So remember last year? Yeah, I still have yet to blog a lot of what happened. Life has changed A LOT for us in the past year. A big goal of mine for this year was to be better at blogging and so far, I’m really proud of myself. I’m starting to smooth out the kinks and make it a part of my regular workflow.

I want to go back and blog about all the stuff we did last year. I think it’s important for our business to keep up with the blog but more importantly, our lives. I would really love to have this one place where the best of all our work is at. Since we have not been so great at having a life outside of work, I figure I owe it to ourselves to at least get everything in here since this has been our life. With so many photos going through our hands, it’s easy to finish a job and move right on. I really want this blog to be a place where I can look back and see everything. This winter when all of our current work is done, I plan to go back through last year and blog everything that never made it on here.

To kick things off, lets go back to our BREAKfree workshop tour for 2010. One of our models emailed me a couple days ago to ask about photos and I was so happy to hear from her! The trip was so crazy especially once we got to china and then we moved a couple times when we got back home so I lost her contact information and never got her photos to her. It was a great reminder of all the old stuff I have yet to blog so I figured it would be a great start to kicking off my retro blogs. Perhaps that’s what I shall call all of them, because they are old. :)

This was from our Oklahoma workshop. Jill was great to work with. I loved her crazy outfits and she was really easy to shoot. I had a great time in Oklahoma. We met some really nice people at the workshop. Rebecca Manney of RM photography stands out in my mind the most. Since the workshop she has gone full time in photography and her work has improved a lot! She stands out in my mind because she was the only one who could make it to dinner the night before the workshop so we got to know her a little better. Her work ethic is something I will forever remember. It’s rare to meet someone who is a hard worker these days. Someone who is fully committed to putting in the time and doing things right is just not how our culture seems to be anymore.

Photography may seem like a “super fun job” from the outside. Whenever I tell someone what I do their eyes just light up with glee and say how great that must be. First, yes, I really do love what I do. I feel extremely blessed every year when we book up our weddings knowing that I have a job again this year where I can do what I do best and can work for myself. However, It’s a TON of work and by no means a 9-5 job. It’s not all fun, a lot of it is completely boring business stuff. If I only had to do the artsy stuff, then yes, my eyes might always light up with glee as well. To run any small business requires a really good work ethic. When things stop being new is when a solid work ethic kicks in and the strong survive. It doesn’t matter what the job is like, how much it pays, ect. I will always do my very best because what I do reflects on my character and who I am. Our lowest paying jobs get just as much of me as our highest paying ones. It’s also something that does make you stand out and I really hope people see than in me as much as I saw that in her. A year later, I still remember Rebecca because of her passion towards having a good work ethic so thats certainly something.

We are retiring the BREAKfree workshops for a while and teaming up with McVay Vision this year for a new series called FORWARDworkshops. It is 3 days and is geared more towards intermediate photographers instead of just beginners. One big difference will be more focus on off camera lighting with Ryan and business and marketing with Vince. We are not the most awesome business people so we didn’t focus a lot on that before but Vince is just brilliant when it comes to that so it’s a really nice addition. I, of course, will be taking a day to go over editing, workflow and design, as usual. :) www.FORWARDworkshops.com I’ll post more on this later, but the only date open for 2011 is October 3-5 so check out the website for more information.

Anyways, here’s Jill! :)

In this wind tunnel thing we brought her too, well, as you can imagine, it was FREEZING. She was such a great sport, you can’t even tell how horribly cold she was. Wink! hahaha

The scene starts in Denver the day after rigerous scouting as always… We found a sweet Tim Burton wall to start with a great couple we found at the last minute. So things seemed to be going well…see? Pretty awesome.

So where does it go wrong you ask? Well I guess shooting in some of the places we do, we had it coming. That’s just the risk you take when you gotta get that shot you see in your head. Anyway, This lady comes up to me… Friendly at first and I though she was just passing through no biggie so I humored her as always. So then she starts actually talking to me and all the sudden talking about how her husband died and how much she misses him… It put me in an awkward spot because I really felt bad for her (even though she wreaked of booze and her crying was less and less genuine). So after a while I am just like I’m sorry I don’t know what to tell you! Then she started telling me her family was on extreme home makeover and how I should take a picture of her and her family because it would be good for me… Mind you this all happened very fast and I was getting very confused. Where was her family, how was I going to do that I have a workshop to focus on?

So I tell her just go get your family because I can’t leave (as she was tugging on me to come with her) So she said OK after a while and said she would be right back. Then Chris, one of our workshop attendees tells me he saw her and 3 big dudes across the street prior to her coming across the street. He said they were talking and looking over, and only she came up to me… Sounds very sketchy. So I was like “that’s it, lets take off”… forget about breaking down the flash let’s just leave and get the cars later. So we took off down the alley and about half way down we hear yelling and whistling from a block behind us. While I knew better then to look back I just kept speed walking as discretely as i could!!

We ducked into some hotel, and took a breath… It’s so messed up that they would try and play me like that… Play to my kindness, seeing it as a weakness. Makes me pretty upset to be honest. We have always given people the benefit of the doubt, but it gets harder every day unfortunately.

Annnnyway…heart-beating stuff… Once we got our nerves back we could finally get some mojo going! We got some great stuff playing with that Sigma 14mm!!

Andrea was down for it all… And she did goood.

Erika Jessop seemed to have more mojo in this location that I did… I will admit it! Still like it though! :)

Remember the hupfers? We shot their wedding last August and it was one of the craziest things I have ever experienced. When we planned out this big 3 month trip we knew we wanted to see san francisco and to visit with the hupfers so we planned to stay a few days there and trash her dress.

The shoot I had in mind did not exactly work out. Since we were in China and Hawaii for so long it was kind of hard to find a hair stylist and makeup artist since there was always so much going on. So when we got back I desperately tried to find one but nobody was available. So, I did it myself and since I know nothing about such things really…I think I did a pretty decent job! It was also helpful that I brought along my wig as well. :)

So, we set out to trash the dress and that didn’t happen. Why… You must be thinking.

At their wedding we had at most 10 minutes to do their bride and groom photos. It was frantic and for what we usually deliver, there just wasn’t as many as we would have liked. This is why we really try and keep on schedule for weddings because its so sad when we can’t do all the cool things we like to do. So I figured since we are trashing the dress, we should do some not-so-trash the dress stuff first to make up for what we didn’t get at the wedding.

The not-so-trash part just kept being awesome and we ran out of time. I wanted to do like a 10 hour shoot to get it all done but we were all exhausted and overslept which pushed us back a bit. At the end of the day I didn’t want to do the ideas we had to trash it and not do them right because lack of light and time. I want to do this dress justice so we decided to call it a day. However, WE WILL trash that dress! It’s just going to be on our next visit. By then, we will be able to plan more ahead of time and really do some awesome things. She is willing to just 100% destroy this thing and to be honest, I feel honored that she is letting us be the ones to do it. :) It’s going to be epic and I can’t wait to get back to San Francisco to make it all happen!

From this, I learned some things. Many brides don’t get a ton of photos on their wedding. We sure try and deliver as many and as much variety as we possibly can, but at the same time, your being so careful with the dress and its such a busy day that it’s just a different kind of day. Then, after the wedding, a lot of brides would freak out at the idea of “trashing” their wedding dress. To be honest, steph’s dress really should have been trashed. We dragged it around all day, sat in things, stepped all over it, ect. and got some awesome pictures…without trashing it and without being nervous about destroying it. This is when we came up with the idea of a “Dirt Dont’ Hurt” shoot. All the things done to steph’s dress can be cleaned, and that includes all the mess that was on it from her reception.

So…all other brides past, present and future… If your terrified of the trash the dress idea but want more awesome photos, perhaps you should consider a dirt don’t hurt shoot with us. :) It’s a fun way to get some more use out of your dress, accessorize crazier than you would at your wedding and get your hair and makeup done.

AND… a big thanks to Nic for helping us out with our lights and helping out all day and Soma Sofa for letting us shoot in their AMAZING furniture store!

I wanted to find a makeup and hair stylist for this but I waited too long and nobody was available so I did it myself and luckily I brought along my wig too!  Anyways…I just edited a few of my (many) favorites as a little preview for everyone. There will be a whole post about it soon with the whole story of the day. We also took some great video too which will be surfacing in the future as well.

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun haha… but now…I must sleep. We start our drive back across the country tomorrow! First stop, Elko Nevada!

We saw the most amazing skies of our lives on this trip. They were all so different and wide open compared to what we are used to back in Michigan. I can hardly believe any of it is actually real. New Mexico was the most interesting of them all with it’s crazy bi-polar weather.

Traveling from Michigan to San Francisco: 5,670 Miles. We want to take moment to thank our trusty Accord for not breaking into tiny bits along the roadside. :)

We stopped by the Lowepro booth and found a perfect fit for us that I couldn’t pass up!! Our last bag was a Lowepro and I was super happy with it, but hey, this one rolls, AND it becomes a backpack in a pinch!! So many great features that you should really check out here.

That being said I will be selling the old bag when we get home and you can check it out here until I get some better images up. It’s in really good shape though.

Anyway! Here’s some images of all out stuff, and how perfect this new case is!!

I know you want me to tell you what all this stuff is so how about you go to my flickr image since I can tag stuff!

You liked that didn’t you =) It’s ok… Here’s a couple more of the bag.

First thing I did when I got the chance was customize the little velcro dividers to fit everything just right. I think I did pretty good!

Well that’s all the camera smut I have for you… You will have to get your fix somewhere else for the time being. Hopefully we could tide you over for the time being.

When we walked into the lobby it smelled amazing, was clean and shiny and had giant crystal chandeliers hanging everywhere. I was in hotel heaven. When we got to the room, I was glowing with excitement. I couldn’t stop my face from smiling because it was all so clean and nice. We usually stay in fairly decent hotels, but nothing ever that nice and clean. Because it’s vegas, we got it for about $100 a night!

The whole hotel is also non smoking which just made me fall in love with the place even more. “Non-Smoking Rooms” are never untouched by smoke. Smoking just creeps it’s way into every nook it can find so when they told me the whole building was non-smoking, I pretty much decided to live there forever.

It was slightly around the corner off the strip so it was quiet and great in every possible way. I enjoyed every moment there.

Our first two days in vegas we walked the strip, had some AMAZING BBQ at the harley davidson restaurant and just relaxed and did the Reekie Shoot. We had to go to LA for a couple days but decided to head back to vegas for a couple more days to be able to go to at least the trade show at WPPI. Naturally, we went back to the trump hotel and had a couple more nights of bliss. We thought about staying at the MGM for the second trip there but when we found out Trump is the only non smoking place, I knew it was the place for us to relax before leaving for China. :)

I have to say, the bathroom might have been…ok, it was by far my favorite part of the room. That may seem weird to say, but there was a TV inside the mirror! INSIDE! The shower and toilet were also separated by their own doors and the bathtub was the deepest tub I have ever seen. It was basically amazing in every way.

We were lucky enough to find Kristina and Kevin through Jessica and Melanie since we didn’t have anyone to shoot for our LA workshop yet. We were staying in a rediculous town with nowhere to shoot so we drove up to venice and found some pretty cool things. There are some interesting people there… hahah

It was supposed to rain A LOT right during the time we had planned to shoot so we were really bummed. However, miracles happen to us a lot with the weather and the rain pushed back and started POURING right after we finished. We were prepared with cute umbrellas and hello kitty rain boots if we needed  them. We could have done some fun things in the rain, but I am happy it was nice out just because it makes things so much easier.

There are two images in this post that are “beach” photos. They are probably the only beach photos you’ll ever see posted from us. Beach photos just always tend to look a bit cliche but I am really happy with how these couple turned out. This first one I actually love a ton, who would have thought?
Kristina is 5 feet tall and completely adorable!
Some of our workshop attendees being awesome! hahah

I still have a couple more posts to go before leaving for china so keep checking back!

We first arrived in Vegas last wednesday, the 3rd of march. We didn’t really have any plans for our stay, vegas was just kinda on our way to LA to it was a good place to stop.

In the beginning of our trip we stopped in Austin Texas and did a family shoot for Jessica and Nick. Well, since then Jessica had talked to her friend Melanie who lives in Vegas so she booked a family session with us. After this, we were looking for models for our LA workshop and melanie hooked us up with Kristina and Kevin. Thats quite the chain of people for such a short time. We just happen to be going through all the states where these people have friends so thats cool, haha.

Anyways, back to vegas. We did this shoot on day 23 of our trip. We got up early to go scouting for places to shoot because we didn’t want to do cheesy things at the busy parts of the strip. We looked in all the wrong places. We wanted to find a ghost town but got half way there only to realize it was MUCH further than google told me it was. So we turned back around looking for any kind of “downtown”. We finally ended up in the real downtown las vegas which I assume is the old strip. It was much less busy and had cooler things so I was really happy at the end of it all. This was originally going to be a “sisters” shoot but Melanie’s husband just happened to have the day off of work so he came along and we worked in some couples stuff as well.

We left the next day for our LA workshop but decided to come back to Vegas for 3 more days after the workshop. The hotel here is SO nice and so cheap, WPPI is happening right now and we were only a few hours away. I figured staying a nice quiet place would be good to catch up on all our work before leaving for China on Friday and we would be able to at least go to the trade show as well.

Anyways, enough of my jabbering. Look at all these pretty pictures!

This first one is possibly my favorite of the set. I just love how those stairs look with the fisheye!

This was shot with the 135 from across the street. If only you knew how awkward this was…haha…this was on the side of las vegas blvd I think and it was a stop light so we kept having to wait for traffic to clear and were getting a lot of people looking. I think it turned out cool, but I can’t say I would have enjoyed sitting there like that so I’m glad they were good sports about it. :)
Could this be one of my favorite “up shots” ever?! I think it might be. Everything just looks so cool about it.
Since we decided to stop trespassing so much, our style has changed a bit. However, we keep getting yelled at by security guards and things! UGh! Luckily, in this case, we got our shot before he yelled at us to get off the garbage can… and really…what’s the big deal about sitting on a garbage can? It’s a GARBAGE CAN! hah
I LOVE the ninja jump from Robyn on the left. I suggested it but didn’t think she would execute it SO perfectly. I am impressed.
We have been mostly natural light shooters but have been getting a lot better and more efficient with flash lately so when it gets dark, I mildly freak out but Ryan always brings me back to reality and does some really awesome stuff with flash. A lot of this shoot was done with flash actually. I am glad he is so awesome, it really calms me down a lot, haha.  This building was so cool, it changed colors like every 5 seconds.
We went back to this spot because we liked the ceiling but while we were setting up our flash some random guy asked us when the show started and I had no idea what he was talking about and then all the sudden the whole ceiling went all trippy with these lights. So…good timing I guess, haha.
There were a few funny out-takes from this shoot but I decided this was my favorite. That guy on the left both cracks me up and completely creeps me out!
We had a lot of fun and hope you all like the images!  So…. thats the end of that, more stuff to come! I’ve got till wednesday to get all my editing and blogging caught up so I don’t get behind once we are in china. I can’t even believe we fly out on Friday! AHHHHH!

Ok. The End. :)