Tracy Bookman Photography

If You’re In The Graduating Class Of 2011, You Can Earn Big By Being One Of Our ‘11 Ambassadors, Plus Get A Ton Of Great Stuff For Your Own Senior Portraits

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been interviewing students to be our Ambassador Models for the graduating class of 2011. So far, we’ve selected students from Palmer, Manitou, TCA, Palmer Ridge, Pueblo West, and Cheyenne Mountain, and this weekend interviews are set up with 3 or 4 more students.

But, we would still like to have Ambassadors in several other area schools, especially Rampart, Liberty, Pine Creek, Air Academy, and Falcon.

We’ve put together a pretty great program for the ‘11 Ambassadors including:

• 5% commissions on the sales made to anyone an Ambassador refers to us. That can be by directly speaking to another student, or even if someone sees your portraits on Facebook and calls us from that, that counts as a referral for you!
• $50 portrait credit for participating in our ‘11 Ambassadors Group Portrait Session
• A cool slideshow (like the one you see below) of your own portraits for you to post on Facebook
• Facebook images of your portraits
• Much more!

If You’re Wondering What You Need To Do As One Of Our Ambassadors…

It’s really pretty simple. All we need you to do is to pass out all the information cards we give you. Give them to the other students in your class, or even other students in the class of ‘11 at other schools. If you know friends from youth group, sports, or other places, you can give them to those students as well. (No, you’re not allowed to just leave the cards in the bathroom at school… You actually do have to give them away to peole.

We’re Only Accepting Applications For A Short Time

The Group Portrait Session is coming up quickly on February 27, so we’re only accepting applications for ‘11 Ambassadors for a couple more weeks, and then, to be fair, we’ve got to shut it off. So, if you or someone you know is in the class of 2011, and would like to be considered to be one of our Ambassadors, simply complete the application form. We’ll review it and contact you to talk about setting up an interview.

There’s only a couple more weeks to apply, so turn in your application right away!

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Senior Photographer

Everyone has a wild side…

To prove my point, check out these crazy ways to groom your dog!

Yes, that really is a poodle, believe it or not. This was all part of a grooming competition that occurred last summer. Amazingly, the photographer, Ron Netherland, of the UK, travels thousands of miles every year just photographing these dogs at the competitions.

To see more of these unbelievable transformations, you can visit the MailOnline webpage which reported on Mr. Netherland’s work. There are poodles that have been transfomed into things diverse as a chicken, a psychedelic snail, the panda you see here, a camel, a horse, a pirate, a Pittsburgh Steeler, and my favorite, a buffalo.

WHAT ABOUT YOUR POOCH?

OK, I admit, I have drawn some inspiration from the above website

Coming in February…

An announcement for a special we have planned for your furry doggy friend. In fact, if you have a dog you would like to be a model for our promotional pieces, please give us a call or Email us with a photo of your puppy or dog.

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Dog Photographer

Disclaimer: All photos on this blog post and on the MailOnline page were taken by photographer, Ron Netherland.

We are entertaining the idea of creating and using a new logo and want your opinion. We’ll even open it up as a contest for everyone too! If you don’t like any of the ones we’ve designed, design one, and submit it to us. If we like and end up using it, we’ll give you $50 of credit you can use here with the studio, and we’ll publicly acknowledge and recognize your great design work!!

Here are the designs we have so far. Please comment or Email us with your favorite.

Thanks for reading, and for your input!

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

Not long ago, the Jeub family asked me to do some photography for them. Wendy and Chris are both authors and need some professional portraits for their books. While I was there, I took some time to photograph life at their house with 13 children (with 2 others already out of the house). So, I put together a fun slideshow of that enjoyable afternoon.

Enjoy the show!

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

In case you hadn’t noticed…

The blog has been redesigned to be able to showcase photos better.

Plus, I like the cleaner design more than the old one.

Now, if you see yourself on our blog, there is a Share/Social Networking button at the bottom of each post where you can much more easily share the post on any site you may be a member of: Facebook, myspace, LinkedIn, etc.

-Tracy

I’m part of a networking group here in Colorado Springs, in which I represent my photography business, but having been in this group for 3 years now, the other members have learned about some of the other things that I like to dabble in. Creating marketing pieces is one of those things I like to do on occassion. I design all of the marketing pieces for our own business, and have acquired a liking for doing this for other people as well!

Friday evening, Michael Miller, owner of Premier Collision CARSTAR in Colorado Springs, asked me to put together an ad for his business. The ad is supposed to appear on the front page of the Falcon High School Football program, and he needed the ad done by today!

Here’s the ad we put together for Michael, which he really liked and appreciated us doing for him.

This isn’t something we regularly do, but it’s one more way to use the creative talents that I believe the Creator has given me and I hope to use those talents to honor Him, and to be a blessing to our clients and friends.

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Photographer

It’s always fun to deliver baby portraits to a client, but it was especially enjoyable to deliver Martin’s photos to his grandmother, Vicki this morning. Martin was the happiest baby we’ve ever photographed, and his portraits turned out, well, picture-perfect! Everything was working that day, including the light coming in the windows. The trickiest thing, however, in working with babies is catching their mood correctly. So far, I’ve never encountered a parent who appreciates photos of pouty, crabby babies! So, a lot of energy goes into getting happy expressions.
But, Martin was exceptionally cooperative and hung in there with great smiles for the whole session. He was even happy this morning when we delivered his photos!
Thanks for reading.
Tracy

As many of our clients and friends know, I love farming and ranching, and would love to live and work on a farm or ranch. We currently have dairy goats and we’ve had meat and egg chickens in the past. This is something that I really enjoy.

Well, in the summer of 2007, 3 of my boys and I spent a night at Lasater Ranch in eastern Colorado. At the time, I was planning to write a freelance article about Lasater, but our photography schedule, and life in general, kind of got in the way. I still hope to write the article about Lasater, and will look for outlets to publish it, so I thought that I would share some of the images from our time at the ranch.

Our visit to the ranch was very enjoyable, and I would encourage anyone to take advantage of the “Field Days” they have there to see for yourself what a real, and health-promoting, cattle ranch is like. Andy Duffy, the ranch manager, made us feel like old friends coming out for a visit. He showed us all around the ranch in the Lasater Suburban, a beat-up old SUV that seems like it might be held together with duct tape and baling twine. We got to see many of the pastures where they rotate their herds and got lots of great information about the ranch. Andy showed us where we could go the next morning to get some photos, and told us how to get in and out of the pasture. It was great to feel so trusted on his ranch to be able to come and go into the pastures to get our photos.

I really like the philosophy of the Lasater operation. Not only do they NOT use any medications which are so ubiquitous to the industry, but they allow the herds to start and finish on grass. This gives their beef a distinctive flavor that you don’t find in feed-lot beef. We visited the ranch a couple years before, and Tom Lasater made us a pot roast lunch that our children still remember!

But, that’s not all that distinguishes the Lasater operation from every other ranch. Their cattle are bred for disposition and are “gentled” when they’re young.

My boys and I let ourselves into the pasture in the morning and found the herd. We were a little nervous about it all because we’re used to goats, not cows and bulls! But, the cows were all very curious about us and just wanted to come see what we were. As you can see in the photo,

Aaron, who was 8 at the time stood in the midst of them and fed and petted them. What a great time this was for all of us! I’ll be very thankful to Andy and Lasater Ranch for a long time, even if I never get my article written!

Hopefully you enjoy the photos that we were able to get that morning. It was definitely an experience that we all loved. By the way, here’s a little plug for Lasater… you can buy their beef at Whole Foods.

If I am able to get the article written and published I’ll be sure to mention that here and let everyone know where they can get the publication.

-Tracy
The farm-and-ranch-loving Colorado Springs Photographer

Oops! I didn’t mean to make that sound like these are OUR babies, but they are a couple of babies we have photographed recently, and in the last week, we’ve had a chance to sit down with parents and show off their beautiful baby boys.

Martin actually lives in Kansas, but travels out here frequently with his Grandma and mom, and so he took a little time for the photographer to catch up to him at his Grandma’s Colorado Springs home so we could get some beautiful portraits of him. I think this one is my favorite. I think one of the things I like about this one so much is that it was done with all natural lighting. We brought them, but we never had to use the studio strobes. So, this is all window light with a reflector on the shadow side to fill that in a little bit.

What we find is that babies are typically much more relaxed and happy when they’re in their home environment instead of being dragged to a studio and have to be in a strange setting with lights flashing on and off. That would be pretty weird to you too, especially if you just woke up from a nap in the back seat of the car!

So, we really like to do baby portraits in their homes. The other photo of Gavin was done in his home in Falcon. This one is kind of funny because it looks like he’s trying to see if anyone is watching him try to get up on the chair, almost like it’s something he’s not supposed to be doing.

Here’s what Gavin’s parents had to say about his portraits.

Tracy, these photos are fantastic! This worked out so well having you come to the house instead of us having to take Gavin and Tristan to a studio. Everything looks great and we can’t decide what to get. We want them all!

Chuck & Sharon Holland,
Falcon

Thank you for the kind words, Hollands, and we’re thrilled that you love your portraits!

-Tracy
The Colorado Springs Baby Photographer

Tracy Bookman Photography is participating in the National Charity Model Search to select “America’s Cutest Kid” and to raise funds for charity.

We’re looking for cute children ages 18 months to 14 years old to model for a portrait to be entered into the contest.

Models Search Special:
$20 entrance fee, which includes a 30 - 45 minute model session and one image submitted to the national gallery.

Finalists will be determined by online votes. Anyone may vote. Each vote is $1, and all proceeds from votes benefit the non-profit Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. (NILMDTS.org)
Grand prize national winner will be determined from the 50 city finalists. Winners selected by photography and modeling industry experts.

If your child is selected the national winner, you’ll receive many prizes, including a $5,000 US Savings Bond and a Canon PowerShot G10 digital camera.

If you’re interested in entering your child(ren), please call the studio at 719-749-0043. For more information about the contest, go online to www.sandypucmodels.com.

Thanks for reading.

-Tracy
Colorado Springs’ Baby Photographer