I'm in the Charlotte, North Carolina airport right now, drinking a Venti Ice Water (I know you baristas out there hate when people do that to you right? I mean, I'll never JUST order a venti ice water, and if there's nothing else I want, I'll tack my water onto my brother or mom's order. She'll be having a tall tea and oh, I want a venti ice water light ice. Yeah I'm a pain) and browsing the internet on my laptop! The Business Boot Camp is officially over; so sad! It was honestly the best 48 hours of my business/career life so far. I learned so much it was unbelievable.

Liana, thank you for giving and giving and giving to us for those two and a half days. This woman is such a blessing, and God has so much more in store for her over the rest of her life--I just know it. It was incredible that she gave up this week of her life to pour into the lives of other businesses; there were only six attendees, and five of us were there on scholarships. Not only did this week not make her any money... I'm sure she lost money having to pick us up and drop us off everyday, book off her time and feed us all. So Liana, I truly thank you for that!

There are so many changes and things I want to modify in my business, it's mind-blowing. I think I've had a perpetual headache since Tuesday morning. It was truly just learn, learn, learn. 10AM-10PM both days. Last night we were actually there until quarter after eleven, eating chocolate and strawberries. I know, you wish you were there, right? <-- That's another little tidbit I learned. Apparently I say "right?" after a lot of things I say, and I need to change that because that annoys me when I hear others do that! That's a goal. :)

Speaking of goals, we made so many goals, so many plans: craziness. I'm excited to see what God is going to do in my life and how he's going to take those goals and make them a reality, because right now, all I see is overwhelming lists.





The best part of the bootcamp (or rather the most relaxing, creative, fun--learning HOW to make money was probably the "best") was the branding lesson Liana taught. She truly communicated so effectively what a BRAND is, how to find what yours is. I got to work right away, making an exhaustive list of adjectives that describe exactly who I am and what I see for my business. In the end, the color palette and words that I described and felt totally at ease with...didn't represent what I have going on right now! Which is scary and exciting at the same time.

The collage up above is what I came up with for a BRAND BOARD. I absolutely adore it. My inspiration came from a shot from Kristina+Marshall's engagement session. The kind of style that inspires me is found in interior design magazines or IKEA catalogues that feature lots of white, bright space. I also love RealSimple magazine, and just the whole concept of that. I love bright punches of color, but prefer a more classic look that the bold orange/blue I have going on. Anywho, all this to say, as of last night I have my graphic designer, Lesia (who's engagement photos I shot last month) working on a new logo for me! I feel this is the perfect way to "re-invent" myself and move into some new packaging and pricing for 2009.

More photos from the BootCamp later! :)

I'm writing this blog on the plane right now on our flight from Phoenix to Atlanta. We were up at 5:45AM this morning (isn't that lovely?) and at the airport by 7AM. We've had really smooth traveling so far: both planes have left earlier than expected which is awesome. I would say we're about two and a half hours away from Atlanta now. I managed to get internet for the half hour we were landed in Phoenix and check some emails, facebook, etc (really important stuff of course!).


Here's some pitiful photos of myself, my mom and my aunt. We just used the little camera on the Macbook Pro and it's really hard to fit three people in the frame when there isn't enough room to hold the laptop out more than twelve inches in front of you!


Told you it was bad. That would be half of my face on the left there:



This would be me completely covered in a blanket because it was FREEZING on our morning flight from Seattle to Phoenix:




I've taken advantage of my new laptop so far by working on new pricing for my wedding packages, re-configuring my portrait packages, drafting up a .pdf document about wedding album pre-design as well as writing a two page photographer faq! Yes, I know, I'm very productive. I've been wanting to write a photographers FAQ for the longest time. At least three times a week I get emails from the sweetest people asking about photography, business, camera and editing questions. I don't always have time to answer in the full capacity that I want to, but I have tried to do my best while juggling all the other work I have. But now, I have at least ten common questions written up with the best answers I could think of. I'm going to be posting them in groupings on this blog soon.

I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to actually publish this post, but I'm sure it'll be sometime tonight! So if the blog says it was posted at 10pm or something, I'm not lying: I really am on the airplane as I type this.

We've arrived in Seattle, and for the last hour I've been chillin' at the hotel here (a really crappy one at that...oh well--they have wireless!) I just spotted on the internet some FREE (who doesn't like that?) Photoshop Actions. I thought I'd get them a try and download them to see how they work. I do all my editing in Adobe Lightroom as I shoot RAW photos, and I rarely use actions except for my own, but these are awesome! They are from Pioneer Woman and you can download them HERE.

Check out my favourite action from the pack, the Vintage action. Clients, you'll be seeing more of this action, I can't get enough of it: I just LOVE it!




We leave here for the Sea-Tac airport at 6:30AM tomorrow (gross!) and it'll be a full 9 hour day of travelling including a layover in Phoenix before we get to Atlanta at about 7pm, which will be 4pm "our time." Have a great Sunday evening everyone. :)