Christina McCall Photography | Athens Canton Kaufman and Tyler Texas Family, Children, and Senior Portraiture Photography bio picture

Howdy!

Welcome to Christina McCall Photography -- voted 2009's Best Photographer by the readers of the Athens Daily Review. CMP provides custom modern & lifestyle portraiture for families, seniors, maternity, newborns/infants & children, and couples/engagement in the East Texas region as well as the DFW metroplex. Commercial photography services are also provided on a limited basis.

The girl behind the camera at each and every session is Christina McCall. This blogsite is where I post session sneak peeks, my commercial, travel, and personal photographic work, newsletters, blog-only specials, and some various ramblings and musings about photography and otherwise. Please bookmark the CMP Blog, or if you're a RSS user, the feed is located here--or just plug the web address into Google Reader (or any other feed reader).

The menu just above has links to the portfolio, a search feature (for the CMP website), and detailed information about sessions and pricing. Comments are quite welcome, so please don't be shy!

Availability: Booking April 2010 & onward! 2010 Seniors -- limited availability, book now!

Extra, Extra: 2010 Senior Special | Spring 2010 SpecialsThe Roadtrip 2009 Postcards & Travel Prints | Contact CMP

Readers Choice! | Athens Texas Photographer

I recently received a phone call … one of the very few to leave me speechless. Stunned. In shock …

Congrats to all the other Readers’ Choice winners as well — at least two former coworkers and several relatives of other friends and former coworkers made the list as well!

And to show my heartfelt thanks to each and every person who voted for Christina McCall Photography as the Athens Review’s 2009 Readers Choice Best Photographer, a two part gift to all of you:

Part 1: a spring/summer mini session giveaway!

One commenter will receive a 30-45 minute Serendipity (aka Mini) Session to be held no later than August 31, 2010. Session will be held in Athens, Tyler, or Canton – winner’s choice. Prize includes waived creative fee + online proofing gallery with 15 images + blogged sneak peeks + (1) CMP Signature Line Mounted 8×12 Art Print. No other prints/products/files included in prize — winner will receive 10% off any items purchased. Value: $160.

To enter: Simply leave a comment here on this blog post answering the following question:

Which portrait session type you would like to win (maternity, newborn/infant, childrens, family, senior/adult individual,  couples/engagement, or pet portraiture (dog/cat))?

Deadline to leave comment entries: Sunday, March 14th at Midnight — winner will be announced on Monday, March 15th. Prize is a waived session fee +  (1) CMP Signature Line Mounted 8×12 Art Print– no other prints/products/digital files included.

Please note: Comment entries left on Facebook (both my personal profile + the CMP Fan Page) are not eligible for consideration due to Facebook policies on giveaways, sorry.

… and of course …

Part 2: Not the winner? Be one of the first five people to book a spring Off the Beaten Track (aka 90 minute-two hour full custom) session by March 31st and receive half off on the creative fee (regular creative fee rate: $200, first five people to book during March: $100). Session must be scheduled for no later than May 2, 2010. No need to mention this thank you special, your creative fee invoice will automatically reflect the discount!

And all Off the Beaten Track Sessions that book a spring or summer session by April 30th will receive 15% off their print/collection purchases (this is our regular spring special).

Thanks again to everyone that voted — and here’s hoping 2010 continues to be a great year for CMP!

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Friday Miscallany | Athens Texas Photographer

In comparison to the last few weeks at mi casa, it has been a rather uneventful and quiet week. Thank goodness. I’m working my way through the queue of client images to be edited, some of which will debut here in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile my calendar is filling up with spring sessions; if you’re wanting portraits, especially the seniors out there, do not delay. I only schedule a limited number of sessions each month + the senior session deadline is April 11th for full sessions, April 18th for mini sessions. I’ll be closing shop for some much needed rest and office catchup during the second half of May, so the only way you’ll have an order in-hand is to grab one of the remaining session dates left! All the deadlines for sessions and ordering are listed here. I also have availability for one session on Friday, April 2nd (9 am in the Athens area or late afternoon anywhere in the CMP service area). And, yes, the Readers’ Choice Thank You Special is still available — the five session limit hasn’t been reached just yet!

Aside from client editing, I’ve also begun scouting new locations (for sessions and fun) as well as shooting some *artsy* stuff for me. And by artsy, I mean slightly inspired by some of the Impressionist artworks in a particular commercial for this exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art that I really hope to squeeze in before it leaves. I’m an art junkie, I love art museums – I blame it on the fact that way back when … as in 19 years ago this month … I competed in Picture Memory at UIL Academic Meet over at Navarro College (for the non Texan visitors, that’s University Interscholastic League). Needless to say, prepping for that one event initiated the start of my love of the arts.

… and now for the quote of the week …

Do not do to others what you would not like to be done to you.
– The Golden Rule

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A Day in the Life | Canton Texas Family Photography

A new session type (a day in the life) + a very very chilly morning (in the 20s) + one awesome family = yummy chocolate chocolate chip cookies and a fun morning by all.

Day in the Life sessions differ from the traditional portrait session in that they are documentary style instead of posed portraits. The sneak peeks I’ve chosen are the ones where Noah’s not being adorable directly at me and the camera (I have a ton of those too)!

Noah’s peeking in the oven to watch the cookies bake …

Additionally, with the Day in the Life sessions, the only lighting sources are what are avaialble — overhead lighting in your home and any outdoor lighting sources that we can open the curtains/mini blinds and let in. No flash, no strobes.

The only edits done to these images were black and white conversions (the original color images were white balanced prior to conversion). As these are ‘capturing the moment’, no retouching or exposure edits are made.

Many thanks to Scott, Melody, Charles, and Noah for yet another great session!

If you would like to capture a ‘day in the life’ with your family in lieu of the traditional family session (or as a portion of a full portraiture session), contact me for details.

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Spring Inspiration | Athens, Canton, Kaufman, and Tyler, Texas Photography

According to the calendar — not Mother Nature — spring is just 13 days away. So with the hopes that it will continue the warming up trend, I started looking around for clothing inspiration for all the CMP clients on the calendar …

… and found that Jessica at The Creative Mama had already gotten a head start on me! Check out her selections here.

I also came across this site — The Fashionable Housewife and its sister site for young women.

And … via CollegeFashion.net, I’m partial to outfit #4 for senior girls.

Guys, don’t feel too left out … there just aren’t any guy fashion sites that I’ve come across! I’ll work on that for the next inspiration post!

PS … there’s still time to enter the Thank You Giveaway — this will be the last giveaway for 2010, so if you want a chance to win a session with CMP, be sure to enter by Sunday at midnight!

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Week 9 | Athens Texas Photographer

Finally, despite the chilly mornings, blooms are popping up!

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Friday Miscallany | Athens Texas Photographer

Washington-On-The -Brazos, the Birthplace of Texas, taken May 30, 2008.  March 2nd was Texas Independence Day — its 174th, in fact. Tomorrow’s the anniversary of when the Alamo fell to Santa Anna’s troops …

Welcome March — you didn’t have to arrive quite so soon!  Really, I mean it …

The Good:  See this post from Monday.

The Random: Tonight’s post is #500. It only took about 35 months to reach this point (first post went live April 15, 2007) … so, how long do you think it will take me to reach #1000? 

The Lust: I want this. If I can’t afford the $1600-ish real life version of this lens in the short-term, why not settle for its insulated mug equivalent? That is, if I could locate one for sale …

The *Can it get any worse*:If you are a friend of mine on Facebook, you probably saw Wednesday night’s status update. Yes, there was a chimney fire at my parents’ house. Thankfully it was contained within the fireplace and flume and was nearly out before both the Murchison and North 19 Fire Departments arrived (within minutes) … and everyone’s okay, just shaken. After Robby’s mishap two weeks ago, I think we’re due a streak of good luck and no more catastrophes!


… and the quote of the week:

“If practice makes perfect, and nobody’s perfect, why practice?”
–unknown

I came across this one in a how to use the internet ‘phonebook’ way way way back in 1996 and it has been one of my favorite quotes ever since. I used to say this to my track coaches when I was tired or annoyed … and as of late, it applies again in a number of ways.

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