Picture Perfect
02 June 2010
Weird, but this post about pictures isn't going to contain a single one!
Anyway, have you heard about Groupon? Look it up and see if they are participating in your area. It's an awesome site that offers a (usually) steep discount, once per day, to a local business. I've seen everything from restaurants to spa services to photography, and more.
The photography was the one I jumped on. I'd been wanting to get our family portraits taken professionally by someone other than our old standby, Sears, but it has been too cost-prohibitive for us. So when Groupon popped up with a deeply discounted offer from the folks at JL Keeney Photography, I hopped over to their website, decide their style would work for us, and snagged a great deal!
On Sunday evening, we met with Jeff & Lisa Keeney - a husband and wife photographer team - at a local park to have our pictures taken. They took us all over the place, by the duck pond, next to some trees, on a pier, to the playground, etc., and shot 7- or 800 pictures. The kids really showed off their personalities: Chloë was "on" for the camera, posing away the whole time; Sophia was the fearless daredevil; and Jack was our little Nervous Nelly. We had a great time and enjoyed the shoot, and I couldn't wait to see the results.
Today, we met at the Keeneys' house/studio to look over the pictures. While I can't show them to you here, you can click on over here for a glimpse at one their shots, and hopefully soon the rest of the ones that we chose will be online for your viewing pleasure.
We have severely limited funds, so while I would have liked to purchase the entirety of the collection - or at least more than we did - we limited ourselves to the small package that the Groupon deal included, for a family picture, plus one of the thee kids and one of each of them individually. I am going to get the disk with all of our images, too, but that will take a while, as Jeff and Lisa generously offered to allow me to make payments on it.
I really have to say, we've been truly blessed by this whole experience. Not only did we get a great deal on some fabulous family portraiture, but we met a wonderful family in the process. The Keeneys are parents to three beautiful children, although we've only been fortunate enough to meet adorable, 3-month-old baby A so far. They are kind and, like I said, generous, and we have had a great rapport. They even read up about CARE Package and are wanting to add their professional skills to the cause, helping to photograph these beautiful angel babies before they are laid to rest. I'm going to contact the children's hospital where most of our donations go, to see what I need to do to get all that set up. I'm ecstatic; it's what I've been wanting and meaning to add since the beginning, and they are just the sort of people who should be involved with that.
After we selected our pictures and finished chatting, the Keeneys met us out front by our car and gave us some of their extra tomato plants. Jeff even ran into the garage and came back to hand Rob a bag of potting soil to get them transplanted at our house. How nice is that?! Just one example of the kindness of these former strangers.
So, if you're in Hampton Roads and looking to have a wonderful experience with getting your family's pictures taken, call JL Keeney. You won't be disappointed.
Fin.