Tony McDaniel Photography

Jackson Triplets

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:15:00 +0000

We had the opportunity to photograph these three beautiful little girls again. A few weeks ago, we photographed their baptism at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

If it's difficult to get one six-month-old to sit still for pictures, it's three times more difficult with triplets.

We had a lot more luck photographing them individually. It's amazing how different their personalities are even at six months.

We had a great time working with them, and look forward to watching them grow up.

Funny Face

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:02:00 +0000

This photo of my son, Isaac was too cute to not share. This is his "funny face" which never fails to crack us up.

Time is short for Holiday Cards

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:30:00 +0000

Just a reminder to anyone who is interested in doing holiday portraits to send out as greeting cards, time is running short. To get your cards in the mail in time, you should schedule your session before Thanksgiving. We still have a few openings in the next couple of weeks.

[UPDATE] We're going to be continuing the October special through November. So for each set of greeting cards purchased, you'll receive another set free. That's 50 custom designed greeting cards for the price of 25 though the end of November.

If you've been thinking about it, now is the time. Don't miss out on the opportunity to send custom designed cards to your friends and family.

Call (423) 521-0742 or email for more information, or to schedule your session.

Jackson Baptism

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:51:00 +0000

Last weekend, I was very fortunate to be a part of a major event for the Jackson family. Three six-month-old girls were baptized at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chattanooga. It was a beautiful service, and I feel privileged to have been able to be a part of it.

The three girls were very alert and well behaved during the service.

They are a wonderful family, and they certainly have their hands full.

Piper at 3 months

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Piper is one of our Baby's First Year clients. She's now three months old, and just keeps getting cuter. She's really becoming a master of "tummy time."

I'm not sure that she appreciates the finer points of the game, but she certainly enjoyed dressing up to support her team on game day.

We're continuing a theme that we started with her newborn session of photographing her in a pink tutu.

She wasn't quite as happy about it this time around.

Piper is an adorable little girl. We're looking forward to seeing her grow up and being there to capture the memories.

Holiday Specials

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:13:00 +0000

The holidays are coming and it's a great time for family portraits! In order to accomodate as many families as possible we're offering two different options for holiday portraits.

First, you can schedule a regular portrait session for the standard $50 session fee. This option gives you as much time as we need to create your portraits and a wide selection of poses and groupings. We will be offering a 15% discount on wall portraits, and buy one, get one free on greeting cards.

Secondly, we're offering a no-frills mini-session on Sunday, October 18th, from noon to 5 p.m. at Heritage Park in East Brainerd. We will be scheduling thirty minute sessions for holiday portraits and offering collections of prints and cards starting at $75.

If you've been thinking about sending out custom holiday cards with your family's portrait, now is the time to do it. Call (423) 521-0742 or email for more information, or to schedule your session or mini-session. Act fast, available sessions are limited.

Luke's Birthday Video

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 15:41:00 +0000

I'm trying out Animoto for creating video slideshows. The results are pretty neat, I just wish I had a little more control over the process. Here's one that I did using images from a recent first birthday session.

Employee Discounts

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:05:00 +0000

We are very pleased to offer a special discount to employees of McKee Foods, Inc. If you work for McKee, and would like more information, please call (423) 521-0742 or email us.

If you are part of a large company and would like to offer discounted portraits for your employees, please contact us. We would love to work with you.

Auction at Stuart Elementary

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:53:00 +0000

We are very pleased to be involved in an upcoming auction at George R. Stuart Elementary School in Cleveland, TN. I feel fortunate to have attended Stuart for seven years in the 1980s. It's a great school, and I'm thrilled to be able to help them raise money. We will be offering a complimentary session and a $50 gift card in the auction.

The auction is being organized by the P.T.O. at Stuart. It will be held on Friday, October 9. If you are interested on donating or bidding, please contact Jenny King, or one of the other P.T.O. members listed here.

Luke is turning One!

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:45:00 +0000

We had the privilege of photographing Luke Teeters last weekend for his First Birthday session.

As you can see, Luke is having a cowboy themed party!

I love the hat!

Farmer Luke!

Luke really enjoyed the cake!

Doesn't this look fun to clean up?

Thank you, Stephen and Shannon, for letting us capture this milestone in Luke's life. We look forward to seeing him again soon.

Wallet Special

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:36:00 +0000

For the month of September, for each 5x7 or 8x10 ordered at regular price, you'll receive a sheet of wallets of the same image for FREE! This offer is valid on any orders placed from September 1 through September 30, 2009. This offer can be used with new sessions, or prints from a previous session.

Also, we're starting to schedule sessions for holiday portraits. We'll be offering a special on holiday greetings cards. More details in a few weeks.

Gracie

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:36:00 +0000

Gracie's mom called us and wanted to have some portraits done of Gracie since she recently lost her two front teeth.

We had a lot of fun with her, and according to mom and dad, captured her true personality.

This is Gracie with her Velveteen Rabbit. She has had this since she was a baby, and it goes everywhere with her.

We look forward to being able to photograph Gracie again. She was so fun!

New Baby Nathan

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:33:00 +0000

We had the pleasure of doing a newborn session with Baby Nathan and his parents last week. He is a Baby's First Year client, so we look forward to watching him grow.

How sweet.

I love this shot.

Dad thought the bare bottom was so funny.

Getting love from Mommy.

We had a great time working with the Brown Family and we can't wait to see Nathan in October.

Deacon's First Birthday Party

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Today was Deacon's first birthday party. We were very glad to be able to spend the afternoon with Deacon and his family.

Deacon got a ton of presents, which he really tore into.

He had as much fun with this cake as he did during his last portrait session.

The bigger kids got to play in a pool in the back yard.

At the end of the day, there was a mess, and a very happy one year old.

Happy Birthday, Deke!

The Importance of Backups

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:03:00 +0000

I've decided to start adding the occasional technical article to the blog. While the primary purpose of this blog is to host news and information about our photographic services, I think there are some technical matters that directly impact those services that may be of interest to other photographers as well as our clients and potential clients.

With that out of the way, I would like to share some information about the backup strategy that we use here at Tony McDaniel Photography. The idea for this post occurred to me after one of my external hard drives died a sudden death one Saturday morning.

My primary workstation is a 24" iMac with a 500 gig internal hard drive and several external drives for additional storage. The external drives are: a 500 gig Western Digital named Storage 500 which holds music, templates, fonts and any miscellaneous files; a 500 gig Firewire 800 drive named Photos that holds older photographs (both work and personal); a 1 terabyte Western Digital named Backups which is used as a Time Machine backup of the internal hard drive, Storage 500 and Photos; a USB Drobo with 4 500 gig drives for 1.5 Terabytes of storage which holds a second backup of Photos, videos and random files that don't need to be on a fast storage device.

The drive that failed, leading me to write this post, was Photos. I first noticed that Lightroom was behaving strangely and taking a really long time to render images. I decided to run Disk Utility, at which point Photos disappeared from the desktop. I tried a couple of different utilities to try to get it working, but finally gave it up as dead. Besides, once a drive fails once, I really don't want to trust it with data again.

When the drive failed, I didn't panic because I knew that I had a full backup on the Drobo. This backup is synced every night using ChronoSync. It also syncs my music library to a Mac Mini that is hooked to the TV in the living room. All I had to do to get back up and running was to point the folders in Lightroom to the Drobo. Because of my planning ahead, I didn't lose a single image due to the drive failure.

Since the drive failure, I've been considering what would happen in the event of a break-in or fire. I decided to subscribe to an online backup service to protect against a catastrophic loss. I use Backblaze to back up 618 Gigabytes of data to an online server. The initial backup is taking about three weeks, but updates should be fairly quick after that.

Here's the basic outline of my suggested backup strategy:
1. Use Time Machine to backup to an external hard drive.
2. Use ChronoSync to copy critical data (like photos) to another hard drive.
3. Use Backblaze to create an off-site backup.

This strategy has the advantage of preventing data loss as a result of user error, hardware failure or catastrophic loss. One additional step that I take is to rotate the compact flash cards that I use in portrait sessions. I never format a card until the images have been backed up through stages 1 and 2. Once the initial backup finishes, I will let all three backups complete before formatting the cards. That way I know that there are at least 4 separate copies of the images (one on the internal hard drive, one on the Time Machine drive, one on the external drive and one on the Backblaze server).

A good backup strategy is important for anyone, but is absolutely critical when dealing with photographs of clients and their loved ones.

Back to School Special

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:01:00 +0000

It's back to school time and that means shopping for school supplies and new clothes. This is a great time to show off that new wardrobe with back to school portraits. During the month of August, we will be providing two sheets of wallets to each child to share with their friends when school starts back.

Disclaimers: The kids don't have to actually be school age to get the free wallets. The free wallets are per child, not per family, so a family with four children will get a total of eight sheets of wallets (two per child). Each set of wallets (two sheets) must be the same image. This offer applies only to new sessions.

Deacon is turning one!

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:41:00 +0000

Baby Deacon, as we like to call him, is turning one. I guess we really should not call him a baby anymore. Here is a photo from his first session. He was almost 2 months old.

Look how he has grown!

He really enjoyed his cake!

Look at those eyes.

How sweet is this little man?

We can't wait to see what kind of damage you do to the cake at your party! It has been a pleasure to watch him grow. His parents, Misty and Alex are great friends and we hope they allow us to capture the rest of Deacon's milestones. Happy Birthday Monkey!

Dyllan

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:56:00 +0000

Last Sunday, we had the pleasure of photographing the adorable Dyllan Currie. He has grown so much since the last time we saw him.

I love the look of this one.

Look at those teeth!

Don't worry, Dad was holding on to him for this one. I really like the look of the vines in this tree.

We cannot wait to see Dyllan again for his One Year session. How adorable will this baby be naked and in a Birthday Cake?

Baby Piper

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:22:00 +0000

We were so excited to have the opportunity to photograph baby Piper. Her mother, Jill, is a childhood friend of Leah's. This was our first newborn baby girl, and we were so excited about the pink possibilities.

Isn't she precious?

Baby Ballerina.

Jill is a stunning new mother.

So sweet.

Beautiful Piper

We are so excited to be able to photograph Piper's first year. We cannot wait to see how she grows and changes. Congratulations Jill, she is amazing.

July Special

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:57:00 +0000

We wanted to share our July special with everyone. If you book a session in the month of July, we will be offering a $50 print credit towards your order of $100 or more. This offer only applies to new sessions, not to reorders from previous sessions. The credit may not be applied to the session fee,only to product orders. It can be combined with other available discounts, such as the 10% discount when you are enrolled in our Babies First Year plan, or if you have signed up for our email newsletter, you can also apply that $50 credit towards an upcoming session.

If you are looking to have a beautiful portrait to display in your home, we would love to help you.

Fun at Heritage Park

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:37:00 +0000

We recently had the pleasure of being contacted by Leah's high school friend Lauren. Her mother wanted portraits done of her five grandchildren since everyone would be in town. We took the group to Heritage Park in East Brainerd. They were a lively group to photograph and really kept us on our toes.

How beautiful are these kids?

The lovely Zoe.

The beautiful Ellie.

The cute 3 year old twins, Sophie and Maddie

The youngest, and only boy, River.

We had a great time and we hope to see all of you again.

Summer Photos with the Saunders Family

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:15:00 +0000

We had the opportunity to photograph the Saunders Family at Chester Frost Park this month.

We consider them to be good friends, and we were excited to be able to capture some great images, especially of the beautiful Emma.

She has the sweetest smile and is such an easy going little girl.

You can tell how close Emma and Julie are to one another. This photo says it all.

We had a great time working with the Saunders Family, and we hope to be there to capture all the great images for many years to come.

Happy Father's Day

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 13:12:00 +0000

Today is my third Father's Day. The challenges of parenting have changed a lot as Isaac has grown up, but the rewards just keep getting better. Isaac is an amazing child, and watching him grow as a person is the best thing I could wish for.

Last year, we spent Father's Day at Lucky Peak State Park in Idaho. The weather was warm and the water was cold. We had a great time.

We spent a lot of time playing outside in Idaho. Even when it was hot, it was easy to stay cool. As it gets hotter and more humid here in Tennessee, I miss the Idaho weather more and more.

It's been a big year for us. We moved back to Tennessee from Idaho, which resulting in a great road-trip adventure. We stopped in Grand Teton National Park to play in the lake with the mountains in the background.

Of course, Tennessee has it's share of places to play in the heat, like the fountains at Coolidge Park.

Not all of our time is spent in the water. We've gone on two train rides since we've been back. Isaac loves the trains.

Isaac was also a big part of our wedding day. He was so handsome in his tux.

This year, I got to help Isaac catch his first (and second, and third,...) fish.

It's been a great year, and I can't wait to see what the next one has in store. Best wishes to our friends, relatives and clients. I hope you have a great Father's Day, too!

Makyla's Portraits

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:19:00 +0000

We had the opportunity to photograph this beautiful little girl last weekend. We had a great time, and the portraits turned out great.

I'm really glad that I got to spend some time with this wonderful little girl and her family.

May Special - $10 sessions

tony@tonymcdanielphoto.com (Tony McDaniel) — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:27:00 +0000

For the month of May, I've decided to lower the $50 session fee to only $10. This offer applies to any portrait session, regardless of location. Please note that there are a limited number of sessions available, so hurry and book now.