People are always telling us that we need to talk more about our personal lives here on the blog, so that we can let our blog readers ‘in’ on our lives a bit more. So, dear blog readers, here’s where we’re at this week: we are feeling just a little stressed. MOST of the time, Marissa and I are ‘on-top-of-the-world-girls’… where we can tackle anything and everything that comes our way. We usually LOVE big ideas and big decisions. We usually THRIVE off of craziness and a million cool projects happening all at once. But this week, friends, we have to admit that we’ve been feeling the stress of having a million cool projects in the works. Don’t get me wrong here – we absolutely love our job, we love teaching photographers, we love traveling and speaking and leading workshops and creating websites and making clients feel beautiful and running a busy, high-volume studio. We love it all. But there are days when it all sort of catches up to you, and all you want to do is get away from it all. This week has been a little stressful for us, and we’re both feeling the weight of some big decisions that we have to make. Marissa sent me a text message this morning that said: “Feeling super-overwhelmed… last night had a dream that you and I were being chased by a bull elephant. Symbolic maybe?” It made me laugh – but it also made me think that we need to find our own little ways of relieving stress. One of my favorite stress reliever is taking a bath… “There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” ~Sylvia Plath … And then I also love reading and journaling. This morning before work, I spent an hour on the beach, reading my Bible, sitting in silence, and just trying to calm my thoughts and heart before the day started. It was wonderful, and I definitely felt more relaxed and refreshed today. So the question that we want to pose to you all is this… what’s your favorite stress-reliever? We’d love to hear your thoughts! xoxo, Kimberlee (and Marissa)
Miss Stacy Clark, this out-of-this-world singer/songwriter asked us to not only photograph her earlier this year but also, gasp, lets us use her songs for our slideshows and marketing videos. Well now this beauty is officially a celebrity! Yay, she is itunes featured free download this week ! You deserve every bit of the recognition Stacy. Although we already knew you were a star inside and out. xoxo- Marissa and Kimberlee
Happy Friday everyone! So if you follow our blog at all, or know any of us here in the studio, you know MOST of us are big Twilight fans (me, (ashley), not so much). Marissa and Kimberlee even have a life size picture of Edward in their office. (Marissa is Team Edward and Kimberlee is Team Jacob if you were wondering). So, when I came across this movie premier for a Twilight Parody movie, we just had to share it. Even if you aren’t die hard Twilight fans like myself, this should have you laughing. Check it out and enjoy your weekend!
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!?
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?!)
and create even sexier, even more fashion forward images. Gone are the days when boudoir looked like it was shot in front of a backdrop. We want it to look like the boudoir photo was ripped right out of Vogue or Maxim. We are always striving to make sure our clients images are nothing but the best.
Right now I am having some fun working on our new “Set Menu” and I came across these images of Miss B. This pretty lady had her shoot a couple of weeks ago and she and I had so much fun creating this look. It is a variation on our “Fashion Loft” set and Lady B rocked it brilliantly and was so fun and easy to photograph. Thank you so much for giving us permission to share B.
Ladies what do you think? Are you loving this burlesque stage look? Do you want it for your boudoir photo shoot?
The package that Miss B got included an 8×8 Designer Bombshell Book, but she chose to swap it out for our 10×10 Art Book for no extra charge, and then she added spreads because (as I knew she would!) loved the photos and wanted more in her album and the Art Book is the best way to make that work.
Yes, we know it’s no longer Spring, but what the heck. We want to make our clients happy. So for now, the special stands 🙂
Psst… hint hint… we use Bay Photo for our Art Books, they are called “Print Press Books” on www.bayphoto.com
