Boy did it fly by. 2009 can go down on record as the fastest year I’ve lived yet.
But Jennifer, it’s now OVER, you say. I know it’s officially 2010, but the fact that I’m just now able to do my yearly review kind of sums up my life in a nutshell this past year: playing catch up! 2009 was both wonderful and interesting, and busy. Busy with the kids and our family, busy in business, and with me personally.
In ’09, the biggest blessing of course was the birth of our second child, Alex in January. I cannot believe he is almost one! Holy moly. I wasn’t sure what to expect with two children and was honestly a tad nervous to have a boy (since I come from all girls and its all I’ve known), but I can look back on it now, almost a year later and say it has truly been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Two children has certainly been busier, of course, but also so FUN! I guess the biggest thing I was not prepared for was what having two would do to my heart. Before Alex, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to love the second child the same as I loved my first. How could my heart love another human as much as it loved Jordan? Now I understand why people desire to have 3, 4 or 5 kids. Your heart literally doubles with each new addition, and it’s just as amazing and powerful and passionate as it is with the first. And the added bonus for us is that the whole experience has been so much more relaxed and calm. I think we have been able to enjoy all the stages more the second time around because we know all to well how fast they go by and we just don’t stress about as much. While we won’t be having any more children (2 works great for us!), I can understand why others would want more for those heart/love/added person and soul reasons.
This REALLY feels like it was yesterday. It was, right?
Aside from that big deal for us, some other exciting things happened for my business as well:
In February ’09, I announced a new partnership with The Royal Palms by serving as their official photographer for the Babymoon Bliss Package. I was so incredibly honored to be approached by Erin Stremcha, marketing coordinator in late 2008 about this exciting opportunity and have had a lot of fun photographing beautiful pregnant mamas and dads-to-be at The Royal Palms this year. Erin just had her own first baby (Baby Parker) recently, so it was so fun to photograph his complete adorableness as well. Since I haven’t shared too many of these on the blog this year, here are a few of the sessions we did in ’09, and I have another full post coming soon featuring another super cute recent Babymoon couple.
It was also a very humbling, and exciting year of publishings and industry recognitions for me. First Ginny & Dave’s wedding was featured in Ceremony Magazine, a popular Southern California annual bridal magazine, then Arizona Bride Magazine featured some more of my images and included several of them in their Annual Resource Guide given free to all newly engaged couples registering at area department stores, and then the special 10th Anniversary issue of Phoenix Bride & Groom Magazine featured two of my weddings! Aimee & Matt’s and Christy & Josh’s fall weddings were included and each had a nice page feature. The Wedding Chronicle featured Laura & AJ’s wedding in their Best of Weddings 2009 issue and earlier in the year Allison and Chris’s wedding was featured.
Much to my surprise, I was selected as a Winner of the Brides Choice Awards on www.weddingwire.com, Nominated for Best Photographer 2009through Arizona Bride Magazine readers, and most recently was selected as a Winner of Best of Weddings 2010 from the readers of The Knot. These last 3 are especially meaningful to me since I had no part in soliciting any votes for those – the readers nominated me and all 3 have been a big surprise. Thank you, thank you!!
I was also so thrilled to be featured on some popular wedding blogs in 2009: Southern Weddings Magazine Blog featured Aimee and Matt’s wedding, as well as Sheryl and Dane’s wedding, and The Bride’s Cafe featured some bridal party images of cute gowns that can be found at Twirl Boutique.
I had the chance to really get to know and work closely with some amazing vendors in town this past year, which has been especially wonderful. We are really lucky in Phoenix to have so many fantastic people to choose from, and I feel like I’ve had the chance to form some new friendships, which was been so great. I really want to thank the Sanctuary Resort & Spa for choosing one of my images for their wedding ad (wow – honored!), the Emmy award winning Serendipty Videography chose one of my images for their front page of their website (again, very honored!), and Twirl Boutique for hanging some of my work inside their two awesome stores (in Scottsdale and Chandler – thank you Keri and Jeni!), and finally to FlyJetbird, a corporate aviation company out of Ireland, who found me online and purchased one of my personal family images for their website.
In ’09, I also expanded the business by bringing on an associate photographer. In May we announced that Jenny Bishop came on board to help shoot portrait sessions. I’ll be doing a feature shortly on some of the great work she has done for me this past year and we’ll actually be expanding her role in 2010 to include wedding coverage as well, and will be adding one more associate photographer to also shoot weddings — details to be announced soon. I’m so excited to expand this part of the business!
Speaking of growing, I also hired Kelly Gill to come on as a studio coordinator and she has been fantastic. I’m soooo happy to have her on the team and love working with her. (Jenny is on the left and Kelly is on the right.)
In September, I launched a new logo and blog design (by the very talented and kind Ryan Brannen of One Red Key) as well as updated my current website with the new look. I also updated my packaging, ordered new business cards that I love, redid some of my branding materials (more are on the way) and implemented a new backend proofing site for clients (PickPic for you photographers.) I received so much positive feedback on the new blog and look, and for that I am thankful. It was a long time coming! While the new gallery website is still in the works because it’s proven to be SUCH a huge undertaking and I keep pushing the project back due to client driven projects that take a higher priority, I can say it will definitely happen in 2010! :-)
After coming back to my shooting schedule in March (post maternity leave) I shot 15 amazing weddings in ’09. Between my associate Jenny and I, we shot close to 70 portrait sessions this year and met so many new families this year – as well as saw many familiar and favorite faces.
My workshop partner Kim Jarman and I held another round of Create Better Images beginner and intermediate workshops in June and they sold out in record time for us – we were truly amazed! We plan to do these at least twice a year, if not 3 times a year, from here on out because we have just been getting great feedback from you guys who attend them and each have so many clients who ask us about when we plan to do more. So they are coming :-) Also very exciting, in June, Jeff Bills of Serendipity Videography came out and filmed our Intermediate Class and put together this fantastic video for us. Thank you again Serendipity for making us look so good!
The next two classes are scheduled for next week and while they are sold out, we are announcing the dates for the next set here very shortly. Hint: Mother’s Day Gift for all those Mom’s who want to take better pictures of their kids. Stay tuned!
Finally, it wasn’t all happiness – I did have a few sad family moments this year as well. In early May, my grandfather passed away after a long and happy life. I think one of the harder aspects to losing a grandparent is watching your parents deal with the profound loss of their own parent. Both of my paternal grandparents passed on years ago. In fact, my Dad’s dad died when I was just 4, and I vividly remember it being the first time I ever saw him cry. One of the few times later when we lost my grandma, his Mom, 10 years ago this March. Sadly, my Uncle Bob in Vermont also passed away this past summer. He too lived a long and full life, which was celebrated by much of my extended family at a family reunion of sorts shortly thereafter. Sadly I couldn’t go due to my schedule, but felt like I was there with all the pictures my family sent along.
As for 2010, I am SO excited and ready to go! Last year was a bit transformative for me as I had to find my footing again after adjusting to 2 kids. It has not always been easy, but we have settled into a groove again and the kids are doing great, I have found a good balance (on most days) and plan to kick things up a notch this year. I have some really fun products coming for more clients, a few surprises in store, some amazing weddings on the books and so much more. Stay tuned! It’s going to be a great year, isn’t it?
by jenjoaz
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