Hi there. We’ve been getting feedback both good and bad about our website and we want to say “thanks”. We know we will never be able to please everyone with our business practices, our website, and even our work but we want to do our best to learn from your thoughts and opinions. Some of the comments we have gotten have been about the blog style of website that we have going right now. Some wonder if it lacks a professionalism or takes away from the photography itself. These are valuable considerations and we are thinking them through.

About 6 months ago, we made the decision to settle down with a blog-driven website because we wanted to have the opportunity for our clients to get to know and interact with us on an on-going sometimes daily basis. Though it may seem unprofessional to share so much of our personal lives, we feel that it’s actually one of the best things we could ever do for our business. The truth is, our business will never grow if we neglect the biggest part of what actually makes our business unique: US! There are a number of other photographers in this area that take beautiful photos and I can tell you for a fact that these people are very talented at what they do. In fact, a simple Google search will turn up results that could overwhelm any prospective client with all the potential photographers to choose from. The only way we will stand out is to forget about trying to compete with others and focus instead on being genuine, relatable people who are willing to share their lives with others.We don’t want to be some mysterious enigma of a business with a slick website but make people wonder if we can be trusted with the most precious moments of their lives. We don’t have anything to hide. We have flaws and mixed motives and deal with a lot of the same things any number of our clients do. Why not lay it all out there for you to see? After all, this “business” is really about so much more than a job or an income or success. We want our focus to be on investing in people and serving people and caring about people and LOVING people. We want our clients to know that they actually matter to us and that we are excited to get to play an important part in their lives by capturing the moments that are special to them. If we can use our blog to make it easier for our clients to really know us and trust us and come to appreciate who we are not just for the photographs that we take, then our website will be doing it’s job.

That being said, we certainly don’t want to miss out on any opportunity to make our visitors’ web experience the best we can make it. While we’re certain that a blog site is the right choice for Grace Leigh Photography, I’m open to the idea of having a dedicated “Portfolio” site in addition to the main blog site. Ever since discovering ShowIt Sites this past summer, I’ve wondered if this was a service that we’d want to have for our business. I’m definitely still interested in the consideration and would welcome thoughts on whether or not it would be worthwhile to have this. Ultimately, our clients need to be able to visit our website and immediately be able to click on the information they want to get at, be it images or content. I think our site now does just that but a few more bells and whistles may not hurt. I’m all for having a finely crafted and sophisticated website with Flash and slideshows and music and the whole works. But my honest opinion is that all of those goodies will not get us any more clients than the next photographer trying to make it in this incredibly saturated industry. In fact, having a personal, open, honest blog won’t get us any more clients either if no one is visiting our site to begin with.

So that brings us to our next and probably biggest project so far. *take a deep breath* SEO, Marketing, and Advertising. Oh my soul. Having finally gotten to a place where we feel like our portfolio is a good representation of our work, and having nailed down a direction we’re almost positive we want to go in with our brand/design/style/etc., NOW is the time to throw all of our energy into marketing our business. No holds barred. Full out. All in. Buck wild. Ape kapowy. We are THERE and YOU are going to be along for the ride with us.

If you have any thoughts, please share them with us in the comments section below. You really aren’t going to offend us with your opinions. We will either be inspired to try something new or even more resolute that we’re making the right decisions. So, win-win.

We’ve been MIA for quite a while now and to that I say….Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Carissa and I are hopeful for many new things for our business and website this year and we’ve been mulling over a lot of ideas and considerations that we plan to slowly begin implementing. Starting this week, we will be posting a minimum of 4 times per week. That’s not per month, people, that’s per WEEK! We will be posting about our business, our brand, our personal lives (gasp) and everything else that makes us Grace & Leigh. Consider this one a “freebie” and stay tuned for more posts on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Wow! We have gotten so many inquiries for our Project 25 promo. (Not gonna lie-kinda blown away.) Thank you so much everyone! We are so excited to start scheduling your sessions ASAP. We know you all have been excited and eager to sign up but one thing we want to remind you of is that in order to reserve your slot in Project 25 you will need to check out via the PayPal shopping cart on this website. (If you have spoken to us about an alternative method of payment, this is fine. We just need to actually receive payment in order to save your slot for you.) That being said, there are a limited number of spaces left. If you have not paid to reserve your slot, please do so soon. (Yes, it has been less than one week since we launched this promo and we’re almost booked! Alriiiiight!) On another note: If you would like to reserve a session with us but aren’t super keen about the humid weather we’re still having, you are free to wait and schedule your session for the month of October.

Thanks again to everyone who has inquired and reserved their slot in Project 25. You are putting big, happy smiles on our faces!

If you use Twitter and would like to follow us @graceleighphoto, that would be great! We will be using Twitter to inform you of the goings-on here at GLP, specifically about some special PROMOS we’re having to celebrate the launch of our business. Stay tuned for more details…..(psst…We’re sooooo excited about it and we hope you will be too! )

I think this site is going to need a good bit of tweaking before we can say it is “finished” and ready for the whole world to see. We weren’t sure if we should have a Flash image header or not but we settled on a mini Flash slideshow of ourselves. Vain? Well, maybe. We thought people would want to see who the photographers were. No? Well, say goodbye to the slideshow because it is having trouble playing on every page. Not gon’ happen. I think I am leaning more towards the original idea of some sort of photo collage (Tasteful, mind you!) that represents our work. I want people to hit up the site and immediately get a feel for our style. I don’t mind including photos of C & B either.

For now, this website is going to operate more like a blog than a typical photographer’s Flash-based portfolio site. In the future I would like to explore all the options for Flash including the possibility of a Showit website (which you can get for free right now!). Stay tuned….

I can’t write blog posts. Way out of practice.

I’m sure this website will undergo a few changes as we get things set up in the coming weeks. I favor the typographic, bold, black and white look which I think will put all the focus on the photography. Of course, I will need to consult with my partner on this. But really, why do we need to get all design-y on you when you just want to see the photographs? Personally, I like white space. That’s my style. Eventually, I’m envisioning either pictures of the photographers or some sort of rotating Flash image header, ala Monoslideshow in place of the big GraceLeigh Photography words. But it’s hard for me to resist tightly kerned black text on a white background so I’m happy with no image header for now.

Welcome to the future home of GraceLeigh Photography. Stay tuned for awesome.