There are only a couple spots left for this weekend’s Holiday Mini Sessions! Don’t forget!

I’m so happy to make the big announcement today! Over a week ago I posted about the opportunity to mentor a fellow photographer. I’ve been excited about extending the opportunity. I wasn’t at all prepared for what was to come. I felt certain that during this process I did not want to run a “contest” in the traditional sense of the word. I know that if you strip it down it basically was a contest but I wanted to take the time to really get to know each person that was responding to me. Hence, the extra time in making the announement.

I’ve been so so blessed to have connected with so many amazing people through this process. While I obviously can’t offer the opportunity to everyone, I still feel like I’ve made all these new friends! That part of the process was amazing.

Not so amazing….trying to pick someone. Yea, that was harder than I ever thought. I spent alot of time reading through emails and interacting with everyone. It was hard knowing that there were so many of you out there that totally deserve this opportunity. However, I fairly certain that this will continue to be something that I offer every 6 months or so. So, if you didn’t get picked this time around…don’t give up. Take the time to push forward and see what happens! I can’t wait to see the progress you are going to make!

So, I am happy and thrilled to announce that my new friend and super duper rockstar mentee is………………………

drumroll………………………….

or long pause………………………………………….with alot of dots…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Catie Ronquillo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m so super excited to take the next steps of this journey with Catie! She is a newlywed (her lovestory is amazing) and just relocated to Dallas! She’s ready to dive in in Dallas and I know she’s ready to get started!

Congrats Catie!!!! I can’t wait!

Some days things just go from bad to worse and then out of no where you are blessed with a ray of sunshine that just makes your heart explode with joy and you have to come blog about it immediately!

This week has been rough. To say the least. We’ve spent the last two weeks warding off more illness. The latest…the flu. You know the one that’s been in the news? Yea, that one. blah.  Mark and the boys have had it already so Brooklyn and I are just bideing our time. Don’t you love my positive outlook?

Today I woke up with a slight headache which led me to beleive immediately that I was destined to be curled up in a ball with a fever of 103 by noon. It didn’t happen. However, I still didn’t feel great. By noon my head was pounding and my stomach was starting to hurt. To top it off our dog, ate another pair of flip flops and pulled the eyes out of the last Build A Bear the kids owned and ate a roll of toilet paper. It was early release today so all the kids were home 2 hours early. On most days 2 hours isn’t a big deal. Today 2 hours might as well of been the start of summer vacation.

Add all of this to the mountain of work I’m trying to get done and you can probably guess that I was starting to wonder if vodka martini’s at 10:30 a.m. could pass as a “preventative treatment” of sorts.

Then I remembered I needed to place a special order for some friends hanging out in Seattle this weekend. I was starting to get frantic when I realized that I needed a fairly large order of goodies placed and delivered in less than 24 hours! It was proving to be a challenge of sorts as everywhere I found didn’t offer what I was specifically looking for, couldn’t deliver or couldn’t deliver to the area I needed them to deliver too.

Then the ray of beautiful light beamed through my computer screen.

I had landed at Cupcake Royale. Everything fell in to place. Well, almost everything. Minus that the list of zipcodes to where they delivered didn’t include the zipcode I needed and there was a time indicator on when I needed to hae the order in by to ensure delivery the next day. I’d missed it by over 2 hours. I was going to give it a shot anyway.

I explained the situation to the lovely  on the other end of the phone and she immediately solved all my problems. She was completely accommodating. Totally took care of me and reassured me that everything would be handled. FINALLY, some one who understands customer service! Even when they had every right to tell me NO.  She totally made me feel like I could trust her within the first 15 seconds of our conversation.

In the midst of a totally crappy day with a screaming toddler, a headache, a 7 year old who totally should’ve went to school today since he was “bored” all day, the endless work and obligations that loomed ahead and fighting off the flu de pig this little specialty cupcake shop over 2200 miles away from me completely made my day.

And really, can you even doubt any place that has a blog called Legalize Frostitution.  Just one more reason I want to move to Seattle.

I wanted to remind everyone that my search for a mentee is still going on. I’ve had a couple people email me asking if it was “too late”. NO! It’s not. I will continue taking inquiries through Wednesday of this week. So you’ve got 3 days left. I am hoping to make a decision by Friday.

I am truly humbled at the response I’ve gotten. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!! Thank you for sharing yourselves with me! You’ve all been amazing. I am already having a hard time thinking about who will get this opportunity. However, know if you don’t get chosen this time it is something I may extend and offer again.  Again, I thank you!

One other reminder.

Remember today is the day! It’s going on right now! (just started so don’t worry you didn’t miss much…yet)

One other big announcement I’m thrilled to let you all know about is a labor of love my good friend and fabulously talented, Maile Wilson of Relish Portrait Studio, is launching. Get ready for this ladies….how cute are these???

Like many of us, Maile was tired of trying to find a safe way to carry her camera with her without having to lug a whole camera bag of stuff along. And 9x out of 10, an ugly camera bag at that. Recently there have been a few products that have stepped in and saved the fashion forward woman photographer and have filled the gaps nicely. However, what I love about Maile’s bag is that it works not only as a functional alternative when I’m shooting but it’s perfect for the times when I want to take my “stuff” with me but I’m not necessarily “playing photographer”. So all the times when I go to events where I’m ….just ME!!!! Woot!  Going to a wedding where I’m a guest, going to a shower, going to freakin’ SEA WORLD….this bag will work!!!

I was fortuante enough to see a prototype of the bag a couple months ago. Maile totally asked for input and feedback and was completely commited to creating a bag that would not only be WAY FREAKIN’ CUTE but functional. I loved that. There is ample room inside the bag for your camera & a couple lenses. The inside compartments were stury and the dividers velcro in and out so you can adjust the openings to fit your equipment. They are really versatile.

These are not only going to be great for the pros but perfect for those of you who have invested in your equipment and want a safe way to carry it with you while maintaining that fashionista persona you’ve worked hard to establish!

The offical announcment was made on Maile’s blog and she’s just about ready to roll into production on these. If you are interested on getting on the mailing list to be one of the first IN THE KNOW on these then you can sign up
here.

Congrats Maile! These are going to explode! Get ready!

I promised I would post the card designs available for the Holiday Mini Sessions ( if you haven’t booked there are still a few spaces available so email me at: chasity@studio423photo.com or call me 210.219.0113 to lock in your session).  This year there are four different designs and I just adore them all. I keep trying to decide which one I want for my own cards this year. I’m thinking I’ll just order a set of each design. I’m so not good at the self control thing.

Originally I was going to only offer the 4×6 flat cards.  If you’ve ordered cards from me in the past you know how awesome those are. Then I started thinking….what do I send out myself? I send out the 5×7 folded cards. They are a-may-zing!

Here’s a little blip from the email promo about them:

Let’s get one thing clear. These are not your average photo greeting cards that you print from a kiosk while picking up your prescription or grabbing bread & milk. These cards are high quality, custom cards, printed on fine art linen paper that would make even The Grinch’s heart skip a couple beats.

Again, you get to choose from the following four designs. Text is all customizable.

ahhh. pretty things make me happy.

Be sure to check out the new email blast that went out this past weekend with more details about the Holiday Mini Sessions. You’ll find more info regarding the products you’ll receive and how to schedule your sessions!

Happy Thursday Everyone!

Shine On!

If you are a photographer this is for you.

I would like to extend my hand and reach out to my fellow photographers by offering an opportunity for both personal and professional growth.  An opportunity to gain a clear vision on where you’ve been, where you are and where you are going. An opportunity to connect and an opportunity to learn.

I’m seeking a mentee. I am offering a free 6 month mentorship to a fellow photographer who is ready & willing to take the next steps and who is willing to commit to their business and to this opportunity.

This is open to any photographer, anywhere. No need to be local. We will communicate via email or phone.

What do you need to do?  I’m asking you to either post a comment here expressing your interest or email me at chasity@studio423photo.com. Please include your website and/or blog information (no worries if you don’t have one).

Once you’ve communicated that you are interested in the opportunity I will connect with you via email to get to know you a bit more.  Once I’ve made a decision I will announce it here.

Can’t wait!

I missed a couple more days of my blogging but things got crazy around here again. All sorts of good stuff to post about but for now I’ve got to just give you a little teaser.

I’ve got a big announcement to make later this evening. I’m finalizing all the details, recovering from NASA space camp, editing a wedding and a senior session and taking care of sick lil’ guy. Hoping to pop in this evening with all the details.

Later peeps!

A huge shout out to my sweet friend, Christine,  for helping me take care of a few lingering blog issues last night. Christine offers straight up some of the best business insight around.  She’s insanely talented and just a sweet sweet chica.

She also pointed me in the direction of thedieline.com where I’m drumming up a little branding inspiration.  It’s been a long week thus far and I have more work to do than ever so I’m not going to make this a big post but I will leave you with these two images I found on thedieline. I needed some humor and totally appreciated these.

This concept is by Dan Crawford. That Dan, he’s a funny man.

And this just makes me laugh til my gut hurts.

Enjoy your night!

If you’re a photographer you should stop reading this and go Register NOW!  Then you can come back and read the rest of this….I’ll wait.  Go! Go! Go! Please!

this is me waiting……………………………………………………………
and waiting……………………………………………………………………
and waiting………………………………………………………………………………….
still waiting…………………………………………………………………………………..

oh super you’re back. oh, you aren’t sure if you want to get the audios of the summit??  it’s on sale for $49 today and then goes up to $99 tomorrow. Either way, it’s a steal for what you’re getting. 16 hours of knowledge from some of the best in the industry? Are you going to be able to sit at your computer to listen to the entire summit….for 16 hours in 2 days??? Yea, that’s what I thought. I’ll wait while you go purchase those.

waiting…………………………………………………………………………
waiting…………………………………………………………………………
waiting…………………………………………………………………………….

Ok, awesome!

I’m so excited about this! So excited. I was even more thrilled when I found out it was on an actaul day when I was available. That often happens to me…you know, something amazing is taking place and you have an appt. to get your teeth cleaned or some garbage like that…(not that getting your teeth cleaned is garbage but really….who wants to do that instead of *insert name of something more exciting than getting your teeth cleaned here*)

So today is already much better than yesterday! Hope to see ya’ll there!!!!

I’ve determined that although I committed to blogging every day for a month I obviously didn’t take into consideration that there are 4 Saturdays and 4 Sundays in a month. I’m cheating on my commitment. I will blog every weekday for the month. I’ve met that goal. I will still give up my Starbucks though for bailing on my original commitment. No worries. 5 days a week is better than what I was doing so I feel like I’m still making an increased effort.

Today is just a quickie post also. I just got home from spending 5 hours in the ER with little man Parker. Poor guy.

He got a runny nose and a bad cough over the weekend and by last night he had a high temp and rapid breathing. We were up every 4 hours doing breathing treatments and this a.m. he was still breathing super fast. I called the pediatrician but they couldn’t see him til this afternoon. I decided not to wait and took him to ER.

5 hours, 1 rectal temp, 3 breathing treatments, 2 chest xrays, 1 dose of oral steroids, 5 hours of oxygen and 4 stickers later we are home and he is sleeping. They came close to admitting him but determined he was making progress with the breathing treatments so they discharged us to come home. We’ll have to continue the treatments at home (which we are pros at due to Hudson’s asthma) every 3 hours and then follow up with his pediatrician in the a.m.

I’m super bummed since he just started preschool last week. 4 days of school and already sick. I am praying this won’t be a repeat of last year. AGH. I don’t know if I can survive another season of that. Send up some prayers!

Hope to return to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. Had a fun senior session this weekend that I can’t wait to post about and still need to get up pics from Rebekah and Darren’s Labor Day wedding!