Yay! We kicked off shooting in 2012 with a fabulous gaggle of GIMME 5 sessions. It was so fun to play in the studio (and sometimes outside in the fresh snow). I love to artfully capture the “in-between” stages of children, just doin’ what they do…
There just a couple time slots remaining for the February and March GIMME 5 dates. Click here for more info.
Today I am going to veer from my portrait work to share some personal images. I posted a picture of our kitchen floor (yes! a floor!) on facebook a few weeks ago and the enthusiasm was insane. So here you go with the full backstory:
This is a story about one thing leading to another, and I’m pretty proud of it.
After moving into our home in 2006 it was quickly apparent that our derelict garage was unsafe because a large black walnut tree had grown up next to it and shifted the foundation of the garage over time. The garage was listing and warped. I’m sure when the garage was built, the tree was probably a few feet away from the corner of the garage. The tree itself towered over everything on our block. It had been growing long before our home was built in 1890.
The rotten old garage was demolished in early 2007. The demolition took my dad and husband only half a day. Parts of it they just pushed over.
We really loved the tree, the shade it provided to our backyard and it’s general impressiveness.
In 2007 we decided to rebuild a garage and the change in zoning laws meant that the tree had to be removed in order to fit in a new garage. My father suggested saving the wood from the tree for floorboards or other household projects we had vaguely looming for the future. He connected us with a tree surgeon he trusted and the tree was taken down.
The tree cutter knew that we wanted to make maximum use of the wood. He took great care to preserve the long sections of branch, the main trunk and the valuable crotch. (go ahead and snigger. I did. It’s a funny word until you learn how valuable black walnut crotch is to woodworkers. Then you tend to throw it around with a bit more confidence…)
When the stump was cut, we discovered the entire base had been eaten by termites may eons ago. It was hollow. The whole tree could have come down in a violent storm. It would have destroyed any of the 8 houses it shaded, depending on which way it fell. It was a small consolation for taking down such a majestic thing.
The kids, neighbors, and local rabbit family had great fun playing on the logs for about a month. I had to catch my breath when I pulled this shot out of the archive and saw my own children looking so little…
The next step in this journey was to get a miller on site. We found a great portable saw mill person from Wisconsin. He set up his machine first thing on a Saturday morning and sawmilled till dark. I had encountered a few millers who would not come because there would be too much metal in the tree. For our guys, his fee was based on board feet, plus the cost of any blades that were broken when they hit nails that had been driven into the tree over the years. Metal simply destroys blades. All in all, guess how many blades were broken? Bearing in mind this is the Chicago suburbs….? None.
He mostly milled one inch boards to be used as flooring, but he also did a fantastic job cutting the main crotch and smaller branch crotches into gorgeous planks.
The one inch boards were loaded into his truck. My dad took an additional load in a trailer the following week. The boards were placed in a kiln to dry.
The remaining special pieces were advertised on craigslist and a woodworkers forum. A lot of grumpy old men took time out of their busy schedules to email me and tell me my wood was no good because it probably had metal in it. Finally, a nice guy from the forum came by the house to have a look. He bought up a few of the nicest pieces and promptly went back and told everyone on the forum that they were fools. He had bought some great pieces from “a nice lady who is just try to prevent her walnut tree from being turned into firewood”. Black walnut is the wood used to make those $7000 tabletops you see in magazines. The rest sold pretty fast…
After the boards dried and were cut into floorboards up in Wisconsin, my dad brought them back from the kiln in 2009.
They stayed in our basement and garage, carefully stickered (laid on small boards with air circulating between them) to prevent warping. We knew they were going to be part of the house someday.
The tree was put down in it’s new home as kitchen floor in the fall of 2011 and sealed in early 2012. Every tradesman that came into our home to work on the project, even the electrician and HVAC guys, commented on the floor. The head carpenter about burst with joy when we asked him to make a desktop and mudroom bench with some of the spare planks. Hopefully I will be sharing some more images of the full finished project next month.
Here’s the floor in place now.
Environmentally, this was the ultimate choice. Total use of the tree with little waste and hardly any transport (100 miles to Wisconsin). Diesel fuel was used in the portable sawmill. Not sure there is much of an alternative for that…
Financially, we came out ahead. The cost for good black walnut flooring is about $10 sq ft. We used 450 sq feet, so the value of the wood is $4,500. The cost of cutting, milling and transporting, minus the profit made by selling the special pieces was less than $3,000. By comparison, oak floor would have probably cost about $1,500. So we paid a premium for nicer wood, but not top dollar.
The kitchen floor has been a surprisingly emotional aspect of the house renovation, perhaps because my father, who is now gone, was so intertwined with the process. I also like to reflect on the number of hands that touched the wood and made it part of the house — very different from factory boards. There was the cutter, miller, board sawyer, kiln operators, floor installers and carpenters. The architect and builder incorporated it into the renovation properly. The children played on it, the woodworkers used it for their projects and now we walk on it every day. Majestic.
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Heidi,
Thank you for sharing the wonderful story of your special tree. I don’t know many people that would go to the lengths you did to preserve your tree. It is so special that your father helped in the process and your children know there old tree is now under their feet. The floors are absolutely beautiful as is your story.
Jennifer
Heidi,
I really enjoyed reading your story. I remember that tree fondly as we used to live next store to your house when we first got married. We used to find many black walnuts in our yard and comment on the value of that tree. Your kitchen looks beautiful. How lucky you are to have shared that experience with your father.
Jeanne Furlong
Heidi,
This is an awesome story!
Anita
Hello Heidi-
Just priceless:) Thx for sharing.
Wait, it’s the last day of the year? Where did time go?! Unlike last year, I don’t feel retrospective — just forward thinking. Perhaps its the lack of snow on the ground here in Chicago — a little cabin fever tends to focus my mind at the end of the year and it is sorely lacking!
Looking back at my resolutions from 2010, it seems like everything went as planned. One goal I had was to I organize the photos of my own family. This was a *FAIL*, but I compensated by getting more shots up on the wall and into albums. At least my kids can see the shots — they aren’t locked away on a computer, right?
Things I’ve loved in 2011:
• all my great clients, both new and repeat
• continuing to operate my studio
• finishing our house renovation (nearly!)
• watching my children flourish and change
• the hubby, obviously
Goals for 2012:
• simplicity in all things
• joining a book club
• working on more commercial projects
• more travel with the children
• get those darn family photos organized!
Wonderful wishes to you and your loved ones for 2012. I will be revamping my brochures and pricing for 2012 but prices will NOT go up — more likely, there will be a few more “package” options instead. Look for this in the next week or so.
In the meantime, here’s just a sliver of images from this year, in no order…
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Heidi… these are really stunning. Congrats on a truly successful year!!! Can’t wait to see what you do with 2012!!! : )
The question: How do you get a good family portrait?
The answer: Use a professional.
Today I am doing a joint blog post with my friend and colleague, Amy Tripple. She is posting the same images with her views on family portrait photography. You can read her thoughts here.
It’s important to know that Amy and I started our businesses at the same time in the same town. So we were instant competitors.
The first year that I was in business I checked Amy’s website all the time, constantly comparing my style and pricing to her style and pricing. I was so dumb. Amy is super, but that wouldn’t help me take better pictures. Eventually, I emailed her and we met up for wine and sweets and we realized it was a lot smarter to be friends and support each other as we developed our own ways of working and shooting.
She has since moved a couple miles away and her business continues to flourish. We have faced similar challenges in building our businesses in a market that is over-saturated with inexperienced photographers but I know we have now both come out the other side with our own stable, loyal clients and our own recognizable styles. We have watched many photographers come and go from the market. Without standing on the soapbox too long, I simply want to thank all the families I photograph for trusting me to be the one to work for you.
Naturally, when it comes to my own family pictures, I call Amy. Last year we started swapping family sessions with each other and it worked so well that we did it again this year.
Except this year it was not so great. Or was it?
The weather was abominable. We arranged to shoot late in October in order to catch the last few bits of leaf color. The skies were dark with rain. We decided to forge onward and I unloaded the grey chair quickly. Amy and her ADORABLE family piled onto the chair and we shot for, no exaggeration, 3 minutes. Amy also wanted an image of herself with each child and we did those too. That took another 3 minutes. Rain now totally pouring. Camera rushed to dry safety. Chair rushed back to car. Photographers squeezed into back of minivan to dump images and quickly review them on screen.
Smiles all around. The leaf color was awesome, the rain did not show and most importantly, Amy’s three small children totally ROCKED IT!!! Here are the images I took of her family:
Amy graciously shot us in the rain after that, but by then we looked bedraggled and arranged to shoot again next week. Instead of rain, this time we got blasted with arctic wind!
Amy tolerated my less-than-helpful children very admirably. She always lifts up the spirits of her subjects to be as happy and engaging as herself. This is part of why you hire a pro. Here are Amy’s wonderful images of my family:
I especially love these, which I asked her to take from the overhead angle. The quilt was handmade by my mother as a wedding present.
This shot is going to be printed very large, probably 20×40, and hung in our kitchen over my desk area:
Finally, after living with the images in my head for a few days, I started to work on holiday cards. Do you know the terrific pressure on photographers to deliver a decent card?
The first card I did was a hanging ornament, but it was so last year… (we did hanging ornaments last year, literally.)
I played around with some new typographic cards instead. I really liked this one, but felt it didn’t have enough of a wow factor…
Ultimately, I went with the ultimate in luxury: Letterpress. I know my graphic design friends out there have now just let out a small, agreeable sigh. The lines of red dots in our design are actually indented into the thick cardstock, so when the recipient opens their card there is a tactile happiness added to the whole shebang. Our cards this year are simple, elegant and timeless and they combine the best of old technology (pressing thick paper to make indentations) and new technology (digital press printing).
I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and I thank my clients again for making my job so wonderful. I’m done shooting families for 2011 and I look forward to wrapping up this year with a photographers’ party at my studio, delivering the final print orders, posting a few more catch-up blog posts, and spending time with family!
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[...] doing a little “blog share” with Heidi Peters Photography in LaGrange. Click HERE for the other side of the story! : ) If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand [...]
I am not a Black Friday kind of gal, and I prefer to leave the Christmas season until Christmas. However, with a late Thanksgiving this year there are a few important announcements that need to be made now. Portrait products take time to create and assemble, so they need a little extra lead time. Here are a few gift ideas as well as announcements for 2012!
HOLIDAY ORDERING DEADLINES
- Albums must be ordered by November 29th
Heirloom quality albums offered through the studio are truly special. Please call to chat about using images from past sessions to create a beautiful piece of documentary art for your family or as a gift.
- Prints, digital images and canvasses must ordered by December 15th
MINI ACCORDIONS
Have you seen these? EVERYONE is loving these new little accordion albums! They are the perfect stocking stuffer, grandma gift, brag book for your purse, or cool display for dad’s desk at work. Mini Accordion albums come in sets of 3 and are only $60 PER SET! That’s a little gift for everyone! Email the studio if you would like to snag a set (or a few sets!) created using images from past sessions. So fun!
GIMME 5 for 2012
Searching for a fun way to capture your child? The first set of GIMME 5 dates for 2012 have been announced! GIMME 5 portraits are easy, short sessions for children. Saavy moms have started booking several sessions over the course of the year because they are so darn painless! Then at the end of the year they have a cohesive set of images charting their child’s growth, ready to use in an album or wall display. GIMME 5 sessions have become VERY popular and dates go fast, so click on over for more info.
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© 2012 Heidi Peters Photography|ProPhoto Photo Blog Customized by The Thoughtful Type
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