So long Dallas, Hello Seattle!

What?! The last blog I wrote is 2 years ago?! Yikes. Time really flies.

Things have been a bit crazy and we are now in Seattle. My family and I enjoyed living in Dallas for 2 years, but I love Seattle, too! Ocean, mountains, and great food. I am not moving anymore! For those whom I was able to photograph in Dallas, big THANK YOU! I enjoyed photographing all of you guys. Please remember that I travel! Ha!

So, here I am in rainy city, Seattle! Rain here is not bad (well, so far). The weather forecast says that it rains most of the time in winter, but normally it rains a bit in the morning and clears up in the afternoon. The rain is not a pouring rain for most of the time. After experiencing -20 degrees winter in MN and 100 plus degrees summer in TX, I have no problem with drizzles of rain! My camera equipments had experienced extreme hot and cold and they did pretty well (except frying an external flash sometimes in TX)!

I am exploring what opportunities are out here, and I am very optimistic about it!

Thank you so much for stopping by to read my blog. I will keep it coming!

Ms. Aneela

Hi, remember me?! Sorry, it's been a while (I know, I know, AGAIN). Time flies! It's beautiful autumn here in Texas. Coming from Minnesota, it's hard to believe that I don't need to wear a jacket in November! Now the beautiful season begins here.

Here are some images of a beautiful baby I recently photographed. She is so precious and it was fun to watch how mom and dad treats her as she is their first baby. I remember when my husband and I had a first baby, I had no idea how to handle our baby as neither of us had even changed diapers before that! Ha! Aneela's mom and dad were so sweet and I couldn't help watching them how sweetly they were watching her. It's absolutely precious moments!!

So, I've mentioned about the Certification of Professional Photographer (CPP) in my previous blog, and have also mentioned my plan on submitting my images in October.... I decided to postpone it to the first submission date next year, which is February 2013. I was working pretty hard on getting it done this year, but I realized how much I am enjoying the process of preparing for it. Of course, I would love to get it done and "show off" my certification ASAP, but it's more important that I fully understand the technical aspect of this certification. I found out that there is approx. only 8% of professional photographers are certified as professional photographers. Does it sound pretty crazy? I thought so. Of course, there are more than 8% of professional photographers who have been successful and/or producing great work. I am not saying that you must have to be certified, but it works perfectly for me as I am learning a ton from this process :)

Thank you so much for stopping by to read my blog. I will keep it coming!

Beautiful Brides

This year is my second year in Dallas. I am getting better ideas of how much time I can allocate for photographing my clients outside depending on the weather. Luckily, this summer is much milder than last year. That helps tremendously with wedding shoot as I love to bring beautiful brides outside and capture them under natural light. At the same time, I am enjoying myself finding cool (literally) indoor spots to capture nice images, too. There is always nice background and/or location to shoot. Sky is the limit! 

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog. I will keep it coming :)

Busy summer 2012

So, this summer was crazy busy for me. I flew to Japan with my 2 daughters to visit my parents a day after I took a CPP exam this April. 2 week later, my husband joined me in Japan. 2 days after that, my in-laws and his family visited us from India. I became a tour guide as well as an interpreter. It was fun to have my brother-in-law try some food that he had never tried before (like octopus, hee hee). We came back from Japan a couple weeks later with my in-laws and a family to Dallas. Accommodating them for a couple of months....etc....It was hectic but fruitful summer. 

First, I would like to report that I PASSED a CPP (Certificate of Professional Photographer) exam that I took on April 29th. I got to know the result of the exam while I was in Japan, and I was jumping with joy and relief. The conference room where the exam took place in Intercontinental Hotel in Dallas was freezing. I thought my hands were shaking because I was nervous, but it was just ice cold air conditioned room. Ha!

So, now the image submission part starts. The more I researched about it, the more I learned that this is the toughest part of getting an certification. I found a group of CPPs who are willing to help people like me eager to get feedback and helps. The judges for this process are very picky (lack of better word), and they can nitpick (again, lack of better word) every single detail. So, I decided that I will spend good amount of time preparing for this. I'm aiming for the submission deadline of October 19th this year. I am thankful for those who are willing to help me to succeed in this. It is very encouraging. 

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog. I will keep it coming!

Preparing for April 29th!

As I mentioned briefly about an exam in my previous blog, I've been preparing for an exam for CPP (Certified Professional Photographer). This is a certification to prove that you have a knowledge and experience in a particular field of photography you are specialized in (http://certifiedphotographer.com/). I knew about CPP for few years, however I had no intention of getting into it until last year. Because I had an "attitude" about going "by the book" and also liked to emphasize originality. I thought going through this exam will create a mold to become a photographer with no uniqueness.... Ah, I was so wrong.
The preparation for this exam completely flipped my perception. I've been going through a book, The Photography by Barbara London and John Upton which is the resource book for an exam. Fortunately, I already had this book from a lighting class I took in Minneapolis. It's been so much fun going through a book reading from A to Z about photography. It's an amazing (reassuring) and humble (ah-ha! moments) feeling at the same time. Reading about developing black and white film made me time tripped years back when I was working in a dark room (and got an itch to go back to print some black and white film, yes film!). I am also referencing this study guide that came across called CPP Exam "Piece of Cake" Study Guide. It's very easy to read and making me relaxed with this preparation process.
CPP certification process has two phases. One is an exam and another is image submission. Images I submit must be from job assignments (not "self-assignments") in the last 24 months. I am excited to look through the images I've worked with all my lovely clients and narrow down the images to submit. I will work on the phase 2 once I'm done with the exam part.
An exam is on April 29th, which is about a month away. I feel like I'm back to be a college student or something but even better since I'm studying for something I love (not a political science and such :)
While on break, I am playing hard with my kiddos. Need some balance, right?! :)

Thank you for stopping by to read my blog! I will keep it coming.

So long Minneapolis, Hello Dallas!

After living in Minneapolis for 15 years, we made a humongous decision to move to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas last year.  My husband and I discussed until our heads are spinning and finally decided to start our new life in TX. It was an extremely tough decision for me, my husband and our 2 little daughters considering we had amazing friends (more like family to us) and great communities. Not only mastering  "Minnesota nice" or getting used to 20 below weather, I had great network of mentors, friends and amazing clients that I've been working with since I started my photography business; k.mae studio in 2008. it was heartbroken to leave all the precious items we accumulated over the course of years.
Here we are in Texas with "Southern hospitality" and over 100 degree weather. Imagine this! It was very challenging summer last year especially since it was the hottest summer since 1980! We moved from MN in June to barely getting out of snow to over 100 degrees weather. People have been telling us that last year was not normal and it's much better usually. I really hope they are right.
Anyway, since we moved to DFW, I've been working slowly but surely. I've experienced few wedding shoots, attending seminars, and flew to Minneapolis last September and had a successful family photo sessions in the lovely fall weather with beautiful families.
This year, I decided to take an exam to become a certified professional photographer (CPP) and have been preparing for it. (which I will talk on a separate blog :). Also, the busy wedding season starts in April. It's nice to be busy, right?!


Thank you for stoping by and reading my blog. I will keep them coming :)

A Little Trooper

I've known Matthew since he was born in April 2008. I used to do play-dates with him, his mom; Helen and my daughter; Hina (1 month apart from Matthew) while Helen and I were on maternity leaves. I have been fortunate to capture Matthew's growth every year since he was born. In February 2011, Matthew was diagnosed as stage 4 neuroblastoma, which is a rare pediatric cancer. He has been going through numerous treatments to cure from it. I can't even imagine how much challenges and pain that Matthew and his family are going through. All I can do is to pray for Matthew and his family. The most important point is that Matthew is such a trooper and he is showing great spirit. You can see how strong (I wish I can come up with a stronger word than "strong" for this) he is from these images, for sure.