Tooting my niece's talent

My niece, Gabs, has been interested in photography for several years now and has taken her love up a notch in the past year. She took a photography class in school, and loves shopping thrift shops for various discarded cameras to hone her craft. She has an Instagram account where she posts her pictures, and if you aren't following her, you are missing out. She is that good. (Instagram: roygbvp)

My youngest, the now high school senior (WHAT?), hired her cousin to photograph her for her senior pictures when she visited us this summer. Darcy, in all her we-have-to-save-money wisdom, figured an up an coming photographer would not only allow her to get the pictures she wanted, but would also be less expensive in the long run. It sounded good, but well...

...the pictures were AWESOME. They were SO good, and she took SO many, and they were ALL mine. My niece took over 600 photos and gave them all to me on a jump drive. ALL of them. She had me narrow them down to 17 pictures that she then edited for me. I had to pay her more than she was asking. I had to! They were that professional. 

Back in my day we voted on the photographer for senior pictures. Once that was established we all made appointments through the summer months and went to the studio to have our photos taken. We had to bring along a couple changes of clothes, and we had inside and outside pictures taken right there in the studio. I thought it torture.

Today, here in our area, the school chooses the photographer. He schedules the date for pictures, and the sitting fee prices vary depending on inside/outside pictures. For Madison we had both. She had pictures taken inside for the yearbook with a black drape and outside in an outfit of her choice. I received a total of 12 pictures to choose from. I paid a sitting fee of $60 for that. We ended up buying an 8x10 of one from the outside. It cost us, with shipping, $100. WHAT? How crazy is that?

So when Darcy brought up the niece as the photographer idea I was like, sure what do I have to lose? The three girls (Madison as the photographer's assistant) went off together on two different days, with seven different outfits, and ideas of where to go, and they came back with the best pictures EVER. This weekend I sat down and chose 123 pictures out of the 600+ pictures. I sent them to Walgreens for 4x6 prints and picked them up two hours later, paying under $20.

The only problem I had was narrowing them down from 123! Oh, and now deciding what I want in an 8x10 to sit next to her sister's picture. But I LOVE all 123. One thing my parents both taught me was that when someone with entrepreneur ambitions proved their worth you paid them what they deserved. I paid my niece what I would have paid our school's photographer for Darcy's sitting fee. (I still have to pay him a $10 sitting fee to take her indoors draped photo for the yearbook) and for that I got the jump drive and 17 professionally edited photos. So now I'm tooting her horn.

Because seriously, she is good. I'm so darn proud of her, and I want a job as her manager, so toot, toot. I highly recommend her; graduation pictures, senior pictures, wedding pictures, baby photos. She can do it all. Now I'm working on saving up my money to fly her back down her to take pictures for our Christmas card. Thanks Gabs. I LOVE THESE PICTURES. You're talent is AMAZING.