This month is full of wonderful things to come!  Let’s start with announcing the Running on Empty Winner for the upcoming California CONFIDENCE Workshop!  The winner is Samantha!  Samantha, I am so excited to help you start 2011 off with fresh inspiration and creativity!  For everyone else, I copied Samantha’s submitted story below in the p.s. so you can all read about how strong this woman is and why we are celebrating her enduring heart.  (A big heartfelt thanks to ALL those who entered in the ROE contest.  We respectfully stand by you as you continue to preserver with much grace and big hearts.)  The Seattle ROE contest will begin this Friday!

We will also be announcing the new SOAR! Scholarship Recipients this month and together we will begin the new SOAR! year with everyone who applied.

Our CONFIDENCE Workshops also start back up this month!

They are SOLD OUT in Orange County, CA, Seattle, WA and Scottsdale, Arizona (yeah!). We don’t know how the rest of the year’s calendar is going to shake out, so if you want to get in to one of these CONFIDENCE Workshops, email genie@fioria.us and have her put your name on our Waiting List.  We almost always have one or two attendees that have unexpected circumstances come up and need to sell their spot.

I’ve also got new Photo-Recipes lined up for you!  Even more fun, Pascaline, my nine year old,  has her debut Photo-Recipe this month!  And I’m going to show you what women look like when they are giving themselves freedom to follow a passion!

There are speaking engagements to announce (like a surprise Platform at WPPI, shhhh) and so much more!!

But first, let’s get back to our roots as we continue to embrace the beginning of a new year.  A question to get your creative juices flowing.  Why do we even pick up the single object that all these activities revolve around?  Why do we pick up the camera?  (post your answers in today’s comments!)

Kelly Duhaney captured this precious moment during our Texas CONFIDENCE Workshop in November.  This photo is a living example of why we pick up our camera again and again.

What would you see if you took this photo?  Would you notice first that the little boy’s face isn’t even seen fully?  Would you beat yourself up for that since the family hired you to take photos of him?  Or, would you notice that dad’s face is the only one who is sharp and fear that mom will be upset because her face is blurred?  Would you see all that you did wrong?  Would you question who decides what’s wrong about a photo?  If yes, would you consider a third option?

What about the indescribable story of joy this family shares? And how much more do we see the joy when all the ducks are NOT in a row.  Yes, we don’t see the son’s face–just a hint of his laughter–but for me, his laughter is that much louder.  How much more do we feel the love that this little one is surrounded by?

Would we only see a “crazy” photo taken during a family session when the toddler wouldn’t sit still?  Or would we see the essence of what makes life so beautiful?

This photo resembles freedom in photography!  This is what it’s all about!  Great photography isn’t about capturing everyone’s faces, all eyes open, looking at the camera.  It’s about Refusing to Say Cheese! It’s about capturing the beautiful dynamics of love, adoration, joy and sheer beauty of the human spirit.    As parents we see these dynamics everyday.  Despite life’s stress, we are witnesses to the every day beauty of our children.  And this is why we continue to pick up our camera.

xoxo,

m

p.s.  A BIG thanks to our ROE Judges for reading all the beautiful stories that were submitted!  Samantha’s enduring story, the winner of the Running On Empty contest for Orange County, CA CONFIDENCE Workshop:

I applied for the Running on Empty contest for San Francisco, and I was not chosen. But I am not giving up! Here is my story of being empty.
When I first saw the running on empty contest I thought to myself, I don’t feel empty right now. Empty was when I took my 11 month old baby to the ER because he was throwing up and dehydrated and the nurse turned around and said “Get the trauma room ready!” Empty was when, as he lay on a table with an IV in each arm, one in his leg, and the tiniest catheter ever to collect his urine, the ER doc looked at me and said “We think he has type 1 diabetes”. Empty was trying to hold my baby without tangling all the tubes and wires and just wishing that I could nurse him as he whimpered and my breasts became engorged. Empty was when the Diabetes Educator came to teach my whole family how to give insulin injections and I couldn’t do it. If I was completely unable to inject my husband and myself with saline, how was I going to inject my son with insulin multiple times a day?
That was 4 years ago. After spending a year being so sad that I didn’t even realize that I was sad, one day I woke up with a little bit of happy! I was making my way through the grieving process and starting to accept that it is what it is. I was starting to allow myself to be happy again.
I am not as empty now as I have been. But type 1 diabetes, or juvenile diabetes, is an incredibly high maintenance disease, there are medicines as vedda blood sugar remedy but that’s not just everything. Everyday I test my son’s blood sugar about 10 times with a needle prick to the finger. Every 3 days we insert new tubing for his insulin pump into his body with another needle. And every night I wake up to test his blood sugar. Sometimes I only need to wake up once, but more often I get up 2 or 3 times. During really hard times, like when he is going through a growth spurt, I might wake up every 2 hours to test him. So this is why I am empty. I have been living my life for the last 6 years on interrupted sleep. From being pregnant and getting up in the night to pee, to nursing a baby, straight into parenting a child with type 1.
Before having children I was an elementary school teacher. For now that career is not going to work for me because I just don’t have the energy to keep up with a classroom of children because of my crazy sleep schedule. And even though teachers have great vacation time, the schedule is not at all flexible. I absolutely need to be flexible to take care of my son. Having a child with a chronic disease has forced me to take risks with my career because I need to be able to make my own schedule. I am dedicated to making a career for myself as a portrait photographer, and I could sure use your help! Me Ra, your SOAR! scholarship inspired me last year to go for it. I have been doing sessions for friends and it is working out really well- I love the work and they love the pictures. I would like to move into photographing people beyond my circle of friends and your Confidence Workshop is just the boost that I need. Thank you for all that you do to support women, you are truly inspiring.
Samantha (samanthajo@ymail.com)