If you are on my email list (and hopefully you are!) you have seen the announcements about my photography classes. Just in case you aren't, here's the list of all of the upcoming classes and links to register for them. If you are NOT getting the Snap Click Shoot emails or email newsletters from the studio and you would like to get them, please email me and we'll get you on the list. My email address is farrah@farrahbraniff.com

THIS WEEKEND! I am very, very excited about this event. It will be fun and casual and a great way to practice your new skills. If you have taken a class with me in the past then i would definitely recommend this! It's fine for new shooters too because we'll be learning as we walk. I am a little worried about rain but, in the event that we get rained out, we'll reschedule for another day soon. Let's all just think super positive thoughts. A little overcast would not be a bad thing but a downpour will be hard to work around. Here is the event info and sign up link:

Downtown photo walk, Show Up and Shoot! more info and register online

Beginner and intermediate workshops coming up:

Intro digital SLR workshop, May 29th, more info and register online

Intermediate digital SLR workshop, May 22nd, more info and register online

Intro digital SLR Workshop, September 4, 2010, online registration coming soon. In the meantime, if you would like to register for this one please call the studio at (713) 255-2882.

Intro to digital scrapbooking, TBA

Intro to Photoshop Elements, TBA

For my professional photographer friends and blog readers, I wanted to give you a set of links to my recent Marathon Press & PPA webinars as well as my new template that is for sale on the White House Custom Colour site. In case you missed these and are interested, please visit the links!

Mastering Marketing (FREE webinar from PPA!)

Totally cool new GIRL and BOY accordion templates on the WHCC Focused site! I am also working on a referral kit that will hopefully be up soon.  Keep an eye out for it!

Lastly, I am teaching a Super Monday class for PPA here at my studio. It is NOT on the normal Super Monday day but is on May 24th. You can register for any of the Super Monday classes here. To find the info on my class (and all the other classes in Texas), go here and scroll down until you see my name. The class is called Inspired Marketing and Packaging.

Well, I think that's all the shameless self promo that I have for you guys today! :) I hope you guys enjoy the webinars and look forward to meeting you in the upcoming classes!

I know, I know, it's TUESDAY. Well, this week's lesson was challenging because I tried out something new, screencasting! Let me know what you think. This lesson is about placing a texture over your image. Next week, we'll have a guest on the bog who does amazing work with overlaying textures. She's going to do a demo and talk about her work.

This particular demo was done in Photoshop CS4. Any other recent version of Photoshop is capable of this as well. If you are wanting to try this out but you don't have a texture image to use, go photograph one. It's that easy. Look for a cement wall, roughed up wood, stones, etc.

I really want to see your experiments and how they turn out so please leave links to them in the comments below or post them to Flickr in our Monday Lesson pool. Make sure and stay tuned for next week's lesson!

Does this lake look scary to you? What if I told you that you had to swim around it? If neither of those questions are a yes, then you are braver than I. This was my challenge today. I am training for a triathlon and have never swam in open water like this. Sure, I've jumped off big rocks into Canyon Lake (a personal fave) and floated around lots of lakes (usually with a beer in hand) but actually swimming in a lake is another thing entirely. It's terrifying actually.

It didn't start particularly well. The guy who you check in with and hand over your $7 to looked at me and said, "You have a wetsuit right?". When I said no, he just sort of smiled and chuckled. He asked me if I had ever swam in open water and I said no. He smiled again and told me about how it's not shallow and most everywhere I would be swimming would be the deep parts. Then he handed me a detailed release that I had to sign in multiple places before getting in the water. So, needless to say, I was feeling less than confident.

I suck it up and start wading in and it was COLD! Now I don't mean cold like winter time cold but it did take the breath right out of me when I first went under. Losing your breath at the beginning before you even start swimming takes the wind out of your sails a little bit. I took a few minutes to adjust and started going.

I have a very overactive imagination, which does not serve me well in situations like this. When I get anxious, my imagination kicks into full gear and I can dream up all sorts of irrational scenarios. In this specific case, it was alligators, snakes and dead bodies. I have a feeling that the more rational of you are thinking I'm crazy. It's just a lake after all. Yes, perhaps, but it felt a hell of a lot scarier to me than just a lake, especially because I had to swim around it and out into the "deep parts".

The good news? I did it! I swam around it, albeit slowly and with lots of stops along to way. One of the hardest things about the actual swimming is trying figure out where you're going. You can't see much because the water is murky and who wants to look anyway? If I didn't look that much I thought I certainly had less of a chance of seeing alligators, dead bodies and the like. Even when I did look, I kept finding myself swimming off slightly in the wrong direction. In the end I made it back to the shore having kept up my crawl stroke most of the way. I never found myself clinging to a buoy for dear life either. I did not see any dead bodies, alligators or snakes. At one point, though, something sort of stingy and scratchy touched my hand and about gave me a heart attack. I'm guessing it was probably something benign like grass.

Now that I am back at my desk after a hot shower, I feel happy. I am loving that I challenged myself today. I love it when I muster up the strength to do stuff that scares me. For the rest of today I think I'll happily stay in my comfort zone. I also feel very certain that a cold beer is in my near future.

I love this shot! It makes me think of that feeling that you get when you have a big job to do or something sort of daunting in front of you. She did what many of us would do in the situation...first she walked towards it and then away but when Mom (a trusted friend) put her back on track and told her to go for it she walked right up and smashed it!

Go smash some blocks this weekend my friends!

Any favorite shots from you guys today? Post links to them (on your flickr, your blog or wherever) in the comments section below OR you can upload them to our Favorite Shot Friday Flickr pool. Don't she shy!

It has officially started...the teasing, cliques, clubs, and the awful beginnings of who's cool and who's not. Does it shock you you when I say it is happening to my 6 year old? I think I might be naive but it does shock me a little. Sure, I remember it. Worse yet, I remember doing it (sad to say). It wasn't easy going through it myself but it's a hell of a lot harder to watch someone that I love so deeply go through it.

It started this year when Sayer was refused entry to a club made up of some of his friends. The self-appointed leader had decided that Sayer was not allowed in the club because he "is annoying". He told me about it and his Dad and I gave the first blush response of "Well, why would you want to be a part of that club anyway?". I know...not hugely helpful because, of course, he wants to be in the club. His response was just that, "Well, all of my friends are in it". This has been going on for the better part of the school year in waves. It seems to get ugly and then get better. We try and find 6 year old friendly ways to explain why someone would exclude someone else and how to stand up to mean comments.

Fast forward to one day after school a few weeks ago...Sayer and I were leaving a school event and walking to the car. He sees this other boy in his class and yells out (in a friendly, upbeat voice too) "hey, [boy's name], you know you should try wearing perfume!" I was mortified! I interrupted him midway through perfume because I could see where it was going and I was hoping the little boy didn't hear it. God, I hope he didn't hear it. My stomach just caved in. Sayer was all confused by my interruption and I just told him not to say another word and I'd explain in a minute when we were further away. I called out something jovial to the boy and his Dad (hoping that he hadn't heard either) and walked on. When we got out of earshot, I tried to explain to Sayer that what he said was teasing and would have / might have really hurt the boy's feelings. He looked up at me, wide-eyed and uncomfortable and said, "but he does smell weird". I told him that I knew that he was not intentionally trying to be hurtful or mean but that a comment like that, regardless if it is true, is the kind of thing that would make someone feel really sad. He got really upset after that. 

Now, fast forward again to last weekend when we went to see the movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I had not read the books but Sayer loves them and his Dad had read some of them to him. I didn't really know what I was getting myself in to. The movie was funny at times and, sadly, very honest about what middle school teasing can be like. It made me really uncomfortable. I hated the lead character. I squirmed in my seat for half the movie wishing that Sayer wasn't watching kids be so mean. I thought about leaving but that would not have gone over well and he has already read the books anyway.

After the movie we talked the whole way home about the characters and the message of the movie. We spent a lot of time talking about the main character and why he was such a bad friend in the movie. Eventually the conversation came around to the idea that a lot of the time the things that someone gets teased for are things that they can't change or control (and, frankly, shouldn't have to). This lead us back to the boy at school. Sayer starts to explain how he "smells weird" and, as we talk, it comes out that his Dad drives him to school and smokes in the car the whole way. So, did your heart just break a little? I know mine did when I heard it. This poor little boy is being left out and teased for something he has no control over whatsoever and may not even really understand. His parents probably have no idea that what they are doing is causing him to be teased. It makes me so sad to think about it.

And there it sits for me...it's just the beginning of years of struggle. I'm going to have to watch them get hurt, fumble, and be rejected. It makes me remember the things that were said to me that, to this day, echo around in my head. Does it have to be so hard? Do we have to be so mean to each other?

So, today, I am sending this out to you, me and my kids...you are enough, you are strong, you are loved. Pass it on...