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Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

a shout out to my 2011 brides!

January 23, 2012

“{Tampa,FL} – January 23, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Life Writing Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for Photography!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Life Writing Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Life Writing Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Life Writing Photography for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Life Writing Photography is one of the very best Photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

How are the winners determined?
The WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards ™ recognizes the top local wedding professionals from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism. Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the organization, the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ are awarded solely based on the reviews from over 1.2 million newlyweds. Awards are determined by a combination of four factors: Overall rating (quality), total number of reviews (quantity), review performance from 2011 (recency), and consistency of reviews from year to year (consistency). This year’s recipients represent the top 5% of WeddingWire’s vendor community, across all service categories and all regions throughout the US and Canada.”

- press release written by Wedding Wire

~~~~~

As stated above, the award is given to the top 5% of Wedding Wire vendors based on reviews from their wedding clients. Thus, I have to THANK each of my 2011 brides who took the time to write raving reviews!! I LOVED working with each and every one of you and cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to photograph your wedding day. You are what makes Life Writing Photography what it is!!

2011 brides – each of you are uniquely gorgeous! Here’s your shout out:

The following bride {Stacey} you have not gotten to see yet . . . her April 2011 wedding will be published soon . . . we are waiting for a surprise, but here is a glimpse:

PS… If you have ever had photos taken by me and have never written a review (it does not matter how long ago your shoot was), please consider doing so. It takes 5 minutes and tremendously helps Life Writing Photography (plus, I give a free 5×7 for each review, so it is so worth it!)

Here are directions for where to post:

……….~ If you were a NON-WEDDING client (family, engagement, senior portrait session): (1 review, 1 post) Google Places Page

………..~ If you were a WEDDING client: (write 1 review and post to 2 places) Google Places Page and Wedding Wire Page.

Again – THANK YOU to ALL of you who took the time to write a review.

~ Janie

Tags: media
Posted in Personal, Weddings | 3 Comments »

On turning 29.

January 8, 2012

Thursday, January 5th, marked my 29^th birthday. At midnight I awoke to my Peruvian Family and my husband entering my room with balloons and song. After singing, they took me to the living room where they sang happy birthday again, ate cake, lavished me with gifts and then had a dance party until 2am. It was an excellent way to start a new year! Although we didn’t take that many photos, here is a video of our dance party – complete with strobes from Kenzo and my headlamps!

How do I feel about entering the last year in my 20’s? Honestly – awesome! I went back and read my post on turning 27, written two years ago – and I realized that I am doing a whole lot better today than I was back then. I don’t know about you, but for me, while they’ve been great – my 20s have been hard. I think it is hard to graduate from college and try to figure out “what you want to do with your life.” And I think that for me, I spent a lot of time in high anxiety trying to answer that question instead of just letting experience and the passage of time answer it for me.

Over two years ago I did a project for my Master’s Program that I would encourage any of you mid-twentiers, post-collegers who are somewhat struggling to read. It talks about our generation and our entrance into the work world. It’s helpful!

Anyway, back to turning 29 – I could not be more excited about the year ahead! I am not dealing with any of this “I am almost 30 sorrow.” Instead, I am really content being the age I am and the point I am in my life. Which is a huge change to where I was at age 26.

The year ahead has us living in Peru until early May – with friends visiting starting in early February and staying from one week, to up to a month! When we head home we both have one more year to complete our graduate studies and then off to Kenzo’s residency – in only God knows what city. We’re excited to move home and get a puppy and start a family, graduate and start being “professionals” in our chosen areas of study. I have high hopes for Life Writing Photography too. I love getting to photograph families and weddings and although I will soon have a Master’s degree in counseling, I still have hopes of a flourishing photography business.

I write this post as a personal reflection but also to encourage you. I have changed in the past few years. I am happier, more content and joy-filled. If you’re not happy where you are, change! It is in all of our capacity to do so – but it is expected that you’ll need help, so seek it. Whether that be through a spiritual group, a counselor or whatever. God has given us life as a gift to be lived and I hope that in years to come you and I will learn how to live it to the fullest!

Tags: cuzco, latin america, our year in peru, reflections
Posted in Personal | 1 Comment »

thank you 2011

January 1, 2012

Oh my glee! Looking back through the beautiful memories that have been written in front of my camera lens this year seriously {101} brings a huge smile to my face. I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world to be able to have a {102} job that captures life, laughter and love. As I close my {103} second “official” year in the photography business, I once again have to give thanks to God and to you: {104} each person who has entrusted their memories to my work, {105} each person who has come back to the blog time after time or {106} referred a friend to me – or just {107} has become a fan on facebook – THANK YOU for allowing me to do {108} this job that I love.

I look forward to continuing this journey with you in 2012. Happy New Year!!

Sincerely,

Janie

PS… If you want to, check out 2010′s summary post - it’s really fun (for me at least) to look back.

PPS…wondering what the numbers in the {} are? Last year I started a gratitude series that I have failed horrendously in keeping up – I posted about it one time this year – guh. I am making {gratitude} my 2012 resolution because I really have a lot to be grateful for in my life.

Tags: gratitude
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Twelve Drummers Drumming: Janie & Kenzo {A Peruvian Christmas}

December 27, 2011

Kenzo and I have both posted about our Christmas traditions (his & mine) – traditions that we love and that we certainly missed this year – living in Peru. BUT – we also loved being able to experience the traditions of our family here as well as of the entire city.

Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) is a much bigger deal than actual Christmas Day. The main celebration starts in the evening with family gathered together. We decided to play a game and dance a little as we awaited the countdown to midnight. When it hit 12 o’clock, everyone hugged one another – and then looked out the window as fireworks went off throughout our entire neighborhood. When it happened, I had this rush of emotion and thought how cool it was that they welcomed the birth of Christ in such a joyous way. After shooting off our own fireworks (out of the window) – we toasted with champagne. Richardo, the dad of the family we live with, toasted saying something to the effect that we’ve been like falling stars that have brought a lot of joy to their family. I got teary eyed, touched by emotion in the moment – which the kids of course noticed and came up to me saying “pobrecita” (poor thing) and giving me hugs. Haha – it was cute. After the toast, we exchanged gifts. This part of the night was very touching to me because Kenzo and I had gotten rather simple gifts for the family – but they were extremely appreciative. We did not realize that they really do not have a tradition of exchanging gifts. After opening a gift each from us (simple gifts – the kids each got a water bottle filled with candy and a Christmas movie, dad a sweater, mom a fashion watch and some Dove chocolate) – we gave them a family gift – a digital camera. And mom and dad were both speechless. At the end of the gift exchange, the kids each thanked us and Dharet, the oldest, told us “we’ve never had a Christmas like this” (meaning with a gift each). It was precious.

After gifts, around 12:30 am, it was time to eat the turkey! (The turkey that we had gone and picked out alive the Tuesday before (more to come on this adventure on www.peru-zo.com in the next few days). We ate to our stomachs’ delight – stuffed ricotto (spicy peppers), turkey, potatoes, and wine. Around 2am, we finally headed to bed because the next morning we were to get up at 6am to go to some hot springs.
It was fabulously fun!

Here are photos from the entire Christmas Eve day – which I will try to explain.

Kenzo, Richie and I started the morning by heading to the annual Christmas Eve market in the Plaza de Armas!

We then headed home for lunch and after lunch, headed up to “the campo” with the family. We visited the Templo de la Luna (Temple of the Moon).

When we got back from our trip to the Temple of the Moon, we had Dafne and Richie take some photos of us with the cute Nacimiento (Nativity Scene) that Dafne made us – which we adorned with bulls that we’ve accumulated while here (a sign of good luck).

That evening, Kenzo and I attended the Christmas Eve Catholic Mass at Hotel Monestario where Richie’s chorus was performing. On the way home, we passed back through the market, which was still going very strong.

Below, top left – is our living room. You can see our Nacimiento – which is way bigger than what most houses adorn in the states, but small in comparison to many here! Top right – our Settlers of Catan game – we’ve got some new fans of the game! Bottom left – our turkey – hot and ready to be eaten (although it would need to wait another couple of hours for midnight to arrive). Bottom right – Kenzo with Lisette, Richie and Dafne – excited about the feast that awaits us.

A little bit of Christmas Eve dancing:

Here is supposed to be our video count-down BUT our internet connection here is slow and it is taking SO long to upload to youtube. If/when I get it uploaded, I will add it here and post it on facebook. But – here is our sight out of the 3rd story window!

And after a toast, it was time for gifts:

Above: Lisette’s delight at her Dove chocolate and Kenzo breaking into the dinner and wine!

A picture right before bedtime!

There are a lot more stories and photos from things we’ve seen and experienced this Christmas season and we will be sure to be posting them to our Peru blog in the days to come.

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year’s Twelve Posts of Christmas!! Now back to typical Life Writing Photography photos!

Tags: our year in peru, twelve posts of christmas
Posted in Personal, Travel | 3 Comments »

Eleven Pipers Piping: Stacey

December 24, 2011

Stacey and Josh got married in April and I had the pleasure of photographing their wedding!!! We decided not to share their photos yet as they have been submitted for publication - but, it should be soon!

Christmas Eve is a magical day and every year, I stretch it a little more to see how many friends, family and food I can fit into one day. It is filled with loved ones, anticipation for Christmas Day and the wonder and miracle of our Savior’s birth. The evening begins with the Candlelight service at Hyde Park Presbyterian Church. My favorite part of the service is at the end when candles are lit at the front of the church and the light is spread to each individual candle. I’ve heard it so many times that I can practically recite the words when the pastor begins…

“Two thousand years ago God tiptoed down the stair steps of heaven with a baby in his arms. The true light that enlightens every person was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God. ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. And we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.’ (John’s Gospel, 1:14)

Hark now, hear the angels sing,

A new king is born today.

And man will live forevermore,

Because of Christmas Day.

We follow with the singing of “Silent Night” and the sanctuary is filled with the incredible glowing candlelight. When I was younger, I spent most of this song monitoring the wax on my candle to make sure it didn’t drip onto the clothes of me, my sister, or the pews. Now that I am older and realize what the light respresents, I reflect on what Christmas means and how the light of Jesus and his salvation is spread to each of us. After the service, we head home and have our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Spanish Bean Soup (my Dad makes the BEST) and Cuban sandwiches. When dinner is finished, we light the advent wreath and the Christ candle. My sister and I would take turns each year lighting the coveted candle that symbolizes the birth of Jesus. The night would end watching “A Christmas Carol” or other Christmas movie and Becky and I would head to bed with anticipation of the next day.

Now that I am married, and my sister is in Baltimore with a family of her own, Christmas Eve is not quite the same, but Josh and I still attend the candlelight service with my parents and I look forward to the day (hopefully a ways off from now) where my own children can experience the wonder and beauty of the Christmas Eve Candlelight service.

See 2010′s Eleven Pipers Piping: Jeff

Tags: twelve posts of christmas
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