in Canada (elastic waist 18″ – 20″) and then battle it out for the most votes to win an AWESOME prize package WORTH $125!! **If your daughter is older than 2 and can fit the tutu, you CAN still enter!

GRAND PRIZE includes a CUSTOM made tutu for your little girl created by Tutus 4 Tots AND an 8×10 Float Wrap of the winning photo to be displayed proudly on your walls! PLUS free shipping on everything!

Who: Little princesses 2 years and under
When: I’m very flexible for times on either next Saturday the 24th or Sunday the 25th only.
Where: Temple, Santa Fe Depot

How much: Entry fee is $25 and EVERY ENTRY receives a FREE 8×10 of their daughter in the tutu from my professional lab and no charge for shipping! (on contest submissions only, mini sessions still are subject to shipping charges)

Voting: The contest submissions will be put up here on my Facebook fan page for everyone to vote on. ANYONE can vote, so promote your little girl’s entry in the contest and get as many votes as you can here on Facebook! Each photo will be watermarked to protect the photo. Voting will take place about the first week of November and run for 1 week! Anyone can vote only once a day.

ACCESSORIES: Feel free to bring any accessories that you might want to accent your daughter in the tutu and matching headband. The colors are ROYAL BLUE and ROYAL PURPLE.

Entry fee is payable via Paypal via bank transfer only. This is going to be a lot of fun and you don’t want to miss out! ANYONE can enter, so even if you’ve never worked with me before, sign up! I promise you that you’ll have an AWESOME time!

And finally, even if you don’t have a daughter in the age group or a daughter at all, please refer this contest to your friends!!

EMAIL ME AT PHOTOSBYSTROM@YAHOO.COM to enter!!

Jessica Strom

Why no updates?

My blog is currently being renovated and will debut its new look here very soon!! I have three recent posts I need to add before I go to Texas so I will update again soon!

Welcome Home – Kansas City Adoption Photographer

It has been a while since I have posted on here. I enjoyed my summer off and looking forward to getting back into the swing of things! This video is of the homecoming of a very special young man of 16 from Uganda who was adopted by an incredible family here in Olathe that had sponsored him in Uganda for 7 years through Christ Aid and even brought him here to America twice to visit! This was the third time Mom had travelled to Uganda, this time to finalize the adoption. So we were very excited to see them come home! I processed these images in a certain style to invoke more feeling into the photos, as if there wasn’t enough already! I cry every time I watch this video, this family’s incredible faith in Jesus Christ is just so inspiring to watch! And I love that they adopted an older child, and I pray that they are able to adopt another young boy of 5 who about to go into the streets if they can’t. God moved mountains for them with granting David’s full adoption, and we’re praying He does the same for Isaac! Enjoy!

P.S. I have to say a big THANK YOU to Kim and Ella for allowing me the use of some of your photos to include in the slideshow!

Excuse the mess

Just giving my blog a bit of a fresh look! Excuse any mess while I change things around!

I have ended up taking the summer off and have enjoyed it immensly! I have my first full session here in Kansas this Saturday and I am so excited! I will be sending out information here soon on the trip back to Temple to do fall mini-sessions so keep an eye out for that!

I am taking on a lot of new volunteer oppurtunities here in my new community so my time for full sessions will decrease, however I plan on doing Christmas mini-sessions here in the Overland Park/Olathe area in the fall. Keep an eye out for that or email me to add you to the list of email updates! The most up to date info can be found on my Facebook page first, then into email and the blog.

Thank you all so much who have supported me and loved my work. I have some things in mind that I can’t wait to implement!

Keep your photos protected!

Here is another story that should give you chills! Even if it’s not professional photos, when putting your child’s photo online it needs to have protection. ALWAYS put some sort of copyright info on the photo (even if it’s a personal photo, edit the photo with some sort of writing over top that can not be easily erased or altered). When blogging, find a way to prevent right clicking on the blog, this will disable the ability to save a photo to file or to link your photo (as you will see in this video). Don’t let this happen to you! The internet can be a fun place, but there are too many people wanting to take advantage of others out there!! Please protect your photos and ultimately your kids!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2009/08/02/wcvb.ma.kid.for.sale.wcvb