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Quote of the Day

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April 30, 2009

Today S. looked a little stressed so I asked what was wrong.

His response:

“Honey, I’m only worried about two things in life…money and Swine Flu.”

HAHA.

Just got back from a photo shoot to do headshots for an awesome British lady and her business partner, now I’m heading out for a double date. Love my life!

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Email From a Kind Reader

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April 29, 2009

Email from a kind reader:

Hello Kyle,

Where have you been? I miss reading your new post @ your blog. can’t wait for updates.

Thank you to Shue in Kuala Lumpur for reminding me that I HAVE a blog!!! Normally JMCS at least makes my To-Do list even when I get busy. I’ll look at it and then cross it off even if I don’t get to it because staring at things on the list that don’t get done, stress me out. However, the blog didn’t even make it that far this month. I haven’t even considered that I should feel guilty for not posting because I’ve been so busy.

All things considered, that’s a great thing. Remember? I lost a lot of income in this past month. Fortunately, I’ve had an extremely busy month with photography. Every time I think that the slow season is about to start, I keep on booking. I am set to make a record 600,000 pesos in April. It sounds like a lot, and really, if I could get up to 1 millon de pesos a month I’d be almost completely replacing my lost income. However, the one thing about photography income is that you’re always having to invest in new equipment. I paid off the 3k camera that I put on my credit card with non-photography income so I have a zero balance. I don’t like debt. But, in terms of personal money versus photography money, my photography balance shows that I’ve still spent about $1k more than I’ve earned this year. If I ever want to go full-time I’d have to work out a good business plan.

Anyways, back to what I’ve been doing, I may not have been updating this blog, but I’ve been busy over at my wedding photography blog. For the past three days I’ve been averaging 3-4 hours of sleep a night so that I can finish client photos. I don’t want to fall even further behind because I have another session tomorrow and Friday. I’ve been working really hard and I’m proud of my latest engagement session and wedding that I just posted, so if you feel like it, head on over and leave me some love. :)

Allison & Ryan-135 small

PS. The weatherman LIED!!! It was not 60 and sunny, it was freezing and the beach at La Serena looked like this! However, the plane did not crash and for that I’m eternally grateful. :)

Allison & Ryan-210 small

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La Serena for a Photo Shoot

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April 24, 2009


Tomorrow I have a photo shoot in La Serena with Mr. and Miss Rye Bread!!! I’m so excited to get out of Santiago for a little bit and see some new places and meet some cool new people. I love shooting in cities I’ve never been to, it’s always great inspiration to see something with fresh eyes.

As I sit here on my couch, literally gasping for air and using and abusing my inhaler, a smog free weekend is sounding pretty damn good right about now. Plus, just checked the weather forecast — sunny and 60 degrees sounds like perfect weather for a photo shoot. :)

I have another wedding to blog pretty soon, and when I get back I promised Miss Rye Bread I’d put a rush on her pictures so she can get her Save-the Dates out for the wedding, so lots of eye candy coming to my photography blog soon! In the mean time, feast your eyes on my latest Brazilian bride and her Chilean husband!

PS. Send me safe flight vibes, I hate flying alone!!!!

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Group Blog: Travel Experiences

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Comment when yours is up and I’ll add your link!

Sara: What happens in Puerto Rico stays in Puerto Rico.
Aimee: Mumbai changed her perspective on life.
Clare: Nightmare travels in Romania.
Heather: Discovered an interesting culture within a culture in the U.S. in a small town.
Renee: Her greatest hits in travel.
Shannon: A walk down memory lane back to when summer vacation was the only thing on a kid’s mind.
Lydia: A wild Brazilian goose hunt all for a tambourine.
Abby: Her very exotic travels in…Canada!
Lauren: You won’t believe me but her adventures involve a bidet shower and alpacas.
Emily: An actual travel story in Chile, finally!

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Since this group blog post is a pretty open theme — Travel Experiences — I’ve decided to post mine on the hostels we stayed at while traveling through Costa Rica for two weeks. I actually took this from the travel blog I started specifically for that trip.

Hostel Warm Water. We gave it that name, because after visiting about ten other hostels in Costa Rica, its the only one that has had warm water.
Hostel Towels. A giant fan is installed in each of the rooms so high that you can’t change the speed it’s set at, and the speed it’s set at is HIGH. It’s like having your very own personal tornado in the room. The hostel does not provide you with blankets or sheets to use against this force of nature, so shivering and freezing cold, S. and I slept covered up in only our towels…still slightly wet from our showers, how pathetic is that?
Hostel Broken Bed. Not as dirty as it sounds, we weren’t doing anything naughty when it broke. We arrived at Playa del Coco after a long day of traveling and headed to a hostel recommended by a friend. Some friend he turned out to be! S. was so excited to lay down that he collapsed on his bed the minute we got in the room. That very second the entire thing came crashing down to the floor, completely falling apart. No problem, S. is a construction man, he knew how to fix it. He put the bed back together and lo and behold, as S. went to take a shower I sat down to read a magazine, and the second my butt hit the mattress, I too hit the ground. Fatties! We changed rooms and get beds that weren’t broken. End of story.
Haunted Hostel. Returning to Iberia where we had already been once and had stayed in Hostel Towels, we decided not to suffer again thinking it would be wiser to go somewhere else. WRONG! Walking up to a quaint looking building, some very nice Costa Rican girls showed us to our room where we had a bed complete with a mosquito net. Exciting and tropical right? The place looked a little old in the daylight, but charming nonetheless. Later on that night we were to think otherwise. Nightfall hit, and suddenly the old run down statues in the patio looked like evil gargoyles, suddenly the hostel’s one other guest, who during the day we thought had just been eyeballing us a little too long out of curiosity, was suddenly transformed into creepy guy lurking and staring at us, the flickering candlelight in the wind was just too much. I could practically feel the ghosts breathing down my neck. The wind howled and the walls creaked. The bathroom was outside, a little ways away from our room and after showering I was almost too scared to leave the bathroom alone to walk back to the room. Fortunately S. was too scared to be in the room by himself so he was already on his to look for me. Surprisingly enough, when we woke up in the morning nothing looked so scary anymore and we both realized we’re nothing more than giant wimps!
Hostel de la Gran Perdida (the Great Loss). At our most upscale hostel we thought everything was perfect. A giant TV, air conditioning, cheap prices, comfortable beds, clean showers, a good atmosphere(so good people didn’t even leave to go out to bars, they just hung out at the picnic tables out front), we could not have asked for more. Things were going smoothly until one day S. asked casually, “Have you seen my bathing suit Kyle?” No, I had not, we looked for it all over our room, asked the cleaning ladies if it had been left in the bathroom, asked the front desk if it had been turned in to the lost and found, all to no avail. S.’s beloved red bathing suit had been stolen! NOOOOO! Tears formed in his eyes as the reality that his bathing suit was lost and gone forever began to set it. “It was more to me than just a bathing suit,” he said tragically, “I will never be able to replace it.” We left the Hostel of the Great Loss in mourning.

*Edited to add: To this day S. is still upset about the loss of his bathing suit. He refuses to buy another, and that’s his excuse as to why he never uses the pool at our building. Please note, this trip was 4 years ago.

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Best Gift Idea EVER

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April 23, 2009

S., please don’t read beyond this. Thank you. :)

I MUST BUY HIM THIS TOY!!!!!!!!!!! (Says the girl who’s income has just been cut in half).

It is a camera that you put on your dog’s collar so you can have a little video of what life is like from his or her eyes. As blog readers may or may not have realized, S. and I are obsessed with Papito. And S.’s other favorite thing in the world is technology and gadget stuff. It’s ideal! I’m pretty sure Papito wants it too so she can show us what she does while we’re out. :)

Thanks to Julia Alison’s blog for the genius idea.

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