spa blog

spa Offices Updated look - spa School

So, I wanted to show off how we've redone the spa Offices (we have moved into our old furniture store building and used a lot of the left over furniture from our spa Darkroom). I thought, "dang! I don't have a camera with me" But then I thought, "Wait, I do have my Flip video camera" I thought I would quickly video it and upload it to youtube and then link it here.

Anyone who's worked on video should know it's not that easy! I took several different shots, had to crop them, then decided I needed some more footage, and I wanted to add music and a sound effect or two. So 2 hours later....here it is! (by the way, it's not 4 minutes long - I just forgot to shorten the song down...)

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This is what you'll be missing by not coming to our school this weekend. Don't worry though - this won't be our last one. You can come to others either this fall or next spring or both!?? Totally excited about this one - we have 17 photographers from both coasts and everywhere in between. We'll be eatin' KC BBQ, grilling out, and the famous Mr. Goodcents subs.

let me know if you want more info on our next school...

Madonna's back

The much hyped album by Madonna has been out for about a week or two now. I got it in the mail last week and took it with me when I had a few errands to run. Here are my thoughts...

As a prelude to my thoughts, I heard part of an interesting conversation on NPR about whether Madanna was a Diva or just plain Done. Of course one person took one side and the other the opposite view with a moderator. Both of the reviewers thought that this album was a reaction to all new Pop/R&B girls coming up (Nelly Furtado, etc); a way to say, see I'm still here and I can still kick it! The critique came in the form that the production wasn't really anything new. Even though big names Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Pharrel Williams produced and Kanye West pops up in a song one guy imparticular thought it was the same tired old beats, etc.

So with all of this in mind, I popped in the album and drove. Not that it should surprise me, but one of the things that struck me the first listen through was how overtly sexual it was. I mean it is Madonna, but for some reason I thought she had grown past this. The first song "Candy Shop" seemed like it had been done - oh it has...50 cent did it a couple of years ago!

Those couple of negatives (to me) aside, I thought it was a pretty cool listen. The beats might not be the newest, but they still rocked. And I thought it was really interesting to listen through the album trying to guess who produced what song. Timbaland's definitely had the timbaland flavor and Pharell his of style.

So out of 5 stars I give this a solid 3 to 3&1/2. Worth listening to, if you like Madonna or good dance music in general then worth buying part of all of it.

More albums!!!

I'm guessing you've seen it already, but I've uploaded images from the spa Event of the models in their own album. Take a look at the kind of shooting we were doing that week. These are images from all different members of spa - some of them teachers and some from attendees.

Contest results

That didn't take too long. We do have a winner - Darty Hines! Showing up all over the place and the spa blog is the latest it seems.

So what was the answer??? Spiderman!

Spiderman was our surprise guest at the 2008 Lights.Camera.Fashion show. The amazing thing is he (you'll never know who he was...) is a photographer, but brought the costume himself and had the idea all on his own. Pretty cool! Can't wait to see who the special guest(s) are in 2009.

Darty I'll be sending a copy of your book to you this week...

CONTEST!!!

You've had about 24 hours to take a look at the fashion show images from spa Event 2008. In 2007 we have special guest Joe Dirt and in 2008 we had another very special guest.

The first person to post this in the comment section will win a free book by 2009 spa Event speaker Dr. Joseph Michelli.

New Photo Album

It only took 4 months, but images from the spa Event Lights. Camera. Fashion show have been posted. Check them out!

More sad news

spa Model Kaiden from spa Event 2008 lost his father, Ivan, this past Sunday. He passed away suddenly and without warning. Ivan was married and has 3 children. As I'm sure you will, please keep this family in your thoughts and prayers...

Here are a couple of images of Kaiden from spa Event.

A memorial fund has been established in his name at 3778 230th Ave., Martelle, IA 52305.

Online condolences may be expressed to the family at www.broshchapel.com.

Renewals

Since March we've begun our renewals for 2008 - between March, April and May almost half of our members are due to renew. So this is just another reminder for those who may have forgotten...

Here are some of the benefits of membership:
* spa Talk – a members only web forum with marketing, sales, pricing, current trends, design, and recent shoot info/discussion.
* spa TK Packets – a 4-6x’s/year packet of information relating to the Senior Portrait industry. This includes information on marketing, posing, lighting, sales, technology and more.
* spa Exclusives – marketing campaigns, special events, and vendor promos open only to spa members.
* spa Event – spa Event 2008 in Tucson just ended with an overwhelmingly positive response. We had over 450 photographers and 120 vendors in attendance. Spa Event 2009 will be held at the Red Rock Resort just North of Las Vegas on January 4-7. Kirk Voclain, Dan Brouillette and Dr. Joseph Michelli, author of “The Starbucks Experience,” will be our keynote speakers!

If you would like to renew/join you can download this file to fax or mail in or go to this site to register online.

check out this website

want to find out more info on you or someone you know - go this site

It lists the amount of people in the US who have your same name and the chances that someone has your exact same name (chances are in the US - population 300,000,000 - that 2 people go by Andy Bondurant). It shows who has listed you on their blogs, and other various things like what your special number is. Kinda fun...check it out.

High School Confidential

Have you seen this show on the WE channel? It's not a channel that I watch much (ever?), but it has an interesting show on it. Partly because it has to do with a local high school, but also just because it's all about the journey that different girls take through their high school experiences.

High School Confidential is a documentary that follows 8 different girls through their high school years at Blue Valley Northwest in southern Johnson County - a suburb of KC. It's just a few minutes north of us, and an area that a lot clients of our own studios come from.

Here is a trailer for the show...

Kia hasn't done any pictures of the kids portrayed, but she's been talking with some of her clients that have come through that are from the school in the past couple of weeks. It's been an interesting mix of embarrassment for the girls on the show, to jealousy, to not really knowing much about it.

Here are a couple of links to find out more about it. Youtube spots. The WE site.

My girls

Kia did a session with my girls about 2 weeks ago. I stole these from a post on spa Talk (it's the only way I can get stuff from her it seems like). The older one is Kessa and the younger one is Sephine. They are 8 and 6 years old, in 2nd grade and Kindergarten. They are in to dance, gymnastics, soccer and softball right now. I'm not sure if we can keep up with it all, but it's coming to an end for the year...

Oh and Chilton (3 year old) will be getting his done soon too. We are waiting until he gets his hair cut...