Processing

As you all know, I spent most of last week in Las Vegas. I'm still recuperating from that trip, both physically (sleep deprived!) and mentally (over stimulated by the sights and all the valuable information from the speakers and vendors.) Not only is Vegas a place to visit, but it's also quite the experience! I loved it so much. SO so much. I already told my husband he would be taking me back there in the near-ish future!

The city is amazing. Never have I seen such hugeness in such a condensed area. It seriously felt like the strip was a pop up city. When we flew in and our plane came through the clouds, all we saw were thousands upon thousands of little homes, and right smack dab in the middle of all those houses and flat land was this little blob of high rises. It was so strange!

Our hotel room faced the New York New York Hotel and it was an awesome view, right along the strip. As the sun set you could see the city transform into this amazing light show. Millions and billions of lights turned on and the city was illuminated by them and just by the energy that came from those walking along the sidewalks. I felt like I had to see it all but there was no way I possibly could. We tried to go out as often as we could, between speakers and perusing the trade show. I'm happy with the amount of stuff that we saw and did but there was still SO much that I didn't get a chance to see.

I'll write more about the details when I finish the rest of my pictures. But I have to say, the most amazing part of my trip was the Cirque du Soleil show that Frances and I watched. Remember my parents bought us tickets for Christmas? Well, best Christmas present ever! For most of the show we were sitting on the edge of our seats, jaws dropped, even a few tears shed on my part from the awe and wonder and gorgeousness of it all. What an amazing worship experience... to see art be created and unfold right before your eyes. I love how creative my Father is. Nothing moves me more than live theatre. It was unreal.

I learned so much at WPPI. I titled this post "Processing" because I seem to use that word every time I talk to someone about my experience and my time in Vegas. I went to maybe six different speakers and all them changed me in a different way. I learned so much about business and marketing and even some new techniques, but even more so, I learned things about myself. I can't say I was thrilled with everything that this brought up about me and how I'm running my business and life together. It's been a hard week in that sense. You'll notice I've been quite quiet as far as blogging and whatnot goes. I'm processing a lot. A LOT. This brain hasn't stopped turning since I got to Vegas and I don't anticipate it slowing down any time soon. But I'm so grateful for the areas in my life that God has pointed out to me that need some tweaking and re-prioritizing. I see some big changes coming for my business, but it'll be good. I'm excited about it. I'm excited to make this business my own and not compare it to other photographer's. I'm not them, and neither is my business or my life. I will defintiely write more about this as I reflect on it more and more, but for now you'll have to bare with me as I continue to process all this information.

Here are just a few photos that I edited yesterday from Vegas. Enjoy!

This is the view from my room just after sunset

New York New York in the day time

Frances (on the left) was my travel companion and roommate! Justine (right) was another friend/photographer who was at WPPI as well and we spent some time together doing photo shoots and hanging out!

Never a shortage of backdrops in Vegas for an impromtu photo shoot!

I love geometric shapes and lines.

A car that I assume is "hot" so I took a picture of it for my husband!

We wanted a picture of all three of us and this is the best we could do! I love it!

Vegas In A Nutshell

I don't think it's actually possible to sum up Vegas in a nutshell, but I'm going to try. Here we go...

AH-MAY-ZING!!!!

Phew, that was easier than I thought it would be! But seriously, it's incredible here. I fell in love the second our plane emerged from the clouds and all I could see was this vast flat city in the middle of the desert with this pop of city right in the middle of it. Wow. UNreal! It really feels like a pop up city. My hotel room looks out at New York New York and just past it is desert and mountains and blahness. This is craziness!!

The convention itself is phenomenal and overwhelming. I have been inspired and challenged and even shed a few tears (yeah, that's normal, but there's been some eye-opening lectures.) Aside from none of our attempts at setting alarms has worked thus far into the trip we've still made it to our 8am lectures. I don't have much time to write now, nor do I know how to sort through all my thoughts about this experience (that has still really only just begun!) I can't even show you any pictures right now, but there'll be lots when I get home!

Tonight is the Cirque du Soleil show that I got tickets for for Christmas and i can't be MORE excited!!!!! I have 2 things that I want to be able to check off my list while I'm here, oh wait, three.

1. See the fountains dance outside of the bellagio hotel at night
2. wander through the Venetian hotel and pretend I'm actually in Venice, Italy (a dream of mine that will still need to be fulfilled!)
3. Drink a margarita from margaritaville, for a friend, of course ;)

Enjoy your day!!!!

A Day With A Friend

My friend, Robyn, and I see each other quite often. At least once every two weeks. We only met 6 months ago but she's one of my closest friends already. We're kindred spirits, in a way. Today we met at her house, just the two of us, no baby. We started our morning with a cup of tea and talked about our 30 for 30 challenge and what we've learned about ourselves through it, so far. After we sipped the last of our teas I showed Robyn a few tricks for styling her hair.

We had planned to do a mini photo shoot of each other today to use for our own marketing materials. Thankfully the day was so gorgeous which made for some great lighting and just a great photo day! We were outside for about an hour and then came back to her flat to warm up from the chilly winter air. As we uploaded our photos into her computer we started on lunch. I chopped some veggies while Robyn sauteed the onions for a delicious scrambled eggs meal, and smoothies to drink which were amazing! (Robyn is quite the chef!)

We dined on her white dining room table and talked about exciting things that are happening in our lives and discussed marriage and religion and life and photography. Hours passed by though it only felt like minutes. I made the long trek home and James picked up samosas for dinner. A perfect Friday.

Here are just a few pictures that I took of Robyn today, more to come after Vegas (which is only two more sleeps away!!!!!!) Robyn, you are so gorgeous and your eyes are so killer! Thanks for today =)

Amongst the clutter of a Vancouver alley, Robyn could still be in a state of namaste! =) (That was probably such wrong yoga terminology but you get the drift!)

We swapped our photos after we were done so we could do our own editing, so these are two of me that Robyn took. Have I mentioned how much I love alley ways for photo shoots? Random wooden crates, HELLO! You are my favourite! =) Oh, and this is Day Eighteen: black leggings, soft pink silk skirt (broke the rules and bought this one yesterday!), black long sleeve shirt, grey blazer/jacket, brown boots, purple scarf.

Like I said, two more sleeps till Vegas, baby!! I'll have my lap top with so I'm sure I'll be popping in to update on my experience a few times. Looking forward to spending time with a good friend and soaking in as much information as I can!

My Everyday - Something's Brewing

First off, have you noticed that my blog URL has changed?? It's not www.vanessavothblog.com. It's still hosted by Blogger so it'll automatically redirect you if you type in my old URL, but in the future when I change blog hosts, this will be the one that you'll want to have in your bookmarks!

My days have been filled with new marketing materials that I'm working on and preparing for Las Vegas and the WPPI convention, and dinner with my babe for Valentine's Day yesterday!

New marketing materials! Yay! I love playing around in Photoshop and putting new ideas onto "paper" and watching those ideas come alive! I've put together some new pdf packages for interested brides and grooms about my services and stuff. Very exciting!

I leave on Sunday for Vegas which I can't even tell you how excited I am about this trip! I get to see Las Vegas in all it's extravagance and over-abundance of lights and glamour for the first time. I get to spend 5 days with a good friend without our babies to take care. I get to put my home life aside for just a few days to fully soak in all the amazing knowledge I know that I'll be bombarded with from all the amazing speakers I've signed up to hear! And, I get to see a Cirque du Soleil show, one thing that I've always ALWAYS wanted to do yet in my lifetime! So many super exciting things!

And Valentine's Day. Yes, I don't love the over commercialized aspect of the day, but this year it turned out to be quite lovely. Monday brought Greek ordered in for dinner and the evening spent cosying up on the couch to watch a movie. Tuesday night we went out for dinner to Milestones and then grabbed Chai lattes from Starbucks and roamed around Chapters for about an hour before heading off to our Life Group. So good! I love Chapters. I could spend hours there, perusing the endless shelves full of words, wisdom, and knowledge or entertainment.

Onto today's My Everyday. My husband has gotten into making his own beer and wine. It started off as a hobby, buying the kits you find at the grocery store, but has evolved into somewhat of an art, mashing the grains to produce beer from scratch, basically. Our house often smells like a barn and there's carboy's strewn all around the house filled with liquidy goodness.

Day 12 & 13 - A wedding and a night in.

Saturday was spent at a friend's wedding. Rain aside, it was a wonderful wedding and beautiful bride! Sunday was a day of rest. We went to church and then stayed in for the rest of the night, joined by friends for Pizza Night (it had to be Sunday night since it didn't happen on Saturday night.)

Day 12: grey silk tunic tucked into a black pencil skirt, fishnet stockings, black leather boots (not part of my 30 for 30 but I had to make an exception since my grey and brown boots were too casual for such an occasion!), and pearl necklace. Not shown in picture was my fuschia cardigan. (ok, how do you spell fuscia? fuschia? every which way I try spelling it comes up wrong according to my computer but it has no options for how to properly spell it!)

Day 13: black leggings, taupe skirt, fuscia t-shirt, ivory knit sweater, brown boots.

Fave Wedding Blogs

Last week I posted a few 'Best Of' blogs from weddings/engagements (e-sessions, details, weddings) and today I wanted to post some links to a few of my favourite wedding blogs.

I love weddings with lots of details. I especially love DIY (do it yourself) weddings, where the couple makes and creates all of their decorations. I think it really gives a wedding character and reflects the bride and groom's unique styles and personalities.

My goal is to be featured in some, if not all, of these weddings blogs at some point in my career. Most of them are pretty particular about the types of weddings that they showcase, looking for a lot of unique decorations and details that other brides might be interested in using for their weddings. So, if you would want your wedding to possibly be featured on one of these wedding blogs then take note of the images that you see and try to incorporate the same sense of creativity to your own wedding and hopefully we'll get your wedding on there! That's my goal for every wedding that I photograph this year - to aim to get it featured on a wedding blog.

Anyway, these are a few of my favourites...

Style Me Pretty (this site also just added a feature to design an inspiration board for your wedding!)
Ruffled
Green Wedding Shoes
Wedding Obsession
WedLuxe Magazine
100 Layer Cake
Wedding Chicks
A Million Little Details
I Do It Yourself
Earth Friendly Weddings
Ritzy Bee
Classic Bride
La Belle Bride

And here's a post that lists the top 100 wedding blogs!

And don't forget to check out Anthropologie's latest release of wedding dresses and accessories!! Check it out here!!

Hopefully those blogs are able to give you some inspiration for your wedding day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Day Eleven - Pearls

I felt the need to get slightly more dressed up today than my previous days. Not that I'm doing anything super fancy, in fact, I'll be doing quite the opposite. I'm going to Walmart tonight. Woo hoo. (That was the most sarcastic 'woo hoo' you'll ever read.) Errands need to be made, and Walmart tends to have the cheapest prices for the particular items that I need to purchase. One of my purchases will be a notebook for WPPI! That's exciting! =) No really, it is!

9 days until I leave for Vegas and get my mind overloaded with amazingly useful information for me and my business. I'm already excited to come home from Vegas and start implementing the knowledge that I gain from the speakers that I'll be hearing while out there.

Anyway, here is today's much too fancy outfit for Walmart, but dang it, I'll be the best dressed Walmartee there! =)

Day 11: black leggings, black tweed skirt, black long sleeve shirt, fuscia cardigan, grey boots, pearl necklace, uber poofed hair. Do I look like a martian? I feel like I might look like Brain from 'Pinky and the Brain.' No? Yes? Oy. Please tell me if I do!!!

Best of: weddings

This is the third and final post of my Best Of's leading up to Valentine's day. You can see the Best of: e-sessions here and the Best of: details here.

Today I'm showing some of my favourite wedding images from last year. It's hard to narrow it down to just a few, but I managed. You can see all wedding related posts HERE.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! If anyone gets engaged over the weekend or on Valentine's Day, congratulations!

I'm going to be making some changes to my blog tonight so it might be down for 24-48 hours, just in case you're wondering what happened!

Day Ten - A Visit

I've been in touch with the couple that adopted Meetzy from us last week. It's been so nice to hear what's been going on over there and how Meetzy is (or isn't!) adapting to her new home. I decided to go visit her today, mainly because I missed her, but also because I thought maybe having me around might help her to come out from under the couch.

And it did! As soon as I walked in the room where she was hiding I called her name and she scooted out to greet me! It was so nice to see her again and that she remembered me. I brought a few things from home to leave with her so she could feel comforted and she instantly embraced those objects! I stayed for awhile and we watched Meetzy finally emerge from her little room and explore the rest of the house for the first time. It was so nice to see her wandering around. When I left she started meowing and stood in front of the door. It was really sweet. I got to hold her and get some snuggles in before I left. And I just heard that since I left she's stayed out of her room and is in the office with her new owner, so that makes me so happy!

Side note: It's too cold outside. Technically every outfit I take pictures of should have my nice thick coat overtop, but I sacrifice for nice pictures! I'm looking forward to attempting this again in the spring or summer when it's a little warmer out! And we need to change up the photo location a bit. How boring is my complex?!!

Today is Day ten of the challenge. It includes: skinny jeans (not the black ones, though the pictures make them look black), purple printed top, beige wedge heels, gold braided belt, charcoal cowl. After I uploaded the pictures onto my computer I realized my belt was a little lop sided. Sorry. Thanks for noticing, James! =)

Here is the last 10 days in review:

Best of: details

Yesterday I blogged about Valentine's Day coming up and that I'm going to feature some wedding related stuff over the next few days leading up to the fourteenth. Yesterday I posted some images from a few e-sessions that I did last year, and today I'll be posting some wedding detail shots.

I love details. I've planned my own wedding so I know how much time and stress and decision making goes into your wedding day, down to every. last. detail. That's partially why I enjoy being a second shooter at weddings because I can focus on those details. Your guests may not remember what you had on your guest book signing table, but you will.

Some of these images have my old logo on them because I don't have the originals on this computer. So try to look past that!