The holidays had just begun and the holiday jingles were going full throttle as my team and I took on the biggest photo session rush of the year. With our two camera room set-up, a small handful of photographers and what felt like the entire city's worth of clients waiting for their annual holiday portraits to be taken.
This was my life as a commercial portrait studio photographer about 9 years ago...

As we closed up the summer time, the taste of the autumn love that is everything Pumpkin Spice Lattes is in the air and the months of August and September were good ones for creativity, ideas, and creating better habits within my business and in my personal endeavors. 

Every feel like your days are turning into months and months are turning into years faster than you can keep up??
Yeah, me too; more so lately as I write up another Month in Review.
 
Let's dive right in, shall we?

​As I close out the last week of April, I am just filled with just gratitude. 

Today is my birthday, which is it's what I like to think of as the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new chapter as May rolls in. This month had so many highlights for my business and I'm so glad you're here to reminisce with me as I go through everything amazing that happened.

I woke up one morning and realized it was mid-March and wondered what's next for me and my business, and well..my life?
As always, in order for one to know where we are going, we need to know where we are right now.

I'm closing in on March 2018 already and I cannot even believe time is just zooming right by (even more so that I didn't even see the end of February)! Since I didn't get a chance to do a Month in Review for February alone last month, I thought I'd give write up a TWO months in review and explain what's all the chaos been about: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

​Here we go...

It's no secret, I don't always have my camera on me. *GASP*

I know! It's terrible.

What's a photographer without a camera? (Well, still a photographer just without a camera. Haha.)

Despite not having my camera with me everywhere I go, I do however carry my iPhone everywhere I go. And rest assured all those photo-ops I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on because I don't have my DSLR, are still being taken on my smartphone. Although smartphone photo quality isn't a replacement for a decent DSLR, it does a quick job of capturing what I want to capture...most of the time at least.

To stay consistent in my work, social media feeds (personal + professional), I use a few different iPhone photo editing apps to really keep the aesthetic of my work looking just the way I like. 
​
Due to some of you asking me what editing tools and apps I use to edit, I thought I would simply show you by giving you my top picks for iPhone editing apps and how to use them.

You're going to wanna see...

Don't beat yourself up. It takes everyone time to know who they really are.

I was sitting at my computer desk in our tiny studio apartment with a cup of coffee I've reheated twice already while staring at photos I shot just a few years ago. Thoughts of "this isn't my style anymore", "your work really wasn't that great", and "what was I thinking?" came shouting down the stairs of self-doubt and self-worth as I stared at my own work.

As I sat there on the first day of 2018, my girlfriend said these words...