Welcome to the Team, Sierra! Hi everyone! I'd like to introduce you to Sierra Zaccagnino. She's a freshman in Council Rock School District and one of the newest members on our Leadership Team. Sierra jumped right in to be a Co-Chair of the Party Planning Committee to help plan our next big event! Some of Sierra's hobbies include different forms of art - such as drawing, painting, interior design, and fashion. She also enjoys playing/composing music on the piano and acoustic guitar. In her free time, sometimes she does creative writing and poetry. Sierra also loves playing volleyball both in school, and travel with Princeton Volleyball Club. In her school she is actively involved in FBLA club (Future Business Leaders of America). I loved photographing Sierra and getting to know her better because she brought amazing props that helped to tell the story of her, including her guitar: 
...and her camera. I LOVE girls who love to take pictures!  We also did some pictures without props of course...
At the end of the shoot we headed outside into the beautiful (although freezing) aftermath of a recent snowstorm. The results were stunning! 
After spending all this time with Sierra in both the Tuesday night Leadership Academy and during her photo shoot, I would describe her as creative, fun, and a natural leader. I am so excited to get to know her better and am so happy to have her on our team!
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 An interview with RJ Toothill by Grace MahonyHow did you become interested in computers? I really don’t know… it was some YouTube video that I watched. What inspired you to build your own computer from scratch? I found a channel about mostly building computers and stuff. It just kinda caught on from there. How old were you when you built your computer? Was this a challenge or asset? I was ten and it was a little hard to comprehend stuff like knowing what each value & gigahertz meant What was your favorite part of the process and why? Shopping for the components. The store had everything like boards and ram. It was awesome. Do you want to work with computers when you grow up? Yes…either in programming or something in assembling computers. How long did it take to build your computer? Alright, this is hard to explain, but it should’ve taken eight hours, but because we had a faulty mother board, it took us about a week to diagnose that it was a faulty mother board. So in all it took about a week. Can you walk me through the basic steps? First you want to know what you want to do with the computer. For example, video editing, you’d want a more beefy computer for rendering. Then you’d research and you’d find what specific specs would fit that. So you’d need a better processing unit and not as much ram. And then you’d shop for the components, build it, and make sure it posts or puts an output to the screen. And then install the software. How do you begin such a big project? Research. You need to do a lot of research on it. Did you have any help? My dad helped put in the smaller components and the ram. Rams are kinda hard to install. How did it feel when you were finally finished? Relieved mostly because we actually found the problem for it not booting, which was the broken mother board. And accomplished just cause the feeling that you built a computer. Are there any parts of the computer that were your personal choice? Actually, the personal touch was we bought another hard drive so we can put two operating systems on it, which was mostly our choice…it wasn’t required. What advice would you give to other kids, who want to work with computers? Do a lot of research, watch videos on it, like actually watch someone build the computer and find out what each component does.  The Sky is the Limit by Alicia Beyer for the Winter 2017 issue of Inspiring Teens Magazine Everyone has their own ways of being entertained. Some people love to read, while others enjoy watching movies. We all have our own ways to indulge ourselves with something we love to help time passed by. For me, it is the sky. The sky was my own entertainment. The sky is the way me and my friends could spend time together, while doing something free. There was nothing I loved more this past summer than hanging out to watch the beautiful summer sunset. In fact, it was probably how I spent most of my summer. Watching the sky. After thunderstorms, during sunsets and even an early sunrise. What was especially cool this past summer was the solar eclipse. It was obviously a well-known event, and personally I thought there was nothing cooler than a crowd over a thousand people getting together at the community college to watch it. What I find the most entertaining about the sky is that we all look up at the same sky. We could be looking at the same sunset at Tyler State Park as you are looking at somewhere else. Everyone could see the same shades of purple, but we could all be seeing completely different things. The last thing that is the most intriguing to me about the sky is we all have so many different stories and lives under the same big sky. To me that’s amazing. We are all so different, and yet we all share the same big beautiful sky.  Senior Year - By Kimberly Wang | Issue One of iTi STYLEHave you ever heard the expression “I feel like it was just yesterday I was in elementary school??” Time is something that goes by so fast. You never get the days of your youth back. You should cherish every moment you have in life. Somebody might tell you that but you don’t really understand what it means until you get older and miss all your younger fun experiences. Senior year is really our last year to be kids and have fun and not have too much responsibility. I always hear my brother and his friends saying they wish they were back in high school because it was so much easier and so much fun. In senior year of high school you are the ones with all of the experience in the school and in a very familiar, comfortable environment. The teachers really want you to succeed and they are there for you in a caring way. We are not out there in the real world yet. After senior year, we become “adults” and have to go to college and we have so many more responsibilities. We are living on our own and having to maintain so many things. We will never get our senior year back. We can only go through and enjoy senior year once so we better make it a good one and make it last. Our senior pictures allow us to capture this wonderful moment in time. So much changes the moment we graduate high school. Our senior pictures allow us to look back on our youth, remember the good, fun times, and many different learning experiences. We all have our own place in our high school. When we look back on these pictures we can reflect back on how far we have come since our high school days.  For me personally, I choose to make the most of every day of my senior year because it does go by fast and my life will never be like this ever again. I really do advise everyone to get involved in so many things at school. That is how you meet new people and make new friendships that you can have for the rest of your life. You really should put yourself out there and make a mark. I have made my senior year last by being involved in so many things at my school, CB South. For example, I am involved in so many clubs such as NHS, Mill Creek Mentors, Cooking Club, Titans Connect, and Link. Titans connect is a club where we get to dance and have a fun time doing activities with the Down Syndrome kids. They love it and I love having meetings and just spending time with them. I am also involved in the choir and the Sheppard Project. This is a project where we collect presents for the holidays and give them to underprivileged children in an underprivileged school. The awesome part is how we get to go to the school and watch how happy the children are when they open their presents. From this, I have learned to never take things in my life for granted because I know somewhere else in the world it is always worse. I know I will never regret joining these fun activities and clubs because I have met some really amazing people. Some of those people I know I will have friendships with for the rest of my life. I love all of these clubs and events because it helps out other children who are in need. If I weren’t in these activities I would really be missing out and not be making the most of my last year in high school. In conclusion, love and enjoy every moment of your senior year. Get your senior pictures and make sure you never lose track of them because you only have one chance to take them but you can reflect on them as many times as you want. Make each and every day a great day with a positive attitude and an appreciation for all you have. Even days when you feel senior year is hard, never give up just keep on trying and pushing through. Just remember the day after your high school graduation is the moment everything changes. It is when you have a lot more responsibility and have so much more work to do. Remember, you will never get this moment in your life back and change what you did. So make your mark a good one the very first time, so later in life you don’t have any regrets! There are many reasons why I love to create family portraits in Bucks County, and the first starts with the amazing people, and then the beautiful places! I feel very blessed to go get to know so many adventurous families in our community through photography in our beautiful county! One of these families is the Diamond family, who I recently photographed for the 7th year in a row. Creating their family portraits has always been a creative collaboration of who's doing what and when, and where we want to do different each year. *To be fair, we have also done some of their family portraits in Montgomery County, which is also beautiful!  I first met the Diamonds through their daughter Kayla, who planned a fashion styled photo shoot in Doylestown, PA for her birthday party the summer before her Sophomore Year. That fall, we started a beautiful tradition of documenting their family during the Diamond's children's teen years. All the giggles, catching up, and adventures over the years - including a college tour with Hannah of FIT! - have been so fun.
Another thing I love about photographing family portraits in Bucks County is all the beautiful places we have as options! While planning each year with the Diamonds, we've managed to pick a new beautiful location every year, and we've never even been tempted to do something similar! Some of the places, are just beautiful to begin with. Others have been historic, very close to their pride, and most recently, very close to their hearts.  All of these portraits posted today were taken on a sunny summer day at a park in Warminster, PA, but we've done them in just about every season - whenever we can get all 3 kids together. That is getting tougher and tougher now that Kayla is a senior in college, Hannah is a senior in high school, and Matt is a sophomore in high school! But I love that we always make it work to keep up the tradition.  And the tradition is important, because family holiday cards are always on the list of what needs to come out of the images. Obviously, this was not this year's card - but I wouldn't want to ruin their surprise for this year, now would I??  I feel very fortunate to have my studio located in Warrington, PA to photograph Teen Portraits, because we are so blessed to have so many beautiful locations within a few minutes of our building! Recently, I got the opportunity to photograph 5 teens as part of their programs for Inspiring Teens Magazine. We started at our studio in the Metropolitan Plaza Building with something that was important to them. Their items ranged from musical to sports!
 Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA at Conway Productions Inc - Amanda We did these while they were all arriving and settling in, and then they got changed to move on to Valley Square. We had a lot of fun in this gorgeous shopping center! I loved the variety of looks that they wore for this!  Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA at Valley Square
Afterwards, we went to Kemper Park for their next set of teen portraits in Warrington, PA, which is technically in Warminster, but since it's on the same street as Warrington, we'll let that slide!  Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA at Kemper Park - Jillian's Turn! The girls had these things to say about their Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA photo shoot: "What I liked best about the photo shoot was that everyone was so nice and supportive, especially when everyone was getting their photos done." - Amanda "I liked how I could see some of my friends during the shoot, and I thought it was fun to get in the creek." - Jillian "My favorite part was being able to get photos taken in/with items that meant a lot to me and being able to make so many memories with amazing people. I think they are a good bonding experience for us outside of the programs. I personally have become a lot closer with girls because of them." - Olivia "I loved laying in the creek. Dirty, but fun!" (This was Ellie's 3rd time getting her teen portraits taken at and near our Warrington, PA studio!) - Ellie  Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA at Kemper Park - Ellie So that's a wrap on our day of Teen Portraits in Warrington, PA! Book your own Teen Portraits Photo Shoot by Visiting our Teen Portraits page. From our Ambassador Olivia, who was one of the five girls photographed:
On August 17th, 2017 five teen girls from Inspiring Teens Magazine took part in a fun Teen Portraits photoshoot in Warrington, PA. They all fundraised 500 dollars or more so this was their reward. They all started out at the Inspiring Teens studio in the Metropolitan Plaza Building. They came wearing an outfit that went along with something that is special to them. For example, a soccer jersey and a soccer ball. They then all moved on to Valley Square a local outdoor shopping center where they were wearing a trendy and fashionable. The last location they shot at was Kemper Park. For this location, the girls were wearing something summery. Some sat by the edge of the creek to take their photos, and some girls actually got in the creek. All of the photos were taken by Leslie Conway from Conway Productions Inc. To find out how to join Inspiring Teens Magazine you can go to their website www.inspiringteensmagazine.com |
