Photo For the People - Live!! (A New Forum)

We launched our new forum Photo For the People last night, so definitely check it out! We are going to be posting some awesome interviews, having live chats, a book club and a lot more.
Tim Halberg is going to be heading up the Tech portion of the forum and he is seriously amazing!! So if you EVER have any technical questions post it on the forum and he'll totally help you out.

Last night we hosted the PUG meeting at our place and our BFF Tim Halberg taught how to use
Adobe lightroom and everyone really learned a lot. Thanks to Kacie Jean from putting together the event!

Business Book Club!!

Okay, this is for realsies! I am going to officially send out the Evite for our new Business Book Club tomorrow, so please post here if you haven't already and want to be apart of it. We will be doing an "In Person" book club at our studio as well as a "Online" book club on our new forum that we'll also be launching soon. Whew!
I am SO excited about this!! I can't wait to get the energy and brain juices flowing! hehe...
My mom goes to a book club every month and they read books like, "Life of Pi" or "The Princess Trilogy" (The princes trilogy is SO horrifying btw). Anyway, I think it's awesome to take time out to read - but why not have it help you make some money too? :)
Also, I have a list of people from previous Evites that I've sent out in the past that I'm using. I apologize in advance if your not interested and I send you an Evite anyway. I just want to make sure I invite everyone who IS interested.
BTW - the date of the Online AND In Person Book Club is March 10th. 4-6 is the online "live" chat and 7-9 is the In Person meeting at our place. OH, and the book we're reading is "Love is The Killer App" by Tim Sanders. Okay, I think I got everything...

27 Dresses

Okay, rottentomatoes.com gave this flick a 37% (which for those who don't frequent this site means that it's "rotten") But I have to tell you that I LOVED IT!!! Now before you go and judge me and think that I have horrible taste in movies - I really think that this movie was misjudged. Michael and I are HUGE movie buffs - to the point where we actually looked up the top 100 movies of all time and made a commitment to see them all. Also, we are really proud of ourselves because we've seem almost all the nominated movies for the Oscars (Daniel Day-Lewis WILL win for best actor and "No Country for Old Men" will most likely win for Best Picture). So anyway, this movie was everything a girl could hope for and more. Romance, intrigue, weddings, amazing wardrobe and of course a happy ending. Sigh. I, of course, left Michael at home to play his new video game, "Devils May Cry" (which I gave him for Valentines day. Romantic, right?) and went with a girlfriend. (There are just some movies he's has no interest in seeing, and this was one of them. And I have to say that I opted out of seeing "300" a few months back. And I would have opted out of "Transformers" if I would have known how much I was going to hate it) But I guess that romantic comedies always finish last, right? Remember that hilarious song that Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly sang last year at the Oscars about comedies finishing last. Okay, if you need a laugh, watch this youtube. Oh, and while your at it you might as well watch this one too. (Another Hilarious Will Ferrell, Jack Black duo)
Anyway, I'm interested to hear your movie opinions. Who do you think will be the Oscar winners this year? Cast your vote!!!

xo

So much to do, so little time...

Do you ever feel like you have so much to do that you wished that you didn't need to sleep? Or, when it's getting to be your bedtime and your tempted to keep working you have to trick yourself by saying, "Well, if I go to sleep now I'll wake up earlier and be able to work better b/c I'm not tired?" These are the sort of thoughts that have been going through my head lately. And I recently had an epiphany that I'll probably never really feel that I have time on my hands until I'm 60 or 70 - and even then I may not. (My Grandma is 82 and she says wants to go back to work because she felt LESS busy then! And she's 82!!)
But, it's a good thing. Better to be busy then not, right? I really love what I do. I remember my college years where I had jobs that I hated, and there's nothing worst than having that feeling of having to go into work. I remember that when Michael and I were first dating we got season passes to Magic Mountain (we love thrill seeking roller coasters!) and we'd go on day's that I was on call for work. So, we'd go early to the park and around 2:30 I'd have to call into work to see if they needed me. We used to pray that I wouldn't have to go in. (I'm not even kidding - we literally prayed!) And, guess what? I never once got called into work when we were at Magic Mountain. See, God does answer prayers. :)
So, I am excited to look back on this time in a few years and actually see where my efforts have taken me. I can already see so many strides that we've taken in the 3 short years that we've been in business. I'm excited to see what the future has in store for us...
(p.s - for those of you who made it to the end of my ramblings - thanks for listening)

Awesome Wedding - Awesome Couple

Shooting weddings are actually a form of an anthropological study. We show up and document the union of two humans that are so fantasically in love that they can't bare to be anything but united with each other. This was really evident in the photo's from Brooke & Barry's wedding that we recently shot. The look on Barry's face when he first saw Brooke was that of overwhelming love and almost disbelief in the beautiful bride he was about to marry. And Brooke's face was brimming with tears at the sight of Barry waiting for her at the end of the aisle, so excited to solidify their relationship with marriage. What we do is awesome.
They are such a great couple and the wedding was so fun to shoot! Some fun celebrities were at the wedding as well, including Dr. McDreamy a.k.a Patrick Demsey and also David Boreanaz. Barry is a movie producer (Enchanted, Bad Boys II) and Brooke is an actress and they met while working together on a film.

I've Been Tagged!!

I've Been tagged by Cheyenne Hayes!

The rules of the game are to answer the questions, tag 5 other people, post their name then leave them a message on their blog letting them know that they have been tagged and so forth.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
10 year ago I was 16 1/2 years old. I think that was in a musical called , "South Pacific." I was also in the 11th grade and was in a Youth Symphony playing the trumpet. (yes I was a band nerd in high school). Oh, and I worked at Barnes and Nobles in the Children's Section. That was fun.

2.Things On My To Do list
1. Finish unpacking our new place!
2. Finish our Wedding and Portrait Photographers International presentation that we will be giving in March in Las Vegas
3. Send out Evites for my first Business Book Club!
4. Buy the rest of the furniture that we need for our new place
5. Recover from having my wisdom teeth pulled

3. Bad Habits
1. Leaving little things around the house and not putting them away. (This drives Michael crazy!)
2. Biting my nails
3. Only flossing once every few days instead of everyday
4. Drinking too much diet coke

4. Places I have Lived
1. Thousand Oaks, CA
2. Van Nuys, CA
3. Santa Barbara, CA

5. Things Most People Don't Know About Me
1. I sing and love to act and dance. (I also love musicals)
2. My ring finger on my right hand got chopped off when I was two. It grew back kinda funny...
3. I auditioned for American Idol twice. (I'll tell you about it sometime - they are fairly interesting stories)

I tag......
Sarah Walker
Leah Florence
Janey Aldferheide
Tim Halberg
Amy Nave

The Secrets of Worth of Mouth Marketing

Just finished a great booked called, "The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing." I have been learning so much lately about viral marketing and it really makes so much sense. When a client comes our way because their friend recommended us to them, it makes my life SO much easier. It also makes the potential clients life easier because researching and finding a wedding photographer isn't an easy task. And when a friend can give a positive first hand account it will make their decision process that much better.
I do this all the time when researching new restaurants. There is a website in Santa Barbara called santabarbara.com and it has a great dining section where you can go on and write a review of restaurants in town. I ALWAYS go there before trying a new place.
If you are a photographer, or just interested in spreading good word of mouth for whatever reason definitely read this book! It breaks it down to a science!! Thanks George Silverman!! :)

We Evidently Just Got the fastest Apple Computer in Santa Barbara County...

Michael is in seventh heaven. He's been acting like a little boy in a candy shoppe! We just got our new computer and I think he's died and gone to heaven. For those of you who like to geek-out on this kind of stuff, here are the spec's:
3.2ghz 8-core Harpertown Processors, 8 gigs of DDR2 RAM, 512 NVIDEA 8800GT Graphics Card, 4 Terabites of of RAIDed Hard Drive space, 30" Apple Monitor, and oh by the way his Xbox 360 is hooked up to our 40" LCD TV, YAY!
He's been prancing around with the biggest smile the last few days! Save me!!

Okay, don't laugh...

Michael took these shots on his iphone in the recovery room of the doctors office. Cute, huh?

I look like a chipmunk!

I just got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday! Ouch! I totally look like a chipmunk... It's been a wild week. :) We moved everything to our new place Friday, Michael's cousin Michele and her husband Steve also happened to come into town to visit us for the weekend on Friday. We hung out with them Saturday & Sunday.(And had a blast!) Monday we unpacked, Tuesday I got my Wisdom Teeth pulled, Wednesday I unpacked and am icing down my gigantic face!! Stay tuned for some pretty hilarious pictures of me. (No, the posted picture is NOT me - yet...)

Hard Pressed to Get a Better EMail... Ever...

I would be hard pressed to find an e-mail better than this one from Jim Davis-Hicks, President and CEO of Thirst Relief. This was at the end of an e-mail he sent about the action site crashing... "At the end of this ordeal we’ll have spread a lot of wisdom and talent and saved at least over 10,000 lives it appears!!!!!!! Way to go! For real, I am in awe at the amazingly generous spirit of this whole bunch and to look through the list and know that you are all so supportive of our efforts! It is humbling and inspiring."

THANK YOU.

Warmly,

Jim Davis-Hicks

Auction Site Overload Crash!

We'll I guess we can say that the Thirst Relief Auction is going well since there were so many bids the site crashed last night! But we're up and running again today and the bids are now extended 1 day + 8 hours. So those of you who didn't get a chance but wanted to, feel free to bid. Thanks so much to all of you who participated in this great cause! I apologize to any of you who thought they had won, but just to be fair to everyone (cause we're not sure exactly how the closing bids went down and/or everyone had an equal chance to bid before the crash) we're going to continue the bidding cycle until the natural close of the auction. Thanks so much, to bid click HERE!

Thirst Relief International: Last Chance to Bid!!!

Hey you guys, it’s been insane with our move! Though we’ve had so much help from all of our friends including our photographer friend Tim Halberg. He’s just one of those guys that’s always there for you. We should be able to get picks up soon, but won’t have internet hooked up in our new place until tomorrow morning and I can’t blog very will from my iPhone! So I'm posting right now from The Daily Grind on the corner of our block for the time being. We’ve been here so much the last couple days it’s been funny to see everyone switch shifts all day long. Anna & I are so excited and honored to be a part of the Thirst Relief International Mentoring program at WPPI to generate money for water pumps to help combat thirst and lack of clean water for people across the globe. Mike Colon & David Jay have been so dedicated to spearhead this effort, it’s been really inspiring to see them give so much of their own time and money for this cause. So If you want a peek at how Anna & I run our studio and a more in depth education on our Platform presentation program at WPPI: Standing Out in the Photography Industry you can bid/donate to the great cause of Thirst Relief International for some time with us here Hurry though, the bidding ends tonight!!! So make sure you don’t procrastinate!!!

I have the best associate photographer ever!

So, Kristen Grinnell (our associate photographer) also does all of our retouching. She does such an amazing job! It's funny b/c we email a lot back and forth during the day since we are both on our computers all day long. Yesterday, I think she got the vibe that I was starting to stress out b/c I didn't have a lot of smiley faces and exclamation points in my emails - or hugs and kisses (ex: ! :) xo) so she sent me this email. Isn't this hilarious!! It totally made me laugh and I felt a whole lot better! I'm so happy that she GETS me!! I love you Kristen!! xoxoxox :) :) :)

Design Within Reach

Because Michael and I are moving we have been in on the prowl for new furniture. We found this amazing company called Design Within Reach and absolutely LOVE everything they have!! And then we realize that there is a retail store here in Santa Barbara, so we went in today and bought a new desk. :)
The moment I stepped into this place I was in furniture heaven. It's funny how you progress in life - I can't remember ever really caring about furniture before! Maybe someday I'll be blogging about functional, yet cute diaper bags! (Not anytime soon, thought :) hehe
Anyway, if you are into contemporary type furniture/decor definitely check them out. Also, we subscribe to the coolest magazine called Dwell that also tickles our fancy!! Any other contemporary design lovers out there?? :)

Super Tuesday

So, who are you going to vote for?? Obama/Clinton or Romney/McCain? Or are you one of those people that vote for the person that you actually like but have no hope of winning? (I did that once and always regretted it) It's a tough call b/c you SHOULD vote for the person you think is the best one for the job - but when you KNOW that they aren't going to win, you might as well vote for the second best person.
I edited this post a bit after realizing that it's probably NOT a good idea to write about politics (even in a lighthearted manner) since we all have such varying viewpoints. So if you read this post before and are re-reading this - you know what I'm talking about. If you are reading this for the first time, feel free to email me if your really curious.... :) hehe
It is interesting to me how there are SO many different ways of looking at things. And I actually really love to talk to people about sometimes tricky topics like politics/religion. I'm actually really curious about other's opinions! I love broadening my horizon with a new perspectives. :)

I Had TWO Root Canals Done Today!

So, this morning I woke up at 6 am so that I could make the 6:30 "Group Power" at the gym (basically a group weight lifting class that ends up being a really good cardio work out too.) That class kicked my butt. And then I had and 8:30 appm for ONE root canal, but when I got there it ended up that I needed two!! Ahhh!
But guess what? The "Group Power" was WAY more painful than my root canals! Go figure. The specialist (Kathy Patmore) did an amazing job and I would totally recommend her to anyone! She took her time to explain to me everything and make sure that I was comfortable. She is a real pro at what she does.
I am now interested to see how my wisdom teeth extractions are going to go... I have those scheduled to be taken out in two weeks, so that should be interesting. But I traded with the doctor for family photo's so I getting them out for free. Yay! I love my job!

Happy Monday!