I've done Courtney's portrait from Engagement Session, Bridal, Wedding, Belly Bump and two children from newborn on.

She was also a bridesmaid in my wedding.

Three years ago she came to me with a simple request for her first child Juliet's photos. She wanted a fairy tale book with Juliet as the star. No Disney princess though, she would edit the classic Grimm Fairy Tales to go into the book.

Should be simple right? Take the kids photo and paste the story next to it! Easy!

It was my first month up at my School of Rock Studio. I really had not shot many newborns at the time. Let's just say the photos were less then stellar.

We did two fairy tales every three months that year. At the end I look at what I had shot and felt heartbroken. I was unsure of lighting, not good at sets, and did not live up to what was in my head. So I put off editing them. A year goes by and I show Courtney the Mockups and have her pick some out but I am not happy with any of them. I was use to photoshopping a woman's thighs not making a whole fantasy world and was in over my head.

I had pictured these gold scroll work squares and all the photos sitting pretty in them. Not even close.

Then there was the actually stories. Unless I made them font size 6 and you would need a magnifying glass to read it. There was no way they were going to fit onto one page. Have you ever tried to place long text in Photoshop. Hours and hours of trying to get it to come out even.

Another year goes by.

Guilt was getting to me. Then by chance I discovered a new program to deal with the text which made it so much simpler! That night I felt overjoyed. I was so excited I knocked out all of the pages. I also knocked down my own walls. I had put myself in a mindset that all of the photos had to be the same and I hated it. So I started over from scratch with each photo and loved the end result. That was it! I want to cry! 26 pages just how I had wanted them. 2 and a half years after conception I could finally give Courtney her album. 

I uploaded all of the pages to my pro lab. I wanted thick flush mount pages so that little Juliet could read her own stories without fear of tearing the pages. I wanted it to be beautiful. I am dragging and dropping the pages in when the program freezes and tells me that the album is only designed to allow 25 pages.

NOOOOOOOOO! There was no way I could edit out a page!

After searching and searching I found a company that would do 26 pages on flush mount!

I ordered the album and brought it over for Courtney's birthday. As Courtney unwrapped the album and open it. Juliet looked up at her mother beaming and instantly recognized that she was the princess in all of the stories. Then lost interest after sixty seconds and wandered off. lol

Oh well it was still worth it.