A very quick note just to wish everyone a wonderful holiday season! We’ve been ultra busy with flying and eating and family and even a christmas eve wedding. Great fun!

We have 2 more weddings before the year is out (one on Saturday and another on new year’s eve!) and I’ll look forward to sharing a tonne of great images from all 3 early in the new year as well as finally getting a bit of a break and a chance to sit back and reflect on what a wonderful year we’ve had.

Cheers everyone! I hope you’re enjoying the last days of the year!

(illo with help from the lovely Cynthia)

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In November 2004 we had what might prove to be the strangest random instant message conversation that we’ll ever have. It started with something along the lines of “you don’t know me” and ended with “sure, you can come stay at our home and studio for a week.”

John was 18 at the time and just out of high school in Ontario. We were living in Alberta then and while I was 6 years older, I knew where he was coming from. While most messages from strangers online end up in the trash, John knew how to get my attention - it was about a girl. And a love story. And he didn’t know how it would turn out, but he needed to try and if that meant flying across the country to give it a shot, that’s what he was going to do.

I asked him why he didn’t want to just stay in a hostel, and he told me that hostels scared him. I asked him how hostels could possibly be any more scary than staying with random strangers he found online, and he replied that he wouldn’t be staying with strangers, he would be staying with photographers whose work he appreciated. And so, we gave him that chance.

We enjoyed spending the week with John and having him shoot with us and play around in the studio while he was here. We’ve kept in touch since then and this week I got the best message from him ever.

Along with his grad photos (he’s completed his diploma in photography from Georgian College!), he simply said “BE PROUD. You did this to me.”

Which, of course, made me cry instantly.

Life works in mysterious ways. The thing with the girl never did work out, but John says spending those days with us and watching us shoot and work together inspired him to go into photography as a career. I’m thrilled that he found inspiration in what we do, but I know how much work he put into getting that piece of paper and it was most definitely all him.

I love watching him grow as a photographer and I look forward to the new stuff he sends me every week as we talk about what he’s doing and what he’s going to try next. I can’t wait to see where it all leads.

CONGRATULATIONS, John! We are so very proud of everything you’ve accomplished!

JohnEdgar.net

SilverlineStudios.com

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I just returned from a week in Seattle hanging out with some great photographers for the ANTI-workshop. We talked about business, played with some light, explored what it means to create art, and generally had a great time. And for me, it was just what I needed at this point in our season to get refreshed and recharged for all of the amazing weddings we have to come! I love getting away to see what other photographers who have been pushing the limits are up to, and to take time to shoot just for me.

As for the photo? I like to stretch outside of comfort zones on occasion to push myself to grow as an artist. Part of one assignment in Seattle was to take a shot that was risky, and thanks to a perfect setting and a willing-to-do-anything-for-art bride turned model, I snagged this shot. If it makes you look twice or makes you ask questions or even if it makes you angry, I accomplished what I set out to accomplish.

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Due to a last minute cancellation we find ourselves available on 07/07/07. As one of the most popular dates this year we’re hoping to make one lucky couple’s day complete! Please contact us if you’re searching for a photographer for this hot date.
Cheers!

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I’m so excited - our podcast is up on Posh Wedding Video Podcast - a website featuring video interviews with some of Vancouver’s best wedding vendors! You all need to check out the site at www.poshwedpod.com - it is a GREAT way to “meet” a number of hand selected local vendors as you work through your wedding planning.

You can watch the interview with Reilly and me through the site, or by clicking the image below. The site uses Quicktime (click “movie doesn’t play? click here!” when it opens for the mpeg version if you prefer), and takes a bit to load so walk away and grab a coffee while it downloads so you can watch it uninterrupted.

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One of the things that I love most about Vancouver is the amazing network of women who own and run some of the best shops, spas, and services that our city has to offer. It is on this note that I was so incredibly honoured to be invited into the first edition of the CRAVE Vancouver book as a featured business owner!

The CRAVE book - editions available in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and soon to be Portland - is a girl’s shopping guide to the city with a neighbourhood by neighbourhood focus on over 200 boutiques, spas, and service businesses. In their words - “CRAVE Vancouver is a celebration of women entrepreneurs that showcases some of the most creative, interesting, and gutsy proprietors throughout 10 of Vancouver’s favourite neighbourhoods.”

In addition to the photo rich neighbourhood guides complete with maps and store contact info, women have been chosen in each neighbourhood to share some of the secrets of their success, which is where my piece appears.

Miranda Lievers - Blue Olive Photography

“Know when to delegate! Invest your energy in what is most important for you and your business in order to not burn yourself out… and, of course, Network! Other business people can be one of your most important resources. They’ve done it before and are often willing to share what they did to get where they are – tap into that to move your business forward quicker.”

Inspiration/Motivation for starting my business:
I know what my parents wedding photographs look like and I know what my grandparents do as well. It’s cheesy, but those moments are gone in a heartbeat. It is powerful to be able to capture them and record that time in history. The first time that I brought a grown man to tears with the images I had produced of his daughter I realized how important good photography is and began to build the business plan for our studio.

How much money did it take to start?
A lot more than you’d think! Photographers just need a camera, right? With all the equipment, the backups, the computers, and the software needed behind the scenes to do it right it cost around $25 000 originally with more being invested all the time.

What I like most about owning my business:
I get to do all the jobs! I never get bored. I can be the marketing girl one day, the strategist the next, and even the photographer when that suits my fancy.

What I like least about owning my business:
The paperwork

Personal time off indulgence:
Watching Next Top Model. I pretend it’s market research.

People would be surprised that:
I have hardly any photos of myself. I’m always on the other side of the camera, and our vacation photos consist of beautiful landscapes but very few images with either of us.

Favourite guilty pleasure shopping place:
Bodacious on Main

You can find the website for the book here. The book has just been released and will be available at businesses around town, in bookstores, and on Amazon.com.

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We just got back into town after a whirlwind 4 day East Indian wedding in Alberta. I can’t wait to sort some of the pictures and show you what we got. The wedding was wonderful and the outfits as usual were to die for. Pictures soon!

In other news, I am so excited to share with you that we’re moving! As of September 1st our studio will be located in an amazing commercial loft in a historic building in the heart of Gastown. This move will give us a lot more space for displaying and sharing our work with everyone, for our client meetings, and for all the production work we do to put the final touches on each individual image. With tasty hardwood floors, wood beams, an original brick exterior wall, and views of the ocean and mountains, it will be a much nicer place for our clients to visit, too. Plans are also already in the works to bring people in for our first Blue Olive appreciation party at the end of the year! Stay tuned for details and we’ll look forward to welcoming you into our new studio starting in September.

On that note, we anticipate no major interruptions in our availability over the next few weeks and will continue meeting with clients through the transition to our new space. Of course, we’ll have to ask that you excuse any boxes during the move!

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In the next month or two we’ll be updating our website to reflect our new look and to showcase some of the other work that we love to do - lifestyle portraits.

I love to capture and preserve all of life’s fleeting moments - weddings and celebration of course, but also pregnancy, birth, and all the stages of both our children’s growth as well as our own.

Today I had the honour of photographing Stacy in the final weeks of pregnancy with her first baby. Absolutely stunning and with such a glow, I am looking forward to all of the photos we’ll be taking when baby arrives in the weeks ahead!

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You know, I hardly remember crying at my own wedding but these days I’m constantly tearing up during the vows of our couples or when I’m watching the slideshows we put together to commemorate the day.

Reilly and I will be celebrating our 6th anniversary later this summer and I think that the longer we’re married the more I realize how special and amazing marriage is and love is and I think about what the future holds for each of the couples whose weddings we are honoured to witness. And, well, that’s just enough to make me get all misty eyed.

On that note, I wanted to share the slideshow we put together for Miranda & Mark. All of our couples get slideshows of both their engagement shoots as well as their weddings to tear up over and to share with friends and family, as it’s such a great way to get a feel for the day at a glance.

Enjoy! (and make sure the volume is on, cause the music is one of the best parts

http://www.blueolivephotography.com/miranda&mark_wedding/

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I stumbled upon Ladies who Launch via another local entrepreneur’s blog last night, and I’m practically tripping over myself already because I’m so excited.

Ladies who Launch - as best as I can describe it - is a collective of creative entrepreneur type women working together to help each other reach their goals through networking, mentoring, idea generating, and just plain old girl talk. There is an incubator workshop being held in Vancouver in May led by the fabulous Bodacious Girls, and I’m already signed up.

I’m already meeting with someone I met last night through the network next weekend to talk about possibly helping out with some of the photography for an up coming tres cool Crave Party project, and I just CANNOT wait until May when I get to meet everyone else.

I spend my days immersed in Blue Olive… working on our new logo & brand (to be launched soon!), networking with other photographers, pouring over neat marketing ideas to get our name out to future Blue Olive couples, and thinking up great ways to WOW our current clients.

Since moving our studio to Vancouver in the fall, I’ve never felt so EXCITED about our business as I do this week (if that’s even possible, because I’m always excited about it!). Later this month we’ve been setting up a dinner and drinks get together for some other local wedding photographers so it will be great to meet more people. And now, with Ladies who Launch I’m going to meet and work with a whole pile of amazing, talented, and creative local women who are looking for the same thing as I am - to take a idea, turn it into reality or expand it exponentially from where it is now, and KICK SOME BUTT with what we do!

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