A Senior Rep is someone that is going to promote J&A Photography to all their friends and classmates.  Of course we will give you and your friends incentives as well as arming you with snazzy pics of yourself.  Our hopes are that once your friends see what we can do, they are going to come to us for their pictures.  Only one or two students from each local high school are selected to be senior reps for J&A Photography.

What do you get for being a Senior Rep?

Glad you asked.  Here is what we are going to offer you:

1. One free two hour photo session.  Bring as many changes of clothes and accessories as you like.  The location of the shoot will be at the photographer’s choosing, and all free sessions will be done before the end of April (so most likely a studio session).
2. One CD containing a web version of our favorite photos from your shoot for you to post on Facebook or other social media of your choice.  Images will all be stamped with our logo.
3. One slideshow of photos from your session set to music available for FREE download off of iTunes.
4. A 5×5 photo cover Brag Book containing 15-20 of your best photos from the session.
5. 15% off any products or packages ordered from your free session.
6. 40 Senior Rep cards (business card size) with your picture on it and our contact information.  This is what you will pass out to you friends when they say, “WOW, your photos are awesome!  Who did them?”  Each senior that comes in with one of your cards gets a discount.  Each card of yours that is brought in also builds YOU a great incentive.  Here is our incentive list based on how many BOOKED sessions we get from your referrals:

• 5 booked sessions = $25 gift card to your favorite store
• 10 booked sessions = $50 gift card to your favorite store
• 15 booked sessions = $100 gift card to your favorite store
• 20 booked sessions = A FREE  8MB iPod Touch!
• On Dec. 1st we will tally up your rep cards that we received from your friends that booked us for their senior photos and then send you your gift card (or iPod) from your desired store.

What’s the catch?

There isn’t really one.  Like our Facebook page and suggest your friends and family do the same.  Show your photos around to all your friends. Then, if someone sees and likes your pictures, give them your rep card.  Easy enough?  You are NOT expected to discuss pricing or packages with them.  Just hand them your card and tell them how awesome we are.  : )

What are the rules?

1. We will need your parent’s permission.
2. You will need to sign a model release so that we can use your pictures in advertising.
3. You will pinky swear to promote us, and ONLY us, positively.  You can’t be a rep for us if you are a rep for another studio. No double dipping please.

What do I have to do to be a Senior Rep?

Just fill out the application below and if you’ve made the cut, we will contact you!

How do you pick Senior Reps?

There are a lot of different factors.  It mostly depends on what segment of students we are trying to appeal to for the year.  There isn’t anything scientific about our process at all.  Please don’t be disappointed if you’re not picked.  We invest a lot of money in our senior reps, so we try to find those that are going to give us the most bang for our buck.  It’s nothing personal – we still love you.  : )

So lets get started!  Fill out the application below.  Be sure to have a picture handy, we require that!

That’s it!  We’ll take a look at the info you’ve sent us and if we choose you, we’ll be in touch.  We’ll choose all our senior reps by March.  Thanks and good luck!!!

Baby Adam is such a blessing to Nicolle and Bryan and we hope to be fortunate enough to be a part of his life as he grows.  God bless and good luck to the new family! – Joel

Before the closure to the year 2011, we were happily called to photograph an out of town wedding just a day shy of New Year’s Eve.  The weather did in no way represent late December.  The sun was shining and the temperature was around 42 degrees.  Not bad at all!  Just perfect for our down t0 Earth and happy couple, Lena and Jason.

With the great weather to start off the day, both Lena and Jason were enjoying their time getting ready with their family and friends.  Everything went smoothly and the ceremony was beautiful.  The reception however was one of our firsts.  Never before have we photographed a wedding reception in a green house!  It was so unique and elegantly done providing the perfect little vignettes for photo opportunities.

Lena and Jason, along with their families, spent long hours transforming the green house into their own beautiful wedding oasis.  From the table settings to the hand painted wall murals (provided by Lena’s father) the place said, “Be at home and be comfortable,” with a dash of charm and elegance (and do I dare forget to mention all those plants!).  I think that was the feeling throughout the entire day.  Both families were warm and inviting, a great loving foundation for a bride and groom, don’t you think?  What a way to bring in the new year!  Best wishes to you, Jason and Lena and enjoy your new year together as husband and wife!  -  Andrea

So, what do us creative photographer types do when the gauntlet is thrown down and the challenge is issued to build the biggest, baddest diaper cake ever?  Well, we spend loads of time, enlist our engineer friends and create an epic diaper cake masterpiece that is well over 3 feet tall, 2 feet wide, contains close to 250 diapers, lights up and spins.

Okay, so a little back story first.  Our friend Brandi (the pregnant mermaid you see on the topper below) is the baby shower queen.  Over the past few years she has been involved in many of our friends showers (and others for people we do not know as well) and has always been responsible for the diaper cake.  As more and more friends got pregnant and more and more elaborate diaper cakes were created, the talk of what could be done for Brandi’s diaper cake began.  We knew it couldn’t be just your average diaper cake and some ideas were thrown around and the trash talk and hype began.  Rumors of a diaper Eiffel tower surfaced at one point as well as talk about having to rent a truck to transport it to the shower.  As time passed, even before Brandi was pregnant, the legend of what could be, grew.  Finally, the time for baby Robinson had come and the plans for the shower began.  In honor of the couples love for travel and snorkeling, a tropical, ocean theme was settled on and real plans began.

Preliminary designing was pretty quick as we knew what we wanted to do, we just didn’t know if we could do it or not.  So, immediately after the idea of motorized, swimming fish was discussed we went to our good friend and mechanical guru, Brian Amos.  His reaction (after the initial “why would you do that?”) was “sure, it could be done, no problem”.  Words he would later regret I think.  As most projects of this nature go it ended up being much more tricky and touchy than it initially appeared.  Below is a description from Brian of the mechanics of the cake and the work done:

Some Stats:

• 13 custom printed circuit boards
• 2 custom machined drive-wheels
• 2 geared DC motors with constant tension assemblies
• 14 RGB LED’s (pulse-width modulated)
• 1 microcontroller
• 8 AA batteries
• rubber bands and hot glue (no duct tape. . .but there was superglue!)

Electronics Portion:
The lights on the bottom of the tiers are RGB LED’s.  Mixing different portions of the primary colors enables us to produce any color we’d like.  The firmware was borrowed from an LED mood light project originally done in the UK.  It cycles through different, pleasing colors.  Using already-available firmware enabled us to concentrate more on the mechanics and electrical hardware – and less on trying to mix colors that made something pleasing to the eye instead of a nasty brown!  There are several different modes that can be cycled through, from pleasant fading effects between pastel colors to some really obnoxious blinking patterns that mimic police lights.

The electronics hardware includes 1 custom control board and 12 LED carrier boards.  The control board constists of a 3.3V LDO voltage regulator, a PIC12F629 micro controller and some transistors to sink current from the 12 RGB LED’s – 8 on the bottom tier and 4 on the top tier.  There is also circuitry on-board for an audio amplifier, so you could plug in an ipod, etc.  This circuitry was left unpopulated due to IC packaging confusion, a missing speaker, and time-constraints.

We strongly considered adding a second micro-controller, motor control, and changing out the geared DC motors for stepper motors.  This was partly because the steppers may have provided smoother motion and quieter operation, but mainly so we could call it a Dual Core Diaper Cake – that just had a certain ring to it. . . probably the double alliteration. . .

So, ummmm, yeah.  Basically, the fish spin around the top two tiers and it lights up pretty.  All I know is it was a lot of work with a lot of tools I do not have.  We made custom parts in his home made CNC machine, acid etched circuit boards, soldered all kinds of stuff and did a bunch of other things that I don’t remember.

Then, there was the fantastic artwork involved.  All the fish and the characters on the topper were hand drawn by Andrea.  That’s right she drew them all!  We then scanned in her line drawings, added color in Photoshop and printed them out at the sizes needed.  The mechanical part of the cake certainly is amazing but for me, Andrea’s drawings take it over the top.  Note that all the fish are genuine Hawaiian reef fish (in honor of the couple’s favorite vacation/snorkeling spot in Kauai). The pregnant Brandi mermaid and god of the sea Anthony still make me crack up every time I see them.  They really, REALLY look like the couple!  And yes, that is their rat terrier Vinca – as a sea lion of course.

Anyway, that’s the basic story behind the cake and its construction.  Below are a few photos and a video of it in action.  These were all done in about 10 minutes right before loading it up and taking it to the shower, I wish I would have had time to do more.  The top tier wasn’t spinning at 100% at this point but unfortunately this is the only video we got   The last 2 photos show it with different LEDs shining down but the cool part was seeing it in action in the dark.  There were a bunch of different modes with different colors and flashing patterns (including police mode which was really annoying).

So, what do you think?  Did we go over-the-top enough?  Will this diaper cake ever be beaten?  Was it all a waste of time?  We sure spent a lot of energy on this project and would love to hear your feedback.

Video can be found on YouTube here: Epic motorized light-up diaper cake

And here are the pics:

So after the details of the wedding were taken care of it was time for the engagement session.  We started with some fun Penn State shots at Beaver Stadium and moved on to Mike’s aunt’s farm to finish up.  We learned that not only was it a special location because it was a family farm but it had been Steph’s dream house for years before she even knew Mike!

Steph and Mike, we had a great time and cannot wait until the wedding next year!

The ceremony was at Eisenhower Chapel and the reception at the Penn Stater.  Photos were taken at the Alumni Center, West Halls and the Penn Stater.  We know conditions were far from ideal but we are quite proud of the beautiful images we were able to capture for Alana and David.  We wish the lovely couple best wishes for the future – hopefully the whole thing about rain on your wedding day being good luck will hold true for them.

Shannon comes from a long line of Boone family members that we’ve had the privilege of working with.  Her sister Stacey was the first as the maid-of-honor in a wedding we photographed a few years ago.  Stacey then booked us for her own wedding.  Stacey liked her photos so much that soon after her wedding she booked a separate portrait session with her sister Shannon. Next was brother Jake who was married last year.  Then just recently both Stacey and her husband Ted as well as Jake and his wife Mandy were blessed with beautiful babies that we photographed.  Now, this coming weekend we’ll be photographing sister Amanda’s wedding!  Sheesh!

But yesterday was Shannon’s day – her and Bill met us at the Penn State arboretum for a great engagement session.  They are a fantastic couple and we had a great time.  We feel so blessed to have been able to work with this wonderful family so many times and we can’t wait to do so again next year on Shannon and Bill’s big day.