This past Sunday I got to
second shoot my first wedding for Shayla J. Photography! The wedding took place
at Winfrey Point on White Rock Lake in Dallas, Texas and it was so much fun!! The
bride & groom were gorgeous, the décor was super cute, and the guests were
basically rockstars! I couldn’t have asked for a better wedding to second shoot
for my first time. I can’t wait to show everyone the pictures I took! However, I
of course won’t be posting them until after Shayla (the main photographer) post
them on her blog first. So be on the lookout for them sometime in the following
weeks! :)
In other related news, in
exactly 2 weeks from today I will be going to Scarlett & Stephen’s wedding
photography workshop! I am beyond excited to attend! Click HERE to see my
original blog post about it. For those of you who have been on the fence about
going, there are still some spots left for their workshops in Myrtle Beach, SC
& Dallas, TX. So if you’ve been wanting to go, be sure and buy your ticket
soon!! And if that wasn’t enough to entice you, check out this awesome workshop
review video!
Happy May Day everyone!
Finals are only a week away and you know what that means! Study, study, study!
Yep, this week I will be taking coffee addiction to a whole new level lol.
Anyway, just thought I would give an update on what’s going on with me and my developing
business.
Also, I just signed up for
my second wedding photography workshop in June hosted by Scarlett & Stephen
Knuth of Scarlett & Stephen Photography! These guys are a husband &
wife team based in Jacksonville, FL and they are coming to Dallas for this one
day workshop. You may remember a previous blog post where I talked about this
amazing online community for Christian photographers called The Prosper Community.
Well, Scarlett & Stephen are the founders/creators of this site. The site
is actually an extension of a book Scarlett wrote entitled, Prosper: A 40 Day Prayer Journey to Seek God’s Will for Your Photography Business, which I just
recently purchased and plan on reading once finals are over! I am beyond
excited to attend this workshop and it’s all thanks to my mom for giving me
this awesome early birthday present!!! :)
And for those of you who aren’t familiar with Scarlett & Stephen, here is a
short little video clip about them:
If you’re a photographer who
would also like to attend one of Scarlett & Stephen’s Workshops, you can
check out the Dallas, TX one HERE and the Myrtle Beach, SC one HERE. There it
will give you more information about what the workshop is all about and how to
register!
I was planning on posting
part 2 of my experience at Leslie Spurlock’s Workshop today, but I did
something this past weekend that I never thought in a million years I would do.
I submitted a video of myself auditioning to be one of the lucky 6 people who
get to attend Jasmine Star’s CreativeLIVE workshop in Seattle entitled, The Making + Marketing of an Editorial Wedding!
So I decided to blog about this big/exciting/nerve-racking news instead lol.
When I first found out in February
that Jasmine was coming back to CreativeLIVE to do her third online workshop, I
was beyond excited. My good friend, Mercy Nompone, immediately called telling me that she would be happy to help me make a video to submit for
consideration. She was extremely surprised when I told her that I wasn’t planning
on submitting and to be honest, I was too. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be
considered but that I was too scared to put myself out there. However, when I
found out that we were going on a road trip to Denver to see Jasmine at The Fix, I came up with the idea that we should record our trip and possibly use
whatever footage we get to submit to be on CreativeLIVE.
So I called Mercy to tell her
my idea and see if she would still be willing to help me put it together. She
thought the concept was great and agreed to help with the editing. Long story
short, when we got home from our trip with the video footage, I seriously
considered forgetting about the whole thing and not finishing the video.
However, I quickly came to my senses and decided to just go for it! Unfortunately,
I just found out this morning that I didn’t get picked. But that’s ok, I’m
still proud of myself for at attempting it and I will still be watching her
live on April 27-29th! :)
If your friends with me on Facebook, I know you’ve probably already seen this
video, but for those who aren’t, here’s the video I submitted:
I know I’m a little late on
this, but this past week has been surprisingly crazy busy. So anyways, here it
goes. This past weekend was our road trip to Denver, Colorado to see Jasmine Star in her tour of The Fix. My hubby completely surprised me with this trip
after knowing how upset I was that I couldn’t go to her one here in Dallas. Colorado
was so much fun and Jasmine was definitely worth the trip up there! :) We left on Thursday afternoon and stayed in a little
town called Dumas, Texas, which is about 6 hours from DFW. We then got up
bright and early the next morning to finish the drive to Denver. Along the way,
we stopped at the Capulin Volcano National Monument in New Mexico and climbed to
the top. (You know, your normal road trip rest stop lol) Luckily we made it to
our hotel, The Ritz, holler! ;) With literally 2 hours to spare till the event
started.
The Fix was held at the
Artwork Network in Denver, which was nice minus the fact that there was nowhere
to park, but we won’t get into that little stressful moment lol. Anyways, Jasmine
gave an amazing 1 hour presentation over struggle, change, and making friends
along the way. It was a very powerful presentation. Jasmine made me laugh, cry,
and realize that I am not alone. The presentation was followed by some brief
Q&A and then a reading from her book, Exposed. It was a great night with
free drinks, and at the end I got to go up and meet her and have her sign my copy
of Exposed. (I was beyond nervous! Lol) Oh, and for those of you who don’t
know, this was my first ever photography event!! I was so nervous about
it, but everyone was so nice and I made a bunch of new friends in the industry!
:) Too bad they live 14 hours away. :(
Any who, tomorrow I will be
posting part 2 of this post. I will also finally be announcing the exciting
news I talked about a couple of post ago! So stay tuned for that! :)
Below are some pictures from
the road trip as well as some pictures & a video from The Fix. Enjoy!
View from the top of the Capulin Volcano.
Some cows with the Capulin Volcano in the background.
A River of Lava Turned to Stone...
The long road ahead...
Jasmine Star speaking :)
Jasmine Star reading a page from her book.
Below are pictures of me meeting Jasmine. Both pictures were taken by Jasmine's Fix crew. You can view the rest of the images from this event HERE.
And finally, below is a video of me actually meeting Jasmine Star!! Shot by my wonderful husband, Daniel. :) I think you can tell how nervous I was lol.
A couple of months ago, for
Christmas, I got some pretty awesome new stuff! One of those things just happened
to be my Canon 7D DSLR, a few AMAZING lenses (the 35mm 2.0 & 100mm 2.8Macro to be exact), and some pretty sweet photography books as well (which is
what this post is about).
Now, for those of you who
know me, you know that I am not a reader. I mean, I have tried to read
all kinds of different books but could never seem to stay interested (maybe it’s
the ADD? I don’t know...) I know this may sound kind of silly, but I really
only like books that have pictures in them lol. Honestly! I get bored just
looking at words. I need some art too!! I think Andy Warhol said it best; “I
never read I just look at pictures.” That quote is totally me! So why am I excited
for the books I got for Christmas? Two reasons:
1.Since they’re photography books that means they have TONS
of pictures in them! It’s a match made in heaven! Also, I just really enjoy
anything & everything about photography.
And
2.I heard a great quote by Dave Ramsay from Zach & JodyGray; “Where you will be in five years is dependent on two things, the people
you meet and the books you read.” I take this quote to heart! I hope to meet
some amazing people this year but more importantly I hope to read more books
this year than I have ever read before.
In the book “The MillionaireNext Door” the author claims that the average millionaire reads one non-fiction
book a month. So since I plan on becoming a millionaire one day, I better get
started! :) Here are the non-fiction books that I am currently
reading:
Jasmine Star is a California based wedding photographer
and kind of a celebrity in the photography industry. This girl is probably my
biggest inspiration and I just love her! This book/magazine tells the story of
how she got started in photography and how she got to where she is today. I
swear when I read this book I feel as if I am living her life all over again. I
completely relate and it’s nice to hear someone as big as her was once going through
the same struggles.
Jose Villa is also a California based wedding
photographer and has been named one of the top 10 wedding photographers in the
world by American PHOTO. He is one of the few photographers still using film
and I just think that’s awesome! This book is about Jose Villa, who basically
invented the term “Fine Art Wedding Photography,” and how he captures his
trademark technique.
Scott Kelby is president of the National Association of Photoshop
Professionals (NAPP) and Editor-in-Chief of both Photoshop User and Layersmagazines. He also has an educational website called, Kelbytraining.com, where
there are tons of videos to learn anything and everything about photography and
editing in Photoshop & Lightroom. I am a member of this website and really
enjoy all of the useful information! This book takes you step-by-step through
the basics and fundamentals of digital photography in a very easy to understand
dialogue.
And last, but certainly not least…
The Canon EOS 7D
Instruction Manual
Yes, you read that right. I am reading my instruction manual.
I put this one in here because I think so many people just think they don’t need
to read the manual and they’re wrong. I have learned so many things by just
reading my manual that I probably would have never learned anywhere else, or at
least it would have taken me years to find out. It may not be my favorite thing
to read (there aren’t very many pictures lol) but I think it’s super important
so I force myself to do so. And if you’re a photographer who hasn’t read their
manual yet, I highly suggest you get to it! :)
So there you have it! My 4 small steps to becoming a millionaire.
Hopefully I can stick to the one book a month thing and update you guys on what
I’m reading next month. To end this post, I have a video of some amazing
photographers sharing their perspective on success. Enjoy! :)
(Photographers Include: Jasmine Star, Jessica Claire, Kevin Kubota, Jesh DeRox, Mary Marantz, and Sarah Rhoads)
It’s the never ending battle
of photographers and videographers in this hilarious video filmed at AfterDark Education. Check it out:
In all seriousness, a
wedding day is about the bride & groom, not the photographer or videographer.
We (the vendor) should be respectful of their day and work together to deliver
a great product to the client. Even though sometimes we may want to scream; “Get
out of my shot!” lol
By the way, if you’re
interested in going to After Dark, they will be in Dallas Sunday, February 26th
– Wednesday, February 29th. You can check out the details and
register here on their website. Sadly, I won’t be able to attend because of
school. :(
That’s it for today. Until
next time, Happy Groundhog Day! :)
Perhaps a better title would
be, What Didn’t I Learn from Zach & Jody Gray on CreativeLIVE this past
weekend? But then there wouldn’t be a blog post now would there lol? I first
just want to say that if you don’t know about Zach & Jody go head over to
their website and check them out. They are extremely talented Nashville-based
wedding photographers and they provide tons of useful information for
photographers. This husband and wife team inspires me, not just with
photography but with the love they share for each other and God.
This past weekend I learned pretty much
everything there is to know, from what lenses to use in certain situations, to what kind of
lighting they use and how to use it, to attracting and engaging with clients
and how to make them “your walking, talking billboard.” However, the top 3
things I learned and am walking away with from this course are:
1.“Clients care about content not quality.” Yes, I need to
be a good photographer, but that should be a given. People that aren’t photographers
don’t care/understand about composition and lighting. What they do care about
are the emotions I capture from that day.
2.“It’s great to be a natural light photographer, but you
need to be skilled in all areas of photography as well.” This quote that Jody
Gray said really hit home. It dawned on me that yes, I can be a natural light
photographer for engagement/bridal sessions but what happens when it’s 7:00 at
night in a dark reception hall? Or the ceremony is outside at night? Or it’s
raining? I need to be prepared with more than just a Speedlight in case the
conditions call for it and of course do it well. :)
3.And last but certainly not least, the most
powerful/touching/inspirational moment of the entire course was this moment
right here (be prepared to cry):
Oh, I almost forgot. Zach
had mentioned that when he shoots the groom and groomsmen preparation photos he
mentions the movie Reservoir Dogs and how the pictures are going to look just
like that. The guys usually get really excited (even though Zach admits he’s
never seen it before lol). Anyways, my husband went out and bought it on Blu-ray
(because we’re snazzy like that) and did a little research. Turns out, the
scene he’s talking about is in like the first 10 min of the movie. Here’s the
clip of it:
