Well, I’ve done it again. I’ve let life totally get in the way and I have completely neglected my blog. I wish I had all happy reasons for this serious dry spell, but unfortunately, I don’t. On October 17, I photographed my final wedding of the season (*sniffle*). I woke up at 12:30 the next morning in terrible pain tht just kept getting worse. After throwing up four times, my husband took me to the ER – my first trip – and I was told I was having a gallbladder attack. Five days later, I had my first surgery of my life, and they took the silly thing out. I was laid up for about two weeks, which were terribly boring, and now a month later, I still have some discomfort, but I feel so much better! Yay!
What else have I done? A couple weekends ago, I flew out to Denver to attend a training for area coordinators of NILMDTS. I met some wonderful photographers and finally met Lisa Francescon, and AC from the Quad Cities that I have been talking to on email for the last year but have never met in person. It took us both flying all the way to Denver to finally meet! Meeting the incredible people that run this organization and seeing how other photographers from around the world support the organization in their area was inspiring. Lisa and I came back with some great ideas for increasing awareness in our area, and have plans to hopefully bring our services to a couple large hospitals in Iowa and Illinois. We are actively recruiting photographers to help serve families throughout our areas. Please, contact either of us with questions or go to the website link above to apply.
Last weekend, I hosted a photography workshop in Burlington, and we had an amazing turnout. Ten photographers from Southeast Iowa attended, and by the end of the weekend, I felt like I had a new family! I will be doing a blog post on the workshop soon. Keep an eye out for future workshops as well!
The last thing I have been working on, outside of sessions and clients orders and albums, is Click! Last year, sometime in the fall of ’08, my dear friend and awesome senior photographer Devan Whitson began tossing around the idea of forming a local photographers club. There is an unfortunate tendancy for local photographers to shy away from each other, and to not encourage those that have an interest, and we want to overcome that. We want to encourage a fun, creative, sharing atmosphere in the community, and after a lot of planning and excitement, Click! Burlington was formed! Visit ClickBurlington.com for membership and meeting information. We will be meeting the first Sunday of every month, and will have a main topic to focus on at each meeting. This is a great way for local photographers to network, share ideas, and learn from each other. It’s going to be great!
That’s all I have for right now. I am making it my goal to post one blog each night this week, starting tonight. Keep me on my toes, dear readers!.
by Wendi Riggens
Jim "homer" - Wow, well first let me say that I’m happy to hear that your doing much better. I haven’t been hanging around the blogs or Mpix much lately so this is the first I’ve heard of this, so I’m glad your doing better.
Love the idea of photographers club, something we could really use here. I will have to look into starting one.