Here is an inspiring story about a man and his beautiful bride: John and Lauren.

They came into our life when they got married. Brian and I had the wonderful privilege of being their wedding photographers. It was the BEST time–great couple, great details, hilarious memories made–wait, do you remember the playbill wedding program? That’s the same John and Lauren! If you never caught their wedding, check it out.

I’m not sure if they caught the photography bug before or after their wedding, but a year later John and Lauren were signed up for one of our photography workshops. Lauren came to the Beginner’s Workshop, and then they both came to the Advanced Workshop. Brian and I were so excited to speak into their lives and help their beginning business grow.

Then I get this email a couple weeks ago from John. He says they’ve just posted their second wedding and asks me if I’d check it out. Can I just say I didn’t expect these kinds of shots to be the results. Man! If this is was only their second wedding, look out!!!

Doesn’t this image below just look dreamy!! Lauren shot this one. I’m so proud of her. I love how we don’t see the eyes. I love that the background is totally dark. The whole set up, lighting, and post process to this image is perfect!

John said they had some time to play around with lighting during the getting ready part of the day. He said he remembered the blog post I did on back lighting dresses and decided to try the same idea. I’d say he figured it out and then some!

The blog post and exercise that John was talking about it is called “Off Camera Lighting Demystified“. Check it out and give it your own try.

And then I just have to show off this photo because it’s to cool. Look at that back light behind the groom. Isn’t it fantastic! Way to go you two!

Take a look at the whole wedding slideshow. It’s not only great photography, but you’ll be inspired to keep after your own dreams!

And if you have a minute, leave some comments on their blog letting these two know it’s not just me who thinks they did an AMAZING JOB!!

My little wifey and our kiddies mama asked me to post where and when she’s planning on having dinner in Denver tonight.

If you want to get some food inside the Whole Foods Market deli, Me Ra will meet you at the outside tables and chairs depending on how long the photo shoot goes today. Below I posted the address, time and links for directions.

Where: Whole Foods Market 870 S Colorado Blvd, Denver, CO 80246-2014

When: June 22, at 4:30 or 5:00 PM (depending on how long the photo shoot is).

Have a great dinner and ask her some REALLLLYYYY hard questions!!!! Thanks!!!

This little mama is headed this morning to do a photo shoot in Colorado!

This is so last minute, but why not throw it out there–sometimes last minute stuff is fun, right!

I have a couple open hours on Sunday (early evening) before I catch my flight home. Are there any photographers who would like to meet up for dinner? We get so many emails every day from photographers and newbies with such great questions, and I feel bad that I can’t answer them all. So I thought if any of you are in Denver and want to meet face to face over dinner, we could tackle some of those questions in person.

If your interested, post a comment in today’s post AND send Brian an email (brian@merakoh.com)! Since Brian’s staying back with the kiddos, I’m going to have him figure out the place to meet and time to meet. Once he gets your email, he’ll solidify details and email you all back.

Yeah! Can’t wait to meet some of you!

Thank you so much for all the FUN and HILARIOUS posts on the Loser Mom blog post! Your comments and stories were such a kick to read! If you haven’t read them yet, you must! These moms will let you know you are NOT a Loser Mom but instead, you’re in great company. And FYI, Blaze didn’t cry before swim class today! It’s amazing how far you can bribe a kid with a package of M&Ms!

(It’s one of those long posts today so get your coffee. :))

Back in April we had our wonderful, fragrant, yummy Sonoma Photography Workshop. I have yet to show you my special blog post for this workshop!

But today, I wanted to share with you about our Add On Day with Rick Chapman and some deeper lessons I learned in Portrait Photography.

Rick is an amazing photographer. He does wonderful portrait work for celebrity athletes. But he also has this HUGE heart that oozes out of him when he talks about his family or his photography. This is Rick with his little guy. (fyi, these great workshop images are by Garrett, our fearless Sonoma Workshop Host! Thanks Garrett!)

For the Add On Day, we were given the honor of going to Rick’s home in Stinson Beach. Wow, what a place of quiet inspiration!

He started our time by showing us a breathtaking book that was all about his wife, Leslie. Get this…every page of this book was a single portrait he had taken of Leslie over TEN years time. Rick told us he prepared this in secret and surprised Leslie. He described this as a personal project in documenting that constant, changing beauty of his wife over ten years time. (Oh my goodness, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room at this point!)

As Rick began to teach his approach to working with clients,

he described how he begins a portrait photo shoot. He first starts with one question, “What’s the one photo you’ve always wanted of yourself but never had?” He said that since his clients are often well known celebrities, they’ve had thousands of photo shoots done. So he likes to start with their desires. What a wonderful way to start a portrait shoot, don’t you think?

As the day unfolded, I told Rick there is a portrait I’ve always wanted of me and Brian that has never been done. I asked if he’d be open to trying this idea out while at the same time modeling a photo shoot for the group. Rick was more than willing.

I had no idea what kind of an impact this experience would have on me. Weeks later I’m still processing this photo shoot and the journey he took us on.

So what’s the portrait I’ve always wanted of me and Brian?

It’s a moment when we’re not laughing but the connection between us is ever there and powerful. If you’ve met us you know we laugh a lot together. When people take our picture we’re often being silly. But I’ve always wanted a more serious shot of us–something that reflects our deep losses, the pain we’ve gone through–and shows that their is beauty and life with these things in mind.

As a photographer, I find that sometimes it’s easier or more comfortable to encourage and capture the laughing kind of energy. It’s true to life too. It much easier to be with people who are having a good time, then to sit with someone who is suffering and know you have no answers. This is why I love the verse that says it’s better to visit the house mourning then the house of praise because what a gift it’s been when people have visited my uncomfortable house of mourning.

I told Rick about how we’ve gone through a lot of pain in our marriage. We’ve lost much and still carry the sadness from it. I told him that I want to believe beauty lives in the sadness too.

I want our kids to see that suffering doesn’t stop with the pain: the suffering can also create beauty and goodness. But then I told Rick my two fears. One, I was scared to go to that place with a photographer because it felt so vulnerable, and two, I was afraid that the more “serious shot” wouldn’t be “pretty”.

Pretty? It sounds petty, but it was how I felt. Would I myself see beauty in the serious shot or prefer to stay comfortable with the side of us that is fun? Rick being the safe and gentle artist he is created a space for Brian and I to risk discovering the answer for ourselves.

At first we were laughing because we were nervous. I think it was great for the women attendees to see that even though all three of us are professionals, it still takes work and a little time to get into the core of of your subject–no matter how much experience the photographer or clients have.

When the nervousness started to die down, Rick asked us to close our eyes and think of our children and the gift we have in them.

After a couple moments of our eyes being closed, he asked us to now open them and for me to look deep into the camera with all that I’m feeling.

This is what Rick captured.

He had Brian move behind me and play off the dynamics of our marriage. Brian is the total cuddler between us that often holds me together when I feel like I’m coming apart.

And an unexpected snuggle.

Rick helped Brian and I find a quiet place within ourselves. It didn’t come right away, but he guided us and then all of a sudden we were there. As he was shooting, I could feel the pain, the loss, and the energy of life. It was a moment of such enduring strength.

To have this photographed was an amazing gift.

I realized that even though I wanted these type of images done, I was afraid that I wouldn’t like what they looked like. Or better said, I wouldn’t like what I looked like. Was I comfortable seeing my own serious side, the part that feels the suffering more than the joy? Would I think this side of me was beautiful when captured in a portrait?

As you can imagine, so many lessons were taken from our time with Rick. I know the women who attended took away their own powerful lessons (maybe they’ll share some in the comments…:)). Not to mention how excited I am to ask my clients, “What’s the one photo you’ve always wanted of yourself but never had?” Can you imagine the diversity in answers you would get?!

Rick, thank you for helping us see that yes, their is beauty in the quietness, in the loss, and in the sadness.

We are in debt to you.

I’ve been working on a magazine submission for one of our bride’s this week. Her wedding has a very good chance of being featured in a well respected wedding magazine (we’re keeping our fingers crossed), and we wanted to send the editor images of her invitations, programs, address labels, etc.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to shoot still life? I totally prefer taking photos of people over still life because people have all the emotion to work with, but wow, when it’s still life…my respect for food photographers goes way up! The food in Cooking Light gets much yummier looking for sure!

In our Getting Published 101 Kit, I write a lot about what magazine editors are looking for when you submit individual stock images or full weddings for publication. I have found that one of the key components that makes or breaks a wedding being featured is the amount of detail images. You can have the most beautiful bride and groom photos, but if you don’t have detail images too your chances of getting published just went way down.

Why? Editors know that brides buy wedding magazines to look for new and creative detail ideas for their own upcoming weddings. Whether it’s the untraditional veil

or making your programs look like actual Playbills

or the gifts for all the dinner guests

and the heirloom pearls and favorite teacup

brides love details! I did when I was a bride. And I still do!

As I’ve been working on these wedding images, I’ve noticed that the 85mm (fixed/prime) lens works best. The below shots are all the way down to a 1.4 F-stop/aperture. This means super blur every where expect the point I’m focused on (the focus point was the pearls on the invite). I feel like the low f stop helps add emotion and dimension.

When shooting details think low aperture/f stop. If you’re a wedding photographer, consider buying a macro lens for your details. (I used the macro lens on the above teacup/pearls image.) There are maybe 10 images I shoot with the macro in the whole 12 hour wedding day, but those 10 macro images may be the very thing that gets the wedding published in a magazine. And that publicity is definitely worth the cost of the macro lens.

For more tips on getting your images published, check out our Getting Published 101 Kit. We’ve had great feedback from photographers who have purchased it!

Also, the Early Bird Special for the Chicago Workshop ($799 instead of $999) ends tonight at midnight PST! If your planning on coming, make sure you don’t miss out on this 20% savings!!! You can register here!

Can’t wait to meet all of you in Chicago!! And yes, the forum is still in progress so hopefully all of you Chicago ladies will be able to chat there sooner than later. (again, fingers crossed)

We head back to Seattle today after a wonderful week in San Diego. But first, I have to give a huge shout out to Dana, our fearless San Diego Workshop hostess!

Dana, you went above and beyond the call of duty for being the hostess!! Thank you so much for all your help!

On Monday we had our Add On Day that covered Business and Marketing. It was held at Dana’s house. We covered everything we could in our time from pricing, structuring your business, when to outsource and what to outsource, marketing strategies and much more. It was an amazing time together (and thank you Dana for letting us use your living room!).

But we have to thank Dana for one more thing! She had the BEST idea for building a portfolio that I’ve ever heard!!

For those of you who want to build a portfolio but are not comfortable with charging people just yet, Dana did something you could do too! She told her friends that to take their pictures takes the same amount of time to make dinner. So if they wanted to compensate her, they could make her a dinner. Last year, she ended up getting handfuls of gift certificates to all different restaurants with credits ranging in $50-$150! Her family loved it! The kids are already asking her to take pictures again this year! Don’t you love that!

What a great idea to give your friends so you’re not “giving” your time away. Your time is precious, valuable, even if you’re in the “building” stage of your business. Plus, it’s a great way for friends to show their thanks to you!

Dana, you are the Queen Bee!! Love you and so thankful for you and ALL your fabulous ideas!!!

(thanks for the photos too!)

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If yesterday was about climbing, today is all about JUMPING!

Last night we got to have dinner at Carey’s house, and it was a blast!

Carey has a big ol’ trampoline in her backyard. Let’s just say a few of us went crazy on it. Can you imagine who that would be?

Notice Blaze crying in the background with Brian. Do you know why Blaze is crying? Because Brian was bouncing to hard and flipped Blaze.

But this shot is my favorite one!

We were using Carey’s new Alien B1600 light. These lights range in price and you can find them at Alienbees.com. I think her light was around $360. But without the light, this is what the pictures would have looked like.

So now for the recipe!

We did these shots at 7pm. We still had plenty of light outside, so we had to be in Manuel Mode to trick the camera for this type of dramatic lighting. We wanted the camera to think we didn’t have any light outside and that’s why we needed the off-camera lighting.

Our ISO was 100 so the color of the sky would be as blue as possible. The Shutter Speed was 1/250. When using strobe lights like this, you’ll want your Shutter Speed at 1/250. Now the Aperture was a little tricky because we don’t want it dialed down low like I usually like. Remember, the lower the aperture gives more blur in the background. These shots don’t have any thing to do with getting blur in the background. These shots are all about dramatic lighting with strobe lights.

Since these shots are about dramatic lighting, we want our aperture to be really high–maybe F11 or F16. We want the little hole that the light come through to be super tiny. This means if we took the photo without the off camera lighting, the image would be really dark because the aperture is so small. But that’s okay because we want the off camera light to be our main source of light. Does this make sense? If you’re feeling confused give yourself some breathing room because it is a bit tricky when you’re not familiar with it. But don’t let the confusion keep you from thinking it over and mulling it around because playing with light can be so fun!

We had one light for the images above. But Carey got together a couple months ago with an awesome photographer named Rob Benson. He is a master at off-camera lighting and for the shot below used three lights. Wow! Take a look at what drama he is able to capture! Is that the coolest soccer kid picture in the world!! And to see how Rob is setting up these shots, check out Carey’s wonderful blog post. And be sure to check out his website (it’s hyperlinked to his name)! It is SO COOL!!

For more help with lighting, shutter speed, aperture and all that good stuff, check out our crazy fun DVDs!

Enjoy! We are off to Legoland!

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If you are a photographer, you need to know these guys. I feel like I’ve been saying “you need to know…” a lot these days. Is it okay I’ve been giving you lots of sites to look at? Survival in this industry is all about networking and sharing, but let me know if you want me to back off on passing this much info to you.

Even if you’re not a photographer and want a window it to the one of the biggest stresses photographers deal with, go to Shoot Dot Edit’s website and watch the cartoon. It will kill you, it’s so stinking funny. But if your not a photographer, it may not be that funny. I don’t know, you check it out and tell me.

This gang of awesome wedding photographers started their own company last year. Their mission was to provide post process services to wedding photographers. This means they can do your white balance, color correction, categorizing, numbering and such. Brian and I love these guys because not only are they great at what they do, but because they are all successful photographers, they totally “get” what photographers need.

While we were at WPPI this last March, Shoot Dot Edit asked a few of us to do an interview for them. It was one of my funniest memories from WPPI. I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants on several accounts. I so hope that when the final cut is finished they do some kind of blooper role because there were some FUNNY moments. And Marc the other day was kind enough to send some shots from the interview.

Marc Weisberg has his head to us, Dane is next to him, then Sara, and then me on the end.

Another great shot of Sara! She is so dang beautiful! I just love her. She also has these sparkly blue eyes that kind of put you in a trans when you’re talking to her and you totally forget every thing she’s saying. Sara’s also miss savvy business woman aside from talented photographer. She’s one of the new faces for Apple and just came out with her own photographer bag called GoBee. You have to love women like this!

In the bottom left hand corner is Jared Bauman, one of the founders of Shoot Dot Edit, making sure we don’t say anything stupid. Can’t you tell by how serious his face is? (j/k, you know we love you Jared)

So the cool epiphany that we all had in the middle of the interview is once we outsourced our post process we all had HUGE things happen in our business. Dane wrote a freaking book! Sara came out with a new bag and now does icon stuff for Apple. And you know all our crazy stories with the DVDs and 101 Kits with possible future explosions we’ll keep you updated on.

Bottom line, if you are a small business owner you must not make the mistake so many do: being a jack of all trades and a master of none. Define what you are the best at and most passionate about (besides photography) and then start handing off the rest. This is the key to making your business successful and thriving.

In June PDN (Photo District News) magazine will come out with an article on outsourcing. They did a 90 minute interview with me about the topic in regards to small businesses, and I’m really excited about it. In the meantime, start thinking about what you can let go of and trust someone else to do. Like Shoot Dot Edit’s motto, what will you do with your free time?

p.s. Shoot Dot Edit now take portrait shoots too! There is a God in the World of Outsourcing, especially for Portrait Photographers!

How many of you love personality tests? In graduate school I ate them up. Kari, remember when Marshak split the room up with those kinds of personalities on that far side, and us over here. Wasn’t your husband-to-be, Dave, WAY the heck over there? What’s up with that? Is that when you started eyeing him, or was it when he did that math problem in front of the whole class with the grid and formulas?

OK, back on track.

Ever wish you could do an aspiring photographer personality test? I know, you never thought it would be possible huh! Guess what, it is.

If you liked those guys from earlier this week, you totally need to meet this guy! (get some Kleenex, his video gets me every time especially when he’s tossing his little girl up in the air–the music gets louder and you see them through fountain–oh man–don’t say I didn’t warn you!)

Dane came over last summer and told Brian and I about this book idea he had for aspiring photographers. Brian and I were entranced! The outline he was forming was AWESOME!! We were like “Dane, you have to write this! It’s going to be gold to people who want to be photographers! The content is AWESOME!”

And then I felt myself take a step back.

Why?

I’ll tell you why.

Ever since I published Beauty Restored, I’ve had 9,469,352 million people tell me their ideas for a book they want to write. People hear that I’ve published a book, and now they want to tell me all about their book ideas. It was a great conversation starter the first fifty times, now when Brian wants to get even with me he tells people I’ve written a book and walks away.

But if it’s a good idea, I get all excited about it. Out of the 9,469,352 million people that have told me their book ideas a lot have been exciting, cool ideas. However, I know maybe 4 people who actually finished writing their book. Dane Sanders now makes it five. He finished his book Fast Track Photographer last week! Somebody give him a BIG AMEN b/c this is no easy feat! Not to mention that he is a daddy to FOUR children!

As a prelude to the book being released, Dane created this stellar personality test you can do. It’s called pDNA (Photographer DNA).

Quoted from Dane’s site;

Ever wonder if your photo business is any different than everyone else?

Ever wish you could know exactly what you uniquely bring to the table?

Ever dream you had a piece of paper that told you exactly what to do to flourish?

The pDNA is a kind of personality profile custom built for people who dream of being a photographer, or they are new to the business/industry. What’s cool about it is you can treat it like a litmus test or benchmark of where you’re at today and where you’re headed tomorrow.

The test has over 200 questions. You create a profile here. Put the promo code refuse in so Me Ra Koh Blog readers get a 15% discount (I believe the price is $20 before the discount). Walk through the quick questions like you’ve done with other personality tests, click the dot that best describes you, and then fifteen minutes later you have this run down on yourself as a photographer. Great idea, don’t you think! You must share your results on the blog…well actually you don’t have to but it’d be cool to hear them if you want too!

Now what are you? Sanguine, Choleric, Golden Retriever, Busy Beaver, or ENFG?

And Dane, thanks for the discount to our readers! You’re AWESOME!

Every month we have a special meeting for photographers. If you’re in the neighborhood, join us!

People have come from Idaho, Oregon and of course, Washington. But if your visiting from out of town and want to jump in on the fun, we’d love to have you!

What do we do?

We start with wine and appetizers, everyone brings a little something. Then we have a focused topic for the night. Sometimes the topic has to do with growing your business, marketing, or shooting techniques, or the nuts and bolts to your business.

Right now I have a series of people coming who help photographers with the “business” side of their business. Last month our wonderful banker, Dani Collins from Columbia Bank, came and talked to us about becoming bankable, when to consider commercial financing, tax benefits and so forth.

This month our meeting is on Wednesday, April 23rd (two days before our Sonoma Workshop starts! Yeah!). It starts at 6:30pm.

For this month, I’ve asked our lawyer, Jennifer Huddleston Wing, to come and talk about the differences between having an LLC, Corporations and being a Sole Proprietor. Airika also had a great idea of asking Jennifer to discuss the Top Ten Pitfalls of a Small Business. If you are in need of lawyer type input, I got Jennifer to join Facebook. You can find her as Jennifer Huddleston Wing or just go to my page Me Ra Koh and you’ll see her as a friend there too. But seriously, I’ve known her for years–she’s amazing. For those of you who have bought and loved our 101 Kits, particularly the Wedding, Portrait and Associate Kits, Jennifer has been the legal mastermind behind all those contracts. She’s a contract queen!

If you are a veteran in the industry or considering starting a business, you are totally welcome. The appetizer/wine part is 30 minutes or so, the formal part of the meeting lasts about 1 hr. This officially ends our group around 9pm. Then we eventually have to kick people out at 1am.

We love this night and everyone who comes! Sometimes there are 12 of us, sometimes there are 40 of us! Each year we also do a Martini Garden Party every summer and a Christmas Party.

But I’m also super excited to have new leaders for the group. Brian and I starting leading it a couple of years ago, but our schedule has become to crazy to do the job justice. We are still going to be hosting, but Gerald and Airika Pope have volunteered to take over the leadership side of things, and they are so cool! I can’t wait to see how their leadership will take this group to another level!

This is Airika (the one sticking her tongue out). As you can see, she’s very unapproachable.

If your interested on info and details to the meetings, shoot Airika an email and she’ll hook you up! (airika@geraldpope.com)

And most of all, be encouraged to find a community of photographers that are safe and encouraging. If you are feeling looked down upon by other photographers, get out of that situation and find a new group where people love you, cheer you on, and believe in you. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but there are more of these types of wonderful photographers than the Negative Nellie’s. Just got to hang in there and find them.