So, for starters, I love this. Actually, I love everything in her entire store! So purdy.

I am currently OBSESSED with the Creators Project. If you have not checked this out yet, then DO IT! Do it now!!! But be forewarned…once you’re hooked there is no going back.

Any greeting card company that organizes its cards by the subjects of Food, Drink, Educational Sort Of, Work, Cheer and Pessimism gets my vote. Fomato has some amazing cards. Some super cute illustrations. And some seriously exciting salutations.

I am constantly calling Jess “Martha Stewart,” especially those mornings like today when she shows up with still-hot, crusty homemade bread. Seriously!!! And Martha/Jess is head over heals for these aprons right now.  She just bought this one, and apparently is threatening to either not take it off, or go back for more.  (And no. She hasn’t worn it to work yet. Thank God.)

So…I reached an interesting point where I got so busy that I um…ahem…got a little behind.  And I looked long and hard at where I wanted to be compared to where I was and decided I needed to make some radical changes in the tammyswales.com world.

I needed help.  Serious help.  (Now…those of you who are my FRIENDS can stop laughing and saying “we’ve been telling you that for YEARS Tam” — not THAT kind of help.  ::laughing::)

So.  I created a “help wanted” ad.  And I heard from some AMAZING people who would have been awesome additions to the Tammy Swales brand.  (I love being a brand…it sounds so…cool.)  But once I received Jessica’s letter and resume — really — there was no other choice.  She was made for me.  She….completes me.  ::grin::

So — Jess is my new addition to Tammy Swales Photography and if you are contacting me about photographing you or your wedding or your child or your dog or your fiance or your mother  — you will likely be contacted by a very cheery, sunshiney person who has all the answers, is very organized and basically keeps me on task when I show signs of being distracted.

An upside and maybe..possibly a downside of working for a photographer is that it is almost an OBLIGATION to be photographed.  Repeatedly.  In different scenarios and settings.  I mean…I think I have to add it into the job description.  “Must be guinea pig for any and all photographic ideas for Tammy Swales”.

Today — Jess got her first taste of that.  I wanted some Kick Butt pics of her to announce how cool I think it is that she’s working with me.  And somehow…her boyfriend wandered into some of the images…which possibly means I have to expand the job description to include all relatives of said employee as well.  ::grin::  Of course I am just kidding.

We have a lot to do and a lot to share, Jess and I — so stay tuned — I have been SUPER BUSY and the images — OMG the images are AMAZING.

Without further ado — meet Jess.  She can be reached directly at Jess@tammyswales.com — and I’m sure you will adore working with her as much as I do.

And here’s the part where John jumps in…how can I resist these two?  Cuteness personified?  Seriously?

(Hey.  How’d that jumping shot get in here?!)

Then I asked Jess to demonstrate how working for me “looked”.  I think she’s going to fit right in around here.

Eventually every small business owner has to answer this question — why would you trust me?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this and here’s what I’ve come up with…

1. Personality.

2. Creativity.

3. Technical Skills.

And I don’t want to make this a sales pitch. Really. I just wrote a lot of blah blah blah and deleted it because I think I can show you why you might consider working with me — in two images…

Scenario: 80th birthday party. Family gets together in dark restaurant with bad lighting and wants images.

Straight out of the camera:

Great expression, right? I love his face so much. Here’s what I can do… the “after” shot:

Would you love it if this were your dad?

And one more.  Same scenario:

Just like anything — when it’s new there are always things to work on.  Thanks to my wonderful readers and friends who have alerted us to the fact that there is a problem with Internet Explorer and this site.

We are working on the problem and expect it to be fixed very soon!