We had a blast. What an absolute RUSH. I have a new appreciation for producing, especially LIVE shows. It is obvious how much work goes into making one of these productions, and the mighty cool staff of CreativeLive makes it looks easy.

If you enjoyed the show or you missed it, you can purchase the downloads here. Our course covered everything from marketing, to sales, to shooting, to life balance, so check it out!

Hooray to the crew!

Marketing to Moms…

In honor of Mother’s Day, we brought our own mom! She is really an inspiration to both of us. We love you, mom!

I wanted to thank some inspiring women who took the time to share with us about how they feel about being moms and business women. Thank you to: Me Ra Koh, Tamara Lackey, Vicki Taufer, Sarah Petty, and Dawn Davis! Your words added so much to the workshop.

One of our live student audience members, Michael Houlden had some great thoughts that pretty much summed up how we feel about marketing and sales. He says,

“Words like marketing and sales so often strike fear into the hearts of artists such as ourselves while at the same time they leave a sense of distrust in the minds of our clients. So, I sort of feel almost dirty telling people that I was at a workshop on marketing and sales. Here’s the thing though – marketing is simply the process of letting people know that we exist and what our service is – and done well the message reaches people that are interested in and value our service. And sales (almost a four letter word for some people) is simply the process of determining what our clients desire and then delivering it to them. Pure and simple. No ugly monsters. No scary ghosts.”

And that’s the point! Sales is simply providing a service to our clients to help them choose what it is they have already told you that they want! Thanks for your words, Michael! Thanks also to our in-studio live student audience: Michael Houlden, Julie Pergitone Croff, Joni James, Dan Troutman, Kristin Tetuán and Christiana Sloop Childers. Wouldn’t have been the same without you.

Here are some fun shots of the week … in the studio, the live shoot…
….and if you scroll all the way to the bottom, you’ll find DISCOUNT CODES for lots of GREAT products!

This is actually JOY shooting the CAMERAMAN shooting JULES shooting the family.

See?

The day after our live shoot, we got back into the studio to talk about editing, photoshop with presets and textures, and of course, sales! Joy demonstrated ProSelect and we all had fun editing images together, to decide how to show clients’ your very best.

Here are a few of Jules’ favorites from the live shoot. Thank you Hilary and Scott, for being so accommodating with the crazy outdoor shoot filled with cameras, wires, and people!

and of course, the famous eye-swap one:

And finally, we have to thank all of our amazing sponsors for all the generous prizes we were able to give away! Here’s Jules with her cute little shutterhugger dinosaur, and me with my DaisyGrip puppet! I don’t know who they entertained more, us or the kids we were supposed to photograph!

DISCOUNT CODES!

Proselect – 10% off of ProSelect software, offer also includes a free “Room View Collection”, with promo code: BIANCHI. Offer not valid on upgrades. Promo code expires May 31, 2012.

TotallyRad! – $50 off of RadLab from TotallyRad! with promo code: 1020MOMS, offer valid May 10-May 19, 2012.

Animoto – 20% off a month of Animoto Pro with code: BIANCHILIVE. Offer only for new subscribers. Expires May 31st.

Pictage/ShootQ - 4 Months of ShootQ starter with promo code: julesjoy2012, valid through 12/31/12. You can also get a 2-month trial of Pictage, no promo code necessary. Just go to Pictage Services, sign up, and if you link your Pictage and ShootQ accounts together you can do some amazing things!

Triple Scoop Music - 10% off any purchase at Triple Scoop Music with promo code: julesjoy12, offer valid through May 31, 2012.

VGallery Haven- 30% off of everything in the v gallery haven store, offer valid from May 10th – May 17th, 2012.

DaisyGrip for a special offer!

We also wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you who have visited our shop on Jules Cafe recently. We really try hard to produce products that we think would be useful to other photographers, and it is always something that we genuinely use ourselves. Again, thanks so much and we really appreciate you.

We were also asked to invite six people to participate as our live audience. Those who wanted to come had to submit a 60 second video with their best Mom tip. Joy and I reviewed all of the submissions and loved everyone for different reasons. It was a very difficult decision for us, but in the end we chose the following six people to join us at CreativeLIVE!! To watch the winning video submissions, simply click on the screen captures below.

We can’t wait to meet you! We have prizes and a really fun time planned!
To celebrate, we are having a sale at Jules Cafe.
30% off of all products! Just type in the promo code: CONGRATS

I met Katie back when I did a shoot for the company she works for, Johnnie O. I was really excited to shoot her Ritz Carlton wedding because I knew Katie had impeccable taste. I didn’t meet Paul until the wedding day, but he was as charming and handsome as I could have hoped. They are the most darling couple and we really had so much fun!

Here are a few of the ingredients that made their wedding day perfect:
venue: Ritz Carlton
wedding coordination: High Society Event Planning
flowers: Fresh Cut Floral Design
videography: Plug Video Productions
music: West Coast Music

Happy Easter!

Here are a few of the fabulous vendors that made this day at Casa Real at Ruby Hill so amazing:

wedding coordination: Clever Girl Consulting
make-up: MaQeup by Quis
hair: Hair by Irene Byon
cupcakes: Let Them Eat Cake
photo booth: Video Amusement
music: DJ Enrico
videography: Burkart Studios

More soon!

Recently, we were contacted by Gund to see if they could use one of the images from our Boo & Buddy San Francisco shoot for their new plush Boo! Of course we were thrilled at the prospect, and thrilled for little Boo. He really IS the world’s cutest dog. And practically a plush toy himself.

Here’s a shot of the hang tag that Gund is using. (Click on the image to see the video)

And here is the original photograph (plus a few more favorites from that day!):

PLUSH BOO!!!