So the flu is gone. I'm feeling better which I'm thankful for.
Yesterday the ladies who clean my house were over and while reaching to clean a window, one of them put her weight on my desk and broke it causing my 21" monitor to fall and break along with a few other things. Ahhh!!!!! Why does everything happen all at once!?!
I took my monitor in to the friendly guys at the Apple store and they are hooking me up with a new foot for it (basically a plastic part that helps it stand up) for $100. Thankfully the monitor itself is alright. But the desk is being held up temporarily by some album boxes and now I'm in Flagstaff for the weekend :).
I'm here with my friends Sarah and Ryan who are getting hitched in August. Sarah's dad lives up here and we thought it would be a fun place to do their engagement shoot.
So hopefully bad things really do happen in threes and my grandpa's heart attack, the flu and the destruction of my office are it for me this week :).
So...the website is back up and so is the blog. Let me know if you click on any links that don't work somewhere or find any photos missing where they should appear--just leave a comment here so I can get all my bases covered.
But email is still down. No telling when that will be fixed. Feel free to email me at melissajill@mac.com in the meantime or communicate through the comments on my blog.
Tomorrow I'm heading out of town AGAIN to take care of #55 on my list -- Go camping! I'm excited to get out of the heat and head up to northern Arizona once again. It's going to be weird, though, going a full 3 days without any contact with the outer world via email or the internet. I'm sure I'll go through some hard core withdrawals. I guess if my email is going to be down, this is a good time since I won't be able to check it the next couple days anyways. But I'm very sorry to those of you who I haven't gotten back to. Please be patient with me! Things are going to slow down and I'll be able to get on top of everything again soon.
Right now I'm going through every small business owner's nightmare--my website is down, and I can't receive email! Ahhhh!!!
I'm in the process of transferring my domain to a new hosting company and it's quite an arduous process because my original domain registrar is basically out of business and is taking his time getting everything straightened out. I don't fully understand all this stuff but realized late last night that I wasn't receiving emails and then checked my website to find out it was down. So I've been scrambling ever since.
Please be patient with me as I get all this sorted out and feel free to call instead of email if you want to get through to me today.
Sorry I haven't blogged in a few days, guys. I've been scrambling to get everything wrapped up at the office and then today spent the day traveling up to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where I'm shooting my cousin Laura's wedding on Friday. I made it even though I feared for my life a bit in this small plane I took from Minneapolis to Duluth in the midst of a rain storm. It was pretty turbulent.
It's been nice to see family today and breathe in some cool tree-scented air. My aunt and uncle live in a log house they built near a swamp and the noise from the frogs that live there is unbelievably loud. I'll have to post some photos of how beautiful it is here soon.
In other news, I sent out my May newsletter yesterday. So if you didn't receive it and are interested, just put your email address in the box to the right and you'll receive fun news from me every month.
I'm so excited! My friend, Dane Sanders, a wedding photographer in OC that started his business up around the same time as me and helped found OSP (Open Source Forum) has this great thing for photographers called "Simple Photo Minute." He puts together short videos that are educational and seek to help wedding photographers simplify their lives and businesses. It's great and I've been watching the weekly podcasts for over a year now.
When I made my list of 101 goals to complete in 1001 days, I put this one on there. About a month ago, I filmed a segment of myself walking through how I run my client meetings and Dane used it! Click here to view my 1st Simple Photo Minute!
Today I went to lunch with Gino Lucadamo of Story by Photo. Gino has been in the wedding photography business a lot longer than I have and is doing very well for himself specializing in destination weddings. Not only is he talented but he's a fun guy to hang out with. We've gone to lunch a number of times over the past couple years and it's always fun.
I really enjoy hanging out with other wedding photographers. We have a great industry of people who enjoy networking and helping each other out.
"Nestled at the base of South Mountain, Secret Garden Event Center is the perfect place for a romantic wedding. The 1929 historic home has been lovingly restored to provide the backdrop for brides and grooms to have the weddings of their dreams. And to this beautiful place Elizabeth and Nathan traveled from their home in Minnesota to become husband and wife. Elizabeth spent several years as an on-site coordinator for other venues in Phoenix, but she chose this place for her own wedding."
"With lots of attention to detail, bright, bright colors and many handmade favors for the guests who traveled from the Midwest to be with them, Elizabeth and Nathan planned a party to be remembered for years to come."
"Their minister took a moment during the ceremony to read letters written by the bride and groom to each other. These letters were filled with moments shared and many words of love and concern as the couple lived through Nathan's deployment in Iraq and his safe return home to Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth's advice to other brides would be to start planning early and concentrate your money in the areas you think are most important. For the bride it was photographer, DJ and florist."
Thanks for the shout-out Elizabeth! What a beautiful wedding! It's been fun to re-live it!
Last night I had the opportunity to speak at our monthly Association of Bridal Consultants (ABC) meeting. I've been a part of this networking group for two years now and it's been a blessing to my business. I've met a number of consultants that I've gotten to know and work with as well as many other vendors within the wedding industry. We meet at a different wedding venue each month and enjoy a fully catered meal. There are always new people to meet and now that I've been going for awhile, I have some good friends who I get to touch base with as well.
Last night I was able to share a little about my business and then I talked about blogging! Out of 30 people who were there, only 3 had blogs. I was a little surprised! The two main reasons people gave for not blogging were that it takes too much time and that they don't know if they would have anything to say. I can relate to these because this is exactly how I felt a little over a year ago before I started my blog. But I jumped in and quickly came to enjoy blogging and see that there are also huge benefits for my business! If you'd like to take a look at the handout that I passed out last night that lists a number of those benefits as well as ideas for blogging topics and tips, click here. And, by the way, I'm not sure what happened with the font. I used a very readable font on my handout but for some reason when it was converted to a pdf it got all funktified.
Yesterday I spent some time at Bright Event Gallery shooting some images for their website. Bright was started this year by fabulous wedding coordinators, Victoria Canada and Kelly Gill, as a high-end "one-stop-shop" for planning extraordinary events. I am honored to be one of their select vendors that they feature at the gallery.
Bright's Old Town Scottsdale location is so fun and beautiful and every time I stop by there are new things to look at. The girls do a great job.
They've got lots of fun favor ideas:
Purses in every size and color:
Cute wedding planning binders:
Fun quotes on the walls:
Table settings that are updated and changed frequently. I love this one:
Look at these fun, colorful glasses:
I loved how Kelly from Kelly Ashworth Design used characters' names from one of my favorite TV shows, "The Office" as place markers (this one says "Jim Halpert" in case you can't read it):
Fun T-shirts:
Colorful wraps:
They've got everything displayed so beautifully. Check out these cubicles:
Scented candles:
Stationary:
This is a great idea -- packets to keep the children busy at receptions:
These are great too. They're etch-it cups and stickers that you can use to personalize your drinks:
They even sell custom made jewelry:
And Victoria always amazes me with her creative ideas. These are inexpensive candles she bought from a grocery story and stuck letters onto. You could spell out anything (happy Cinco De Mayo, by the way!):
Finally, one of my favorite things about stopping by the store--the candy bar:
The girls were nice enough to model the wraps for me. From left to right --Ashley--an associate planner, Victoria, Kelly and Mary with My Wedding Film who was there to meet a client:
I finally got all of my new equipment that I was inspired to get after the One Light Workshop. So last night Jamie, Shannon & I went out to Old Town Gilbert to play with it. It was fun! I was so thankful to have both of them because the light stand kept wanting to blow over and it was so dark that I needed someone to shine a flashlight in order to focus my camera. I would definitely recommend bringing an assistant for this kind of shoot.
I found out about this cool blog tool on David Jay's blog and thought it would be fun to try on my own. Now I can see where all my friends are logging on from. It looks like I have some all around the world, which is fun.
If you click on the map, you can see current and past visitors and even zoom into different areas of the globe. The dark parts of the map are where people are sleeping; or are supposed to be sleeping, I guess. It's dark where I live right now but yet here I am, blogging. What a crazy workaholic blogger I am :).
I'm still working away on my list of 101 goals to complete in 1001 days. It's going pretty well but I'm working on some bigger goals that are taking me a little longer to complete. For instance--running 3 consecutive 10 minute miles--I'm realizing that is a BIT of a stretch for me. But I'm going to eventually get there.
When I was at WPPI in March I came across Triple Scoop Music -- a new company that is working to bring musicians and photographers together. For photographers, finding good music that is legal to use is tough. Everything is copyrighted and we could be sued hundreds of thousands of dollars for using a song without permission. But large music labels and famous artists don't tend to respond to our emails about wanting to use their songs on our small business websites. They're selling the rights to the songs to people who are making movies for thousands of dollars. We're chump change. So it's a dilemma. We want good music but it's nearly impossible to get the permission to use it legally.
So I made a goal to find some good legal music to use. There's a lot of royalty free music sites but the songs are generally pretty cheesy. But thankfully I found Triple Scoop Music at WPPI and had them put together a custom CD for me with 10 songs I picked off their website. They have some decent stuff. I still think there's a ways to go in bridging the gap between musicians and photographers but this is a good start.
Check back on my website soon to see some fresh intro slideshows with some of the new music. I will also be using the new songs on my upcoming wedding slideshows that I link to on my blog. I'm sure you're all getting tired of the old stuff :).
I'm excited to announce that I am now offering $20 gift certificates that can be used toward the purchase of prints on Pictage, my online lab, for ALL GUESTS who pre-register on Pictage to view photos of an upcoming wedding. All you have to do is go to pictage.com and search for the upcoming wedding you will be attending, then log in using your email address and a password of your choice. Then, when the photos are posted on Pictage, you will receive an email letting you know that they are available and giving you a special code to redeem your gift certificate online. It's easy!
If you're a bride whose wedding is coming up, you can send an email out to all of your family and friends, encouraging them to pre-register. Also, at your reception, I always collect the names and email addresses of guests interested in viewing all of the photos online after the wedding. Then I send them an email with a link to see the slideshow and instructions for pre-registering. So either way, whether they hear it from you or me and take the time to pre-register, they will receive a complimentary gift of $20! Exicting, huh!?
Last night we had our monthly Phoenix PUG meeting. This group of local photographers that I lead has been meeting for over a year now and I love it! It's such a great time each month getting together and networking and talking photography. We always go out to dinner afterwards too.
Last night we had around 35 photographers which is a new record. We've had over 100 photographers come through at our meetings but never all at once. So the meeting had a lot of energy. Leo Garcia, a training specialist from Pictage, flew out from California to train us on the Album Designer and Album Design Service that Pictage offers. We also debriefed WPPI and Mandy Hank, a local photographer, did a studio spotlight where she shared some of her work and a little about herself and her business. It was a great meeting!
Community is such an important element that blesses me and my business. Owning a small business can definitely make you feel isolated and like you're on your own under an immense amount of pressure to succeed. But getting together and building relationships with other people who are in the same boat and who want to support and help each other makes all the difference.
Yesterday I was in the One Light Workshop in San Diego from 9:30 am to after midnight. It was a very full day but I learned a ton that I am really jazzed about taking home with me and applying to my photography. Above is our talented professor, Zack Arias, who really has a great handle on how to use light. His work is amazing.
We basically learned how to turn a descent photo like this:
Into a more dramatic and powerful photo like this:
By using a set-up like this:
I love how Zack was willing to lie on the ground and in puddles to get the best shot. It makes me question my own dedication :).
We hit the streets of San Diego and ran into a cool local artist who let us use his rooftop to shoot on. I took some time to shoot some photos just for fun (no workshop application here--I already know this stuff :))
Then he sent us out on our own in groups to see if we cold figure this stuff out ourselves. This is what I came up with using the very modelesque, Sara France as my model:
Pretty cool huh!?
At midnight when we were all wiped out we decided we needed to take a group photo out on Sara's front lawn. It started out all cute and normal:
Then....the sprinklers came on:
The perfect ending to a great day.
Thanks so much to Zack and all the fun photographers who attended who made this workshop one of the best I've been to yet!
In the business world, you hear a lot about "outsourcing." I definitely have embraced this idea of paying other people or companies to do some of the stuff I don't have to do or don't want to do in order to free me up to focus on the things I have to do or want to do. As business grows, there's no way I can do it all. So in order to continue to grow and provide quality service, I need to outsource some parts of my business and life.
Some of the things I outsource are:
Pictage --- Back-end print and order fullfillment and shipping Jamie --- Color correction and editing Fox Peterson --- Accounting Sarah Marsh --- Web design and implementation
And my personal favorite thing to outsource --- housecleaning! I just started outsourcing this about 6 months ago. And just this week I found some great new ladies to clean my house. They do a great job and only charge $50 per time. I have them coming every 2 weeks. What a steal! This is a no-brainer for me. There's no way I could clean my house myself for that value. I make way more focusing on my business for those few hours every other week. And I love when my house is all clean at once.
I encourage you to think about your business and life and what you can outsource in order to free you up to grow and expand. It's definitely the way to go!
Tonight I finally had my friends Matt, Angie & Maddux over. We've been trying to set up a time to hang out for what seems like forever and finally we gott'er done. Matt and Angie are local wedding photographers as well, who I met through the Phoenix PUG (Pictage User Group) and we hit it off right away. Together they make up Sloan Photographers.
Their son, Maddux, is the most angelic child I think I've met to date. I don't think I heard a peep out of him all night and there were no toys in sight. He even sat quietly watching "American Idol" with us. We had chocolate for desert and he got his hands on two mini Twix bars and just hung on all night. Too bad he doesn't know the yumminess hidden underneath the cool, shiny wrappers :).
I'm so thankful for my friendship with Matt & Angie. Not only is it great to have photographers who are friends as we can talk shop and help each other out, but they are just darn good people who make me happy whenever they're around.
Our custom designed guest books are a hot product this season. Everyone seems to love the idea of using their engagement photos to create a unique guest book that their wedding guests can write notes to them in at the wedding. We just finished another design for Eric and Melanie who are getting married in Sedona in May. They are a gorgeous couple and I'm really looking forward to their wedding. We shot their engagement photos in the Papago Park area which made for a unique look. Check out their guest book design by clicking here.
Last night I had Liene Stevens of Blue Orchid Designs over. I've gotten to know her a little and we are becoming fast friends. She brought Philippino food and I gave her a little crochet lesson. Here's Liene starting a baby blanket:
She's going to be done with that in no time :).
We also watched the movie "Born into Brothels." I first heard about this movie by reading Liene's blog and it peaked my interest. So I put it on my list to make sure I didn't forget I wanted to watch it. I know it's an easy goal to complete, but I wanted to make sure I was intentional.
The movie was about a young photographer, Zana Briski, who spent a few years living in the red light district of Calcutta, India. She got to know many of the women who make their living through prostitution as well as their children who live in some of the worst conditions I've ever seen. She got all of the children cameras and film and began to teach them about photography. It's amazing everything she poured into them -- even working tirelessly to get many of them accepted into boarding schools so they could escape their bleak fate in the brothels. This movie is definitely a "must see." I'm going to watch it one more time before returning it to the video store just to try to take more of it in.
Thanks Liene for a fun night! Can't wait to do it again!
So, at WPPI I'm eating dinner with some of my closest photographer friends. I've known these guys for over a year now. And all of a sudden they start talking passionately about literature and Shakespeare and stuff and I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. These guys are fun-loving and passionate about photography and I know they're smart and stuff but I was a little stunned by the fact that they were all so impassioned by this topic.
I started video taping them about 10 minutes into the conversation so by now they'd already covered a lot of ground. And a warning to those of you who don't know Isaac Bailey, Stuart Thurkill or Jared Platt or who aren't fascinated by literature--you might find this video extremely boring. But if you do know them, I hope you'll find it as entertaining as I did.
I finally got to take Jamie to dinner for her birthday tonight. We went to Mexican and I of course had fajitas :). Above Jamie is enjoying her flan.
Jamie has stuck with me for a year and a half so far and tells me that she is going to work for me forever. I keep telling her I'm going to need her to sign a legal document stating that :).
It was fun filling her in on WPPI and hearing everything she is up to with her growing portrait business. She has evolved into an amazing photographer! I'm so proud that I can take a little credit for her.
Thanks for the fun night Jamie! And for being the fun, great person you are.
I'm sitting at the Las Vegas airport waiting for my delayed flight to board so I thought I'd post real quick. Above is a photo of me with my buddies Todd Watson and David Jay, the superstar masterminds behind ShowIt Web software that any photographer who is even slightly cool uses to post slideshows on their websites. I was glad to run into them on the tradeshow floor and connect for a minute since there are thousands of people here and it's pure craziness.
I'm coming home a little tired out but with some great ideas I'm going to pursue as well as a few new products and I'm a little closer to checking off a few more business goals on my 101 list. I'll have to post on those a little more in the future.
I'm having a blast in Las Vegas at WPPI. This is my second year here and it's definitely different than the first year but still just as great. Last year everything was new and I soaked everything in like a sponge. This year, I feel more relaxed and ok with not doing EVERYTHING, which is impossible anyway, and I'm mostly just enjoying hanging out with friends and meeting new people. That's definitely the best thing about these type of conferences. It's always great to learn and be inspired but the networking and relationship-building is the most valuable.
My friend, Jared Platt, who is a great Phoenix photographer, just shot a wedding for a couple who is now on their honeymoon in Vegas. So he contacted them to do a fun shoot while he was here. I tagged along as did two other photographer friends, Isaac Bailey and Andy Andrews. I mostly had fun shooting the other photographers.
Here's Andy shooting Jared laying on the ground as he shot the couple:
Isaac shooting Jared as the couple stood ignored in the background:
The always goofy Isaac Bailey:
And the cute couple:
I'm sure everyone wondered what kind of celebrities these guys were having four photographers following them around the streets of Vegas :). It was fun.
I've got one more day here and then I'll be headed home. I'll have to share more with you on what I've gotten out of WPPI once I get back and have had a chance to reflect more on it all. Till then...
So here it is--my first TV appearance. And I say "first" because I'm sure this appearance on a little-watched local Arizona channel will lead to my career in network television and major motion pictures. It's just a matter of time :).
Thanks to Ken, my favorite DJ, for hooking me up with Pat. And to Owen, my video guy for getting the footage converted. And I'd also like to thank my parents, God and the academy :).
This morning I was interviewed by Pat McMahon on his show on our local AZ channel. I tivo-ed it and it was pretty crazy seeing myself on TV. It was fun and I'm working at getting the footage converted so I can share my segment with you. So stay tuned for that...
Other than that, today is a pretty lazy rainy day. It's pouring like crazy outside! I love when it rains.
Oh--I sent out my March newsletter yesterday so hopefully you got that. If not, type your email into the box on the right side of my blog and you will receive my monthly newsletters.
This is one of those things I've had on my list of things to do FOREVER--something that would be good to do but is easy to put off and never get around to. So I put it on my 101 in 1001 list and I got it done! I feel so official now having pens with my logo on them :).
At receptions I put out little forms for people to write their email addresses on if they want to be able to view all the photos online. So it's great to have these pens to put out with them. And if people take one home with them--great! I have 500. :)
I just got a copy of the March issue of the Wedding Chronicle and two of my weddings are featured in it! Paula and Brian got married in November at The Wrigly Mansion and Kim and John got married in November at Grayhawk Golf Club. Both were amazing weddings. Each spread in the publication features numerous photos telling the story of the event as well as a few paragraphs on how the couple met and how their wedding day was unique. You can pick up a copy to see for yourself at any AJ's fine foods.
I also want to send out a congrats to my fellow photographer friends who were also featured in this issue -- Michelle Meyer, Jennifer Bowen, Gino with Story by Photo, and Anne McCarthy with One Fine Day -- way to go guys!
The wedding on Saturday was fabulous. I'm working on getting some photos edited to share with you. But...I'm also kinda on vacation visiting with my friend Michelle in Charlotte, NC. More to share on that later.
Today I met up with Sara and Melanie with Whitebox Weddings who are located here in NC. They are two super-cool girls who have a great thing going here in North Carolina. They somehow found my website and subscribed to my newsletter. So that's how I found out about them. Since I knew I would be coming here, we set up lunch and talked about the industry and all the stuff photographers enjoy talking about.
Some people wonder why I would want to meet up with other photographers who are my "competition" but I really don't view other photographers that way. I love networking every chance I get and sharing ideas and learning from one another. It's great to have friends to call on in times of need. And also, the reality is, I can only do one wedding a day. So when I'm booked, I want to be able to send brides to another photographer who I think is fabulous and will do a great job for them. When I do that, other photographers generally return the favor. So networking with photographers is one of the best things you can do marketing-wise. Plus it's just fun to have a good excuse to go to lunch!
Sara & Melanie--thanks for making the drive to meet up with me and I look forward to teaming up with you guys in referrals and hanging out with you in the future when the opportunity arises! You guys are great!
Today is my lovely assistant, Jamie's birthday. She has been working with me for a year and a half and I appreciate her as a person and everything she does for me SO much. She shoots most all my weddings with me and is very talented. She also takes care of most of my color correction and editing so that I can focus on other parts of the business which is a HUGE help.
You are awesome Jamie! And per the usual, your belated gift has been ordered but not delivered yet :). We'll celebrate when I get back!
It feels good to check this one off my list because it's a big one. I can't believe I did it! Every single day since February 6th I have blogged. When I started my blog last April I couldn't imagine coming up with something worthwhile to say a couple times a week let alone every day. But this last month has stretched me and helped me to think outside the box with blogging. I think it will help me going forward to make my blog interersting and keep it consistent--even if I'm not posting every day.
Tomorrow I'm leaving on a jet plane for the Carolinas. I will be shooting a wedding in SC on Saturday and visiting friends in both the Carolinas the rest of the time I'm there--a week total. So it should be fun! I will be available by email and phone but it's hard to say what internet connection will be like so I'll try to blog a couple times. Hope you have a great week!
