The models were great and friends, it was FREEZING out there!  By the time we were done, all of us had numb fingers and toes, but the models did a fantastic job.  I’ve only featured one here, but when I get home I’ll do a whole write up on the shoot.  Here’s some more images from the day……There’s my good friend Johnna Brynn, who I met face to face for the first time here at WPPI after talking online for almost a year!  I LOVE her!  I also met Kate, her and Johnna are taking a road trip, but I don’t know where she is in this pic  Sorry Kate, I’ll post more pics of you later!

it was such a great opportunity and I enjoyed meeting friends new and old!  I can’t say enough good things about Victor Sizemore, he’s the nicest guy ever!

So after the shoot I came back to the room and of course downloaded the images and looked at them, and then it was time to get ready for the big [b] school party at Mandalay Bay.  Nathan and I arrived fashionably late (HEY!  I couldn’t stop going through the fun images from the shoot and I lost track of time!)  Anyway, we arrived to a FULL house at the Border Grill.  It was great to see some [b]school friends, eat some great food and socialize for a bit.  I made Nathan get us a cab back to our hotel because my feet were telling me that no long walks back to the hotel through 2 other hotels was going to happen at all!

Today is our free day and we’re going to explore the trade show, Las Vegas and take in some shows tonight!  Tomorrow morning is my presentation and then we’re flying back home.  I’ll post a recap tomorrow night!

Looks really magical on the outside right?  I felt like I was staying at Disneyland or something.  First off I’m going to say that this is our first time in Vegas, when we were looking for places to stay, we obviously wanted the cheapest, but nice so that we could spend money on other things.  This hotel is right across the street from the MGM where the convention is happening and we got a KILLER deal, I mean KILLER (5 nights PLUS roundtrip airfare for $287 each) so we booked it.  Well, evidently this is considered the “party” hotel.  Oh well, lesson learned and next year we’ll probably just stay AT the hotel that the convention is at.  As it is, although our hotel is right across the street, it takes about 30 minutes to walk from our room to the convention center.  HEY, at least I’m getting my exercise in!  I think yesterday I walked about 10 miles!

So we got in late Sunday night, my senses were overloaded from the casino area that you have to walk through to register for your room and get to the elevators to the rooms, and we settled into our place.  We got upgraded to a remodeled room so it’s pretty nice.  I’ll take a picture of it for tomorrows post.  It was about 12:30 in the morning, so we decided we were a little hungry from our trip (we left our house at 4pm) so Nate and I ordered room service.  When I called they told me it would be 2-3 hours!!!!  YIKES!  So I upacked all my stuff and we just decided to call it a night.

Monday (yesterday) I got up and got ready to pick up our registration badges and find out where the Shootsac booth was where I’d be working later that day.  Then we got some lunch.  I went back to the Shootsac booth to work and demo the Shootsac.  It was SO fun, and I loved telling people about the features of the Shootsac and show them how it functioned.  It was a CRAZY 3 hours, but so much fun!  Jessica was there, Keats was demonstrating the new Shoot Tote and the whole Shootsac team was just amazing!  I got a new Hip Slip for my computer and I’m SO excited!

After that I limed back to the hotel room (I forgot how much your feet hurt when you’re on them ALL day long, I was instantly reminded of my days in retail!).  Nathan and I decided to go get some dinner at Diego’s inside the MGM.  Nathan love Mexican and their food was pretty good.  The atmosphere in that place was awesome!

Next we headed down the street to the new Louis Vuitton store to meet up for the [b]school night shoot with Becker, Joe Photo, JVS and Nick Adams.  GREAT information.  I didn’t take a TON of pics but learned a LOT that I can take back into my own business at home.  I also got to meet face to face with a lot of forum friends that I’ve chatted with but never met in person.  Thanks Larry Reeves for showing me some great tips on night shooting with natural available light, Andi Grant for helping me with settings etc, Cathy Crawley for just being so darn cute and Alyson Cohen for showing me tip too!  And thank you Michael Fletcher for becoming a new friend!  I enjoyed talking with you while we were waiting

Here’s the ONE shot I thought I got last night.

Then Nathan and I walked briskly back to our hotel room, because we were F F F FREEZING outside and we crumpled down onto our bed and fell to sleep!  More updates tomorrow about today’s craziness.  Thanks for following along!

In a little over 2 hours Nate and I will be on our way to VEGAS!  I have so many feelings right now I don’t even know what to do.  Excitement for everything that’s going to happen there in the next few days (shoots, meeting people, classes).  Excitement about being in Vegas for the first time EVER.  Yes you heard me right, I’ve never ever been to Vegas in all of my 31 years of life.  Bliss about being away with Nathan for the first time ever in our married life!  You see we got married at 19, spent a few nights in a hotel, and that was it.  That was our honeymoon.  We always talked to each other about going, but then life got in the way.  School, work, then we started having kids, and we lived far from family, then Nate joined the military and we moved and moved and moved.  Here it is 12 years later and we’re taking our first couples trip.  I’d say it’s about time!!!!  Anyway, I’m so excited about the energy I’m going to be around at WPPI and I’ll be documenting everything everynight I’m there, so stick close to the blog for the latest updates!  And with that, ADIOS!  I’ll post from the hotel room tonight with a pic of the hat Nathan hopes I NEVER wear anywhere around him in Vegas!  I happen to love it but Nathan thinks it’s the ugliest thing EVER!  What could it be?  Stay tuned, we land in Vegas at 10pm!

Seattle Workshop May 8, 2010 from 9am-7pm

Hawaii Workshop May 12, 2010 from 5pm-10pm

These are BOTH going to be very awesome workshops and I can’t wait for either one!  If you have any questions please let me know!

Let’s see what else can I blab about?  OH!  I know, I can talk about the fact that I’ve been consumed with the movies Toy Story and Toy Story 2 for the past month.  Any of you out there that has a 2 or 3 year old will understand my pain!  I have had 3 at that age.  The first was obsessed with Blue’s Clues.  We still had video tapes then so it was watch rewind, watch rewind…..you get the idea.  Don’t hate on me, because that’s ALL he would watch.  And since I had another newborn at the time, I needed my quiet time!

The second childs obsession was Dora the Explorer.  HEY!  Even boys can like Dora!  I think I still know every single Dora song AND when we would drive by the water in my area, or out to the coast, I was an expert at calling the humped back whales (A OOOOO, A OOOO).  Don’t laugh.  I seriously was THE BOMB whale caller!

Well now my youngest is 2 1/2 and he loves Toy Story.  I don’t even know how it came about.  But it’s odd that I bought a set of Toy Story dolls from The Disney Store almost 6 years ago and none of my first two children cared about them at all.  There was Buzz Lightyear, Woody of course, Jesse, and Bullseye the horse.  They moved from one childs room to the next and sat in a bin until Kasen finally realized that his toys up in his room looked like the DVD cover of a movie we had.  AAAAANNNNND the movie hasn’t stopped playing since.  It really is quite cute.  I find him singing ♫♪♫ You got a friend in me ♫♪♫ you got a friend in me♫♪♫……

Or sometimes I’m busy folding clothes and suddenly a little body appears out of nowhere, slowly walking up to me saying in his best zombie voice…. “Your toys see EVERYTHING” over and over.  I do have to admit I laugh out loud.  And now after that little ramble I shall sign off with the song You Got A Friend In ME stuck in my head!  Happy Monday!  Can’t wait to see a ton of you at WPPI, and seriously get in on this workshop, we have so much fun!!!!

Here’s a quick shot from a session I had this weekend more to come soon from this fun family and their dog!

This will be my first year going and I don’t think I can GET anymore excited!  A friend and I were chatting last night and we were both saying that we were like young school girls again, all giddy with excitement!  There’s TONS of things that I can’t stop thinking about- my first trip to Las Vegas, my very first trip away with my husband in the almost 12 years that we’ve been married (EVER!), all the products I get to actually touch and see at the trade show, all of the photographers that I adore in practically the same place for me to socialize with….I could go on and on and on.  But one of the MOST exciting things for me about this trip is to be able to actually meet face to face with so many photographers that I’ve befriended or who have befriended me online!  What an amazing opportunity to connect with friends that I’ve been conversing with for almost 3 years on different forums, etc…..some from half way around the world!  SO exciting for me!

I thought I’d post my schedule for WPPI, so hopefully I’ll get to connect with anyone else who is going to be out there and at the same events.  There is literally SO much stuff going on that it was hard to pick and choose what I wanted to do, but since my awesome husband will be with me (this is my birthday present from January!!!) there’s stuff that we’re doing together that doesn’t have anything to do with the convention!  If you follow my blog and you’re going to be at WPPI, leave me a comment on where you’d like to meet up!  I’d LOVE to meet you!

My WPPI Schedule

Sunday March 7:

• Arrive in Las Vegas around 10pm, hang out and get settled

Monday March 8:

• Trade show in the a.m. whenever we get up
• 1pm-4pm SHOOTSAC booth! Come say hi and check out the new covers and the new hip slip!
• 6:30-8:30 Jasmine Stars Platform Class
• 8:30-9:30 WPPI Pool Party
• 10:00 Super Secret [b]school night shoot! Can’t wait!

Tuesday March 9:  This is going to be ONE busy day!

• Probably more trade show in the morning
• 2:30-6:30 Victor Sizemores desert shoot (Seriously SO excited for this and all the people I “know” going!!!
• 10pm I’ll be stopping by the PIF (Pay It Forward) Party to say hi to my friend Emma who is running the party!!!
• 11pm-1am THE [b]school PARTY!!!! I’ve been looking forward to this ALL year and THE main event I wanted to attend- yes yes I’m geeky like that!

Wednesday March 10:

• Today is a free day with Nate, we plan on going shopping, going to the SPA for a couples massage and just hanging out and having fun. Maybe we’ll see you around?
• 6pm we’ll be going to the Tournament of Kings show at the Excalibur, it’s supposed to be pretty cool!
• 10:30pm Show with Nate at the Stratosphere (DATE NIGHT!)

Thursday March 11:

• 9am-11am Photographers Ignite! This is it friends, we’ll see if all my memorizing pays off and spend 2 hours hearing from other fabulous photographers via 5 minute presentations!  I can’t wait!!!
• After the presentation we’ll be heading back home to Seattle!

So there you have it…..that’s my schedule.  OH!  Some of the booths DEFINITELY on my list to check out at the trade show are:

Shootsac, Tave, Vision Art Book, Dream Albums, WHCC, Miller’s, Mpix Pro, GNP Frame, Kimbra Studios, Totally Rad Actions, ProDPI, Hill & Usher, Triple Scoop Music, Canon, Zenfolio, Moo, Album Exposure, ProSelect, Go BEE Bags, ProPhoto, Photobiz, The Photographers Toolkit, Drop It Modern, Not So Perfect Tins, Simply Canvas, Rice Studio Supply, The Knot, Borrowlenses.com and I’m sure many many others.  These are the vendors though I want to talk to  and get to know products better because most of them above I use in some form or another.

Well that’s about it.  I hope to meet and connect with as many people as I can!!!  If anything changes, I’ll update it here.  I’m looking at a few other shoots, but have to see.  Happy Friday!!!  Oh, and one last image from the Portland shoot….

The registration for the May workshop is about to open up, but I’ve also added another date for the workshop and it will be held in Hawaii!  Honolulu to be exact.  So here’s the lowdown on each one:

May 8, 2010:

Seattle workshop.  It will be all day like the last one with a focus on business and then a live afternoon shoot with models for portfolio building and learning.  Full details of the Seattle workshop can be found HERE.  Registration will open very soon, and if you’ve been on the waiting list then an early bird e-mail will be sent out THIS week with a very special offer!

May 12, 2010:

I’m so excited to be announcing that the Out Of The Box Workshop will be traveling to Hawaii!!!  If you live in Hawaii and have been looking for a great business workshop that will inspire you as well as help your business to grow then this is the workshop for you!  This will be held in Honolulu and will be from 5pm-10pm.  Details on this workshop can be found HERE.  Again Registration will open very soon on this workshop too.

and lastly I’ll be working on another VERY special workshop towards the end of May.  This will be a Star Shooter workshop, and I’d LOVE to have participation from as many photographers as would like to help out.  This is an amazing program and I’m so excited to be bringing Seattle the very first Star Shooter workshop!  Stay tuned to this blog for more information coming out about this workshop!

So there you have it…..I’m sure at the end of May I’m going to be workshopped out!!!!  Please e-mail me if you have any questions….and here’s another image from Sunday’s lighting shoot!

Foods are cooked much faster by pressure cooking than by other methods, and with much less water used than boiling, so dishes can be ready sooner. Less energy is required than when boiling, steaming or oven cooking. Since less water is necessary, the foods come to cooking temperature faster.

I love wikipedia because there’s so much information on there.  Sometimes I feel like my life is a pressure cooker, how about you?  I often post on here about how fast I think life moves and my life doesn’t show any signs of slowing down soon!  I remember when first starting my business, and reading some blogs that I follow.  Some of the authors talked about life getting so crazy that they had neglected their blog.  I didn’t think there would ever be a time that I’d seem so busy with things that I wouldn’t be able to blog!  It seemed unfathomable…well fast forward 2 1/2 years later and it’s happening on a weekly basis to me.  BUT NO MORE!  I love to write, it’s an outlet for me, and as I’ve been examining other parts of my life, I’ve realized just how important it is to fill your life with the things that have meaning to you and that you love.

Rest assured I HAVE been busy behind the scenes working on a lot of things and I wanted to update and share about some of those things here on the blog!  First off I’ve been working feverishly on my Ignite presentation for WPPI!  If you follow me on Twitter, you saw I did the “craziest” thing the other night (insert blatant sarcasm here)…I DISCONNECTED from everything web related.  I closed my e-mail program, I turned off Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and Microsoft Messenger…OH and Facebook Chat.  I love connecting with people around the world answering questions, chatting about business, or just catching up with virtual friends, but I needed to CONCENTRATE  I had a deadline to submit my slides and I DID IT!  Now I’m reciting over and over and over again.  I think if I absolutely needed to, Nathan could recite my presentation for me!…..not that he EVER would in a million years.  I think Nathan would probably rather have a root canal on 5 teeth at the same time than speak publicly.  BUT at least he’s a sounding board for me…and in some weird sort of way, I feel better that he’ll be out there in the audience quietly reciting every word I say along with me.

Next I wanted to give a recap of the great bschool meet up we did in Seattle last weekend!  I’ve been so excited about how the photography community has grown in this area over the past few years.  People are coming together and HELPING each other out!  We’re connecting and establishing relationships.  It’s refreshing!  So we had our first meet up at Studio 1000 inside Hotel 1000 in Downtown Seattle.  We had 15 photographers come out that evening.  Thanks to Emma from emmajane photography for helping secure such an awesome location for us to meet and for giving us a tour of the hotel.  I SOOOOO want to do a shoot there.  Can you say PERFECT Boudoir location?  Any of you ladies out there wanting to do a tasteful shoot for your guy?  Send me an e-mail and we can chat!  And speaking of shoots, we will be planning a shoot for photographers in March, so if you are a photographer in the Seattle area and missed the first meet up, stay tuned here for the next one!

I also had the opportunity to go to Portland last Sunday to meet up with some more photographer friends I’ve made.  I had asked Heather from Heather Jones Photography and Hal from Rosecity Photography to give me some pointers on off camera flash.  I’ve been wanting to delve into OCF a little bit, and they were gracious enough to meet up with me and shoot and show me some tips!  I learned a lot and can’t wait to go back to learn more!

GOSH!  I have so much more to write about….I want to talk about the workshops coming up and my WPPI schedule, but I think I’m going to have to do TWO posts in one day!  Here’s a hint….in May I’ll be hosting 3 workshops!!!  One in Hawaii, one here in Seattle, and then another very special workshop where other photographers can help out too!  This post is getting a little long so I’ll end with a shot I got from my day in Portland.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day!

I’ve been a very bad blogger!  But I’m back in the game, and starting off this week with my delayed week 5 from the 52 week project I’ve been doing.  The topic for week 5 was “small town”.

I’ve lived in a small town almost my entire life.  The earliest place I can remember is Krum, Texas, population under 1000.  Hot stepping it across the sizzling pavement barefoot, sloshing through the gutters on rainy summer afternoons looking for crawfish, and eating popsicles in the steamy afternoon sun were common occurrences.  I finished kindergarten in Mrs. Belkins afternoon class, 1st grade in Mrs. McCaughns class and 2nd grade in Ms. Peppers class.  I went to my very first pee wee cheerleading camp put on by the high school cheerleaders who I thought were untouchable, got my first pair of glasses and was amazed that the leaves on trees weren’t blobs of green, and went weekly to the Saturday matinee with friends followed by the cool, refreshing water of their pool.

My grandparents lived on their ranch about 5 miles away in Sanger, Texas and my grandpa would come and pick all of us kids up each Saturday morning to go to “DQ” as he called it (Dairy Queen).  We were allowed to get 1 small vanilla ice cream cone and then he’d either take us driving on the dusty, back dirt roads or to sit and “think” at the thinking spot by his barn.  I distinctly remember him getting out of his old Ford pick up truck and telling me to parallel park between the fence posts.  I was 7 years old.  Somehow everything seemed ultra magical when I was little.

Nathan and I tried living back in Texas for a while after we were first married and all I can remember about those awful 6 months, was how unbearably hot it was, how much traffic was in the city, and all the cicada’s that were so loud at night.  OH!  and all the coyote’s howling in the woods.  But still…..those childhood memories are wonderful.  Some other small towns I’ve lived in over the years?  Sanger, Texas; Forney, Texas; Dillon, Montana; Nephi, Utah, and finally, before I got married, Emmett, Idaho.

You see my dad loved the small town atmosphere.  Maybe it was because he spent all day long in tall high rise buildings working in the computer industry and traveling the world to huge cities.  Maybe it’s just because he wanted his kids to be able to grow up in a place where things were just a little bit slower than most.  Who knows?  All I know is that as I’ve had my own children, I long sometimes for those experiences that you can get growing up in a small town.  Even though I thought I hated it when I was young and vowed that I would always live in the city, somehow my views have changed over the years and I’m thankful that my parents kept us in the “small towns”.

My images this week are some of the very first images that I took after getting my first DSLR, the Canon 40D in 2008.  I was staying at my parents home in Idaho for an extended period of time while Nathan was out to sea and I was learning the in’s and out’s of photography.  I still love these images even though many of them aren’t “technically” perfect.  It reminds of the interesting places in small towns and it also reminds me of those first few months in photography and the excitement I had about everything.  I decided to go back to the RAW files for the topic this week, and reprocess some, now that I know a little more than I did back then.  Enjoy! and this weeks topic will be TOYS……

Here’s a quick recap of the models from the workshop.  If you’d like to be considered for the workshop in May, send me a message!  I need a few couples to model for me!  I’m full on Seniors.

The workshop started off with introductions, then going over all the great products that some really amazing vendors donated, and then we dove into what it takes to set up a photography business.  I’d like to thank Brandon Perron for coming up from Portland as a guest speaker to present and teach with me.  We had lunch and then the fun began.  We had 7 models and a huge 2 hour live shoot along the Bremerton waterfront.  We finished the day with discussions on workflow and editing.  My favorite part of the workshop was the interaction we all had as photographers.  I’m a firm believer in all learning from each other and I’m so happy to be able to add 15 more photographers to my friend circle!

If you missed the February workshop there will be another in May with more guest speakers like Brandon and more awesome models!  The cool thing about this workshop is that all the attendees get to use their images for their portfolios.  My motivation behind this was to put together something that I wish I could have had when I was first starting out or even as I grew and wanted to focus on my business more.  Thank you to EVERYONE who helped out with this!  From the caterer, to the vendors, the venue, the attendees and speakers, the AWESOME models and the salon who helped out!  It was an amazing day and I hope to have many more!

Now!  A quick update of other awesome things that are happening in my schedule.  First and foremost I’m so STOKED to announce that I’ll be speaking at WPPI this year!  If you’re not familiar with this convention, it’s the largest Wedding and Portrait Photographer convention in the world!  It happens every year in Vegas and this is my first year going.  Well I guess I wanted to kick it off with a bang, so I’ll be helping out at the Shootsac booth on the tradeshow floor on Monday 3/8 from 1-4.  And then the closing program of the convention is an all new Photographers Ignite program.  I’ve  blabbed all about this on my Facebook page and even have an event notice on my Fan page, so if you’re going to be in Vegas at the beginning of March stop by and say hi or come support me at Photographers Ignite!  I’ll be speaking on some business topics  It’s just so surreal sitting here thinking about how 3 years ago I was surfing the web looking at WPPI, hoping that someday I’d attend and following some really awesome photographers that speak and present there.  Now I’m actually going and speaking in the same program with a lot of the same photographers I started following 3 years ago and look up to in the industry!  Truly a surreal and UNREAL opportunity that has been dropped in my lap!

If you’d like the chance to go to WPPI both Shootsac AND the [b]school, two of my FAVORITE things in photography are giving away 10 FULL REGISTRATIONS over then next week or so!  Click on each of the links above to see how you can win a registration and join me in Vegas baby! and BELIEVE me, both the Shootsac AND the [b]school are SOOOO worth the money spent!

I also have some very exciting projects coming up in the next 6 months.  Here’s a small recap of my schedule, I’ll for sure be blogging about them as they get closer!  So if you want to schedule your portrait session OR your wedding send me your request soon!  I’m booking up FAST!

March 7-11:  Vegas/WPPI

March 25-April 4:  Boise

April (end):  Hawaii

May 8:  Out of the Box Workshop #2

May 29:  Star Shooter Workshop

June starts my wedding season as of right now!

August 31-September: AFRICA for Star Shooter international workshop

I’m SO excited about this year to come.  I have lots and lots of other stuff going on behind the scenes and hope to be able to share those things with you as they develop too!  As I leave, here’s an image that I just loved from the workshop!  Thank you Taylor for being such an amazing model!