Passion Love and Life

"First find something that you love to do so much that you would gladly do it for nothing. Then learn to do it so well that people are happy to pay you for it."
~Walt Disney

I just received this quote in an email and thought it was so fabulous and true. It is amazing how much I love photography and connecting with my clients. It is such an honor and a gift each time I get to see people in this way. I am really excited about 2008 and have some really fun things to share in the next few weeks, so stay tuned and stay PASSIONATE!

Seattle Wedding Show Fashion

This weekend I went to the Seattle Wedding Show and saw great vendors from around the NW. It was great, with many kinds of cakes and dresses and venues it is almost mind boggling. The dresses and flowers were absolutely GORGEOUS, and I enjoyed the variety of models they had in all shapes, ages, and sizes. My sister is getting married in May of 09 and it is never too early to start planning.

There were some amazing things to see there, especially cakes that defied gravity like Mikes Amazing Cakes with tea cups and saucers. I saw this really sweet cake from Creme de la Creme. They actually made it as a DONATION to the Woodland Park Zoo for their booth. I thought it was exceptionally sweet because they printed the Zoo's logo on the edible paper around the cake with food coloring. I had to check out their booth and was really impressed with their stuff and with the owners, very nice people. I think the zoo sounds like a unique place to get married and a great way to support animal and environmental education. Woodland Park Zoo has the AMAZING butterfly garden which would be a fabulous place for pictures. I spoke with the people at the booth and they were super excited about this cake because of how fast Creme de la Creme was and how sweet it was for them to donate to the Zoo.
My daughter went along as well and had to taste all the cakes at the show. She even brought her digital camera to take pictures of her favorite things, mostly cakes. She said that although all the cakes were beautiful at the show her favorite tasting cake was the Raspberry- Lemon from the Celebrity Cake Studio in Tacoma. I love the Pink Champagne though, it is wonderful, and I usually don't like to eat cake.

Happy New Year!

(Photo courtesy by my daughter and her new Samsung point and shoot camera from Christmas)

It is amazing that 2008 is already here. I am so excited. Today my daughter and I walked around the lake and enjoyed a day of reflection and of planning. I am busy writing my personal and business goals for 2008 and super excited for the New Year. I will be launching some fun new things so stay tuned. I would love to hear what your goals are for 2008.
Here are a couple of mine:

1. Get in shape, by shape I mean going to the gym more than 2-3x a week and stepping it up to 4-5x a week and walking around the lake at least 1-2x a week as well.
2. Begin yoga again. I love yoga, and have not been making time for it. It is so good for mind and body.
3. Finish paperwork for Artist applications.
4. Write article for local paper.
5. Edit my personal pictures and finish albums for these.
6. Start my daughter in horseback riding lessons. She loves horses, so horse crazy she is that she needs to ride.
So many more....

I hope you all have a great New Year, it is such a blessing to have a shiny new year to dream and plan and envision. I wish you all a blessed year.
Dinea

Nutcracker Production

So, for the past few weeks I have been driving my daughter to Nutcracker Dress rehearsals and to performances and it has been exhausting, yet so inspirational. I am consistently impressed by the incredible work that Ballet Northwest does to put on this annual production. It is BEAUTIFUL and so worth seeing. I also love that BNW includes so many of the community in the cast. It is a great opportunity for people to learn self confidence and how a show like this is put together. Check out their website for more information www.balletnorthwest.org
We are so fortunate to have a Ballet of this caliber in Olympia, if you haven't seen it go. This year's is SOLD OUT, but next year, save a trip North and go to Ballet Northwest's Nutcracker, you will be soooooooooooo glad you did.

Here are a few pictures of my daughter as a soldier. She was so cute and just really enjoyed being part of the battle between the Mouse King and the Nutcracker.

Photo Animation for Fun!

So, this isn't really photography related, and I have a bunch of new photos to post in the next couple of days, but I just had to share. I just found this really fun animation website where I could create a photography avatar. I had way too much fun doing it and was really excited they had a photographer animation. You can go there and create your own as well at www.meez.com

Check me out!

Vintage Style

I just had the most amazing time photographing a young woman, Juliane in Olympia who has major "Vintage Style". We had a blast and went to the State Capital to grab pics of the marble grandeur and timelessness. Of course Juliane has such a timelessness to her and she just seemed to be at home there amongst the marble and stone columns.

I am posting some of my favorites and made a slideshow which you can see here

Gratitude WOW!

WOW!
This morning I received an email from Davina Fear (www.davinafear.com), a Photographer who is absolutely amazing. She told me to check her blog and I did and found out I have been awarded a Davina Scholarship toward the tution of Love Affair (www.loveaffairworkshop.com), the Women's Photography Workshop in NC.

I am so thrilled, stunned, and honored to have received this. I am now working on raising the rest of the funds to go there. It is such an amazing gift to have people I admire believe in me and my work. I am so honored and deeply touched by this!

So Halloween was a BLAST! We went to the Governor's house and my daughter received a book and a chocolate bar, we saw the house of 100 pumpkins, and then trick or treated for a little while as well. The Halloween Fairy decided to come this year too. A child at school told my daughter that if you put all the candy out for the Halloween Fairy she will leave a present, well she did. Almost ALL of the candy got put into a bag and in the morning ***POOF*** there in its place were 2 one dollar bills. My daughter was so excited that she plans on doing this again next year. Apparantly the tooth fairy and the Halloween fairy are friends.

Here are a few cute pics of my daughter as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.