Where Are They Now? - Star Kids 2009 Winner Gianna

Every year we have dozens and dozens of beautiful and handsome entrants to the Star Kids Modeling Contest. Thankfully for us, Images Model and Talent Agency takes on themselves the hard job of selecting the winners. The overall winner of the Star Kids contest is then offered a full scholarship to Images children's classes to get some professional modeling and acting experience. Some of the winners from years past have gone on to pursue further performance venues. We caught up Alena, mom to 2009 winner Gianna, and she gave us a wonderful update on how her little winner was doing. So, here's what Gianna has been up to and how winner the Star Kids Contest affected some of those decisions!

The Star Kids Modeling Competition was a wonderful experience for Gianna. Of course, her favorite part of the entire experience was the photo shoot in the Portrait Shoppe Studio. From the dressing room, the costumes, and the personal attention provided by the staff, Gianna felt like a star even before being selected as the winner. The pictures turned out so beautifully, we had a hard time choosing a favorite to enter in the contest!

When we entered the Star Kids contest, our main priority was to great some great photographs capturing this magical youthful time in our child's life. However, winning the contest greatly improved Gianna's confidence. She went on to win Little Miss Madison County and represent the county at the state fair pageant. She also really enjoyed the classes at Images, especially memorizing scripts and practicing on the runway. Since completing the course at Images, Gianna has participated in several local fashion shows including pageant store Jack N Jill, and is also featured in the current ad campaign for Posh Tots Boutique in Richmond. 

Whatever Gianna does, she likes to do it with an abundance of style and fanfare. Gianna is currently training with the Level 3 team at Excel gymnastics in Richmond, where her coach often refers to her as Little Miss America. She also just completed her 4th recital with Bluegrass Dance Center, where she studies tap, ballet, creative dance, and hip-hop. Next week, Gianna will graduate from Kindergarten and looks forward to a summer vacation filled with swimming, reading, play and (probably) mischief. While acting and modeling were never our original plan, Gianna will  also attend theater camp to decide if she would like to further pursue acting.

Thanks so much Alena for providing us this awesome "snapshot" of Gianna's life and success! We wish her well.

Interested in getting your own child in to become a Star Kids winner? Make sure you check out the details of Star Kids in 2010 (below), then call the Portrait Shoppe at 859.277.6671 to make an appointment or even just ask questions, or go to the web and contact us that way.

We'll see you and your own Star Kid soon!

The next dancing baby!

Just because it's funny!

Now if only we could get someone to do that here at Portrait Shoppe!

What's your baby's funniest moment? Post it in the comments below.

Dance Dance Dance!

Okay, so the dance season is ending for most of you, but for us it's just getting interesting! We recently photographed many of the girls enrolled in Artistry in Motion, formerly known as Traci Stone's Dance Connection. Check them out on the web and also their Facebook fan page. Some of the girls came to the Portrait Shoppe to have their portraits made, but we also had the privilege of going to their dress rehearsal and photographing the others in full garb. It was a blast, and the girls were beautiful! Check out this awesome video we put together of some of those images here, on Portrait Shoppe's Facebook Page! And let us know what you think!

Welcome Back Ryan!

Hey everybody, this is Ryan - one of the photographers of the Portrait Shoppe. You may recognize me from such films as the "Preparing for the Shoot" video and its sequel, "Preparing for the Image Selection." ;-) (You can watch those both by clicking here

I wanted to give you all an update on something that happened to me recently. About 3 weeks ago I started to feel a little dizzy for no apparent reason. Well, within 24 hours I couldn't even stand up! I was also horribly nauseous - every time I moved I had to throw up. My wife called some amazing friends from our church who came and watched our kids, and she drove me to the ER...I couldn't even tell when the car was moving or stopped. I was immediately seen by the Emergency Room staff at Central Baptist Hospital.

We had no idea what was wrong - it could have been anything from virus to stroke to brain tumor. I had a very extensive MRI & MRA and that ruled out all of the scary stuff. Michael, one of the owners of the Portrait Shoppe, and his daughter Krista came to visit me in the hospital along with a few other friends from our church. I was sent home at about 1 am with a diagnosis of "Dizziness," a follow up appointment with an ENT, and some medicine to help me cope with the dizziness and nausea. (My brothers gave me the alternative diagnosis of "too much heavy partying" - thanks guys!)

For 3 or 4 days all I could do was lie in bed - any movement made me feel terrible. The ENT helped to rule out further neurological problems and ear stones (like kidney stones or gall stones, but in your inner ear), and they also gave me a diagnosis of "Dizziness." They said it was likely that I got a bad inner ear infection which caused the severe vertigo and that it would take some time for all the inflammation to go down.

Sure enough, it took more than 2 weeks before I felt normal again. It was a slow road to recovery, but I'm finally back! I am so grateful for all the people who gave us some help, not least of all Shelly for covering all of my time missed at the Portrait Shoppe. I learned that have a lot of good friends who really care about me and my family, and I am so very thankful! I'm still taking it slowly, but it's good to be vertical again!

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!