Keri Schmidt Photography

On the 6th day after Christmas. . .

I will give the first person who emails me free bookmarks!  Email me and tell me about the last book you read.  The first person to email me at keri@kerischmidtphotography.com will receive 50 free bookmarks, all others will receive a coupon for 20% off bookmarks!  These bookmarks can be customized to look however you want!  You can use them as valentines that the kids can pass out at school.  Fold them in half and use them as gift tags.  Pass them out at your kid's birthday party. . . you can use them for so many different things!  Remember to email me by midnight!

On the 5th day after Christmas. . .

your photographer will give you a free 11x14 print.  You just need to email me at keri@kerischmidtphotography.com and tell me about a NYE tradition you or your family has.  If you don't have any NYE traditions, you can also tell me about a Christmas tradition. 

Jeremy and I rarely celebrate NYE anymore, so we don't have any NYE traditions.  One year, for Christmas, my family decided not to do a huge dinner for Christmas Eve anymore.  Mom and dad were always busy with farm chores and that took away from our Christmas time.  We decided to start doing a buffet of appetizers that we could graze on throughout the day.  No one had to stay in the kitchen cooking, and no one had to wait for anyone else to eat!  This year was probably the last year for that, as we are all getting too old to make a full meal out of this kind of food!  It was a short-lived tradition, but it was a wonderful idea of keeping everyone out of the kitchen and more time with the family!

Now share your story with me!

On the 4th day after Christmas. . .

I would like to know how many Christmas cards everyone received for this year!  The person with the most and the person with the least will both win a prize, while the rest of you will receive a coupon for 35% off all greeting cards!  Just email me the number of cards you got, and I will let you know who the winner and loser are in a few days!  keri@kerischmidtphotography.com

A pic from our drive home from Illinois last weekend.  This is actually pretty nice that we were able to see this, as most of the drive was a white out!

On the 3rd day after Christmas. . .

I will give you a free 8x10 print!  Today I would like you to email me at keri@kerischmidtphotography.com and tell me what is one new product I'm looking to carry by spring of next year.  If you read my newsletter, I mentioned a couple new things, so hopefully you did your homework!  Remember to email me by midnight tonight to receive today's freebie! 

Here's a photo I took after one of the ice storms we had earlier this season.  It was a dreary day, so I kept my camera pointed toward the ground more than anything. 

It was a good thing I looked up at one point, though, because I found a whole group of red cardinals feasting on some berries. . . here's one of them:

On the 2nd day after Christmas. . .

I am giving you 16 free wallet prints if you email me and share with me your story about your worst present EVER!  It could be a gag gift you got, or something that made you gag when you saw it!  Remember to email me before the end of the day to receive this freebie! 

I'll be brave and share one with you- pillowcases I got when I was in grade school.  That's all I'm going to say!  If you want to hear the rest of the story, you'll have to ask to hear it! 

On the 1st day after Christmas. .

I will give you one free 5x7 print!  Just email me and tell me about the best present you received this year and you will receive a 5x7 print!  I don't want any mushy answers either, like ". . I was just happy to have my family at home. . ." stuff, I want to hear about presents! 

I received magnetic poetry from my sister and we're having so much fun creating Haiku-  I'm addicted to playing with this!  Here is the first Haiku I came up with, Jeremy helped too!

Remember to email me by midnight tonight to receive your free print! 

12 Days After Christmas Sale!

Here is how this go down:  For the next 12 days, I will post a different freebie or deal that I will be offering each day.  I will ask you a question and you will need to email me your answer to keri@kerischmidtphotography.com each day before midnight.  Some days each person who emails me will win, other days I will only have one winner.  I will let you know if and what you've won at the end of the contest and you will be mailed a gift certificate! 

Small print stuff:  There is no limit to the number of days that you can win or take advantage of!  Offers may be combined, but must be used with orders of paid sessions only (unless otherwise noted).  Must be used on future sessions.  All offers are good until 2009.  For additional questions, just drop me an email!

Merry Christmas!

I won't be back on my blog until after Christmas, so I thought I would tell everyone now that I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!  I will be starting the 12 Days After Christmas sale on the 26th, so make sure you check back then! 

I want to share a few photos that I have from experimenting with a homemade bokeh filter (made by Jeremy!).  For those who are not familar with bokeh, it's basically the circles that light will make in photos when it is out of focus.  The more light your camera allows in, the more circular your bokeh is.  With me so far???  Here's a sample of bokeh without the filter.  I had my camera allowing in a little less light, so I ended up with a hexagonal shaped bokeh:

These next two are examples using the filter:

Pretty cool, huh?!?! 

Newsletter

I haven't had time to do much shooting lately, other than sessions, so I don't have anything new to show, but I hope to get out soon!  Honestly, I'm not inspired by the winter weather at all!  My camera can't handle it being cold any better than I can, and while everything is covered in a beautiful ice glaze, it makes my head hurt just looking at the ice!  I haven't even taken shots of our Christmas tree.  Yay for us for getting our Christmas tree up this year, though!

On a business note, I will be sending out newsletters hopefully in the next week.  I want everyone to know what I'm planning for next year!  I've got many new products to sell and many ideas I have for the business!  If you would like to make sure you will be getting a newsletter, drop me a comment or email me your mailing address at  Keri@kerischmidtphotography.com

I'll be missing on my blog again for just a bit.  Once I have the Christmas rush over, I'll be working on more personal stuff again.  Also, be checking back for my 12 Days After Christmas Sale!  I'll be giving away many goodies! 

Skillet Pics

I found my old pics of Skillet (see post below) and thought I'd post them!  These are from the Lifelight Festival in South Dakota in 2006.  I only had pics of the keyboardist/bass player and lead singer, which happen to be married to one another as well!