VEGAS BABY... YEAH!

I'm back! Wow, what an experience! For those of you that don't know, I went to Vegas this past week for the WPPI convention and it was awesome, just what I needed.

First things first, I have to give props to Joe Photo, the photographer that mentored me. He was so kind, insipiring, stylish, and smart. He gave me some great advice that I am going to apply to my business right away, so thanks Joe for the session.

I was not able to take a lot of photographs because I was going non-stop from early morning 'til late at night and I didn't want to lug around my camera the whole time (I forgot my six point-shooter). Anyway, what a time, what an education, what an experience, and I got to meet a lot of really great photographers that I look up to immensly! So thanks Vegas!

THE ONE LIGHT WORKSHOP SLC

Where do I begin? The Salt Lake area photographers had such an experience with the man you'll see below... his name? Zack Arias (Air*eee*Us) of Used Film.

Davina Fear hosted the workshop and had been trying to get Zack to come to Utah for months to teach us his magic tricks, and she finally pulled it off. The workshop lasted ALL day, I'm talkin' 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m., and it still wasn't enough time. He enlightened me in so many ways, I don't even know where to begin to start. Let's just say, I learned MORE in 16.5 hours of his workshop than I learned in two semesters at BYU. I finally understand the correlation between the aperture and the shutter speed when it comes to studio lighting (in this scenerio, on location lighting). Zack is not a fan of on camera flash and says flash should only be used off camera and in the manual setting function... interesting, I love the idea!

It was such a great day... I am so grateful Zack was able to come... and he's such a cool guy to boot ;) Thanks Zack Arias!

LACIS' DOWNTOWN BRIDALS

Oh Laci! How much fun did we have doing your bridals? Laci was one of the easiest brides to shoot... she worked it for my camera, she was like butta! It was such a fun shoot in downtown Provo. Laci did not care who was watching and she was up for anything, including modeling in a storefront window- it was shaweet. Her parents are awesome too, they live in California and so they came along to see their baby daughter do her thang! Lacis' sister Mindi, is one of my dear friends and so I'm kind of a family friend you could say. Laci, I hope you love these as much as I do. You look hot!

Norahs 4th Birthday Bash YEEEE HAAAWWW!!

Norah is my oldest brothers little girl and she had her 4th birthday at Thanksgiving Point last Saturday. She is so damn funny and such a spitfire... let's just say she is her own little person, she cracks me up. The weather ended up being around 80 degrees which is a crazy this time of year. Imagine going snow skiing on the greatest snow on earth in 80 degree weather... nuts!

ONE LIGHT WORKSHOP IN UTAH

Hey all of you photographers out there... if you haven't already been contact by me then read on and join us. Zack Arias from Atlanta the creator of the One Light Workshop is coming here to Utah to do a workshop for us... yee doggie! We will be having a little mixer party onthe 2oth of this month (Tuesday) at Cup of Joes in Salt Lake at 7:30, address:

353 West 200 South (Downtown)
Please come and mingle with us, even if you cannot attend the workshop.

The worshop is the next day (21st) at 9:30 a.m. and will go all day at Davina Fears studio in Ogden. If you would like to attend the workshop, please e-mail me: kate@katebensonphotography.com and I will give you more information.
This is a workshop you DON'T want to miss out on, especially if you want to learn more about lighting with artificial light. We are lucky to have Zack here... I am sooooo stinkin' excited!

MUSHU LIZARD LIPS

What a day, what a beautiful day, I loved it! The weather was so nice in my part of the woods, so nice in fact that we had a picnic at the park. My mom picked up Ella at school today and they went to the Grocery store to "pick up the supplies", according to Ella. Oh, and she picked everything out. We had egg salad sandwiches, potato chips, dill pickles, olives, sugar cookies, and Sunny Delight (which I could do without), but she did great picking out our spread. Here's a pic of them with my mom. Man, I so do love all these ladies!

Anyone want a Short Horned Lizard named Mushu? My brother-in-law Jeff bought this lizard as a pet for his little girl Grace about a year ago... well she doesn't take care of it and they want to get rid of it. They were about to let Mushu go free in an orchard behind their house, but she would freeze at night, so Mark spoke up and said we would take her. Poor Mark forgot one little thing, we are living at my moms house until our house is built and well, she's deathly afraid of anything that crawls... she pretty much freaked (to the point of throwing up) when Mark brought her home. She agreed to let her stay downstairs until we find Mushu a home. She is free to a loving family, extremely low maintanence, cool looking, and I want to keep her... but I can't, boo. She comes with her cage and heat lamps. If anyone wants her you can e-mail me at kmbphotography2003@yahoo.com

On another note... I got my haircut today and I love it! It probably looks the same as my "about me" pic but it's been a while since I've had great layers and bangs. I've had the hardest time finding the perfect stylist and well I finally found him. Stuart Fraser of Stuart Fraser Salon is my guy! And, you would never guess he did hair if you saw him on the street. He's a tattooed, motorcycle kind of guy that just happens to do hair, and do it WELL. He's been in the biz for 20 years and you can tell he still enjoys it immensly. He sat me down and combed through my hair over and over again, looking at it from different angles, holding it up, holding it down to see how it fell, he kept playing with it until he understood what my hair can and cannot do, I've never had a hairdresser do that before... I was quite impressed. Unhappy with your stylist? Not anymore!
Stuart Fraser Salon
40 West 100 North Provo, Utah
801-375-5368