Hey Girl, Nice Shot

What am I up to?

So it has been a crazy few weeks in my life so I thought I would do a super quick post to update you all.

Hurricane Ike
Two and a half weeks ago Hurricane Ike rolled over Houston.  I still have friends without power.  Life is certainly not back to normal yet.  I'm in the process of trying to reschedule a class and 5 sessions that I had to cancel because of the hurricane and aftermath.  I'm also on hold to find out if I will need to reschedule my beach portrait sessions scheduled to take place on Galveston Island in just a couple of weeks.

Learnfest
Last week I attended the inspiring Learnfest on Bald Head Island in North Carolina.  I have SOOOO much to write about it will certainly be a few posts.  I'm still trying to digest all that I learned.  I can say that Lena, Audrey, Tamara, and Laura went beyond my expectations with their open hearts and warm personalities.  And I feel like I have so many new friends made with the 60 attendees from the US and Canada.  My face hurt at the end of each day from all the smiling and laughing, and I loved getting to talk to so many fans to this blog too!!!

New Office
And now that I'm home I'm trying to get my new office and gallery space finished up.  I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about this new space. There seems to be a never ending list of things that need to be purchased.  Paint.  Lights.  Special casters that don't damage hard wood floors.  But I know when the space is finished it is going to be great!  More later this week as I try to move in!!!

So, that's what I'm up to.  Oh, and yeah, lots of sessions this week and for every week between now and mid-November.  I have the beginning of a post about Learnfest and some others in mind so I'll try to find some time to get to those too!!!

Learnfest Peek

I'm so tired and it is VERY late but I just wanted to post one of my pictures from this week at Learnfest.  So much great learning and meeting LOTS of awesome photographers.  Will share more soon!!!

After Ike

First I need to say that we were very lucky. I live about 15 miles west of Houston so we got hit with the "clean" side of the storm. So while it still howled across our house it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Our cable went out pretty early in the storm. Our lights flickered but never went out for long. My son slept in my closet and my daughter and I were in the downstairs guest room for most if the night. The noise was loud and scary and we had no idea how long it would last. And it was night. I slept very little.

In the morning the worst of the winds were over. One of the tall trees on our front yard was snapped like a twig (1st pic). Our power was on but most in the neighborhood was not so lucky. Extension cords run across the streets from houses with power to those without. Generators can be heard all over. Our cable and Internet is still out but we were lucky to get an antennae from a friend so we could finally see the news. Our lifeline was our iPhone where we could mostly still get text messages in and out but not always calls or data. Twitter kept us in touch with friends and co-workers.

One friend downtown was without power. 75% still are tonight. Her neighborhood is filled with large trees downed by the strong winds. Many streets were impassable. After she and her dog spent last night here we decided to go to her house this afternoon to get her birds and a few other items so she could stay with us while waiting to hear about her own power. The news is reporting it could be weeks. We stopped at an open Target to restock on soda. There was no more diet coke (or bread, peanut butter, or soup). We found a stash of diet coke bottles near the registers and got 12.

We finally got to watch some news today and wonder how Galveston will recover. The media is not even allowed to film the west side of the island yet. We assume that means it is really bad. Houston buildings have blown out windows but most seem to be in good shape. We got word from our building manager that our offices held up and power there was restored this afternoon but no Internet yet. I wonder how long it will take to get back into a normal routine?

Off to bed. Here are a few pictures from my iPhone which was our link to the world for the past few days. Our home cable and Internet may not be restored for a while. Thank you for your comments and emails-they have made a huge difference.

Hurricane Ike

The good news...Hurricane Ike is still a category 2 storm.  The bad news...all the models have it hitting Galveston and then running up to Houston.  So we are going to be in for a long night.  This morning it is clear with blue skies and breezes but it is going to be a long night...the storm is supposed to hit the coast early this afternoon.  Watching the news the waves are starting to really pick up down in Galveston.

It is very likely we will loose power at some point tonight and we don't know how long it will be out for (the news is saying it COULD be out for 5 days).  So, I've added my twitter feed to the left side of the screen in case you want to see what I'm up to during the storm.  Even if the power goes out I should be able to send text messages to twitter to keep it updated (assuming the mobile network stays up).  And for my other Houston area photographer friends...stay safe and see you on the other side!

inspiration: design glow

I'm hunkered down waiting for Hurricane Ike to make its way to Houston.  Yikes!  We have lots of snacks, batteries, water, and wine.  Ha!  Since my office is in an older building in the city I went down to pick up my main workstation and all my backup DVDs to keep at home where I think they will be safer.  Since I'm currently in a windowless office I'm hoping the rest of my stuff makes it okay.  The building managers live on site so they will be keeping an eye on things.

On the upside, some of my stuff was featured on Design Aglow yesterday!  I sent in some pictures of my metallic gallery wraps that I had done by WHCC and use the Design Algow Artist's Studio Elements.  I knew when I first saw the images that they would be fantastic on metallic paper so when White House started offering the metallic gallery wraps I knew it would be stunning and I wasn't wrong.  They are gorgeous and whenever a client comes in to meet with me and sees them they are like "wow, what are those!".  I'm looking forward to moving to my new bigger space where I can have more of these hanging!

Last Call: Learnfest

Here in Houston we are bracing for Hurricane Ike which is likely going to bring lots of rain and wind this weekend (even if it is not a direct hit it looks like we are going to have some very bad weather this weekend).

But what I'm really doing is looking ahead to LEARNFEST.  Yeah, I know, I talk about it all the time but how could I not.  Lena Hyde (who has become my new email BFF), Laura Novak, AUDREY Woulard, and Tamara Lackey.  Awesome.  And now that we have our Facebook group setup I've gotten to virtually meet some of the other attendees and there are some awesome photographers ATTENDING that I can't wait to learn from too.  And apparently we travel in flocks because three of us that were at Secret Workshop together are also rooming together at Learnfest.

Wishing you had signed up before they sold out?  Or grabbed one of the spots that came available after it was sold out?  Well, you are in luck.  There were a couple of last minute cancellations and they had a couple of spots open up.  So if you are not too busy Sept 22-Sept 25th consider joining us on the beautiful Bald Head Island.  I mean, when else do you get to drive a golf cart around for a few days!?

Learn more by visiting the Learnfest website.  Or email Laura Novak to let her know you are interested.

UPDATED: They are down to one open spot so hurry up and decide.

   

Things I'm Excited About...

I have soooo much going on right now that I can hardly sit still.  I'm feeling super excited about LOTS of upcoming things and thought I would share...

• The New Office: Our new office/gallery space should be ready this week!  The floors are finished and I'll try to get in tomorrow to take some pictures.  We still need to remove the light fixtures from all five rooms, paint, and put new lighting in.  I'm moving from my little bitty roughly 100 sq ft office to 850 sq feet that I'm sharing with my husband and his business partner so we'll have MUCH more room to spread out. 
• Learnfest!  Just two weeks away and I couldn't be more excited.  Two and a half days of learning in small groups from some of the industry's leading experts!  And, um, a beach.  And no children.  I love my children but I also know it is healthy to have time away once in a while.
• A full time work schedule!  Starting in October I'll be going full time and not a moment too soon.  Right now I pretty much work Tuesday-Thursday so a Monday-Friday schedule will make it much easier for me to stay connected to clients and provide more flexibility for scheduling sessions.
• The Holiday Rush.  Originally my goal for September was to have 5 full length sessions (since I'm out of town for almost a full week) but I have 8 scheduled PLUS three mini-sessions.  Plus I have another newborn session I'll probably be squeezing in AND I'm still getting inquiries almost daily.  And I have another 8 session scheduled for October.  I'm a little worried about the folks that are just out there that haven't scheduled yet.  I have a bunch of inquires from people that haven't yet scheduled but I think they will so I know I'll get at least a few more in October.  November 9th is my holiday deadline and I already have 3 sessions that first week so that is pretty much booked too!!!
• The Canon 5D Mark II.  I know, I know, they haven't officially announced yet but I've been reading some of the "leaked" specifications and I can't wait to get my hands on one.  Um, Canon, if you are reading this...feel free to send me one and I'll write up a review on the blog.  ;-)

What has you excited for the rest of 2008 (and please keep it family friendly LOL)?

Blog Boards

I am so lucky - I got to try out a preview of the MCP Actions new Magic Blog It Boards actions.  They are super cool.  These are totally going to change the way I share images on my blog.

These actions provide you a way to quickly put together photo collages to that are web-sized and ready to display on your website or blog.  They are so easy to use....choose the number of photos from the action set and then just follow the prompts to fill in the blanks.  I'm so excited to use these for my sneak peeks on my photography blog.  It takes no time at all.  Then you can add branding bars and resize for the web column width that you need.

You can check out a video demo from the MCP site to see how it works.  They are scheduled to be released on 9/3/08.

Updated to add: The actions were released today for purchase for $65.  Here's the description from the website:

The MCP “Magic Blog It Board” photoshop actions create collages and display boards with between 2 and 16 openings. The actions insert photos for you and will drastically reduce the time you spend preparing collages, templates, and storyboards for your blog and site.

They work on Photoshop CS2 and CS3.  Visit the MCP Actions blog to learn more!