My co-professor for Souvenir Foto School mentioned yesterday that we have 10 days till launch, which got me thinking about writing my own testimonial.  I know that may seem biased to write a testimonial for my own class, but really Souvenir Foto School is nothing without the participants, the students make the class. The photo above was from one of the first sessions.  I have always tried to change the themes up to keep the creativity flowing.  The assignment for that week was ‘shoes’. I was sweating it because I was working from 6 a.m. til what felt like midnight and wasn’t sure how I was going to pull a shot off. I did and this was the result. Truth be told, it is still one of my very  favorite photographs and I have it blown up in our living room. My little 3 lb. dog refused to not be part of the shoot, but wouldn’t ‘model’ either, so I just worked with what I had. A lesson that you learn in class.

In the time that I have been teaching the classes, which has been a few year now, I have watched as students opened up their Etsy shops to sell their photographs, one student was tapped to shoot for a major travel magazine (proud is an understatement), a few have taken photography as their profession, professional photographers in the class have felt re-invigorated and it has been an all-and-all grand experience!  You don’t need special equipment, you don’t need to know how to shoot, all you need is the desire to become a better photographer and to be willing to commit to the class. Everyone that has committed has gotten better, that’s a fact. We have TWO scholarships still available for those that can’t budget this into their expenses (trust me, we understand this, I started this  school when I got my salary cut IN HALF). If you want to be considered for the scholarships the requirements are as follows:

You can leave a comment below or email me privately, Michelle my co-professor and myself will go through the list and choose accordingly.  If you can add this to your budget, we believe this could be the class that takes your photography to the next level. We’ve seen it time and time again to be confident in writing this.  For more details and to sign-up visit  here.

If you have burning questions please leave them in comments!

I am extending an apology for having a menacing stuffed raccoon on the blog for more time than I anticipated. I knew I wanted to work on the butterfly edit above and had big aspirations to have this done first thing in the morning, but I had a bunch of shipping to do.  I am working a full-time schedule with a client and running Besotted Brand, so edits go (priority wise) on the bottom of my life totem pole. I am happy with the edit though.  I have been playing more and more with Lightroom 4 (beta) and trying to figure out where it fits in my workflow (it doesn’t), but I do want it. I’m good like that, you know the whole wanting things I don’t need.  While this whole work + shop business is going down, I am also in the midst of re-designing this here blog.  I’ve wanted to do so since it launched, I love the design, but I need some functionality (where’s the subscribe button? Oh, that? It doesn’t exist, gah!) 

I am getting very excited for Souvenir Foto School though!  I love that it gets me out of my photo ruts.  Currently I only shoot for work for my client (textiles) and for Besotted Brand products. I want to always have an outlet to shoot for me (and for fun). I don’t ever want photography to be a chore.  I think that should be how it is with any interest. I love having something to look forward to. I will write more about this tomorrow, because we still have TWO scholarships to grant.

I will be editing a photo a day for the remainder of 2012::Project MMXII, this is my ‘after’, you can view the ‘before’ here.

This is the second sighting of a raccoon I ever had, both were in New York City.  The first was a live one in Central park, which was one part exhilarating and one part repulsion. At first glance it looked like a giant rat, which is scary as all get out (and I have seen very big rats on the streets of New York City). Once I realized it wasn’t a famed NYC rat, I thought it kind of looked like a bear (much easier to stomach). Later that day when I was in downtown I saw the fella above. He really was more pleasant in person, I think my photograph caught him at a menacing angle.

I will be editing a photo a day for the remainder of 2012::Project MMXII, this is my ‘after’, you can view the ‘before’ here.

I was trying to re-create a wet plate collidan look. I love that style of photo development and it was on my list of goals last year to take an alternate film photo development class, but I never got around to it. I hope that I can find one this year.  I also hope that the chemicals are not too toxic, I worry about accidentally blowing someone up in a lab, namely myself, don’t you? No?  Okay. I guess that’s just me.

I will be editing a photo a day for the remainder of 2012::Project MMXII, this is my ‘after’, you can view the ‘before’ here.

I quite like where this edit is taking me.  It made the wheels start spinning, unfortunately I had much work to do so I couldn’t play more. I think I will go back and try this as a black + white.  I love that that these enormous antlers (and trust me they were enormous) could feel so light and ethereal just floating in the ether like they are.  I mentioned yesterday my very busy day, I wasn’t exaggerating (even though I do have the propensity to do that). I was so busy and on such a strict time frame that I actually set a timer for each task. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I was able to accomplish with this little trick. I will be here all weekend, but I will bid adieu and bonne weekend to those that will be off enjoying their weekend.

I will be editing a photo a day for the remainder of 2012::Project MMXII, this is my ‘after’, you can view the ‘before’ here.

P.S. Jumpstart your creative photography skills and join our Souvenir Foto School here. Class is filling up quickly and we would love to have you on board!