Monday, June 29, 2009 Posted in Personal
I’m sorry it has been so long since I’ve made a post, I’m sure you are wondering if I fell into some black hole 
No black holes here but I’ve been going through some personal changes recently that are forcing me to start my life over. I feel too old to start over again but I know there are people that face starting over and wish they were my age. I tend to use decorating as a way to distract myself from thinking too much about something that I can’t control.
A can of paint is the cheapest way to change the look of a room they say on all the home improvement shows. So needless to say I’ve got paint splotches all over my body! Seriously I am the sloppiest painter when it comes to my clothes or my skin. The wall looks perfect but I usually have paint in my hair, all over my hands, streaked across my shorts and my favorite splattered over my knees! I just got a haircut Friday and the first thing the stylist said when she saw me was “You’ve been painting, huh?” She was very proud that when she was done all the paint was gone from my hair. Of course I fixed that yesterday when I gave myself a white streak by getting too close to the cabinet I was painting.
Anyway I found this awesome blog by a couple just down the road from me in Richmond, Virginia. Their living/dining room is my inspiration for remaking my house over! The blog is www.thisyounghouse.com and they offer a design board service to help you decorate your space. I spent hours just browsing all the great designs they came up with for everyone else. They give you source lists for all the awesome pieces and even have some before and after photos of remade spaces. I was looking for a beachy/shabby/chic/cottage feel. (My sister thinks you can’t have that many slashes in a style, I disagree) I love their home though and the balance of light and dark pieces within a room. I’ll try to dig up some before pics and post them with the afters but I have to say I didn’t think to do that before I started. I kind of just threw myself in headfirst!
This will also give me an opportunity to show off how you too can showcase your portraits in your home and have them work with your design scheme. I would love to talk Sherry and John into letting me come down and photograph Burger for them. I think a great canvas of Burger is the one thing their home is missing!!!
Since I was going to be up at the crack of dawn this morning to drop my husband off at National Airport I thought I’d take the puppies with us to see Daddy off and to go take some photos down in Old Towne Alexandria. It was a little after 7am when we got there so it was nice and quiet and empty. There were enough people around though that my girls could have cared less to look at me. Oh and calling their name just made them think I wanted them to come to me. Sometimes they are too well behaved :) I did get some cute shots of them in different places though!
I am so behind the curve on everything right now so here I am posting about Learnfest almost two months after I went!
I have found that when you are passionate about something you want to learn as much as possible about it. This has always been true for me when it comes to photography. I’ve continually taken classes at my local college just to keep pushing myself to learn more and to really focus on my art. Then I discovered the wonderful world of workshops! Oh there are so many and I wish I could go to them all and just soak up everything. I knew that this year I wanted to attend at least one business oriented workshop and one artistic workshop. For the business side it was a toss up between The Secret Workshop and The Learnfest. After reading a fabulous review from Jessica Grieves of Hey Girl Nice Shot of both workshops I was sold on The Learnfest. (Ironically a bunch of other photogs at the workshop heard about Learnfest from her blog also, Jessica maybe you should get a commission ;) So I watched the clock on registration day and 45 min after it opened I panicked because I was late. I jumped on signed up and lucked out because it sold out in a matter of hours!!!
So fast forward to the first week of April and I was headed to Atlanta for my workshop. Now this workshop is put on by 4 amazing ladies. I knew about Lena Hyde from the wonderful Design Aglow site where I drool over all the awesome products. I heard about Laura Novak with her Strategy Avenue dvd’s to help get your business plan together (thank you Laura for helping me get my butt in gear and get my business plan out of my head). Audrey Woulard was this amazing childrens photographer that I kept hearing about on different forums. The only one I was not so familiar with was Tamara Lackey. Of course the photographer I knew the least about I got the most from!!! Tamara may have saved my sanity and my marriage ;) Seriously though she helped us all get our time back and get off the computer and back to the land of the living. That alone was worth the price of the workshop for me.
I learned so many amazing things from each of these fantastic women that I feel like I’m still trying to soak it all in 7 weeks later. If you are a photographer and are looking for a workshop to attend this year or next you have to put The Learnfest at the top of your list. Beyond the instructors I met so many amazing photographers from around the world. I wish we had 3 more days to talk to each other and learn because in the short trips to and from the airport I learned so much. Now I have a great group to bounce ideas off of and to help me with any issues I’m having. I love seeing what they are up to also on their blogs! I really cannot recommend Learnfest enough. During the workshop we got to do shoots with Tamara and Audrey on kids around the Chateau Elan. Below are a few of my favorites. FYI: Tamara and Audrey were great about telling us what they were shooting on and why and giving us tips to make the best out of any situation.
The second workshop I’m doing this year is by a great urban photographer Brianna Graham. This will be a more artistic workshop held in DC this weekend. I’m really excited to try out my new 70-200 2.8 lens!!! Although my arms may be tired from lifting it all day 
by melissa
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