*raises hand*

Well … for starters it means after months and months of hard work, I get to debut the new Christina McCall Photography branding … those in google reader, click here to see what I’m talking about

Here’s the old CMP …

… and here’s the new CMP … new logo, new colors, new bio photo, new website look, new splash page, and on hiatus from human portraiture photography! About the only thing that’s somewhat the same is that I couldn’t bear to part with the woodgrain look on the website!

Over @ Sit.Stay.Snap., the new branding debuted a little early (as in a couple weeks ago) but I never got around to announcing it … so here’s a peek. Click here to see it all for yourself …

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With the end of 2011, my annual wrap-up and a quick look back at this year’s weekly images posted each Monday:

Biz wise, I began cutting back on the session options/types I shot earlier this year so I could focus on other areas of photography that I wanted to pursue/improve. I also attended Imaging USA last January when PPA held their annual conference in San Antonio; I learned a lot and discovered some new products while at the expo. The weather this year impacted a lot of what I was able to shoot landscape, wildlife, and plant-wise, so I’m enjoying the rainy season we’re having now that’s allowing me to photograph something green again — even if it is winter! With year’s end, I made an announcement on Christmas Eve that alters the course of what CMP will be focused on for the foreseeable future.

Personally, its been a year of ups and downs — travel plans altered several times, lost one beloved canine to a tick illness, Pokie — the Queen of the farm — was attacked by a coyote & has recovered, though she’ll have a limp for the rest of her days, some unexpected changes at my day job, and so much more I’ve chosen not to go into publicly out of respect for the privacy of others involved – so I’m quite ready for 2012 to be here.

In a few weeks I’ll temporarily re-enter grad school to pick up an extra class that wasn’t offered at the time I graduated back in 2006 … and hopefully next fall I’ll begin teaching part time at the juco level in addition to my day job and weekend pet photography sessions. I have a few long weekend trips in mind for 2012 and perhaps a semi-decent roadtrip that weather and illness won’t thwart this time around. There’s already quite a few pet sessions booked for early 2012, so some of those will pop up here on the blog in the coming months along with images from 2011 trips I still haven’t finished processing!

Happy New Year 2012 to all of you!

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From Christina & the *elves* at CMP, Merry Christmas!

For those of you on our snail mail Christmas card mailing list, you’re already aware of the following news since these cards went out to you within the last couple of weeks, but I held out on making the announcement here on the blog until today …

Christina McCall Photography has evolved throughout the last four plus years … and after much consideration, I am taking a break from portraiture & commercial photography. CMP will be focused on only travel, landscape, and fine art photography for the foreseeable future. In addition, a new service that isn’t exactly photography-related will be debuted very soon.

The CMP blog will still be updated with images from my travels, projects, and pet sessions … along with the archives in place for reminiscing.

Sit.Stay.Snap., the pet photography division of CMP, will continue about business as normal after January 1st with some slight changes. I won’t rule out a return to offering portraiture sessions for my human clients … so if you’d like to be notified via email when that time comes, please sign up here (this is a different list than my regular newsletter that will continue to be sent out seasonally).

Thanks for a great four + years … and please visit the site again on January 1st to see the rebranded Christina McCall Photography that has been in the works for the last few months!

PS … below is the original image from this year’s card … this was a cottage near an inn in Gruene, Texas that had a vacancy sign on it, which immediately made me think of Mary & Joseph & the birth of Jesus

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In addition, in planning this shoot the idea for a photobooth at the race next spring came into play … so obviously we had to shoot that idea too. More details on the photobooth @ next April’s race will be posted come springtime … meanwhile, here’s a couple of sneak peeks to tide everyone over!

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Test shot from Saturday’s session … lovin’ the sun flare!

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Questions? Know someone eligible? Visit http://www.inspirationthroughart.org for more details and to apply!

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Colorado roadside …

Summer is almost here … and with the onslaught of hot humid days, the CMP blog will be starting its ‘blog vacation‘ this week. Rather, I’ll be taking a bit of a break from dropping in on the admin side the blog as often as I normally do …  

From now through the middle of August, images from past travels as well as images from upcoming travels will debut a couple times a week. As I had an hour here and there throughout this past winter and spring, I’ve skimmed through past travel images I hadn’t edited and/or blogged and pre-scheduled posts set to go live as of this Wednesday.

I’ll still be dropping in each Sunday to prep the 52 week image posts that appear on Mondays and to make any site updates/approve comments as necessary, otherwise I plan to limit my computer/online time this summer as much as possible outside of quick updates, emails, and editing client images. So … it’ll be *quiet* around here biz-wise until mid August. Session sneak peeks will pop up here on the blog again starting in mid to late August as well as an announcement regarding 2011 Holiday specials.

Summer 2011 Session Availability … I will be shooting a very limited number of custom sessions very early in the am on selected Saturday & Sunday mornings during the next couple of months as well as the Friday Night Lite sessions. June, July, and August all have availability as of today’s post.

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(all of these images + text were originally posted on September 27, 2009)

For those unaware, in June of this year, I spent 17 days traveling through part of the Western United States and two Canadian provinces. During that trip, I either sat foot in, viewed from a distance, or drove through ten U.S. National Parks, Monuments, or Historic Sites. I can’t begin to tell you all how humbling and awe inspiring our parks, monuments, and historic sites are. It would be a safe bet that I had a constant slack jawed in awe expression on my face for most of that trip. As I twittered and said aloud multiple times during those seventeen days, “God is an awesome artist.” And He is — visit the Tetons, drive through Yellowstone, take a bus tour at Glacier, give yourself a crick in the neck gazing up at Devils Tower, stare at Pikes Peak from Garden of the Gods, get up close and personal with the bison at Theodore Roosevelt (from the safety of your vehicle, that is!), gaze at the artistry of what dynamite can do at Mount Rushmore, enjoy the peaceful beauty of Wind Cave’s lands, and quietly reflect on the lives of those who lost their lives in the spring of 1995 at Oklahoma City. That’s just some of the sites we visited in one trip — there are a total of 58 national parks in the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, and US territories, and an even greater number of National Monuments, Historic Sites, Military Parks/Battlegrounds, and Recreation Areas to visit.

So — as a belated celebration of National Public Lands Day (it was yesterday, Saturday, September 26th) and to lead up to the airing of Ken Burns’ The National Parks miniseries, I thought I’d share a few of my absolute favorite images from the parks we visited.

The Tetons …

Jenny Lake — Grand Teton National Park

Jackson Lake — Grand Teton National Park

Old Faithful — Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Lake McDonald — Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park

Devils Tower

Mount Rushmore

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Oklahoma City National Memorial

Btw in CMP related news, only a couple more spots left next Saturday for the Spring edition of the Love by CMP minis … these will be the last slots until the holiday season starts in late August!

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Donkey image courtesy of photoDUDS.

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[ Instamatic ] … read here for the backstory … and click here to see recent posts.
(oh, and if you have IE8.0, you might have trouble loading it … working with tech support to figure out the problem (was loading fine earlier this week). Site loads fine in Safari, Firefox, and Opera! Can also access using this rss feed.)

Okay, that was one of two reasons to make it a mini blog — that horizontal scrolling blog format was the second reason. I’ve been lusting after that template design since ITDR released it last summer, and while I couldn’t afford to have them or Luxecetera create a custom version that would be a better fit (for what I have envisioned for this blog if I were to change it up), it was perfect for what I had in mind over at [ Instamatic ]. Didn’t hurt that ITDR had a WPPI sale last month and the template was a fraction of its regular price …

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First, a couple of images from Glacier National Park in June 2009 that I discovered I’d skipped over while picking out images while on the road that month …

Processed both of these images using some of my newest action favorites from Red Leaf Boutique … their workshop is on my wish list for early 2012

And with the whole ‘flashback’ theme … a summary of behind the scenes at CMP over the last month …

Three new products have been added to the product line this month (Image Folios + two new items I’ll share in March), the mini site went live last weekend, income taxes are done, and spring sessions are underway. 

On a personal note, I’m dubbing this “the year of lousy health issues” … January was food poisoning, February was major dental emergency that won’t be fully resolved/completed for a few months. I’m afraid to know what’ll happen in March … needless to say, I’m saying lots of prayers and knocking on lots of wood surfaces in hopes its not major OR expensive

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