Ratchford Next Top Tween 2018

09/07/2018

08/24/2018

Tonight’s Gala will be broadcast live on Facebook and Instagram!

08/20/2018

Rehearsal for Tweens is this Thursday at 7 :) CBU Boardmore Theatre

08/18/2018

08/17/2018

This had to be the most fun Tween shoot I ever did because Kylie loves wrestling, and I am a total closet wrestling fan. Kylie is a ball of positive energy, and an absolute joy to be around with her happy-go-lucky s***ky attitude! She even put me in the dreaded figure eight leg lock and made me tap out! I hope we get to shoot again someday because I really want to photograph her with her championship belt that she has! Now that would be fun!!! Sweet disposition combined with confidence made for a great photoshoot!

08/17/2018

Ava is such a cool and fun young lady. She has this amazing ability to take any outfit that you give her and make it amazing. Own with attitude, if you will. The girl can rock anything. We were only shooting a little while before she got really comfortable and all of her Moxie started coming out. Myself and her mom were really enjoying watching her strut her stuff after each clothing change. I won’t ever forget how much fun it was that day to watch her and I can’t wait to someday do it all over again! Good luck, Ava :-)

08/17/2018

Dakota is the sweetest, most excited tween we have this year, I think! We have all come to agree at the studio on that fact. It really makes all of us really feel proud of what we do when we see that kind of enthusiasm. You always see it especially in the tweens, as they do not hold back the way we do as we get older.

Positive energy, excitement, and joy are contagious, and we all feed off of that. Dakota is a very smart young lady and loves being around people. She loved her photo shoot every bit as much as I loved being able to do it for her. We even grabbed her mom’s old decorative bicycle from the backyard and made it into a photo prop. Dakota also loves koala bears, which does not surprise me, because she has a gentleness about her, and that is very beautiful, much like you see in koala bears. When we were presenting the pictures on a big screen after her photo shoot her mother broke down crying because it was so beautiful, and Dakota is one of those kids that just pulls at your heartstrings. Anyway, she is such a beautiful little child. Thank you Dakota koala so much for everything you have done, and for being such a great Model for me.

08/17/2018

So I am at the movies back Easter weekend, in the lineup for the concessions and as I was saying hello to Elaine whom I knew from the Hospital Foundation Board I saw this Brooke Sheilds look-alike coming to the lineup and immediately thought, wow she looks like the 80’s icon with her distinctive eyebrows and facial structure! Then she joined Elaine so I once I knew she was her daughter I suggested the Tween Program we have! I am so glad I did! It is nice to see a mother daughter enjoy the day the way they did with so many clothing changes, locations and hair and makeup. It’s a real treat to able to share this with your children and I am so happy I got to be able to offer that! And Emily is so much fun to shoot as we talked about her favourite things including her favourite movie Forrest Gump! She is a very cool Tween! All the best Emily!

08/17/2018

So I hear this sweetheart really has an attitude. God love her, she was so quiet around me that not until the end of the shoot was this secret attitude thing coming out!

I've photographed her older sister for next top model on a couple of occasions so I couldn’t wait to give Adysson this experience and while she is a total sweetheart the attitude thingie still wasn't evident! lol

And I felt so badly for her. She had waited all winter and spring for her photo shoot until June so it could be warm and it was an absolutely freezing June day. We did get out but it was windy and cold but you know what? She didn’t complain. Not even a little bit

She is also a beautiful little dancer and I feel it was when we got back at the studio and she put her dance shoes on that I was really photographing the essence of her. She Quietly guided me to this song with the music that she did her solo tour and performed at front front of me. I really hope it’s not the last time I photograph Adysson. I feel if we got to do with again and she was more used to the process we would have even more fun, and hopefully a warmer day. Look at her little face and tell me how beautiful you find it, just like I do. It runs in the family as your sister Emily made a gorgeous model too! And and Alyson looks like her mom a whole lot so that hotel that it’s very generic. Good luck Adysson.

08/17/2018

When you meet Geri Lynn you are immediately taken with her presence. Not just her height but also her incredibly beautiful eyes and face. She is just amazing and probably looks 21 and not 13. I was watching her get her make up done before the photo shoot and I just found myself saying out loud oh my gosh you are beautiful. She quietly stared back at me pause for a moment and you said thank you. If she doesn’t know you she is a young lady of very few words. Her mom and dad are incredible people too and I enjoyed their company each location, along with her best friend Hannah who is the exact same age as her but literally half her height and is actually the tough one in the crowd :-) I wish she was in this too it would’ve been such a great contrast to photograph them back-and-forth.

Geri Lynn waited until June so she could do a warm outdoor shoot, but here we were June 24 and it was 5° out that morning! Only in Cape Breton. I cancelled the rest of the outdoor shoot because I said it’s sucking the life out of all of us even though she was brave about it and didn’t complain between the dampness the cold temperature in the wind it wasn’t going to be good I figured. We more than made up for It on day two as temperatures were in the 33° range… One extreme to another. It was two enjoyable days with this beautiful young lady accompanied by her mom and best friend I hope it’s the first of several photo shoots I get to do with Geri Lynn as I feel there is so much more there to get. Good luck GL!

08/17/2018

What a difference a year makes! Madison approached her Ratchford Next Top Tween with ideas and attitude! She let so much more of her personality out this time, and my favourite one the paint one! And I think hers too because she got to get paint on me!
She is fun loving, full of s***k, with loads of attitude and fully participated in this year's photoshoot! Mind you it was -20 last year and an early Saturday morning, but even still I could see someone who became super comfortable with herself! Tweens are so much fun, and it is a great time of innocence to have a photoshoot done. One of my favorite parts of this is watching families have fun, and this family loves each other, Madison gets an entourage each time she visits the studio!

08/17/2018

So I hear this sweetheart really has an attitude. God love her, she was so quiet around me that not until the end of the shoot was this secret attitude thing coming out!

I've photographed her older sister for next top model on a couple of occasions so I couldn’t wait to give Adysson this experience and while she is a total sweetheart the attitude thingie still wasn't evident! lol

And I felt so badly for her. She had waited all winter and spring for her photo shoot until June so it could be warm and it was an absolutely freezing June day. We did get out but it was windy and cold but you know what? She didn’t complain. Not even a little bit

She is also a beautiful little dancer and I feel it was when we got back at the studio and she put her dance shoes on that I was really photographing the essence of her. She Quietly guided me to this song with the music that she did her solo tour and performed at front front of me. I really hope it’s not the last time I photograph Adysson. I feel if we got to do with again and she was more used to the process we would have even more fun, and hopefully a warmer day. Look at her little face and tell me how beautiful you find it, just like I do. It runs in the family as your sister Emily made a gorgeous model too! And and Alyson looks like her mom a whole lot so that hotel that it’s very generic. Good luck Adysson.