Hola, Bonjour, and Zdravo as well! Seeing Europe has always been a dream of mine, and recently I had the pleasure of seeing another one of my dreams unfold! Last week I returned from a vacation of a lifetime; cruising through Italy with stops in Spain, France, Croatia and Montenegro. Experiencing new cultures always fascinates me and although the history, landscapes and flavors were leaps beyond my imagination, there is no place like home.

Even on my dream vacation, with no internet or cell access, I was thinking about work. I guess I’m a little more of a workaholic than I thought. In Tuscany we visited a 17th Century vineyard with some of the most delicious wines I’ve ever sipped. Fattoria Maionchi was one of the most picturesque scenes I’ve ever laid eyes on- and of course my first thought was I want to shoot a wedding here. I literally walked around photographing places I wanted to pose a bride and groom (previsulization at its best). I even spoke to the owner about hosting a wedding on the property and she said anything for my friends. You know I have the hookups.

Jeff even tapped into his inner photographer with this next shot from our point and shoot!

And at the end of the day back on the ship…

Why has it become so difficult for me to blog? Sometimes I think about writing a blog and I think building a brick wall and then starring at it would be more productive. When this all began I was all over this thing, sharing about everything from shoes, bags and phones to what this blog is really about – reflections on experiences photographing people. But since I launched a website, I’ve been neglecting my voice. When I was in Seattle attending the Jasmine Star CreativeLive course, I learned such a critical piece of advice that I constantly hear in my head. Someone asked about the advantages of a website and blog versus a blogsite. Personal preference plays a huge role in this decision, but I agree with the response Jasmine gave (not verbatim): your website is like your business card, while your blog is like your hand shake. So basically my online presence has become everything I dislike about most businesses/ sales people. Example A: If someone I don’t know very well hands me a business card, more than likely that card is going to end up in the trash. (Didn’t I just say my website is like a business card?) Example B: If someone gives a weak introduction or handshake I get the impression that I was just blown off or the person is not committed. (Hello, the blog is the handshake!) Example C: If a business has a weak web presence I most likely won’t do business with them. I may be better off just shooting myself in the foot and getting it over with. This blog is where everything began and I have to keep it going.

I’m still not sure why it’s been so hard for me to blog, but I know I needed to put it out there in order to become more accountable. I’ve built the brick wall, now it’s time to get over it.

I’m not one for heart shaped balloons and chocolates…. I prefer my chocolate in the shapes of turtles with almonds and carmel inside… but that’s beside the point. I’ve never given into the hoopla over February 14th. I cringe at the thought of over crowded restaurants, over priced floral arrangements and giant red helium balloons. Oh, and don’t get me started on the root of all evil, Hallmark (is it just me or does anyone else hear the sound of cash registers?).  I’ve never been a fan, and its not because I had a bad experience. Or maybe it was. In elementary school we had to bring valentines for every student in class, which meant I had to assemble valentines… for every student in my class. Then when I got older my friends wanted to exchange gifts, which meant I had to go out a buy ridiculous fluffy things and pretend like I was into it. Which brings me to today and my dislike of the obligations of Valentine’s Day. But don’t think I’m the V-day Grinch, I just think love is something that should be celebrated all the time and I prefer to leave all the bells and whistles behind. In effort to defy all of Cupid’s rules, our tradition is to order pizza and orange Fanta soda and watch a movie at home in sweats. And yes, the sweats are mandatory. Throw in a bowl of popcorn and a little snuggling and voila! The perfect Valentine’s combo.

Whatever your Valentine’s Day tradition is, I hope you all have a fabulous day full of smiles and warm feelings.

Here’s a little something from a few friends of mine…. XOXO

I know I claimed I was on vacation as of yesterday, but let’s be real, when you own your own business you’re never really on vacation. My trusty Blackberry keeps me in the know… and you know what I found out yesterday?  My images were featured in the Shootsac newsletter!! Now for the non-photographers this may not sound like a big deal, but actually its a huge deal! Remember when I was comparing photographing the party to my big Grammy moment? Well this is like winning an award too. I’m beyond excited and I had to share my little 15 seconds of fame with you all here!

Thanks again to Jessica Claire and the Shootsac team for a fabulous shindig (and product!). 

As a small business owner I have a lot to me mindful of: finances, supplies, flow of business, customer satisfaction. But in my opinion, there is an entity that requires more attention than any other area. Relationships. In the short time I’ve been in business, I have discovered the relationships I am building will sustain this little company alone.

One of the first missions I set out on was to network with other professionals. People I felt would be good examples, occasional mentors and eventual friends. Fortunately that wasn’t much of a challenge. The photography world welcomed me with open arms and I’m still surprised and honored when someone remembers my name or answers and email right away. Which brings me to my first piece of advice: know the names of the people you are working with. That goes for colleagues, vendors and most importantly clients. This may sound remedial, but one slip up can potentially ruin a good thing. Personally I am terrible with names, so I make sure to do whatever it takes to prevent me from murmuring the wrong name. I stress this because I’ve been on the other side of the name calling. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been called Tiffany. Not too long ago I was working with another business owner who I had been communicating with primarily through emails. When we finally met in person she couldn’t remember my name for the life of her. She repeatedly called me the wrong names and just danced around the obvious truth that she didn’t know my name. After being corrected for the 45th time I think she just gave up, resulting in my new nick name Miss Thang. Really? Is Stephanie THAT hard to remember? In my head I just thought to myself so basically you don’t care enough about this relationship to even know my name. To make matters worse you start calling me names. Cool. And that was it. Relationship fail.

Do you need to know your associates sign and favorite color? No. Their name. Yes. And YES! What do you do if you can’t remember? Don’t fake it. In one of my very first jobs ever I learned an important lesson: its ok to say I don’t know. If you don’t know the answer to something ask… and then tattoo the answer to your brain so you NEVER forget.

Relationships are very powerful and worth putting a lot of effort into. In my relationships, my goal is to make sure both parties walk away remembering something about each other beyond our first names. More than likely we’ll even find something in common, keeping us connected.

On another note…

Today is the first day of December Daily!  December Daily was started by scrap bookers as a challenge to document each day leading up to Christmas. Well Tira J informed me (and the rest of twitter) that bloggers are getting in on the challenge too, so for the next 25 days we are challenging ourselves to digitally document the season. There’s no better way for me to kick off my Daily December contribution than with a milestone in my household: After celebrating our first wedding anniversary, my husband and I got our very first real Christmas tree! From here on out we plan to spend the day after our anniversary eating chinese food and decorating the tree by the fire with Christmas music playing in the background. And maybe next year the photographer wife cut off the star in the photo… go figure. Happy tree trimming!

Katie Keller and Jen Johnson are also taking on the challenge along with us. Check out their December Daily posts! If you have a blog and want to take on the challenge add your blog URL in the comments and I’ll follow your journey too!

I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, but I do plan on living as much as possible. A few years back I watched the movie The Bucket List, which immensely inspired me to start living. There were so many things I thought about doing every day, but thats about as fas as I got with that. So just like in the movie, I decided to write down all the things I want to do in my life and do it. Which ended up being 8 things. Yes, at the time there were 8 things I wanted to do. But 8 really meaningful things…to me at least. Well… I actually forgot about the list until I came across it this past week and although there were only 8 things listed, I was re-inspired when I was able to cross a few things off my list.

To be honest, I didn’t even remember what I had on my list, but to know I am accomplishing things makes me feel successful.  So I decided to add a few more things to my list. Bigger challenges like getting published in a magazine. And I’ve also challenged myself to keep the list alive as a reminder to myself that I am living.

My favorite part of building my business is experimenting with the visual elements. My undergrad studies were in graphic design, so i have a little bit of experience in this area, but I’m having so much more fun designing for myself. I like to think I have an artistic gift. I think in design, color, and composition. In most cases, I immediately have an idea or inspiration of what I want something to look and feel like. My package design elements weren’t so immediate. I actually had so many different samples of ways to present my brand to clients, it didn’t look like I had any idea what I was doing. Maybe thats because I didn’t. When I was in Seattle, I was hoping to get a glimpse at Jasmine Star’s client package… you know for inspiration. Long story short, I didn’t see even a business card and I’m so glad I didn’t. I created a package that reflected me, and I love it. Jasmine Star asked us to think of three words to describe our brand, after realizing what I don’t want my brand to represent, I fell in love with the words: rich, raw and natural. Rich meaning color, texture, contrast, and emotion. Raw meaning unaltered, contrasting and in the moment. Natural meaning real, fresh, and simple.  I would use all those words to describe myself, and I can see those elements in my images as well as my brand. I also wanted to choose as many sustainable materials as possible. I think I nailed it. Check it out.

Petal envelope: local print and card shop

Custom rubber stamp: rubberstamps.net

White ink: rubberstamps.net

Mini cards: Michael’s

Ribbon: Offray.com (in lemongrass) can also be found at JoAnn Fabric and Craft stores

Thank you tags: darice.com

CD and Disk Storage labels: Avery

Thats it for this installment of…

Yesterday I read something that said “leave the world better than you found it.” I’m working on it, how about you?

I made it out alive. I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to doing two events in the same weekend without any help, but somehow I pulled it off. Fortunately the florists and the pastry chefs were amazing people who do amazing work and made my job a whole lot easier. The only problem is now I want to be a florist and a pastry chef so I can make beautiful and tasty decorations! Can’t you just see it, S. Miller | photographer | florist | pastry chef | and I can wash your car too. Here is a peek at some of Saturday and Sunday…

Saturday: 50th Birthday at the Reef, Long Beach, CA

Sunday: 10.10.10. Wedding {Maggie & Sonny}, Westridge Golf Club, La Habra, CA

More images are on the way!

Each day I wake up and ask myself what am I going to do today to make S. Miller Photos a stronger brand? This question used to stump me. I felt like I was on the track, but I wasn’t moving. When I was in Seattle, I learned a very important lesson: above all, I just have to be myself. Since I’ve been applying that principle, have been gaining serious momentum. I might even describe myself as a runaway train. Recently, I have been working to enhance my brand, starting with a blog facelift. When I designed my banner I wanted to define myself, making it clear that I’m not just a girl with a camera. I’m a professional with a purpose.

What does it mean to be a celebration photographer? It means that I capture images that reflect the greatest moments in life. Moments that are dedicated to family, friends, dreams, success, freedom, health, love and happiness (just to name a few). Life is so precious, yet people often rush through it. My photographs are intended to suspend a moment in time so that my clients can look back and smile, laugh, cry and relive moments as if they are happening once again.

“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey

We didn’t have a professional photographer to take our picture after our helicopter ride in Maui, but I still love this picture because I can remember how happy we were that we were finally on our honeymoon!

ps. Thanks to Cinthya for a little inspiration. <3

So typical. I’m a girl who loves shoes. To me shoes are like art. Sculptures of love if you may. Together as a pair, like a perfect union of two unique and beautiful soles. Oh yes, this love affair is serious. And if you didn’t catch that pun then you may want to just stop reading now. This goes a little deeper than my infatuation with footwear, while I was in Seattle I had a conversation with Nate and Sachin about designer shoes. Earlier in the day names like Jimmy Choo and Christian Louboutin had been dropped and the guys were… well, lost. So I knew I had to do something. I sat the two lads down for a little talk. (Well, it was more like the car ride back to the hotel). Some people spend hundreds to thousands on shoes, and if its their wedding day, you better make sure you get a shot of those bad boys. The idea of spending hundred and even thousands of dollars on shoes was a clearly mind boggling to the guys because the conversation came to a screeching halt. Yup, hundreds and thousands. But what does that mean for a wedding photographer? Do you need to start reading fashion magazines religiously? No. I mean it wouldn’t hurt to pick up a copy of Vogue every once in a while, but not so you can learn to shoot Manolo Blahnkis any different than you would a pair of Steve Maddens, but so you can make sure you shoot every pair of shoes like they are Manolo Blahniks. It doesn’t matter who makes the shoe, our job is to capture the memory of the day as best as we can. Including the shoes. I’m speaking from experience.

When I got married, I had 6 weeks to plan. On top of it all I was working full time and spending as many evenings as possible with Jeff’s dad who was battling cancer. I didn’t have much time for anything. Most of the decisions I made were in a split second. Flowers? Red and orange, whatever looks good together. My bouquet? Just make it white. Cream linens? Fine. The gift table? Wherever there is space. One thing I knew I wanted was fabulous shoes that I would only buy for my wedding day, but I didn’t have the time to hunt down that “perfect pair”. Not to mention I got married in November. If I have one word of advice, don’t try to look for light color wedding shoes in November. Not even online. I ordered a pair of nude Diane Von Furstenburgs (which I love). Thought I couldn’t go wrong with nude. WRONG. I probably would have done better with Timberland construction boots. That bad. I had two weeks before the wedding and the dress was already chopped down to fit my munchkin stature plus 3 inches. I had to do what I had to do. I purchased every single pair of shoes that could possibly go with my dress (again it was November so that was about 5 pair). I ended up settling on a pair of  $50 Ann Marino pumps from DSW. No candy red soles, no rhinestone encrusted heels, and a far cry from anything ever seen on Sex and the City. I did not want my photographer to get ANY pictures of my shoes. She did anyway, and to be honest, when I saw the images I felt like my shoes were priceless. Thanks Ala!

(A couple more photos borrowed from Love Ala.)

I added my own bling and viola! Couture!