I fell in loooove with this book. Elizabeth Gilbert is such an awesome author and this book was not only entertaining but really taught me not to take myself too seriously and to jump in and then sink or swim. I’ll never forget her honesty and her interesting transition. Thank you Elizabeth Gilbert (Groceries) for letting us learn and laugh with you. You freaking rock lady! I will be there the night of the movie opening. Oh and PS, I gave K an assignment on her flight tonight… She is reading Eat Pray Love as we speak! And I just got a text from her saying she loves it! Maybe we need to start a Divas’ book club. First the Twilight series and now Eat Pray Love. I like where this is going. Suggestions for the next book?
EDIT: We sped up Weston’s guitar part and simultaneously made him sound a little off key. He is going to hate us for that!
We (M & K) are spending some time at home today planning out our upcoming speaking engagements. Our next stop is the Pro Photo Expo for PPC in San Francisco on August 14th. Shortly after that, we will be hitting the road with the WPPI Road show, speaking in Irvine on August 23rd and Dallas on September 1st. We hope to see you out and about! 🙂
If you were to hang out here in our offices and observe the daily happenings, here’s one random thing you might notice: we have a lot of nicknames. 🙂 To make things easy, we’ve always used our first initials… so you’ll often see us refer to each other on Twitter or here on the blog by saying “A” – “D” – “M” – “C” – or “K”. And then there are the more random nicknames. For example, here are just a few of my nicknames through the years: Kimee (of course), K-dog, K-frog/K-froggie, KW, KDub, Kimee-cat… and then there’s my MOST recent nickname: “Cadbury.” Wondering how I got that one? Well, that one was actually given to me by a Parisian gal we met while sitting at a cafe. We were all sitting at this place in the St Germain district, and one friendly gal just walked up to our table and started chatting with us. We all introduced ourselves, and she had a fun association with everyone’s names… when Ashley introduced herself, this gal said: “Oh, like Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen!”… to Marissa she said “Oh, like from the OC”… and then as she was leaving, she went around the table and said, “Goodbye Weston, Marissa, Ashley, and Cadbury.” As she was walking away, we all looked at each other and started cracking up. Apparently “Kimberlee” sounded a lot like “Cadbury.” Funny thing is, Cadbury eggs used to be my favorite candy when I was a kid! Haha! So, the nickname has stuck, and around here, it wouldn’t be abnormal if you overheard someone say ‘Hey, Cadbury!’ So feel free to call me Cadbury the next time you see me. 😉 Happy Tuesday, everyone! Hope you’re all having a wonderful week!
PS… We honestly can’t BELIEVE that we still haven’t posted pics from Paris. There are just SO many photos, & it’s such a huge project, that it just keeps getting pushed back (especially w/ all of our shoots, workshops, big projects, and speaking programs that we’ve got going on… the to-do lists just keep growing!) But in the meantime, here are a few random ones from one of our sight-seeing days in Paris:
Kimberlee’s got a boyfriend! Well, she has for awhile. But I finally got to spend some time with this guy and I approve. So now I am officially announcing that she has a boyfriend even though she has already said so here and there. She may have even twittered it at one point. Lol. Sorry Bitner you know that’s funny. So I know that I am grown up and all but I still can’t help but feel like a school girl and want to gossip about it. So there. Consider it gossiped! 🙂 Eric, you’re dating a girl in the blogging world, so be prepared to be plastered on this blog! It just comes with the territory.
I have to admit that one of the huge benefits of having a biz partner and staff as wonderful as mine is knowing that stuff is still happening while I’m gone. When it was just me and Weston running the biz I couldn’t help but feel like everything was at a standstill when I traveled or took a few days off. For instance when we backpacked through Europe and purposely didn’t take a laptop I was crawling out of my skin, ready to get back to work. Now this isn’t something I am proud of. I tried to overcome it many, many trips and I just couldn’t. But problem solved now! Us Divas and Divettes are quite a team and I can leave and still feel like my special little photography world isn’t at a standstill. Ahhhhh!!
Weston and I just got back from Vegas. Which I love. I love the shows, the perfume that my second home, The Venetian, pumps into our room, I love giggling at the prowling cougars at the pool, and over eating at the insanely good restaurants. Sushismaba I looove you! I also realize that I love Vegas because I am Gemini. I love extremes. I am a yoga going hippie one day and high heeled Diva the next. Although sometimes I want to be both at the same time which only frustrates me.
So now that I am home from Vegas I am loving spending some quiet time with me and my journal. I try to do devotionals everyday, although there are times that no matter how much I promise myself I will ahead of time, I always seem to slack on vacations, Disneyland days and Sundays.
Whew, I don’t typically talk about myself THIS much. Or at least that’s what I am telling myself while I write this. But I am on vacation and really haven’t talked to another human being besides my hubby in days, so I find that this sort of time spent with myself creates an intense inner monologue. Which who better to share with than our blog readers! You! Thanks guys.
On the Freedom Tour with Showit K and talked a lot about making sure that you know where you are going with life and career before you set out on your journey. I probably do this too much, but I love having my course spelled out for me. So today I charted it out yet again. Ah, I can’t tell you how much better I feel. I can’t say that this is the best way to do this but I like to divide my life into different categories. The categories that are most important to me. Then I list below what is important about those categories and what are regualr activites I want within those areas. But at the same time you don’t want to be so strict with yourself that you stress yourself out. Balance is important. For instance I loooove yoga, but I am not going to say “attend yoga two times per week,” because then it kinda feels like a chore. So I am going to say “*Enjoy Yoga at your heart’s content.” Although I am much more strict with my business goals.
I am sure that a lot of you have done this, but if you haven’t I think you need to spend some quiet time just relecting on your life. Slow down, turn everything off, and explore your life and where it is at. Where you want it to be. And before you know it, all the pieces start to come together. But it wouldn’t be fair without saying that a huge part of that recipe is praise, gratitude and prayer. And if I hadn’t blurred it out a little you would see on my journal that that is a definite area that I want to work on more. Being away from home and your daily routine is really the best way to dig deep. October workshop attendees we really suggest that you do this while you are in your hotel room here in SD. Okay guys, time to go do something fun. Maybe a bike ride!?
Okay so I am not that shiny, what’s up with that!? Okay, I’m over it, not gonna let vanity take over this post here to talk about my “wish I powdered” face. Anyway, Boudoir International is getting a re-vamp!!! Woot woot. We are on fire with this project and cannot wait to get all of your on the new site and show you off. If you want to learn more about this WordPress Magazine visit
www.webdesignermag.co.uk
Is it just us or is 2010 FLYING by? I swear we just got back from the Imaging USA Conference in Nashville and now we are already planning our October San Diego workshop! The October workshop will be the LAST one for 2010, so if you have been thinking about attending one, we still have spots left! Here is a basic outline on how our boudoir workshop is structured.
If you want to hear from an actual attendee, check out this awesome blog post from Denise Birdsong, a June San Diego attendee, about her experience at our workshop: You can click the image below to be taken to Denise’s Blog, and yes those are her beautiful images taken at our workshop!
So, here I am again, convinced that this IS exactly where I am supposed to be. As I have stated previously on this blog, it is a little scary, a whole lot of exciting and nothing short of AMAZING! I have to say though, that today It is a lot less scary than it was six months ago when I decided to jump into this head first………
I have been provided with some incredible opportunities and situations (not all pleasant) to learn, to grow and to flourish from, I am grateful for them all!
One of these amazing experiences was a recent workshop I attended with the Boudoir Divas in San Diego. I simply can’t say enough great things about the team at The Divas, the experience I had and how HIGHLY I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in photographing women.
Over the last year I have attended many workshops, each time hoping this would be the workshop that empowered me, provided me with useful and meaningful information that would help me become my personal best, to provide my clients with an incredible experience and product and to run a successful business. Ok, so I suppose that may have been asking a little much for one workshop BUT Marrisa and Kimmberlee (the Divas )totally DELIVERED! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Marissa and Kimberlee (The Divas) were so genuine and honest in sharing their experience in the industry, what has worked for them and more importantly what has not and why. I must say, their willingness to open up and share the good, the bad and sometime the not so pretty was invaluable for me! It seems it is just what I had been looking for….. This willingness to share their experiences and answer, very thoughtfully, the questions I came up with led me to allot of introspection and in my opinion introspection is the true hallmark of any great learning experience! I left the Divas workshop more carefully considering my business plan, where I want my business to be in five years and what I am prepared to do to get there…..
During our workshop we covered topics including, posing, lighting, equipment, sales, marketing, workflow, pricing, best business practice and to top it all off we were able to shoot in groups as well as one on one with four gorgeous models (they were amazing, huge round of applause for these gals!)
Thank you again Marissa and Kimberlee for the incredible opportunity and experience, I feel so secure in the knowledge that this is where I want to be, where I should be and where I am going…..
And so this journey continues…empowering woman kind, one cheeky girl at a time !
Oh yeah, did I mention the amazing gals I got to photograph? Enjoy!
If you have questions about our workshop, feel free to email Ashley at [email protected]. You can sign up for the workshop by going to our Boudoir Shop.
Yep, it’s true! K & I met on Craigslist! It was about 4 years ago now that we sat across from each other at Barnes and Noble and chatted about bringing her on as an assistant. Four years later we are inseparable and, as fate would have it, biz partners! In her first few months I remember looking at the back of this shy girl’s head as she imaged photos thinking, ‘we are going to be best friends and she doesn’t even know it yet.’ 🙂 It took some time… K is like a cat… initially friendly and loving, but doesn’t bring you into her inner, inner circle of trust until you earn it (“Meet the Parents” anyone?). So here we are now, stuck with each other for a long time, whether we like it or not. Heck, we even had to buy life insurance for each other (one of the many fun tasks of becoming a partnership). But I wouldn’t trade it for the world! I am biz partners with my kindred spirit…. (oh come on…. Anne of Green Gables?!)
The Wedding Chicks Blog is an absolutely AMAZING resource for brides… and check out who’s advertising on there! That’s right… BOUDOIR INTERNATIONAL! Now even more brides will have a chance to scroll through all of the amazing boudoir photographers that we’ve got listed on our boudoir referral website! If you’re a boudoir photographer and you’d like to be listed on Boudoir Intl, click here to submit your studio to join our boudoir photography referral list! Thanks! xoxo, The Divas
Hey friends! Just wanted to remind everyone that we only have ONE more workshop in 2010!!! The dates are: October 5-7, 2010… we would LOVE to see you there! There are just a few spots left, so if you’re interested in joining us here in our San Diego studio for a 2-day workshop ALL about boudoir, click here to register! We also wanted to share a little recap from the day of shooting during our June boudoir workshop… here it is!
CLICK HERE FORE MORE INFO on the Boudoir Workshop!
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER for the October Boudoir Photography Workshop!
