Author Archives: Lisa Mercer

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So I had the privilege this evening to photograph my nieces SENIOR PROM! Wow, y'all this is it for her! She's done with high school. It's so bittersweet.  Since we have moved out to the Mercer Compound, it has been so incredibly wonderful to have her right here as our neighbor, our babysitter, our "race car driver". She has turned into such a woman, an adult, and a mature lady! I love her, and I am sure going to miss her being around when she's gone at college next year! Cheers Sophia, you are off to BIG things!!

Tiptoe does prom
Tiptoe does prom

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Here are a couple of my favorite photos from a newborn session I recently did! OH MY WORD, do these parents make some beautiful babies!! Stinking gorgeous!! Gahh!

One of my favorite parts of this shoot had to have been dad being so involved in the ideas for props and backdrops for our newborn! It sure does make it personal when we can incorporate it into a shoot! He is an avid hunter, and was actually away on a hunt and made it back just in time to be there for her to be born!! I loved hearing their/and every clients unique story of the birth! It takes me back to my own kids births, oh how your whole world changes! And you can never love anything more than that perfect little baby you created! 🙂

Newborn session
Newborn session

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Soooo... I personally have had several of my mom friends call me, right after they got their proofs back from the school, to say thank you for doing their kid's school photo this year.  Which was awesome because they really appreciate what we at Tiptoe do!! We are PHOTOGRAPHERS, we don't do backdrops where everyone will have the same photo year after year, we don't just make the kids stand there and snap a pic not caring what they looked like, we take time to see that real smile and make sure we capture it, in every student! We don't just want "persons" in our photos, we want "personality".  Whether you come to us for a 5 minute school session or an hour long regular photography session, we put our all into capturing YOU each and every time.

So all of this really got me thinking... I can't ever say that I "get" their displeasure because we have been lucky enough to be the photographers for several preschools in the area.  I have been there  to take my own child's school pictures since she started school! Woo hoo! However this year she started kindergarten (unfortunately Tiptoe cannot compete with the incentives of the company that our county uses for portraits) and I knew that I wouldn't be the one to take her portrait, which sort of birthed the idea of opening up Tiptoe School Portrait day for any kids who may not want that typical school portrait.  This school year we held a fall and spring session, and it went fabulously!! We had so, so many kids come out and take advantage of the Tiptoe school pricing which is comparable to the pricing you pay for the portraits offered through the school.  Tiptoe school portraits are really such a great idea. Let's be honest, these "school" photos are the ones you use most to chart their growth and see all their changes, and honestly these are the ones that you end up keeping FOREVER.  Heaven knows I still have all of mine downstairs!  So why not make them fabulous? Let these precious photos show off your child's personality and real smile!

"Just a thought, not a sermon!"

Check out below some of my favorites from our Spring Tiptoe School Portrait Day!!

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I personally have been sooooo excited about this day for 10+ years!  My brother and sister in law reunited and got remarried this past Friday! Michelle has been in my life since I was little. The first time BA (my brother) brought her home, I remember my mom looking out the window when they were pulling in the driveway and Michelle was sitting in the middle of the Jeep and BA had his arm around her.  I felt the excitement that my mom was feeling, and as a kid, I just remember thinking  they were the perfect couple! That day quickly became engraved into my memory, and her riding in the front seat so close to him quickly became a country song in my head.  Michelle was like a big sister to me, during my early teenage years, she used to be allowed to take my moms car and drive me around. I remember feeling so COOL!  They married the first time when I was 12 years old, I was in the wedding, big braces and all (I still have the pictures to prove it, ahhh)!  They were married several years before they had my niece, the little love of my life, Mikayla! Boy oh boy, I did (and do) love that kid! At 18, I ended up living with the 3 of them.  Looking back at that time in my life, I realize more and more everyday what a special person it took to have a new baby AND take in your husband's kid sister.  They were just starting their family and I was there, probably driving them nuts. It was a tough time in my life, but never did I ever feel unwanted or like a nuisance! Knowing now what it is like having a new baby, I am confident that I would NOT be able to take in a 18 year old permanent house guest.  But Michelle did, no questions asked!  I love her more for that now, than ever! But this was also the time when their relationship had taken a downward turn and they ended up divorcing.  I remember when it was happening, and my mom and I saying that one day they will get back together.  We had confidence! They belonged together and seriously NO one was ever going to take the place of her as my sister! Michelle had mentioned at their wedding how mom had never taken down her high school portraits, they were hanging on the wall right next to my brothers and mine, TEN YEARS after the divorce. She belonged there!

So can anyone imagine my excitement when 2 + years ago BA started going to church with Michelle?  This was the path they needed to reconcile.  I am sure it hasn't been an easy path for them, but it has been a God driven one!  They have stayed true to themselves and God, equipped to work out any of those past demons! Their testimony is a great one! Our family is complete again, Michelle is back! So needless to say that being apart 10+ years then finding their way back to one another, has quickly become another country song in my head! LOL! Cheers to Ba and Michelle!!!

Here are some quick teasers from the wedding!

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Ok, so this is a totally personal post, but I felt like it could relate to some other ladies out there! Recently, I did a bible study with a small group of great and wonderful women, the study was called Breathe.  In a nutshell, it was about the bondage we have to busyness. How we busy our lives, rushing from one thing to the next and we never take the time to just BREATHE. How we need to try having some quiet, peaceful, reflecting time. Time to refocus and find the right path for us.  Priscilla Shirer, the author, made one example of her obsession with belts. She demonstrated with a huge belt loop, holding what looked to be 100 belts, all shoved together and unorganized, some even with tags still on them. She said that she was obsessed with belts, they were her favorite thing.  She pointed out that she could never find one that she was looking for because there were so many. She couldn't enjoy what she had because she had overloaded her closet with them.  So instead of them being something that she loved, they quickly had turned into something that was more of a problem/ hindrance for her. Every time she needed one she didn't even want to fight the battle.

And boy oh boy did this speak to me because this was literally an analogy for so many aspects of my life...

First and most obvious, my whole closet was the same as that belt loop of hers... jammed packed- I had so many items filling my closet: shoes, purses, wallets, scarves, pants, jeans, shirts, make-up, jewelry, fingernail polish, and literally anything else you can think of, that I wasn't enjoying anything that I had bought! And to top it off, I had done the same thing to my kids closets! I bought those items thinking they would make me happy or make my life better in some way for having them... but digging through our closets everyday to find an outfit was making my life worse and causing me so much more stress.  I could never find ANYTHING. Definitely not what I had in mind when I bought the items!  So to fix this - I cleaned out each of our closets! And honestly, I don't even miss a single thing that I got rid of! ....... Breathing a little easier each day!!

Secondly when I have a passion for something, I go hard for it! For example photography- I am obsessed with my job! I was always on the look out for the next thing, a new edit, a new shooting location, a new filter, a easier way to do something, a new way to find clients, how to get more clients, a new special we can run, I have felt like I was spinning and spinning in circles and not really getting anywhere.  It was exhausting! Instead this year it has been my goal to just BREATHE and take the time to really hone in the skills I already have, and just be ME in my photography! I love that saying "Be yourself, everyone else is taken" because it's so true, no one else is ever going to look through the back of my camera and 'see' the same thing the way I do! I have to have more confidence in that!

Third, my family life, I was filling everyday with them with a list of to dos. Whether it was grocery shopping, to after school activities, it seemed like there was no free time to enjoy our family as a whole!  We were just running from place to place. We have since tried to slow it down and geez I have seen such a difference in our lives! I feel like a have gotten the chance to look at my kids and husband and really SEE them. The beautiful creatures they are! I may be more in love with them now than ever before.

Reflecting back over the past couple months, I know that this BREATHING exercise has been working! It really is a relief when you are not worrying yourself with the clutter of what is next and just realize how amazing your life is.   I am seeing how beyond blessed I am, from my family, my friends, my job, and my God!  Things have just seemed to find their way to me and I don't feel like I am missing anything because I am not searching!! It has been a huge weight lifted from my shoulders.  So I guess my point is to try to take inventory of your life figure out what is important and allow some breathing room for it!  🙂 breathe

-Lisa

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Seriously!!! We have decided to open our workbook up to the public, not just our workshop students! So if you are an aspiring photographer, or just a mom wanting to take better pictures with your DSLR camera this workbook explains the Tiptoe way to shooting manually! If you are dying to get your hands on one,  just send us a quick email to tiptoestudios@yahoo.com or call us at 304.995.6743.

On a side note, our first group of ladies seemed to love the workshop, so we will be putting together some dates for some more workshops! If you missed out on the first one, and would want to attend another, send us a quick note! Thanks guys! Title Page

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I know leading up to the first workshop, I was so excited but I also had the jitters! I mean I had them bad! What if I forgot everything? What if my "organic" Tiptoe way of photography doesn't make any sense to anyone else except me! What if the "students" give me blank stares like I am speaking Latin or something.  What if, what if, what if! WELLLLLLLL, I just want to say that it was a smashing SUCCESS!! All that nervousness for nothing!  I think we were sooooo blessed to have such a great group of ladies for the first class.  They were great listeners and had great questions for us! I keep wondering if they were geniuses or if we really did a good job of explaining what to do because they nailed it when we went outside to practice with our cameras!

I love that we all sat together,breakfast in hand, and we shared so many great laughs (some at my expense, but it's okay, lol). Everyone knew that I was going to get tongue tied at some point, and lets be honest when we are talking about "shooting people", it never comes out right! I love coming out of this feeling like we have made some serious friends.  Again, I know we were blessed with these ladies because they gave me the confidence of knowing that I can do it again. I can only hope that the workshops from here on out have equally as perfect friends/students!

I know the Tiptoe gals are now super duper pumped about planning out the next workshop "Let There be Light" where we go into finding the light, posing, and some more in depth camera functions!  Be on the lookout for dates and sometime soon we are going to be adding a section with more info on the workshops to the website!  I feel like this is a whole new lease on our photography life, it is so refreshing to share our knowledge! I can't be more excited! class2 class3

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I can't even stand it!! Tomorrow is the big day! Tiptoe's very first workshop! The time is here that we are able to share our passion, our love of photography!! Shhhhhhut up!!  We have been working so hard putting it all together and now the day is almost here to share!  And if I am being really honest, I am a tad nervous!

We have built our business over the past 6 1/2 years learning new techniques and now have honed in all of our knowledge and broken it down to 3 workshops - The first, which we are teaching tomorrow, is Know Thy Camera, we will be teaching you how to use your camera in manual mode, so you can achieve the image you had in your mind!  We are trying to make you do the thinking for your camera not vice versa... Without these first set of skills you will never be able take control of how your image turns out!

We are keeping these workshops small in numbers, as it's not going to be your typical "class" where we stand in front of you and teach! Anyone who knows me personally knows that I can NOT get in front of a group and speak at them. I get sweaty palms, my heart starts pounding, I get tunnel vision and all I can hear is whoomp, whoomp, and I honestly have no idea what is even coming out of my mouth.  Nothing in this world probably makes me more nervous than speaking in front of a group!  So with this being said,  we are making it more of a round table discussion, just like back in the beginning of Tiptoe where it was Tara, Jennifer and I sitting down together working out our photography issues.  We want all our "students" to feel comfortable asking questions or telling us their issues.  We want to be able to give 100% attention to every person there. We are going to start the day with a Royalicious breakfast and coffee getting to know each other a little and figuring out your goals for the class.   Also we thought it wouldn't be a Tiptoe workshop without a photo shoot, so at the end we are going to be practicing together!! And all our 'students' will be leaving with a brand new Tiptoe headshot!

I simply cannot wait! I probably won't even be able to sleep tonight!!! GAHHH! So please everyone wish us luck!

Also on a side note, I think we are going to offer our workbook that follows the teaching of this first class. So for anyone that wasn't able to attend the class and wants an insight on how to use your camera manually! This workbook may be a better option for you! Just send us a message, if you are interested and we will decide if opening up the workbook to non-class-atendees is a good idea???

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logo1We were so lucky to get to meet such a handsome little man, Braylon def stole our hearts! We have had the privilege of photographing his mom and dad's engagement session, wedding, maternity and now him, their first child! It makes being a photographer so very special, when all these important life moments were captured by us!

A little story about this shoot! We are always a little timid when first time parents bring their very new, very fresh, very precious babies to us because being first time moms, you know you are super over protective and worried about everything, things you have never even thought of before (like do I need to lock the car when I get out and walk around to the other side to get the baby out... I wouldn't want anyone to jump in and take him, paranoid mommas, like me!!!) and lets be honest the visit to Tiptoe is one of the first outings that you and baby have.

So, in comes Braylon, his mom carrying him in his car seat, she looks so well put together, like this whole mommy thing is a breeze!  Then I ask how has her first couple days been? And boy oh boy did I love her answers!   I loved, loved, loved listening to them, because seriously everything she was saying reminded me of my first days at home with my new little Olivia!  She talked about the struggles of being sleep deprived, changing out baby's clothes at least 3 times a day, nursing, what happened during labor, and how Dad has been adjusting (some of these stories, in general, are my favorites, because we know as moms that 8 times out of 10 Dads never get it right...Thank God for our maternal instincts!!) It was great getting to hear all that had happened in this short few days at home, she literally had me in tears with some of her stories. I also loved that Dad was so involved in bringing sentimental items that he loved, seriously it adds such a personal touch, and will be so special when the baby boy follows his dads footsteps.   And lets not forget the ABSOLUTE best part,  getting to hold and snuggle a fresh little baby gives all of us Tiptoe girls just enough of a fix so that we aren't too sad that we are done having little ones (well most of us are done...)  So here is a Tiptoe teaser for the Shultz family! I hope y'all love this little deer!

Also wanted to shout out to our resident knitter Whitney Jenkins for making this adorable hat for us!! She's fabulous!

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logo1So we may have picked a windy, windy day to do this session, but she totally rocked it!  Wind is sometimes one of our biggest enemies or it can be a beautiful thing when it hits you just right and makes your hair a tad bit fuller than normal!  Did we have to stop 100 times to fix her hair, yes! Did we have pauses that we stared at each other for a couple minutes just waiting for the wind to die down, sure! But every shoot has its story!