I am so excited to announce that my sister (Andrea Riley Photography) and I have decided to combine forces and will be working together to provide photography and videography for our new business, The Picture Show.

With a combined 10 years of professional photography experience behind us and after portfolio building with video for the past year, we are thrilled to begin this new professional journey together.

The Picture Show will be focused on providing a premier photography + video experience for teens, high school seniors and young adults in the Northeast Ohio area (Medina county, Wayne county, Ashland county and surrounding areas). I have always loved working with teens as part of Angie Arthur Photography and am thrilled to be able to now focus my talent and energy on that demographic specifically with The Picture Show.

We have several fun giveaways and programs that we’ll be doing soon and one that is going on right at this time! If you are in the Wooster, Ohio area this weekend be sure to stop in at Poppy by Pursesnickety for a chance to win a free “Best Friends Forever” Photography Session from The Picture Show. This giveaway is valued at $750 and we know we’re going to have a blast photographing (and videotaping) the two teens who win this fun session. We are absolutely over the moon to be partnering with Poppy by Pursesnickety for our Senior Model Rep program that we’ll be announcing details for soon (our reps will be involved in a fabulous session that will be styled by Poppy and will have the chance to model in their upcoming fashion show as well!)

We’ll be announcing a second giveaway on our brand new Instagram account. If you are a teen (or a mom/dad of a teen) in the Northeast Ohio area, be sure to follow our account there so you won’t miss when that giveaway is announced! For that matter, be sure to follow all of our social media so you won’t miss any of our news anywhere.

• Instagram: The Picture Show
• Snapchat: TPS_teens (we will be featuring Snapchat Story Takeovers soon!)
• Pinterest: TPS_teens
• Twitter: TPS_teens
• Facebook: The Picture Show

While our website is going through a redesign please follow our social media instead to stay up-to-date on giveaway and Senior Model Rep program details.

We are absolutely thrilled about the new direction our business is taking and hope that many local teens can be part of it!

-Angie

The Picture Show
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Earlier this summer I had the pleasure of photographing a “Best Friends” session for my daughter and several of her closest friends. We spent the day learning how to apply natural looking make-up (thanks to Maleah, a local beauty consultant), fixing everyone’s hair in the style of their choice, choosing beautiful outfits (mixing and matching from everything that the girls brought with them), and then heading out to shoot the session in the midst of some absolutely gorgeous evening light.  It was lovely to capture these memories for my daughter and I can’t wait to do it again next year!

You can also view the beautiful video from this session (captured by my sister, Andrea Riley):

{If the video doesn’t show up, it can also be viewed here: Best Friends Forever}

We finally stumbled across one pretty gory photo on reddit and he LOVED the idea.  Unfortunately we couldn’t find any instructions on how to make the costume so we completely winged it and came up with something that was pretty cool and very easy to do on our own!  I’ve had quite a few people ask me how I made him look like this so I thought I’d share it here on my blog.

Zipper Face Halloween Costume

Materials Needed:

• Zipper (buy several in case you mess up)
• Foundation Make-Up (to match subject’s skin tone)
• Face Paint (Red and Black)
• Fake Blood
• Glue for Fake Eyelashes

Zipper Face Instructions:

1) I could not find a flesh-colored zipper so I bought a white one and then used foundation make-up (in a skin tone that matched my son’s skin) to cover it.

2) Zip the zipper closed and then carefully try to open it towards the middle to make a hole where the nose, mouth and chin will be.  If you are not able to open just the middle of the zipper, don’t worry!  You can also just zip it closed a tiny bit, fit it around the nose, mouth and chin and then make it look closed towards the bottom when you are gluing it to the subject’s face.

3) Try to determine which parts of the nose, mouth and chin will be showing and cover that area with red face paint.  You can fill this in better once the zipper is attached to the face but it’s easier if you can get  a good, basic, dark coat on beforehand.

4) Use fake eyelash glue to attach the zipper onto the subject’s face.  Once the glue is dry, add more foundation make-up to the face and the zipper to make them match even better.

5) Fill in with more red face paint (if needed).

6) Add black flecks of paint onto the red.  (I read somewhere that this makes bloody make-up look more realistic.)

7) Use the gooey fake blood on top of the other make-up.  This ends up being really shiny and makes the whole costume look more realistic.

8) Add black make-up around (over and under) the eyes to add to the total effect.

This was by far the easiest costume I’ve ever pulled together…and the coolest as well! It was perfect for that tween boy age when they don’t want to wear a little kid costume but aren’t sure of what else they’d like to be either.

Happy Halloween!

I was so happy to see the finished images when I completed editing this family session. This cute little family enjoys attending a local Farmer’s Market every Saturday so we used that as our backdrop for an amazing session!

Today’s post will be the opposite…I’m going to share a few photos that my sister and I had the pleasure of capturing for Jess’s beautiful family!

For the first part of their session we worked on trying to capture more posed types of images of her family.  Jess, Andrea and I are usually more candid types of photographers but she needed these images for an upcoming project she is working on so we decided to go for it.  And boy did they ever look good!

After completing that portion of the session, we headed just a few blocks away for some real fun! A beautiful indoor carousel where the kids could ride to their heart’s content while Andrea and I tried to capture some decent shots in the midst of a fairly dark building and LOTS of movement.

After munching on popcorn and other goodies, we ended the day with a few candids of her beautiful little ones as we were walking back to our vehicles.

Thank you Jess for allowing me to spend time with your family that day! Be sure to check out her family blog, The Ruby Willow, for more images there.

It was our year to host my family’s big New Year’s Eve party though and that was what we spent most of our “vacation” getting ready for.  We finished several complicated house projects that I can’t wait to share here on my blog and hosted a party that was super fun for the 30 people who were able to make it to the event.

To keep things interesting that night we had several competitions and fun activities that everyone was required to participate including:

-Wii Dance Party “Dance Off” – This was the biggest highlight of our night and was so much fun to participate in AND to watch!

-Hot Shot Basketball Competition (my son, Will, stomped all over everyone)

-White Elephant Gift Exchange

-And, a photo booth.

This was especially popular with all of the kids (including my big kid – a.k.a. my husband).

Wishing you all a wonderful and happy New Year!!

Does “Elf on the Shelf” visit your home? This was the first year that he made an appearance at our home and we are having a blast getting to know Ollie and seeing what antics he’s been up to after we wake up each morning.

The evening we set up our Christmas tree he arrived with his storybook and by the next morning he had toilet papered our tree. On the second morning we discovered that he had turned our milk green!

Since then he’s taken over our basketball game making slam dunks…

Got into the candy canes (which he kindly decided to share with the kids)…

Replaced all of our new stockings with undies…

Created a “sugar” angel…

Hid in our cupboard…

And raided the candy jar.

Even our black lab, Willow, is obsessed with him (as you can see from the bite marks in poor Ollie’s head!)

Due to Willow’s excessive show of love, the “don’t touch Ollie or he might lose his magic!” rule quickly changed to “only mom can touch Ollie each day to move him safely back to the top of the Christmas tree out of Willow’s reach!”

Ollie has added a LOT of fun to our Christmas this year and I know we’ll enjoy his silliness all season.

My very first pet that I could call my own was a miniature black poodle named Molly.  Eighteen years ago, before Bill and I had even officially tied the knot, I began begging and pleading with him to let us get our very own dog as we began our married life together.

Just weeks after our wedding he surprised me by driving me to a breeder where we picked out our first pet…tiny, absolutely adorable Molly.

She lived with us happily through three moves to three different states until we moved back to Ohio eleven years ago.  By that time I was a sleep-deprived, completely exhausted mom and Molly was a stressed-out, middle-aged dog who didn’t particularly care to be harassed by the bunch of little ones who were now running around our house.

To my eternal gratitude, my parents offered to adopt Molly and she once again became a happy dog in the calm, quiet, child-free environment that she needed.  We still saw Molly often when we visited and also took care of her whenever my parents needed to go out of town.  When Weslea became a bit older, she designated herself as Molly’s full-time caregiver every time she came to visit and it was lovely to see the two of them bond as the years passed by.

By this time Molly had now lived with my parents longer than she had lived with me.  They absolutely loved and adored Molly and she reciprocated those feelings wholeheartedly.

She was 18 years old though…practically ancient in dog years.  For months she had been sleeping at least 23 hours a day, was almost completely deaf and blind, she had experienced times of fairly terrifying seizures, had many moments when my parents knew she was in pain, and she had lost control of a lot of her bodily functions.  After waiting over a year for Molly to pass quietly in her sleep my parents came to the agonizing decision that it was time to put Molly to sleep.

Friday found me sitting in a vet’s office with my mom and dad where we all cried together as the doctor injected the drugs that would help her pass peacefully out of the life of pain that she was currently living.  The only word for that hour we spent together is heartbreaking.

Yesterday Molly was buried on our property in a quiet little ceremony that was poignant for our entire family.  Bill spent quite some time digging her grave in the back part of our yard.  On his own Will fashioned a cross to place over her burial spot.  Weslea found a beautiful poem and read it during the little service.  Tears were shed. And saying goodbye was so much harder than we could have imagined.

Beyond The Rainbow

(Read by Weslea Arthur)

As much as I loved the life we had and all the times we played,
I was so very tired and knew my time on earth would fade.
I saw a wondrous image then of a place that’s trouble-free
Where all of us can meet again to spend eternity.

I saw the most beautiful Rainbow, and on the other side
Were meadows rich and beautiful — lush and green and wide!
And running through the meadows as far as the eye could see
Were animals of every sort as healthy as could be!
My own tired, failing body was fresh and healed and new
And I wanted to go run with them, but I had something left to do.

I needed to reach out to you, to tell you I’m alright
That this place is truly wonderful, then a bright Glow pierced the night.
‘Twas the Glow of many Candles shining bright and strong and bold
And I knew then that it held your love in its brilliant shades of gold.

For although we may not be together in the way we used to be,
We are still connected by a cord no eye can see.
So whenever you need to find me, we’re never far apart
If you look beyond the Rainbow and listen with your heart.

By Cate Guyan © 1995