| The Reset Conference | Parachute Dress Session | Indianapolis IN |

Today I’m excited to show off some of the fun we had in Indianapolis last month when I was teaching at The Reset Conference! While my priority in my business is my portrait and wedding work/clients, I am also really passionate about teaching and helping the next generation and fellow photographers grow in this field. My shooting schedule doesn’t allow for much of this year-round but as things slow down here in the midwest for the yucky weather months January-April I’m able to take on more mentoring clients, host in-studio workshops and even head out of state to teach at a few conferences and this March was no exception.

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I’ve spoken at the Reset Conference before as it’s one that was founded right in our backyard (in Champaign, IL) by a couple lovely photographers, Rebekah Albaugh and Kellie Penn, who some of you locals might remember from her time here in Decatur with Across the Miles Photography! This year was bigger than ever, however as I not only was invited to teach two classroom courses but also to host a ‘shoot-out’ with these super fun parachute dresses.

If you’ve been hanging around the SJP blog much you may remember seeing these dresses debut last year for our senior model session at the Decatur Airport. For the shootout we mixed things up just a little with a few new skirt pieces and a fun off-the-shoulder lace shirt for Payton (in pink) which I loved. And we couldn’t have asked for a better location than downtown Indianapolis where these girls not only made an impression on residents but were stopping traffic as cards slowed to take cell phone shots AND we even later found a few taken from the high rise buildings around us!

There really is nothing subtle about a parachute dress….

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Payton and Natalie were fabulous and not only were great models but were good sports hauling around these dresses in not so warm March weather.

And guess what guys… you don’t have to be a model to rock a parachute dress on your session, all you have to do is ASK! That’s right, high school seniors, you can add one of these parachute dresses to your senior session to create looks unlike anything you’ve done before….. I’m ready to create something at NIGHT with these DOWNTOWN and maybe with a cool CAR! Who’s in??!?! We’re now booking summer/fall 2017 and filling faster than ever so call asap to get on the calendar.

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You can see more of what we were up to at the Reset Conference on the BoxDropsbySJP blog!

Filippo’s Pizza & Pasta| Small Business Feature

This month it’s time to share with you a little hidden gem of the Mt. Zion area. I have to admit that while I’d heard whisperings of this pizza especially from my MTZ senior clients, it was my intern last summer who really solidified our need to include them as one of our small business features. Ms. Olivia touted them as a staple in their family and the place for the best pizza in town and I have to say I fell in love with the character and warm Italian welcome of this place as soon as I walked in. Not only did the smell of fresh homemade pizza sauce fill the air but nearly every inch of wall space was adorned with warm, adorable and often clever nicknacks. So now without further ado, I present to you Filippo’s Pizza & Pasta:

The Details: Klaus Koehne,Pizziaiolo at Filippo’s Pizza & Pasta | In Business: The restaurant has been here for 20 years, and I have been a part of it for about 15 of those years.

Hours: 4 PM – approx. 11 PM, Wednesday through Sunday| Location: 435 N State Highway 121, Mt. Zion, IL 62549| Phone: 217-864-4467

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Tell us about your business… What do you do? Simply put, we make pizza and pasta. You want the real skinny on us, then it is more complicated than that. Not a lot of places still make dough the way we do, using a recipe that changes based on how the flour crop was last year or if the weather is coming to be particularly humid. Our product is constantly being refined and tweaked, even after all of these years. The sauce is freshly made a couple of times a day, and with the way the owner taught me to do it, no measuring cups are used. It is a pinch of this and a scoop of that. There are subtle differences day to day, and that is something that pleases me so much!

Our pasta side of the kitchen just keeps getting better and better. Recently, the owner and the man who taught me everything I know about being a chef, Enzo Galbo, loosened the reins on our creative freedom a bit, and nothing has shined quite so brightly as our pasta chefs. On my side of the kitchen, the pizza side, I strive for synchronization. Sometimes an hour or so will go by on a busy night without a single word having to be spoken between my sous chef and I. The pasta chefs are the complete opposite. They are constantly talking about what they’re making with each other and bringing out tasting spoons to be certain that everything is at its peak. I think the dishwashers hate them a little bit for all of the extra spoons they’re washing every night.

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What makes your business unique/special? Our pizza is something else. All of our products are pretty great, really. But the thing I know more than anything else is pizza, and I have to admit that it still, after all of these years, gets me excited. One would think that eating pizza every day would get old, but it really doesn’t. We are unique and special and little snowflakes because you can see with our open kitchen everyone getting in the zone and really getting into cooking. Honestly, we aren’t ignoring you if you are at the window and we aren’t talking to you; we are just in the groove.

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What item/service on your menu or in your shop do you just LOVE and think everyone needs? Pizza. Everyone needs pizza. It’s no secret. I need pizza, you need pizza. Everyone needs pizza! Seriously, you do. Pizza is an old tradition and borders on a life style in some parts of the world. There are books on it, t-shirts about it, bumper stickers, etc. Pizza is the bee’s knees and you need it in your life.

In what way have you gone above/beyond in the past for a customer? Oy. Let me count all of the ways. Look, we say this all of the time to each other, because we all have friends outside of our little restaurant in the service industry: we are so lucky to have the customers that we do. Our customers genuinely the best, and we always do our best to make them the best product and find ways to better serve them. I want to find a specific example, but it is something that we try to do on a daily basis, so it is hard to pinpoint one example that stands out.

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What is the coolest thing you’ve ever had a client do for you? Again, our customers are the absolute best! You want the coolest thing? Nah. Let me tell you about what keeps us going. Sometimes we get little notes from our clients thanking us for doing this or that. We have some of them put up in the kitchen, and I catch my co-workers looking at them when they’re busy or stressed. It’s the little things that mean the most. Similar things occur with our Facebook reviews; they come up in conversation pretty regularly. It’s a nice pick-me-up on those tougher nights.

What tool/equipment/or other vendor could you not imagine doing business without? I kind of hate that it’s a dough roller. We have a rolling pin and we know how to use it, but man does that mechanical dough roller make our job easier. I have worked nights when the dough roller goes down and we are stuck rolling by hand and it slows us down quite a bit.

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What other local business do you just LOVE? Why? Ok, so it is no secret that we are a bunch of nerds at Filippo’s. The Hidden Lair just down the road has been a source of endless hours of post-work entertainment for us. Man, that place is great!

WHY did you choose to do what you do? Sam Jones said to me one day that his six-year-old self would be so proud of him for making every day a pizza party. Truer words… Honestly, I just love this place. It is something I can believe in. It put me through college (twice) and when the opportunity arose to run it and flex my cooking muscles a bit, I jumped at it!

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What are you passionate about outside of your business? I love art, particularly photography and writing. When I am not at the restaurant, you can usually find me chasing the next shot or in my office editing.

Introduce us to your STAFF

Benjamin Luchtefeld, pasta chef and head server: Benjamin has been with the business almost as along as I have. I think he has over 13 years under his belt.

Sam Jones, pasta chef. Sam is doing some next level stuff and keeps pushing the rest of the staff to do better.

Brandie Ewing, pasta chef: Brandie has a cooler head than almost anyone else I have ever met. She is unflappable.

Jordan Robertson, sous chef on  both pizza and pasta: Jordan is a switch hitter in the kitchen and can do just about anything. He is indispensable.

Wolfgang Stubblefield, pizza sous chef: Kolton and I have become so in sync that some nights we won’t speak for hours.

Alan Sharp, server: You may hear us all groan when Alan starts singing, but it really does keep us going. He really keeps moral in check.

Nick Rainey, server: If you spend anytime in the Decatur or Champaign area, you have undoubtedly run into Rainey helping someone. He never stops.

Clayton Schinzler, driver & dishwasher: Clayton is one of our newer employees. After just a week it had already felt like he was an old friend working with us for years.

Matt Ekiss, driver: We are going to be sad to see Ekiss go when he goes off to university. I think we all just feel better and cheerier having him around.

Konnie Bates, server: Konnie has been working in the MTZ serving circuit for so long that she fees like a pillar of the community.

John Farr, dishwasher: John keeps moral up; he always has a way to get us all to laugh.

Lucas Mays, server: Lucas has been with the restaurant since he was in high school, and now that he has graduated college he immediately came back.

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See the latest news at:

https://www.facebook.com/FilipposPizzaandpasta/

See our other past small business features to connect with more businesses in our area:

See more on our Facebook Page and follow us on Twitter @sjanephotog, Instagram @sjanephotograhy, and Snapchat @sjanephotog

If you’d like to have YOUR small business featured for FREE on the SJP blog (or know a small business we should feature) you can find details HERE!

 

| Jamie + Mike Engagement & Family Portraits | Decatur, IL |

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OMG you guys! I cannot tell you how much I’ve been chomping at the bit to show off this snowy session. I’m honored to be photographing Jamie & Mike’s wedding day this year and this gal wanted a snowy engagement session SO BAD and we were almost certain it just wasn’t going to happen for us. After some disappointing snow flurries early in the season which amounted to little more than a dusting that was melting by the time either of us was on the phone to begin planning logistics we both resigned ourselves to hope for a late season snow but things were looking pretty bleak (ie sunny and WARM). I knew how much Jamie really wanted a snow session so I had even started calling around to my photography friends in other northern cities to call me if any snow hit their area and we’d just make a road trip…. it wasn’t looking promising.

But then….. this lovely and random one-day blizzard arrived in true mid-western style! And it was just what we needed! The stars really aligned for this with both Jamie and Mike off work that day already and the opening in my schedule falling right after school these two were able to pick up their little guy and make it over to the park in the midst of a gorgeous snowfall! After that perfect session we’re all so happy we hadn’t jumped the gun and tried to make a session work with a tiny bit of snow because our patience was rewarded with this BLIZZARD!

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And from a kid’s point of view how cool is it you get to PLAY IN THE SNOW for your portrait session?!?!

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I’m so excited these guys have opted to share their wedding day with me and have me be a part of creating their family legacy and even more thrilled we were able to create exactly what Jamie envisioned for their engagement/family session. We have ONE opening left for a 2017 wedding and are currently booking 2018 (only 8 openings left) so don’t hesitate to call to schedule a time when we can chat about creating your portrait vision. And be sure to pop over to Jamie & Mike’s facebook album to give them some love.

| Halle L | Central IL Senior Portraits |

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I’m thrilled today to show off Halle! The way Halle found me for her senior portraits is a bit of a funny story. She’s gotten a recommendation from a friend to check out ‘Sarah Jane’ and had done a quick web search and found me. She liked what she saw and promptly got in contact to book. It was only once I’d gotten her booked for her consultation and sent directions that she noticed I was in Oreana… turns out the ‘Sarah Jane’ her friend had referred was in her own town but by the time we’d all figured out that I actually wasn’t the right Sarah Jane we’d met and both gotten excited about working together. I’m happy to say (obviously) Halle was actually excited about the mix up and the ability to get images very different from her peers by coming down here to Decatur for her session!

A few hundred miles didn’t stand in the way of her SJP portrait experience and I have SO loved working with her and her mom. I swear the were the most fun on session and their relationship reminds me so much of my momma and I that it was a real treat for me to be a part of their portrait experience.

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Wherever you’re located the SJP Portrait Experience is perfect for YOU! I routinely book sessions in St. Louis and Central Missouri as I travel there often but I’m also available for travel worldwide with dates set in 2017 for travel to Kansas City and Knoxville, Tennessee! Contact us soon to book your destination session OR to travel here to do what Halle did and let us create something no one else in your high school will have.

Don’t forget to pop over to Halle’s facebook album to give her some love with your likes & comments and stay tuned to our Instagram (@sjanephotography) feed to see more!

| Lauren A | Decatur IL Senior Class of 2017 Portraits |

Today is Lauren’s day in the spotlight! I had so much fun hanging out with Lauren and her momma on session. This gal is the youngest in her family so the ’empty nest’ days are creeping up fast for this family and we wanted to make sure and soak up the entire experience for Lauren.

We spent a little time downtown to create a few ‘grungy’ looks which seemed especially fitting for her volleyball portraits. After that we worked in some time at Forsyth park to get a bit of a wild nature/field look which was a perfect contrast to my favorite location for her session, her home. Lauren’s family home is on a gorgeous tree-lined lane which couldn’t be more picturesque. Plus, with a backyard landscape fit for a wedding (her sister got married in their backyard, how cool is that) it was a perfect setting for some of her portraits as well. And having part of the session at her home made it very easy to fit in a few props (pumpkins and mums) to create a fall look and her adorable kitty!

I’m working on finishing up her album in the coming days and am so excited to now show you all her favorite images from her session.
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photography, best photographer, senior photographer, sjp, sjpseniors, outside images, decatur il, illinois, decatur christian high school, high school seniors, forsyth il, fall portraits, pumpkins, outside, flowers, cats, with pets, sarah jane photographyBe sure to head over to her Facebook Album to give her some love with your likes/comments and don’t forget you can still apply for the best senior portrait experience as a VIP Senior Model HERE!