I work full time at my day job (in retail, don’t ask how that happened!) and full time at Lavish Photography, my cute little start-up lifestyle photography company. It’s challenging trying to balance both schedules, along with my two kiddos. I try to set up realistic timelines for my photography clients so I can deliver a fantastic product on-time.
Sometimes there is a little snaffu that prevents things from going as planned.
I am excited to have a steady stream of clients contacting me for portraits – I am so fortunate to be able to document memories for these families. Some of the portraits I’ve recently done have been of Man’s Best Friend at our Pups In The Park fundraising event we do twice annually. Our last day-long session was on June 1st, during which I promised edited photos to our generous donors no later than June 23rd. Now that’s all fine and dandy – until you throw a huge storm into the mix.
Our storms in the mid-west come on so fast and strong, that we don’t have a chance to name them. Let’s just call it The Storm of 6/21/13. 500k people in the Twin Cities Metro were without power because of this storm. While it’s no Superstorm Sandy, this was a pretty big deal for us. Thank goodness we didn’t see any tornadoes at the same time! The damage was bad enough without them. Downed trees, powerlines both above and below ground were destroyed, burst water mains – this one created a giant crater down the street from my house.
I was unable to finalize the Pups In The Park edits or post the final images by the 23rd, because we were without power until late last night (6/25). I have to tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed living a simple life without electricity. Now, we still had heated running water and gas so perhaps my vision of what it’s like to live a “simple life” is a little skewed. Regardless, it was fun to pretend I was on a farm from 1899 with my two chickens, no refrigerator, and candles to light my way in the dark. I think that most people long for the “simple life”: unplugged, truly seeing the world around you, actually listening to the sounds around you. My neighborhood still didn’t have power in the streets during the Super Moon on 6/23, it was so glorious to have it light up our house! The moon would have been dulled by light pollution had the power not gone out for days on end.
Seriously though, I’m not sure what I would have done if the toilet and shower hadn’t worked. Ugh, thank God for plumbing and electricity…
So the final edits for Pups are finally up on the website – if you’re interested in seeing the full slideshow, you can head on over to the website and enter the client gallery with password “Pups”. Here are a few samples – dogs are so much fun!
Phantom was so adorable – he looks like a superhero dog here, sans cape.
I just love Ralphie’s coat! So speckled and lovely.
Did you experience any of the storms going across the midwest USA this past week? How did you fare? I hope you are all doing well and remember – you are smart and self-reliant, you will be amazed at how resourceful you can be when you’re forced into a situation that takes you out of your comfort zone. I’d love to hear how you “made it through”! The comment bubble is at the top of this post, to the right of the title. Can’t figure out how to make it a darker color 🙂
~Jenny
Lavish Photography & Lifestyle 