Getting Well with Michelle

Referrals are great.  No, actually, they are superb!  You all remember Katie, right?  Well, Katie's referral of Michelle led us to a great photo shoot in Old Town Alexandria yesterday morning.  You cannot go wrong in Old Town.  In fact, a lovely gentleman even let us shoot in his backyard garden.  It was one of those historic homes that when you stroll by you wonder, "Who lives in there?  Wow, it's gorgeous! Oh yeah, if I were to live in Old Town, this is would be the one."

Anyway, let's get back to Michelle.  See, Michelle owns FindYourBalanceHealth.com where she has a no-nonsense approach to helping those over-stressed and over-worked humans find balance with diet and lifestyle.  She was also featured in the documentary movie Lemonade, which I saw last year and found very inspirational.  Creatives finding new work by being creative.  Love it and it really hit home for me.

Michelle is serious about her work, but you'd never know it.  This gal is FUN!  Great sense of humor, playful, yet grounded and smart about her business. Let's check it out!

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Betty - The New It Girl (well, in South Korea at least)

Betty and I work together on the AnimalPlanet.com website.  She is a web producer and I am her photo editor, as many of you well know by now.  Betty was asked to be featured in an article in a Korean magazine, so she asked if I would grab some shots of her around the office when she was visiting from our NYC office.  By the way, this shoot actually took place on the 8th floor of the Animal Planet offices in Silver Spring.  This fun area has been dubbed "The Tank."

Now, one of my dreams is to be published in print.  There is something so permanent about print that I just don't get from online publishing.  Maybe it's my upbringing surrounded by Nat Geo magazines and books from my father.  See, I'm a magazine junky and subscribe to about 20 magazines.  For me it's like getting a picture book in the mail every month.  I love it.  So I'm hoping Betty and I can get our hands on the magazine once it's printed, and when we do I'll be sure to post it on the blog!

Oh Betty - I just love how busy-busy-busy you are on your cell phone. HA!

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Amy + Ian // Engaged!

I was introduced to Amy and Ian through one of my colleagues at Discovery who went to high school with Ian. But Amy and Ian met at Florida State and after graduation moved to DC for work. Ian proposed at the Jefferson Memorial last fall and they plan to wed in Amy's home state of Michigan in May 2014. So they asked me to take their engagement photos.


So Amy hatched a plan to shoot at the Jefferson Memorial and Tidal Basin with the infamous DC cherry blossom trees. Being a native Washingtonian the blossoms can come out anywhere from mid March to mid April. So we waited . . . and waited . . . and two weeks had passed. . . and it had snowed twice since we first chatted. Blossoms or no blossoms this shoot was happening on April 7th, and lucky for us about 20% of the trees were in bloom! We were in business.


Now the trickiest part was to take a very busy and crowded time in DC and make Amy and Ian look like they were the only ones there. So we waited . . . and waited . . . and tourists would walk in and out of the photos, but Ian would kindly tell them to scram and voila!

There was also a cupcake break.  I brought in some cherry blossom Georgetown Cupcakes as a special treat.

But my favorite thing about this shoot, other than Amy's adorable dresses, was the fact that Ian did not wear socks. Now my dad also grew up in Florida and he used to say he only owned 3 pairs of socks: black, brown, and blue. So when I saw Ian sans socks I knew I was dealing with an real Florida boy. :-)

Congratulations you two!

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