So much has been up in the air over the last month, I feel like I’m just coming down! We’ve had family visiting from Ontario, I ran a half-marathon and then I – ME! – went camping for the long weekend, which for me is an entire week of anxiety leading up to it. There’s no pics of that, sorry.

Plus the company I work for as my day-job (a small energy company where I do admin and which helps finance this wonderful, expensive hobby I have) went up for sale and after about a month of presentations and speculation, we decided not to sell after all. Which was good, because it means I still have a day-job and they agreed to give us Fridays off for the summer!

So that means I can dedicate one whole weekday to my photography, instead of having to cram it in to evenings and weekends like I’ve been doing. Much better!

I’ve also been to a couple of workshops over the past few weeks. The first one was the No BS Photography Roadshow, which was an evening of great images, inspiration and not a little hilarity. They had a lot of great ideas for marketing and promoting my work and studio, which I’d like to implement in the coming months.

Then I attended the FastTrack seminar by Dane Sanders, a truly inspirational and genuinely nice guy. Not to mention immensely talented both at photography and getting through to a room full of strangers and making us all a family. One of his points that has really stuck with me in the 3+ weeks since the seminar, is ‘to always be an invitation.’ What I think he means by that is to always be open to people everywhere in order to make connections, meet new potential clients and just be all-around less closed off, which I think I’ve had a habit of doing in the past.

Dane’s seminar has made an impact on my business already – I met so many great photographers there who I’ve connected with on Facebook so I see their daily updates of what they’re doing and they urge me on to keep moving forward, as well. In fact, Stephanie Lablonde posted a ‘help needed’ update for a volunteer photographer to help out at the Candlelight Gala for the Missing Children Society of Canada. What an incredible experience, to help out with such a worthy cause. From my perspective, it was a great success and all the credit goes to the members of the Society for all their hard work and dedication and of course to all the generous attendees who donated time, money and product to make it such a great night. It was also at a venue that is close to my heart – The Fairmont Palliser, where Jon & I got married nearly 5 years ago! It’s such a beautiful hotel, for such a beautiful event. I hope my photos do them both justice!

Anyway, hope you’re enjoying the summer so far, as well! I’ve got the first of my weddings coming up in the next few weeks, so things will soon be in full swing! Also, since I was such a blabbermouth in this post, I promise to post more photos in the future!

Take care,

Karla