Have you checked out The Park at OWA in Foley, AL yet? You really should!

Just a little over 10 miles north of the sugar sand beaches of Gulf Shores, AL and Orange Beach, AL you'll find OWA located on the Beach Express in Foley. Downtown OWA is located just outside of The Park at OWA's gates, so there's no admission charge to enjoy the 7 (and growing) restaurants, various shops, arcade, etc. Looking for more thrills than just a yummy meal? Through the gates of The Park at OWA you'll find 21 family-friendly rides, a selection of traditional Midway games, plus an interactive splash pad.

At the beginning of summer, our family decided to spring for season passes for the kiddos. This grants us a year's worth of Park access, discounts on single-day passes (if we want to bring a friend or family member), early-access to new rides and events, priority access to special events, as well as discounts in the Park. MY favorite part is that non-riders are FREE! This means, my husband and I can take the kids and let them ride as long as their hearts desire, and it doesn't cost a cent for he and I to be in the park with them; we just can't ride the rides (which this fraidy-cat is totally fine with.

We headed over to The Park at OWA yesterday after an early dinner, because as season-pass holders, the kids were able to ride the newest ride, Mystic Mansion, the day before it officially opens to the public (today).

All three of our kids, ages 14, 12, and 5, enjoyed the ride and blasting some ghosts! Our 5-year-old said it was a little scary, but he soldiered on and shot every ghost he saw.

My husband and I tend to "divide and conquer" when we take our kids to places like this. With a 7 and 9 year gap between kiddos, they're not exactly interested in the same amusement park experience so we split up and one of us takes our youngest and the other goes with the older 2. Luckily, OWA really does have something for everyone! Our 5-year-old who is NOT a fan of heights or speed is very happy enjoying the Kid Rides, and his big sisters still get to have some heart-pounding thrills.
And sometimes, as 2 of the pictures above show, his sisters take one for the team and ride along with him.

OWA is open from 11 am - 9 pm (weather permitting) which provides a great opportunity for evening family-fun that avoids the mid-day heat! We got to the park around 6:45 yesterday evening and the kids were able to ride every ride with time to spare before the park closed.

Another fun reason to go in the evenings is to see Downtown OWA light up the night with GLOWA. 100% FREE, 6 nights a week (weather permitting) from 8 pm - 9 pm, DJs create a block party bash behind the fountain in Downtown. There are hit songs, fun lights, a colored fountain show, and last night there were even acrobatic dancers!

I'll leave you with a few more pictures from yesterday's visit and an assurance that you should go - you won't regret it! The crowds are non-existent, the lines are short, and the thrills are great.

Did you know that I offer professional business headshots? 
I do!
I can bring everything to your office for a simple, clean background, or we can meet somewhere around town for a headshot portrait that really shows off your personality!

If you're interested in a headshot just for you, I'm available for that as well. You can even come to my house to make it quick and easy!

Interested in updating your headshots? Email me for pricing.
findingbeautyphoto@gmail.com

I've been wanting to revamp my current Portrait Referral Program for quite some time, but I wasn't sure exactly what to offer. I wanted a new program that really reflects what my clients are looking for and would appreciate. Let's be honest, if the referral credit isn't worth it, you're not going to remember to make sure your friend lets me know YOU sent them my way.

The two most important things I want the updated referral program to do are
1.  benefit clients no matter what type of session they booked including birth photography and Watch Me Grow Baby Plans 
2. benefit my local Pensacola, Orange Beach, etc clients as well as my awesome vacation booking clients
I think this system will benefit everyone!

So, without further ado, my new and improved Client Referral Program:​

3 credits = 1 free 30 minute Mini Session with your choice of 5 digital images and print release (session must take place in Perdido Key or Southwest Pensacola)
5 credits = 1 free full Family, Newborn, or Maternity session of your choice (all normal session perks included)

The fine print:
*Your referral must be a new client of Finding Beauty in the Ordinary Photography and they must let me know that YOU referred them.
**Credits can accumulate over multiple years.
***You can choose to turn in your 5 credits into a gift card that you can give to someone. (Not available for 3 credit mini sessions.)

Let me prove it!
Though digital images are what my Pensacola family photography and newborn portrait clients most request, I also make a point to let my clients know about the professional print and canvas products I offer! I do this for 2 reasons:

• 1 – I REALLY want you to print the photos from our sessions and hang them on the walls in your home and office. I worry that in 50 years, we'll have an entire generation of people with hardly any physical photographs - they're all going to be on a hard drive or the cloud or maybe even lost to changing times.
• 2 – I want you to understand that there’s a difference in the prints that come from a professional photographic print lab versus prints that come from a commercial lab (Walmart, Target, CVS, Shutterfly, Walgreens, etc).

Before you ask, yes, ordering prints from will cost more than if you had them printed at the corner store. But, prints ordered through me are always printed on professional grade, archival paper that are individually sized by me (to ensure proper cropping), then, upon arrival at my home, the photographs are hand checked (again, by me) before they're delivered to you!

I’ll sit here a minute while the shock wears off.
I have to admit I even I was surprised at the extreme difference in some of these pictures. I knew they would be off, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad!
Let’s break it down –

• Professional Lab – I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that the print from Millers had darkened the shadows a tad. But I will say that at least they lost NO detail in the image itself and the glossy paper was gorgeous.
• Walmart – Ok, on first glance, it kinda looks close-ish to the original file. But, with the print in hand you feel that awful dry "photo paper” that they use. The picture is horribly washed out and has lines through it from their printer.
• CVS – SO much cyan and green added! They also bumped the contrast was up leading to this sweet little girl now having shark eyes.
• Target – Very similar problems to the CVS print
• Shutterfly – Overall, the Shutterfly print isn’t that bad. They darkened the image a tad and upped the contrast, but I guess it’s “ok.” though the paper quality was no where near the quality of the professional lab

OOO look at all the pretty blues and greens. (There really should be a sarcasm font.)

Ok, obviously, these labs will do if you want snap shots or need 1 hour pictures printed for a school project or something where the quality isn’t that important to you. I’m not saying they don’t have their place in the market. But, if you’ve paid a professional photographer hundreds of dollars to take portraits of your family, why would you then trust a "budget" printing company over a professional printer. The professional labs that I use print on archival quality paper that is made to stand the test of time.

Over the next few months, I'll be stepping away from my typical photography blog posts at times in order to highlight some of my favorite local, small businesses and their owners. As a small business owner myself, I feel it's very important to support other Pensacola area business owners.

First up is Amber Roman with Belly to Cradle, LLC. 

​Amber is a certified doula, childbirth educator, and placenta arts specialist, providing comprehensive birth care and support for families in Pensacola and the surrounding areas. Belly to Cradle, LLC was established in 2011 with the desire to support families through pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum. Since then, Amber has provided birth support at more than 120 births, and has walked with dozens more families through their pregnancy, breastfeeding, and early parenting journeys. 

Amber describes herself as a pretty introverted person, but feels becoming a doula has allowed her to really break out of that shell allowing her to meet and bond with people that she never would have under any other circumstance. She says that she, "loves watching and helping new clients develop the bond between themselves and their new baby, as well as their community. Helping them reach out and find the 'village' that will be there for them in the timeframe after baby arrives is so important." 

Check out the Belly to Cradle, LLC Facebook page to read spotlights on Lauren, Lydia, and Christina.

Amber also owns Pensacola Placentas, an affiliate of Belly to Cradle, which offers options such as: placenta encapsulation, an umbilical cord keepsake, placenta tincture, and a placenta print.

Since it is the Christmas season, I am going to start off with these super cute, and affordable, custom Christmas ornaments. On the left is a bamboo ornament that comes in your choice of 13 sizes & shapes (the one show is 4″x2.5″). They’re ~1/4″ thick and show the beautiful, natural grain of the bamboo through the image. On the right is a sweet metal ornament that can be ordered in the design shown or a snowflake.
These ornaments not only look lovely on your own tree, they make a fantastic gift for grandparents!
Next up is an item I’ve been proudly using for 2 months now: a custom cell phone case.

What a great way to show off your babies – without having to even unlock your phone screen.
Cases are black rubber grip with interchangeable photo inserts. These aren’t sold as “protective cases” like Otterbox, Lifeproof, etc – BUT, my toddler has dropped and thrown my phone multiple times on quite a few different surfaces, and so far, no damage has occurred to my Samsung S6.
Cases are available for the Samsung Galaxy S6, iPad Mini, and  iPhones 4, 5, 6, & 6 Plus.
The base order includes 1 case and 1 insert – additional inserts can be added to your order or ordered at a later date.

Custom designed cards are perfect for new baby announcements, Birthday invitations, Graduation announcements, Christmas cards, etc.
So, now you’ve seen the beautiful, high quality, and affordable products we carry for our clients. But, just because you don’t see it here doesn’t mean we can’t get it. So, if there’s ever something special that you have in mind, just ask!

In this three part series, we'll discuss what to do after your portrait session is over!  Part One will talk about what you're doing with your digital files.  How are you safe keeping them?  Part Two will discuss how where you have your pictures printed matters.  And Part Three will give you ideas about how to best display your portraits after you print them.

Did you know that over time, CDs and USBs can become corrupt and unreadable?  What would you do if your hard drive crashed?  Yes, you'd most likely lose important documents, but you'd also risk losing all of your family's pictures.  Did you know that most professional photographers only keep client's images for a couple years?  We just don't have the storage space - plus, when we save files it's on at least 3 different devices. 

We hear it and read it all the time.  "Do I get the digital files?"  
In many cases, the answer is yes.  
My question to you though, is this - What are you doing with those digital files?  

Are you ordering professional quality prints and albums from your photographer?  Or are you trusting the nearest big box store or corner drug store with your printing needs?  

If you actually order prints, what are you doing with them?  Are you displaying them on the walls of your home?  Are you adding the prints to baby books or photo albums?  Or, are they just getting dumped in a photo box?
I would like to bet that if I stopped 10 random people and asked them what they do with their digital files, more than half of them with answer me with, "They're still on the CD/USB the photographer gave me," or, "I shared them on Facebook," or if they downloaded the files, "They're in a folder on my hard drive."

Say you get the digital files from your photographer.  Did you read your contract and/or print release?  If you have a professional photographer, at least one of those documents will have instructions on how to safe guard your images.  My personal Print Release card contains the following statement: "All digital media can become corrupt over time.  I highly recommend that you download the images off the CD/USB onto at least one computer to ensure the safe keeping of your images."  My Portrait Contract has the following clause: "FBO Photography is responsible for providing storage of their images for one year only.  After one year, images may be deleted or removed.  Client releases FBO Photography from liability of photo storage after one year."

This is not to say that I actually delete client's files after a year, but it does mean that I could.  And I know several professional, top of their field, photographers who do.

Like many people, my love of photography was about photographing things and places long before it was about photographing people.  If you were to go back through the many folders on my computer, under each year, you would find a folder titled "Scenery."  Every year, I created that folder to hold the photos I took JUST for me, the pictures from the days where I just got up, picked up my camera and my car keys, and didn't come back for hours.  Once you got tired of looking through folders on my computer, you could go through my old photo albums and find pictures from as far back as middle school where I did the same thing (minus the car keys).
As a teen and college student, photography was a way to express myself.  As a young adult working 60-80 hours a week in the real world, it was a hobby for my days off and an inexpensive way to decorate my walls.  And when I went through my divorce in 2010, going for a walk with my camera was a way to escape my head.  Trust me, there's nothing like laying perfectly still, belly down, in the sand waiting out a nervous bird to clear your head of the noise of every day life.  Now, as a 33 year old mom, step-mom, wife, and wahm/photographer, being able to "run away" for a couple of hours to commune with nature and take some pictures is a much needed reminder of what got me into this business in the first place.
So why am I telling you this?  I want you to understand how much I love photography as an art.  While uploading Halloween snapshots into my 2014 folder, I realized there was no "Scenery" folder.  
It had been over a year since I'd gone out and shot just-for-me.  
I teared up.  
Don't judge me.  
2014 was a busy year, it began with me super pregnant, then I became a new mom, and then it was just the day-to-day life of motherhood, and I have NO regrets about it!  But, when my husband asked me last week what I wanted to do for my birthday, I didn't hesitate with my request.  
I asked him if I could go down to the beach for a few hours around sunset and take pictures - alone.  God love that man, he didn't take that the wrong way.  He said of course, cleaned out his truck (he'd need my car for the 3 kids), and at 3pm the next day, sent me on my way.
It. Was. Glorious.
One of my best "finding beauty" days ever.  And now there's a "Scenery" folder in 2015!

And, for nostalgia's sake, here's a few from "finding beauty" days past.

For my business, I am going to make a huge push to get my Senior Ambassador Program off the ground this spring.  I think the Class of 2016 in Escambia county, Santa Rosa county, and Baldwin county will be a great group to launch my awesome Senior Portrait program.  
As well as marketing towards high school seniors, I’ll also be booking more Newborn and Family Portrait sessions!  I’m also hoping to have the opportunity to try my hand at “Birth Story” photography before year's end.  And, because I do love Wedding photography, I will still be booking weddings, just on a more limited basis.
Also, the end of 2014 brought a change to how our customers receive their digital & print images.  From now on, unless otherwise agreed upon, all digital images from Portrait sessions will be delivered via digital download and brides & grooms will receive their images on a USB.  Print & canvas orders will be placed directly through me and not through a 3rd party site.  This both allows me to offer you the same, quality products at a lower cost AND enables me to personally make sure your portraits are perfectly, sized, scaled, and colored before they're sent to be printed.

For my personal life, I can’t wait to see my son take his first steps and celebrate his first birthday!  And I’m hoping that 2015 allows me to do a little traveling again.  As much as I love portrait photography, landscape and nature photography is in my soul.

Thank you to everyone who trusted me to capture their precious moments this past year, and a special thank you to the four new mothers who trusted me to hone my newborn photography craft on their new bundle of joy!