"Have you ever worked with Justin Bieber?"-{My middle school career fair experience}

A few months ago, a staff member at the middle school I attended back in the day, asked me if I would like to be a guest at the career day they were having(The event was on Friday).

My Response: "Yes!"

This type of thing is so up my alley. First of all...I love to talk. And it's even cooler when I can talk about something I'm passionate about, like my business. Second...I love pushing people to follow their dreams. Too many people push away their true desires and settle into something "comfortable" and spend too much time regretting it. It makes me sad.

I knew that this whole career day experience would be SO worth it, If I could put the belief in even just one student that they can do what they want to. School doesn't tell them that, Society doesn't tell them that. I wanted to tell them.

Because let's be real....I started with NOTHING. Nada, zip, zero. No experience, No camera, No connections, No clue. This is not to say I am ANYWHERE near where I hope to be in the future, but I'm definitely miles ahead of the place I started. I wanted to tell them what I tell everyone..."If I can do it, you certainly can". Seriously.

After hearing about Celeste and her styling, the staff invited her along to have a booth of her own too. And the day wouldn't be complete without me bringing along Ty to help me answer all of the questions coming our way.

And oh boy did we get questions....

It was truly an eventful day and a one of a kind experience. I got to talk one-on-one with some of the students already showing a huge interest in photography who could very well be the prodigies of the industry for their generation. I also met many future vets, actresses, marine biologists, and surgeons!

I got a lot of serious questions, "What does it take to become a photographer?", "How much money do you make?", "How did you get started?"....

But we also got some questions that were totally unexpected and made us giggle, like these:

"Have you ever worked with Justin Bieber?"

"Can you take my picture? Right now?"

"Are you still gonna be in business when I get married?"

"Is that a real wedding? Are you sure, it looks fake"

Here is Ty and I at our table. I love the sign they made me and definitely kept it!

The lovely Celeste and I.

xoxo

WPPI 2011

As I write this blog post, I'm finding it so hard to believe that my first WPPI really has already come and gone. Months of anticipation, planning, and excitement all came down to this past weekend and just like that it's passed! Pretty insane. But I've said it a million times before and I'll say it again...it was amazing!!! I headed out there with Ty LaMothe and we stayed for 3 jam-packed, AWESOME days. During this time, we hung out with some old friends, made some new ones, and filled our brains with knowledge till we couldn't take anymore!!! Let me break it down for you, day by day :)

SUNDAY:

-Crazy fun drive into Vegas with Ty LaMothe.

-AMAZING business/branding platform class from Bob & Dawn Davis.

-Dinner at the Hash House a Go Go with awesome friends. (Check out the size of those portions!!!!)



Myself, attempting to eat the ridiculous pork loin sandwich without the provided fork and knife. The guy in the background found this so funny that he came over shortly after to get a picture of it as well!! Hahah



-B School party with some more awesome friends! Here's some photo booth shots from it!








MONDAY:

-Bobbi & Mike's motivational platform class. I love Bobbi & Mike!!! Their class was my first priority for WPPI.(Did I mention that I LOVE them??!!!)

-Hung out in the Showit lounge and met some cool people!

-While we were in line for lunch, Ty and I got introduced to the Jarvie Window. Crazy stuff!!!





-Exploring the trade show and getting 10 pounds of marketing material and product samples from the companies!!

-Jasmine Star's kick-butt motivational platform class. But really...when DOESN't she rock?

Jasmine and I having a rather animated looking conversation after the class.



Someone pointed out her striking resemblance to JLO in the photo. What do you think?



-Unite worship night. A big group of photographers gathering together to worship Jesus in the midst of sin city....AWESOME.

-Great dinner and even better talks at dinner with Ty at Diego!!


TUESDAY:

-Lazy morning, enjoying our breakfast and people watching.

-Yet another visit to the Showit lounge to hangout and chat about the awesome new stuff coming to Showit this year!! SO excited :)

-I was SOOOO excited to see Bobbi & Mike in the food court during lunch and got a chance to hang out with them and chat for a bit :)

Here's myself and the Bobbi part of Bobbi+Mike.



-Roberto Valenzuela's RIDICULOUSSSSS shooting platform class. This man is a genius with a camera. And this class was definitely the favorite of them all for me and Ty! SO much knowledge packed into our brains!!

Grabbed a shot on my phone of one of the quotes he included in his presentation. Love it!



-We finished up the night with an informative pricing platform class from Jared Bauman. After that we headed back to our room to get a good night of sleep and pack our bags to head out the next morning!

So, my advice to anyone considering going to WPPI next year is.....GO!!!! Nothing can replace the experience I had there and I am SO happy that I went. If you missed out on this year, don't let 2012 pass you by too. I'll see ya there! :)

Photographer get together :)

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Edmund Prieto hosted an awesome get together for all of us local photographers to get together and hang out. It's a cool concept right? A bunch of camera geeks getting together to talk exposure, photoshop and megapixels...well I have to tell you, it was SO much cooler than that. In fact, the first half of the day had nothing to do with photography at all...we all put our cameras to the side and played some volleyball, ate some delicious food, and...had an egg toss. Which I lost...in the form of raw egg smashed in the palms of my hands. Yummy. But there were some pretty awesome prizes for the people who did win, and those prizes were a Shootsac(which I am already a proud owner of one!) and a [b] School Membership(which I desperately wanted to win, but looks like I'm either going to have to get better at catching eggs or fess up the monthly fee!). After all of the egg tossing, volleyball spiking, madness... we headed out to the dry lakebed for a GORGEOUS couple shoot. A big thanks to Johnny and Christin Mortimore for coming out to model for us! Also to Kaycee Marie for the amazing job she did on Christin's hair and makeup and OC Prop Girl for styling the session! The whole day was nothing short of amazing and it was awesome getting to see all of my old friends as well as meeting so many new ones! Who knew there was so much talent in our little desert! Anyway, here's a few of the images I captured from the lakebed shoot :)











It gets a little tricky when you've got 10+ photographers shooting the same subject!

Growing Together.

Owning your own business. Well there's really nothing quite like it. It is probably one of the most rewarding/frustrating/time-consuming/fun/scary/adventurous things you can ever do(besides having children! and that's a whole different story!). I was just talking to a friend and fellow business owner about it and I explained to her my take on the business "climb" and it really got me thinking about my beliefs on helping others on their climb.
For me, starting and establishing my business has been exactly like climbing a ladder. When I first started I knew there would be a lot of steps, knew there would be struggles, knew it wasn't going to be easy, yeah, yeah, yeah...I knew it all. HA! The ladder I saw at the beginning of my career was more like a step stool compared to what the real business ladder turned out to be. So many expenses, projects, and steps I had never even thought about. OUCH.
The crazy thing is when you are on this ladder, making your way up, and you look around there are SOOOOO many people making the same climb you are. Some may be a few steps ahead, some a few steps behind, others are exactly where you are. Some will be lending a hand, trying to help you get to the top...others will be pulling at your ankles trying to bring you down. My goal is to ALWAYS be the one helping others up. For me there is nothing better than having friends in the same business who you support 100% and who do the same for you. With every person you help, that is one more person rooting for you to get to the top.
Where would I be without the other amazing photographers who have helped me in my climb?? Probably still over in the sidelines trying to conquer my step stool. Hahahaha....but really. I am so grateful for the help I have received and I would love to give just as much help back to anyone who needs it. It is so frustrating to find business owners who see everyone else as competitors and only wish success for themselves. How sad. Of course we are all competitors, but what a lot of people don't realize is there are millions of people getting married, tons of babies who need their first pictures done, hundreds of families looking for Christmas card photos. There's enough work for everyone(this goes for all businesses, not just photography!). And if you run a business that represents yourself(as you should be!!) then you are eventually going to attract the perfect client that wants to book you because of who YOU are and if the client is sold on who YOU are, then who else is going to be able to compete with that?! There's only one you!!
The moral to the story is....if someone needs help and looks to you for it, give them a hand. If you are helping other people get to the top of the ladder, that can only mean you are moving in the upward direction too. If you are constantly trying to knock other people down, you might just fall down with them. Think about it....what can be more rewarding than helping someone achieve success? Besides, if you are only helping contribute to other people's failures, then what does that make you?

So for all photographers...if you ever have any questions about anything or need any help, feel free to contact me at kristen@kristenbooth.net :)

I will close this post with a photo of the new little friend I made the other day :)