About the Photographer and the Studio

About the Artist

Grace is a 33 year old Wife, Mother, Photographer and Photographic Artist currently living in Duncannon, PA. Grace was born in Virginia and lived her early childhood years in Manhattan, NY before coming back to Virginia. She grew up most of her life living in either Virginia or Maryland as well as half a year in Livermore, California as a young adult. In 2001 she met & fell in love with her future husband Scott & moved to Central PA. They have since married and raise an amazing daughter Leilani.

Grace is a mostly self taught Photographer & Photographic Artist. She originally studied Environmental Biology in College. She started shooting Portraits & Weddings professionally in 2007 part time in a makeshift studio space in her home. By the fall of 2007, part time turned into full time and in 2008 major renovations were in order to create a large Professional Studio space. In addition to the Studio where Grace shoots many of her sessions, she also photographs sessions on Location as well as Weddings.

Grace is naturally inquisitive and finds much of her inspiration comes directly from her Clients & Subjects. She finds beauty in the many inner & outer layers of a person that make a subject unique and strives to showcase those varied qualities in portraits that are full of beauty, drama, personality & emotion. For Grace, making sure Clients feel comfortable enough to be themselves is of incredible importance. And she usually accomplishes this quickly with her friendly & easy going nature & her sometimes comical amount of energy & excitement. Grace is a member of the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Her images have been editorially featured & published in Central Penn Parent Magazine and she is proud to have her images regularly used by Harrisburg Academy in their current publications and advertising. Some of her work has also been published in the Perry County In Focus Photography Book, sponsored by the Perry County Council of the Arts and in collaboration with many other talented, local Photographers.

When Grace is not working you might find her spending time with her Daughter reading Shel Silverstein, coloring, crafting, playing games, painting nails, hugging & saying "Stop doing that!". Or with her Husband, enjoying his handsomeness, devouring his delicious cooking & snuggled up watching a favorite show together after the little one goes to sleep (current watch list includes Modern Family, Up All Night, Breaking Bad, True Blood, Louie & American Horror Story). There is also a good chance she may be engrossed rather obsessively in a game on the ipad for an rather inappropriate long amount of time. But hopefully that is not the case and instead you will find her with her family either on or near a beach or on a short weekend get away to Virginia, Philly or Pittsburg. Or hanging out with good friends & great people having laughing competitions while snacking on something delicious with a glass of wine. Or at Book Club pretty much doing the same. Grace day dreams much too often, takes a ridiculously long time writing e-mails. Grace loves corny humor, accepts she is a bit quirky and finds most quirks in others endearing. She has a awkwardly hard time accepting compliments and would rather learn more about you rather than talking about herself.

The Studio

We use a combination of lighting, background, pose & expression to create specific emotions & drama. Our professionally equipped Photography Studio is located in Duncannon's lovely countryside which is only 25-35 minutes from Harrisburg and the Camp Hill/Mechanicsburg area. Our studio consists of a large shooting area that will accommodate large families (as well as all those speedy little tykes!) and 3 smaller shooting areas to offer a wide variety of modern background options. We offer a multitude of background and seating options as well as a generous selection of props. (Most of our props are geared towards babies & young children). The private dressing room is equipped with a changing table for our tiniest clients. Be sure to browse our product samples during your visit. We should note that our studio is not handicap accessible, however we can bring our studio to you.

Shooting On Location

Grace believes that variety is the spice of life and loves the endless creative possibilities that shooting on location offers. Choose a picturesque outdoor location (or let us recommend one) that boasts beautiful natural and/or architectural elements that are meaningful to you or compliment your style & personality as the backdrop for your next set of portraits. Perfect for Families, Couples, Toddler & Senior Sessions. We can also create portraits in the comfort & beauty of your home or other indoor location.

The Session

Before your session even takes place we take the time to learn about your personality, your interests, your style and what appeals to you in order to put together a vision and a plan that develops into your unique and personalized photo session. Personalized Sessions are a key element of our Art & Service.

What can you expect for your Session. A fun time & a great experience! We keep things upbeat, casual, relaxing and exciting! It is important for us to capture your natural smile and personality so we take the time to chat, get to know you and crack a few corny jokes while getting you comfortable being photographed. Our Clients often tell us what a great experience their session was and we hear a lot how it was not at all what they expected!

For those that own iPods, feel free to create a "Photo Shoot" playlist to your studio session.

We believe in clean, especially with items that will come in direct contact with our clients such as props and fabrics. And we are especially diligent with items that come in direct contact with babies. That is why we launder all fabrics that come in contact with skin with each use and are diligent with keeping the surfaces of our props clean and sanitized. We use non-toxic laundry detergent and cleaning materials.

Proud to be Green

We feel it is important to limit our impact on the environment as individuals and as a business. We strive to keep our studio as Green as possible by our efforts to recycle and conserve energy when we can. Here is a list of some of our practices:

Many of the lights we use are CFL's, and when our studio is not in use, the lights stay off.
Some of the backgrounds we use are paper but as they wear instead of just throwing them out, clean paper will turn into coloring paper and most of the rest go in the compost bin.
We reuse clean shipping materials such as shipment boxes and packing supplies whenever possible.
We are firm believers in recycling. If we can't reuse it, we make a monthly trip to the recycling or shipping centers to drop off recyclables.
We regularly use non-toxic cleaning materials to keep our studio clean & fresh and to regularly launder the fabrics & textiles that we use with Clients.