Sandy Green Workshops is on the web!

www.SandyGreenWorkshops.com
has arrived. Check it out!
Kyle Zimmerman Photography built the site.

How to breathe...

I believe that money and prosperity is like air. It's everywhere, it flows, and we all need to understand how to breathe, deeply, smoothly and to know how to take it in, release, take it in and release.
Air is not something you hoard, or hold in, it is something you
borrow and enjoy.

When things got hard with our economy, I decided to make sure I could remember to breathe.
My business, photography, is often thought of as a luxury, and I know that many people in our community are being careful.
When things get tight economically, an impulse could be to just stop, hold on to what you have and hope...

I decided that I wanted to make sure that 'air' kept moving in my life and in the lives of my staff.

Kyle Zimmerman Photography has become involved with teaching, promoting and connecting photographers with non-profit organizations to tell the stories that drive action for social change, and that shine light on the heart and 'air' that
our community is made of.

Breathe deep.

To what or to whom do I owe a thank you?

I got a call today from a woman searching on behalf of a hospital looking for a photographer to create headshots of at least 26 physicians.

I want this job.

I asked her "How did you find me?"
She said "In the phone book."
"Oh boy, am I glad that works!" I said, insinuating that the cost of advertising is high.
"Oh yeah, I'm old school, I use the book." she replied.

I gave her a quote that should get me the job, and I hung up and thought about how this year I don't have an ad in there.
No one in my industry does. Times are changing. The internet is here.
Almost everyone who calls says they found me on the web.
I think about how next year, when someone like her is using the 'old book', I won't be in there.
I lay down, put my hands over my forehead and accept the future as it waves over me.

Life is Art?

Sometimes I think that my business statement, Life is Art, is easy to miss. Easy to ignore. It's so 'three little words' and after all, what does it really mean?

Life IS Art means the sky in the morning, (we all know it's pretty), the beauty of our diverse community (getting a little deeper) and the way you live each moment. (huh?)
Life IS Art means There is an art to the depths and ways of our relationships. We can 'paint' them with large and bold messy strokes, we can be quick sketch artists, and we can do a really slow gorgeous oil painting that takes 80 years...
My relationship with my mother was a free form, 'outsider art' collage made of some crazy mixed media...
Life IS Art; the way we choose to inhabit our lives each day is art.

For myself, I know that I often avoid doing my art, being my art, inhabiting my life completely.
I stand before my life, brush in hand and say, I'm tired, I'm busy, I don't have the right paint, I don't have enough time...
Sometimes this voice wins.
Not today, today I paint.

Your Life is Art.

My favorite part of being a photographer.

I have learned so much in my studio...in the interactions with families, with a mom who is choosing the photos that she wants to have of her kid.When presented with the options, with the range of who the kid is at this time in life, (let's say a teenage girl) mom often goes straight for that image of the smiling young lady. There's nothing wrong with liking a beautiful smile, it warms us, but those other images, the one that shows the complexity of the place where this kid is, that shows the mixture of someone transitioning, blending from baby to adult, from innocence to becoming a grown person, and all the puffy attitude stirred with fear and hope...wow, that is the image that I want mom to love. It often brings up all kinds of feelings in a parent, like "I don't like her when she acts all snotty," to "she gets so shy, she's hiding behind her hair again".
This passage will not last long, this kid will soon have her psyche all patted down and under control and will become the adult we all expect.
What bigger honor, what better way to teach your child that who they are is just fine than to have in your life, in your homes, on your walls, images that celebrate the range and beauty of who they are right now.

I believe in the range of who we are. It is the range of who we are as a person, as a community that is worth valuing. I want to be seen for my range, my big, my small, my happy and sad, my strength and for what I still have to learn. I want to be valued for where I am right now in my life, (struggling financially, like many others, for it brings me so much breadth and compassion) and I want to be celebrated for what I will become.

Change is Good!

I am launching my holiday specials this week.
It has been 'interesting' to spend time this year, to evaluate and decide how to best serve my community, my clients, while staying true to my core values.
Things have changed in huge ways in the photography industry and in the world in general as we deal with advancing technology, and my clients are asking for different things these days.
More and more people are becoming image, computer and tech savvy as we move forward and in fact I believe that a big part of this development has been because of digital imagery. Photographs used to be left to the professionals or something we dealt with sometimes, but now, everyone has a digital camera, in their pocket. in their phone even, and if you click enough, you WILL GET PHOTOS!
People have asked me for a few years now, "Can I get the digital files?" and I have not made it my practice to do so... but now things are changing... why?
Stay tuned, the discussion will continue.

Thank you Albuquerque The Magazine!

And Kelly Koepke, fabulous writer, Liz Lopez, Great photographer!
Wonderful story about moi!

http://www.abqthemag.com/current/7.php