After a 3 hour and 30 minute flight, I felt the wheels of the plane bounce onto the runway.  We’d landed. It was just as I remembered, yet I hadn’t visited in years! I was back in Phoenix, Arizona.  The weird part was that I wasn’t there for work but yet I was there for work! I wasn’t there because of my corporate job, I was there because I was investing in my photography job!  Every year I determine where I am going to invest in my business and this year, actually last year, I decided that I was going to Amy & Jordan’s wedding workshop.  When I tried to register for their workshop on Black Friday, I was excited, nervous and then crushed.  I felt defeated because my main and almost only Black Friday purchase was “Sold Out”!  I couldn’t believe it!  I had just finished grabbing breakfast with a friend and their confusion rang loudly on their face.  “Just go to the next one” my friend said.  “Wait, what?” is my favorite expression to show confusion but this sound of confusion was met with frustration.  I began to feverishly check social media and saw that Jordan posted that their first workshop offering experienced a glitch with the registration and that they’d offer to do a second workshop for those that didn’t get into the first one.  I immediately emailed Jordan, probably while holding my breath, to be added to class number two #ajworkshop2crew is what we’ve dubbed ourselves.  Alas, I’d made it in!

See, I met Amy and Jordan about a year ago during United Santa Barbara, a conference for photographers. I didn’t know who they were so when the styled shoots were announced, I saw that they were leading one. Since they were an unfamiliar name I decided to do my research and visit their website and blog. OMG! I instantly fell in love with their clean, joyful and romantic images. That’s exactly what I’ve been aiming for in my images so I jumped all over this shoot to see what I could learn. Not only were they awesome photographers, they were awesome teachers and awesome people. I knew if the time came, which I had a feeling was coming, that I would invest in my business to learn even more from them. The notion that it takes money to make money rings so true to me and I decided that my photography education is invaluable.

While in Phoenix, I met up with some of my friends from my time there and had dinner and reminisced and got caught up on life.  I love that after all these years, we hadn’t missed a beat. Kim and Jovita, you ladies are the bee’s knees and I am forever grateful for your friendship!

The next morning, I arrived bright and early to the workshop.  I actually arrived first and I felt like a kid on the first day of school.  I even tried to kill a little time by finding a Starbucks, but I still arrived before the other attendees.  I was able to catch up with Amy & Jordan, since I hadn’t seen them since their trip to Virginia over the summer for  a Showit (my website company) meet-up. It was so refreshing to see them, to feel their energy and to sit front and center and absorb as much as I could from them.  One of the biggest takeaways, well there were many, but one thing that really hit home for me was- know your “Why” when it comes to your business and that will help with every other decision that comes.  I will be sharing my ‘Why” next week. In addition, they were elementary school teachers before going full-time in their business, so their style of teaching just made sense.  I learned new ways to look at composition, posing, marketing, my website layout, and shooting for publication to name a few.  Here are a few image highlights from my 2 awesome days with them and the new friends that I made! (Some photos taken by Amy & Jordan’s crew)