I’m alive…..I’m alive! I know this past week or so I’ve gone into sort of a hibernation. It’s normal I promise you. This is one of the slower times of the year up here in good’ol southwestern Pennsylvania so I often take advantage of the down time and spend lots of time with my friends and family. I’ve spent the day shopping with my mom, played doll house with Mallory and watched a gazillion movies with Greg. It’s been GREAT! Thank you dear blog stalkers for sending emails to see if everything has been ok….YINZ are awesome!
I’m also taking advantage of the down time to do some back end business stuff-you know, like taxes (eww), future promotions, catching up on some reading, making my list of what did and didn’t work this year and writing down my goals-I have so many exciting goals!
I’ve also been doing some reflecting on this next upcoming year. 2011 is going to rock. My trip to Vegas for WPPI in February, *fingers crossed* I get to do a shoot out with Mary & Justin,but while we are out there, we’ll be taking a mini road trip out to Hollywood. I’m going to the beach with my best friend from high school in June (and our kiddos) and a bunch of other kick ass people PLUS we’re in the process of arranging a trip to Ireland in October with my other best friend from college ….not to count the other million adventures in between. Trust me, there’s never dull moment! So just an FYI: if you are planning to have jen mcken photography shoot your senior portraits, family portraits, etc., please give me a buzz or shoot me an email as soon as possible so that I can get you on the schedule. I will have limited appointments this year. 🙂
On the business side of things my studio is underway and it coming along fantastic. It’s exciting to see the progress and hopefully within the next several months I’ll have a new meeting place for clients, a space to show of some of my work and awesome products AND a place to shoot and get creative. Yes, I do still plan to shoot primarily on-location however this new studio space will allow me to expand some of my creativity even further. Plus I plan to open up to the newborn and boudoir markets even more! So So So exciting! I also have so many other fun things in the works that I’m not ready to reveal…I guess you’ll just have to stop by and check every once in a while. I’ll will tell ya though, it is nerve racking making decisions like where to put windows, where will the doorways go, what type of furnace will it have, the flooring, the electrical…I just make decisions and keep my fingers crossed it’s the right one. I’m fortunate to even have a space to stress about. This has been my dream for 5 years now……and it’s finally coming true. It won’t be a Hollywood worthy studio…but it will be ALL mine-bought and paid for! WOO!
PLUS I’ve been working on my presentation for the class I’ll be teaching in Pittsburgh on Sunday, January 23rd. If you recently purchased a new digital SLR and you want to learn to take better photos, sign up and come see me! This is an intro class for beginners to teach you how to take better photos and get rid of “the blur”. You can read more about it *here*. By the way, I’m planning to do a section in the presentation called “What went wrong” so if you have a hand full of photos that “didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to”, shoot them over to me at jenmckenphoto@gmail.comand I can discuss in class what probably went wrong and how you can fix them the next time!! I can’t wait to see ya’all on Sunday! PS: I’m super nervous so no heckling please!! tee he he.
In sticking with my “refusing to let the gray winter days get to me” kinda attitude, here are a few more from our trip to Mexico. I can smell the sun tan lotion just looking at them!
