bobbi+mike

… you know, like the Dr. Hook song?Now… we certainly weren’t on any cover of the Rolling Stone… but… the NEXT BEST THING!!! (okay, maybe not…) We were in an ad. As in… OMG, WE WERE IN A DOUBLE SPREAD AD!!!!!!! As in… an ad that ran in THREE pro photo magazines (and one WPPI Show Guide)… AHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

When mpixpro called and asked us if we would be willing to be in their print ad, I about pooped myself.  AHHHHHH!!!!!! OF COURSE WE WILLLLLL!!!!!! Many have asked how we fell upon this opportunity. Well… Remember the BLEND workshop I went to back in March, 2009? There, I met a ridiculously nice guy… who also happens to be a talented photographer, and his name was Dale Benfield. We were on the famous “Team Awesome.” He and I, in that short time, became great friends. It’s hard not to adore him! (Right, Meredith?!)Anyway, what I didn’t know was that he was the photographer liaison for an up and coming division of Miller’s Photo Lab… mpixpro. When the ooh la la big wigs asked Dale if he had any suggestions for a “fun photographer” who could be in their ad that ran during WPPI (the photog convention), he thought of us.Here’s what he had to say in a recent mpixpro blog entry: “Bobbi and I have been friends since we met in March at a great three day workshop where we were on the same team. Over those three days, I saw her laugh until she cried, and cry until she laughed. She is hilarious, she is smart, and she is genuine.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME DALE??!?! YOU are THEEEE best best BEST! I canNOT believe you thought of us for SUCH a huge honor… and we REALLY can’t thank you enough.

Another question that we’ve gotten quite a bit was, “who took the photo?!” Well, originally, we did.You know… self timer style! Mike would balance those books on his head while I’d click the shutter… RUN… jump on the couch… straighten my hair… fix my scarf… suck it in… pop the hip… CLICK… jump down… back to the camera… repeat as many times as I could until the books would fall off of Mike’s head… he’d RE-balance the books… and then right back to the beginning…

I sent in the photo. You see, I hadn’t yet seen their rough layout of the ad and shot it how I pictured the ad to look. Well… it wasn’t wide enough. Furthermore, I thought that version didn’t show enough products.

SOOO… they sent more productsTHIS time, however, I was NOT about to go through the chaos of the self timerI called one of my very best friends. One of the very few people I would trust with this (I was the type in college that in group projects I’d do all of the work because I wasn’t going to allow anyone to ruin my grade!).

Who is this awesome person I speak so highly of? Ryan Hunley!He’s the creative genius behind 2nd Street Creative (and has designed mannny photographers’ logos). In his past, he’s art directed many photo shoots.  So, having his creative, detailed eye was a HUUUUUGE help to us!

Here, he’s trying to see how easy it was to balance the books. Uhm… he found out it wasn’t!Ryan, don’t be mad that I snapped this.

This may make me sound totally lame… but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this ad was, up to now, the ABSOLUTE proudest moment of my life. ALLLLL that mattered to me was showing our parents. Seriously. I didn’t care if ANYONE else saw it… having my mom full of pride was what I was most excited about.And let me tell you, the parents didn’t disappoint.We waited to tell them until it was in print. I called my mom at work and told her about it. She about hung up on me and immediately left work and drove to Borders and OF COURSE showed it off to every person in Borders. I’m not kidding you. She’s just beside herself with pride. Karen and Dave, Mike’s parents, saw it before it was published. The awesome people over at mpixpro sent us 4 prints of the final ad. We accidentally left it on the conference table. Dave promptly asked for one… but first demanded that we sign it.SERIOUSLY?! SIIIIGN IT??!? HAHAHAHA! OH how I love our families.

Really and truly, thank you Mom Kim, Mom Karen, Dad, Aunt Karen and G-Mom.  We love you. Big time!:D

So, on THAT note… WHADDAYA THINK OF THE BRAND REFRESH?!?!?! I’ve been ABSOLUTELY DYYYYING to get rid of the black.  Our business has evolved. We have evolved. Time for our brand to evolve! With the feedback of my Twitter/Facebook friends and the help of Ryan… it’s finalized. With the fresh logo also came a blog update. I’m absolutely IN LOVE with it all. Man oh man, feels GOOD to be moving forward! NOW time for a website update… eeeeeeks!!!!

Thank you guys SO much for your patience while I revamped things here.If this is how 2010 is starting… I can’t wait to see what amazingness the year brings.

Love!

~bobbi+mike+

PS. if for some reason you want to see one of these in person, and you’re not a photographer who is already a subscriber… go to any major book store and look for Digital Photo Pro… flip over the cover and there we areYEAHHHHH!!!!!

SOOO… I mentioned it in our last blog entry… but, I'll remind you anyway.Mike and I did a little speaking thing at the photography conference we went to last week.  We spoke at the mpixpro booth in the middle of the tradeshow floor.

Wanna see some images? Okay, if you insist! But first, let me ramble…

I was RIDICULOUSLY nervous. As in, as I'm writing this remembering how I felt before each talk, my heart is racing. But you know what was the absolute best best best (calming) feeling in the world? Many photographers who I greatly admire, our amazing friends, and nearly every photographer we've photographed (who was in Vegas for the conference) was there on the first day to show support. When I noticed this… I started to well up.Oh yes, I'm a drama queen. I can't tell you how much that meant to us.  Once I realized we were amongst friends, the anxiety faded (but not completely… AHHHH!) Here are just a few that came out to show their support over the 3 day period…

Lauren Chapman
Robbie Gantt
Nate and Jaclyn Kaiser
Maya and Patrick Laurent
Jessica Limeberry
Jeff Newsom
Clary Pfieffer
Matt and Angie Sloan
Jasmine Star and JD
Amanda Wilcher
David and Cathy Bock

(If I left anyone out, I'm so sorry… it's been a long couple of weeks!)

We spoke all 3 days the tradeshow was happenin'.  It was awesome. I mean really awesome. I mean… REEEEEALLY really awesome. I got to meet so many of you blog readers… many of you who are active commenters I knew RIGHT away and gave BIG hugs to. :) 

I do have to say though, MAN OH MAN I have an ENTIRELY new respect for people who have to work/speak at the conference… it's EXHAUSTING!!!!! I had to be responsible! Usually I'd be partying it up wayyyyy late, but this year… NOPE!  I couldn't stay out too late, couldn't be too loud… afterall, I had to save my voice! (Though, that didn't work… I sounded like a 12 year old boy going through puberty at all of our talks), I had to make sure I was ready to have our names in lights! You know… Roxy Hart style!If we ever do this again, think we could arrange for that???? HA! The mental picture of that is hilarious to me. ANYWAYYYY… I'm being weird. 

I'll move on to the images.You know, the ones you've been DYING to see

We didn't take ANY photos while we were there… so I did a shout out on Twitter/Facebook to see if anyone would be willing to send in shots they took… THANK YOU for sending!!!! Now I can prove to my grandma that I wasn't making this up… and that people REALLY do think I'm hilarious, RIGHT?!So, thanks!

DAY 1

images by Dale Benfield

So, I haven't seen candid images of myself since our wedding day. I had forgotten how expressive I am. I mean, I'm the DEFINITION of animated!

 WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?! There are at least two people in this crowd who think that I'm as hilarious as I think I am.(PS. Don't judge my hair… I was missing a brush for the first 2 days, AHHHH!)

DAY 2

image by Vince Foo of Leslie Wong Photography

 My husband is cute. This was one of the few times that he was able to get a word in… I'm kind of a talker… GO FIGURE!!! (random Bobbi trivia: in the 6th grade I was voted "Most Likely to Talk to a Brick Wall")

 images by Bill Blakey

Please take special note of the microphones we had around our ears. When I was telling a friend about our talk he said, "OH! I can't wait to see you with the Britney mic!"

"WHAAAAAA??!? I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT!!!! A MIC?!?!? YOU JUST TOOK MY NERVES UP TEN MORE NOTCHES!!!!"

I couldn't get it out of my head!  The SECOND I put it on my ear and was live, I couldn't resist saying, "it's Britney, b____!" OH YES… I SAID THAT… Ever have things just fly out of your mouth and you WISH you could take it back RIGHT away?! THAT was one of those moments. ;) 

 Oh yes, THERE IT IS… My FAMOUS green jacket!

Day 3

images by Eddie Bojorquez

These two are my favorite images… FINALLY an image where more than one person is laughing at me. SEE G-MA!!!! I AMMMM FUNNY!!!!

 If this doesn't represent what I was talking about I don't know what does?! Nice capture Eddie

 It was THIS moment on the last day that I got REALLY nervous. That's Jasmine Star and her hottie husband JD. She's spoken to rooms full of 1000+ people! WHEW! It was SO incredibly sweet of them to swing by and show us their support.  When I opened up for questions she raised her hand (my right leg started shaking).

"What has been your biggest mistake in business and what did you learn from it?" she asked.

Our response (after three seconds of silence… OH SHIZ… WHAT DO I SAY?!!? I'M GOING TO SOUND STUPID, GUARANTEEEEEEED!!!!!):

"Trying to fit into a professional mold that we thought clients wanted. BIG mistake! Most clients don't want 'stiff professionals.' Most want a friend to hang with. As soon as we started being more comfortable being ourselves… the faster our business grew. Oh, and the ones that DO want Stiffy McStifferon won't hire us… win win!"

A HUUUUGE thanks to all of you who came out to listen… and remained patient as I spoke in my usual ADD fashionI can't TELL YOU how amazing the whole experience was and all thanks to you guys. Thank you. THANK YOU!!!!!!!

I also want to give a BIG OL' shout out to the companies that featured our images at their booths. Renaissance, the ABSOLUTE BESSSSSST album company in the world, (more on this later) displayed lots of our albums. BluDomain launched 5 new website templates with our work being shown in a few of those. And, last… but not least… mpixpro had some AMAZING products that really and truly showed our work in its absolute best light. We stand behind that lab 1000000% THAAAANK YOUUUUU!!!!!! 

Oh, and like the good photographers that we are… we ALSO managed to not bring our point and shoot.I went on Facebook and grabbed a few of the tagged photosOh, and note to self… and othersiPhone photos taken in fluorescent lighting aren't flattering to the bags under my eyes.When did I start to look like a real grown up with wrinkles?!

::EDITED TO ADD::

HOW COULD I HAVE EVERRRRR FORGOTTEN THIS PHOTO THAT NATE TOOK?!

After lunch, the four of us girls randomly noticed that we were a cornucopia of hair colors. Oh yes… this is what grown up women talk about. Well, that and making babies (I'm the only non-Mom in the group!). When he went to grab the shot, we got perfectly in order… you know… like you'd arrange a fresh box of Crayola's…  blue to purple to maroon to red to orange to yellow to lime to green to turquoise, etc. 

Now, for some reason… you can't really tell but I assure you, the three of us on the right don't all have the same hair color! That crazy film!SO, it's yellow to light orange to orange to brown. SEEEEE like a box of Crayola's!Anyway… I'd like to formally title this photo ROYGBIV ;) 

From left to right: Jaclyn, Amelia, me and Candice.

Next year, I PROMISE to bring my point and shoot…. PROMISE! 

Thanks again!

Much love friends…

~bobbi+mike+