May 31, 2010
A year ago today I got hit by a car. I debated whether to even blog about this but in the end I decided I would because I still think about it a lot — because let’s be real here, getting hit by a car is a B.F.D. While I think I went through all the stages of dealing with the accident and blogging about it — first writing about it so delirious that I have no memory of that blog post,posting hideous pictures of me after a week long hospital stay, writing about Papito’s reaction, how it affected our travel plans, how the Chilean healthcare system worked for me, a photo of the allergic reaction I got from the bandages on my knees (click only if you’re not easily grossed out), I tried to piece my memories back together to no avail, meeting up with the guy who ran me over, and my favorite of all the accident posts, is the one where I wrote about running through the streets of Estacion Central screaming, “CHILE, YOU’LL NEVER KILL ME!”
So while I know I’ve written about it to death, bear with me — I have more to say on the subject. Reading through all those posts gets me all choked up. I’m actually crying a little bit as I type this. I’m not really sad though. Just emotional. 2009 was so effing hard. I spent 7 months of the entire year trying to recover physically and mentally. And now in 2010 I feel like I’m much closer to getting there — not because I’m now completely physically ok. I am still on anti-hystamines because my body never stopped reacting after the allergic reaction. And I fricken can’t shave my right knee because apparently the nerve endings are still growing back so I can’t even touch it because the skin is so ridiculously sensitive — and hairy!
But I’ve learned something important. I’ve learned to forgive myself. Like, I imagine the majority of women on the planet do, I was so hard on myself for a long time because I still haven’t lost all the weight I gained after the accident. And while I’d still like to be thinner again, I’ve let up on myself. I’m not going to obsess about it or beat myself up over 5 pounds, because ummm, hey, I’m still alive! What do 5 pounds matter?
One of my goals for this year was to run a marathon. I’m not sure that’s going to happen anymore. I have not been able to up my mileage much at all because my left knee starts hurting. In the past I would have been angry that I’m not able to train like I should be training. I’m still trying, but at this point the progress is so slow I may end up running half the marathon in October and calling it a day. And I won’t beat myself up for that either even though pre-accident Kyle would be incredibly pissed off at herself for not being able.
And of course, I’ve learned all the other important life lessons that one learns when she almost dies — live every day as if it were your last, tell everyone you love how much you love them, be a better person, leave the world a better place, yadiyadiyada.
But I still feel like the most valuable lesson that I’m taking away from all this is to stop beating myself for silly stuff that doesn’t matter. I’m still alive. That matters.
PS. Totally off topic, but I want to know your favorite places in Santiago, please help me out!
PSS. It’s this new blog’s anniversary too! Last year when I debuted kylehepp.com in May we got 6,000 pageviews in a month and now a year later, I get in between 20,000 and 30,000 pageviews a month! Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who visits my little corner of the internet. It means a lot to me that you’ve all been on this crazy journey with me — from life as an expat in Chile, to becoming a wedding photographer and starting a new business to reading incessant posts about me getting hit by a car and trying to recover from it — from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate you.
The Clandescuento promo that we ran on Friday sold out! That means we will have about 30 sessions in the next two months. Because of that, I’m on the hunt for new and exciting locations to suggest to our new clients, and I need your help to think of some! I love to shoot in places that we haven’t shot in before.
So tell me where your favorite place in Santiago is — pretty, ugly, modern, old, inside, outside, bar, park, restaurant, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes the most surprising locations make for the nearest photos.
And spread the word — ask your pololos and suegros and co-workers. I want to come up with 30 new places to have as options!
May 28, 2010
To anyone reading this, if you’re interested in a photography session with me in Santiago, between the dates of June 3rd-July 27th, I’m running a 50% off special via ClanDescuento: http://www.clandescuento.com/descuentos/santiago
There are only 14 sessions left, so if you’d like to take advantage of the offer, jump on it!
Y para ustedes que llegaron atraves de ClanDescuento, les dejo con un poco mas de informacion.
Nuestro portfolio completo de sesiones esta aqui: http://www.kylehepp.com/engagements/
Puedes ver un ejemplo de una sesion de pareja aqui: http://www.kylehepp.com/engagements/emiliy-rodolfo/
Puedes ver un ejemplo de una sesion de boudoir aqui: http://www.kylehepp.com/engagements/caira/
Puedes ver un ejemplo de una sesion de embarazo aqui: http://www.kylehepp.com/engagements/barbaraignacio/
Y aunque este no esta incluido en el descuento, para los curiosos y los que se van a casar luego, tambien soy fotografo de bodas asi que pueden ver el portafolio completo de matrimonios, aqui: http://www.kylehepp.com/weddings/
May 27, 2010
I was recently talking to my best friend’s about the blogging world and attacks on bloggers from readers and commenters. I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of many a hate email and the occasional obnoxious and/or cruel comment. I tend to ignore them. Don’t get me wrong — they often hurt my heart — but I see very little good that comes from responding. Unless the comment is hilarious.
Anyway, my friend said that she reads another blog where the commenters were attacking the blogger and the blogger responded, “You only know the part of my life that I choose to share with you. You don’t know everything about me.”
In the photography world there have been some crazy debates going on lately — mainly about wedding photographers who make themselves appear to be much more successful via what they choose to share on their blog, than they actually are.
Appearing to be massively successful is very easy. I could show you our Amazon trip and not tell you that we won it. I could show you photos of us gallivanting around Europe and not tell you that it took us 2 years to save up for those short little three months. I could show you all the weddings we shoot and based on how busy we are you might assume that we wouldn’t have problems getting a mortgage or that I don’t have to psychotically budget out every inch of our lives just to ensure that we’ll continue to scrape by.
I’ll be honest. We watch every penny we spend — especially in the U.S. Bringing our third world country salary to a first world country is NOT budget friendly. And my stomach sometimes hurts when more than a few weeks go by without booking a wedding. I get nervous. So much so that I’m probably going to give myself an ulcer worrying. It’d probably be easy to share just enough and nothing more on this blog so that you didn’t know all that.
Anyway, that all brings me to my point. I haven’t been posting much while we’re in Tennessee because we haven’t been doing anything crazy out of the ordinary. Well, we did shoot some killer sessions, but I still don’t have a computer to be able to edit them. So in the mean time, I’m having a fabulous time hanging out with my bestie and her fiancé, enjoying the small yet luxurious comforts of life in the U.S., such as eating food sent from the heavens at Panera and lounging around in air conditioned bliss laughing at silly movies. To anyone but us, it’s mundane.
And I want to write about the mundane on occasion. I can’t have people thinking my life is totally over the top amazing all the time. That’s a front I’d never be able to, and would never want to be able to keep up. My life is really amazing — in large part because the incredible is balanced out enough by the struggles/craziness/hard times, that I appreciate the good that much more.
Who knows, maybe I’d have more clients and make more money if people were under the impression that I’m some insanely exclusive photographer who only shoots bajillion dollar weddings. But starting a blog based on complete honesty is what got me this far, so I’m going to keep on keeping on.
Stream of consciousness — over. Thanks for listening 
May 25, 2010
In case you’re wondering what we’re up to these days and why I haven’t been as regular about blogging lately, it’s because we’re road tripping!
We flew from NYC to Miami, hung out there, and then drove up from Miami to Nashville (14 hour drive, looong). My Dad loaned me his iPhone so that’s the camera I used on all these in case you’re wondering why the quality looks juuuuust a tad bit different than our normal pics.
Dog ice cream bars, how freaking cool is that?!?
Seba loves it.
Seba also loves driving the entire way because I forgot my driver’s license in Chile. Smart.
We have some sessions to post but we are still having Mac drama — the computer we ordered had to be sent back because it was DOA. They replaced the hard drive and sent it back to us. It then worked, but the hard drive was making grindy/clicky/hard drive failing noises. So they are replacing the whole computer but in the mean time I don’t have anywhere to edit photos 
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- Was going to call it a night and go to bed without blogging for the first time like...forever (on a week night). Couldn't do it.
- http://www.kylehepp.com/2010/09/happy-labor-day/ Feliz Labor Day! #fb
- Time to get my wedding photography on!
- @ryanbrenizer, editing the wedding with your twin right now. When I get to a picture of him, I'll email you :)
- Our MacBook is so smart! It changed automatically to Chicago time!
- Manana we're headed to Chicago! Mini road trip, YAY!
