taken with my iphone and edited in instagram. i know i’ve blogged about instagram before. what can i say?

sometimes it feels like the purest form of photography. such a vision shaper. are you on? find me under the user

yanpalmer. xoxo

this

is

extreme.

broken promises! this is me shaking my mean old angry man fist! i know i will probably get them tomorrow, but tonight my heart is broken!

but it happens, life goes on, and so does the blog. without or without my new scans of the amazingness i was lucky enough to shoot in california.

which brings us to another instagram post. yes yes, that’s right. here we go.

this week i discovered a new iphone app. frametastic thanks to some way savvier than me instagrammers who were all over it like butter on toast.

and p.s.

who are you following on instagram? who is your favorite? are you on? i’m yanpalmer, though you probably know that already from me spamming facebook and twitter left and right. i am obsessed with this new medium. i am fixated on  shooting my everyday. almost as fixated as i am on checking my email for the notification that my scans are in….

the past week on instagram (all images taken on my iphone):

my heart is full.

i have taken some of the most amazing shots of my career in the last week.

i have photographed some of the best photographers i know –and had one of my mentor’s, someone pretty big and famous not only in film world, but the whole photography world at large…

hire me to photograph his family

the honor is huge. so huge it leaves me emotional.

but something i’m not sure of:

whether this slew of clients, many of whom are my photographer friends, have rallied around to hire me for my skill, or to simply lend me a hand–

bottom line?

it totally doesn’t matter. either one is 100% touching to me and i’ll take it.

and i’ll do a freaking yantastic good job (yes i use my name as part of a made up adjective which is incredibly jerky, but its who i am).

the thing i know very very very most of all —— is that nothing that happens in my career or the rest of my life would mean a darn thing without this:

i love them i love them i love them. and i’m ready to be done with this amazing trip and head home. just a few more days marty pants–just a few more days.

xoxo, yan

my focus is more flittery than a fly, so i’ll get right to the point.

i like to mentor. i like to try to show other photographers what’s great about them. i like putting them in touch with what kind of photography makes them happy–or giving them the courage to embrace what they already know deep down inside makes them happy. and that’s just the beginning.

here are some reviews from some wonderful photographers i have had the absolute honor to work with. the first all except for the last reveiw took place online via skype. the last review is in reference to an all day session we spend together in. the. flesh, where we captured these.

be sure to click on the pdf to download the pricing and content info. and if you want to talk to me about setting something up (please, lets!), email me  photography.yan@gmail.com

download the online mentoring info here!

“What can I tell you about my experience mentoring with Yan?

It has been life changing.

I know that is a big call to make but it is true.

My photography journey began three years ago and I currently shoot for myself, family and friends. Six months ago I fell head over heels in love with shooting film. So there I was with a  raging passion for film burning in my belly and a desire to want to know more.

To be more.

To become a better artist.

For the first time I realised I wanted to have clients.

But I didn’t know how.

I felt like I had been sitting on a fence with my photography for so long I was unable to jump off and cross to the other side.

I was paralysed by my fears and what if’s. I was stagnant, unable to move foward and I was  blocked to seeing my full potential.

After mentoring with Yan I feel like a light has been turned on in a very dark room.

My mind has become clearer, now I know the changes I have to undergo and how to do it.

She has guided me in finding my essence.

I have no doubt that everything I have learnt from Yan will be the foundations of which I will build my future photography upon.

Yan is a true artist and will give you every bit of her amazing being.”

-Toni Raper of Maeve Photography

“my mentoring session with Yan was one of the best decisions I’ve made in the two years I’ve been in business. The suggestions and tips she shared with me have already made a huge impact in helping me define my style and the direction I want my business to go. Her honest critique and openness about how she creates the magic that she does made the session so worthwhile AND so fun. Yan is a woman who knows her stuff and is willing and able to share her knowledge in a way that makes complete sense. I thought I was the one making the investment when I signed up for the mentoring session, but I ended the session feeling like Yan was the one who invested in me and for that I will be forever grateful.”

-megan hartley photography

“My mentoring session with Yan took me from frustrated and overwhelmed to energized and excited about my photography business. I’ve been a long-time photography hobbyist, but getting an honest-to-goodness profitable business off the ground has been a daunting task. But after meeting with Yan, I have a renewed hope that I can do it! Yan was encouraging and so honest. She helped me see things about my work that I hadn’t noticed before and suggested practical changes that have made ALL the difference in my photos. This is hands-done THE BEST investment I’ve made for my business. “

-B. Kyle photography

“I had my mentoring session with Yan just a few hours after she published her “Sick of It” post. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous that my mentoring session was taking place just after this was published, but all my worries were completely forgotten the moment that I saw Yan’s smiling face.  Four hours completely flew by. My mentoring session with Yan was one of the best investments I’ve made for my photography.  Not only did I learn so much, but I had so much fun! Though we’ve only met on Skype, I could still feel her warmth and kindness.  I really can’t say enough about my mentoring session with Yan.  I’m so glad that I had the opportunity to be mentored by Yan.  She is such a wealth of information and is one of the kindest, most genuine people I’ve had the pleasure of “meeting.” ‘

-stephanie mballo photography

now are you ready for the long one? =)

“I wanted to share recent one-on-one all day mentoring experience that I had with Yan Photography a few weeks ago. I needed some time to process our day together and think about how I wanted this to impact my journey before I shared it with you all. Because in many ways, I believe it will have profound ramifications on where I go from here (although not all, or perhaps even most, entirely photography related).

So here is my story.

I contacted Yan over a year ago to see if she and Becky Earl would be doing any more of their Heartshop Workshops. Sadly, it wasn’t looking too good so I inquired about one-on-one mentoring. But given the health of my parents, traveling for me is complicated so I moved on. I could not believe my luck when I read in November that Yan had moved to my own city – Denver, Colorado! We set up a date to work together in February and I patiently waited for our day.

I was still a little hesitant because I had done another one-on-one mentoring day with another local photog and she completely took advantage of me. Had I spent more time doing my research, I would have come across the negatives warnings about her but I didn’t. Lesson learned – do your homework and know that there are lots of people in the industry right now looking to take advantage of the state of the industry. As the day neared, I was also a little concerned because Yan had just done a viral blog post called Sick of It. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?

We decided to spend the morning in a coffee shop that was located halfway between our homes. We spent the morning discussing my journey, my work, my weaknesses, my goals, what I wanted to accomplish for the day, and looked at lot of her work and discussed what was happening as she clicked the shutter. First I will say that Yan did a lot of homework to prepare herself for my day. She was familiar with my facebook page, my website (even a website that isn’t completed yet), my work, and my work with my business partner.

Then we started to dive into some deeper topics. And some weren’t even photography related. I’m a pretty open book but I do keep several things close to my heart. However, it almost felt like there was no hiding here’s with Yan. I’m not entirely sure how she does it but I found myself discussing lots of things that are very important to me but that I don’t readily share. It might be that she mesmerizingly beautiful. Or that she is just very in tune with people and very honest herself.

Around noon we met up with my business partner, Joe, for lunch. I wanted to include him because I end up spending a lot of time with him and we are growing our joint business quickly. It was so fun to just talk shop for an hour. After Joe left, Yan spent some time showing me how she edits her photos on her computer. She does such a nice job of keeping it simple. I need to focus on this and organize an action intervention for myself.

Finally, it was time to head over to the home of the family we were going to photograph for the afternoon. Yan could not have chosen a better family to work with. As you will see in the images, they were beautiful, stylish, relaxed – just like their home. We started off exploring the house by ourselves while Yan explained to me what she was looking for, why some things would work and others would not, what her plan of attack was for a shoot like this. And then it was time to start with the family.

Watching Yan photograph this family was amazing. Yan really went into her zone when the cameras came out and she managed to keep a very busy 2 year old engaged and smiling the entire time. I sort of kept quiet and just let her work her magic. What was most valuable to me was that it almost appeared that she became someone else. She put her game face on and took control of the shoot in a manner that I am not yet comfortable doing (all while juggling between film and digital and telling me exactly what she was doing and exactly why she was doing it). This is what makes her so definitively good. And this is what I lack.

She made every location in that house just WORK. And there were some challenges that she quickly abandoned given the limitations of shooting with film (ISO and fast-moving kids). I have a tendency to beat a dead horse and waste precious time even when I KNOW the images will not yield what I’m after. But Yan moves quickly and either changes what she’s going for or looks for another shot. I desperately need to work on this skill too.

After the shoot, we returned to coffee shop to wrap up our day. We discussed the shoot and talked about the aspects that we couldn’t discuss in front of the family. And then we slowly migrated back to deeper topics that I won’t disclose here.

What I left the day with was a stronger sense of confidence that I am unique. I knnnooowww that’s such a cliche. We are all unique. But in a sea of photographers, it is easy to lose that sense of yourself. But I also gained confidence that are some other areas I want to explore. And what Yan drilled into me is WHY NOT? What on earth do you have to lose?? I keep coming back to that quote that is making the rounds on facebook right now: The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it. This is so me and there is no excuse, for so many reasons.

And, finally, I also feel like a gained a friend in Yan. I know we are rooting for each in whatever paths we take. She’s a brave woman and I admire the courage and honestly she has shown this year. And she’s smart and I know she’ll capitalize on the opportunities that will be presented to her.

I won’t lie to you and tell you that a day of personal mentoring isn’t rather indulgent. But I’m a firm believer in investing in yourself – wisely. I know how fortunate I was to be able to do this and I intend to make the most of what I learned.”

-Yvonne Min Photography

i hope to meet some of you soon!

it always works out.

think of me today in the car with my 3 kids and my sweet mother in law….for like 10 awesome hours. aye yie yie.

i want to leave some images with you that put a smile on my face. on the left is the view from my shower every morning. the sun comes in through a narrow window in our bedroom and i just happen to have the perfect view of its golden glow as i get squeaky clean for the day. i love it so much one morning i made marty hand me my contax. the image on the right is me in the sunshine, getting warm on this winters morning. ahhh, that’s bullcrap, really i just thought i looked kinda pretty and so i made marty take a photo for my instagram feed. there were at least 3 different takes (pshew pshew–that’s the sound of my straight shooting honesty).

tomorrow i will be announcing openings for online mentoring again, so stay tuned. i can’t believe how much i love teaching and helping people hone in on their strengths. if there’s any of you out there who would like to give it a go, now’s the time.

in conclusion, thanks for dropping by, even if its just to see me patting myself on the back for blogging 3 consecutive days in a row. have a beautiful day.

but you know what happened?

almost all the images i have of myself and my family NEVER made the cut. they always fell into the “too rough around the edges to see the light of day.”

you may have noticed i’ve loosened up arond here. its been part of my effort to be more honest. the line for content has been much more about autheniticity and much less about perfection. as a continuation of that, i want to show you a handful of images i’ve shot of my family in the last few months, that up to this point would have remained hidden on various hard drives.

these are parts of my whole. the parts that are much less polished, refined, and professional. all images on film.

thanks for looking.

this post is part of a project i’m doing with some other amazing women photographers in this industry. its a circle of links and the whole point is to get each of us to dedicate time to photographing more of what matters in our own lives. be sure to click on over to stephanie’s moore’s post what family smores night looks like.

highlights:

-riding down with ryan muirhead, tavis johson and becky earl, during which ryan serenaded tavis pretty much straight for 6 hours. bonus: we didn’t die on the snowy roads.

-amazing mentoring session with kimberly dunbar and tamara campbell in which we photographed brooke of brooke askley photography. gotta love the mentoring sesh’s where you take away as much as you give.

-dancing with my favorite group of crazies at airhorns and blazer for 3 straight hours. holy sweat. holy moves.

-meeting jose villa and forcing him to take a picture with me, then emarrassing myself by asking him if he wanted to photograph me after he complimented the braids in my hair.

-meeting yet another one of my fav photog idols, jill thomas and  finding out that on one day we wore the same skirt (failed at getting a photo ,darn it), which i took as a sign that we’re soul mates. she just doesn’t know it yet.

-replenishing my wardrobe at forever 21. yes i took time to shop at wppi, and let me tell you the freedom of getting some new threads without my 3 little lovlies fussing the whole time was liberating. plus the new clothes boosted my confidence level and increased the watts of my sparkling personality. what can i say?

-sharing a bed every night and late night laughs with the one and only becky earl. i love that girl more than words can say.

-bbq pizza from mgm’s food court. don’t judge. it was spectacular.

-meeting so many of my online friends in person making me feel like less of an internet dweeb and more like a real live human being. plus getting a real life dose of the personalities  trumps online interaction every time.

-reconciling once again with my infamous hater todd reichman of the a man to fish blog. see picture below.

-facing my fear and singing karaoke at jon canlas’ finder dinner. this was also extremely painful, but i’m chalking in up as a win.

-stealing becky’s rz and holding it as i walked around the tradeshow and subsequently getting checked out by every guy there because of the radness and girth of that beauty. ha!

regrets:

-not having my marty with me for every step of the way. except the step where i shared a bed with becky. awkwaaaaard!

-not getting to meet up with even 1/3 of the friends i wanted to. you know who you are. why is there never enough time in the live long day? i don’t think i’m going to ever get over this.

-not having a pass to get into the actual platform classes. i’m a nerd and love to be inspired by anyone i can be  in this industry.  i firmly firmly firmly believe you can learn something from everyone, depending on  how hard you try. of course i attempted to play it off like i was just too cool to go to the classes, but really i lacked the dollah billz.

-not shooting in the desert with dylan howel and sara k byrne. i know the shoot was awesome because THEY surpass my standards for coolness time and time again.

-not shooting in downtown vegas with some other good peeps.

-gosh darn it, just not shooting in general

-not finding internet access to blog every day! daaang gina! you would think big time hotels would just include some free wifi, am i right?

-consequently getting waaay behind on emails and biz stuff in general.

in conclusion, wppi 2012 was a rip roaring success. there were highs and lows, i walked away with amazing memories, and also some painful blisters on my feet. but overall, i can’t wait to head back to sin city next year.  did you go? how was your wppi experience? no really, i want to know!

the car ride down

becky and her beast at the trade show:

the result (she’s so good):

jose villa loves me!

what vegas post would be complete without slot machines:

heartbreaker (sidenote–jose villa “liked” this photo on instagram. my life is complete):

meeting up outside the tradeshow:

one of the brothers wright, i’m a jerk and i forget which, but either one knows so much about film it makes my head hurt:

me hugging my mortal enemy, todd reichman. he paid me for this shot. just jokes, we is buds now:

cute kids (ryan muirhead and becky):

tired eyes:

no shame, sleeping on the airport floor waiting for my flight home to see my babies!

thanks for looking friends! here’s to next year!

but we both know the reason for our unease is this trip. that i’m leaving. again. that when i get back i will be home for less than a week before leaving the 4 of them for a week of shooting in Califronia. it hurts.

it hurts a lot.

i know what you’re thinking. why the heck are you going then? wppi is just a fun thing, stay home, be with your babies and hubby while you can!

well the funny thing about the living contradiction that i am, is that, i want to go. i need some time for me. time that the pure objective of is to have fun. i do this maybe once a year, if that. and i need it to be more sane, more whole, more me. the me that is separate from mommy, and separate from simply yan the photographer who i am on work trips.

but that doesn’t mean i don’t feel sick. because you see, i’ve got these guys:

and let’s not forget uncle marty, the love of my life.

and i just hate hate hate that i can’t shrink them and put them all in my pocket to take with me. of course a week ago during a long afternoon i was counting down the days and minutes, fantasizing about my time away–but now that its here, i’m a teary emotional mess. and this my friends is the mommy dilemma. i know you’ve been there too, and a lot of you out there probably feel the same way.

interestingly, as i was complaining to my own mom on the phone about how hard it all was–to be a working mom (tip: don’t complain to a mother of 10 who has worked her whole life and still been the most amazing mother in the entire world), she’s the one who put me in my place.

“be tuff anna (what my family always calls me, yet another name, i know, i know). you’re doing it for them. and you can’t do anything in this world without sacrifice.”
“i know,” i said. because i did. even though it kept hurting. and even though today, i still feel sick and stressed. but i know what i’m doing, and what must be done. and sometimes life is just that way.

marty: (in that trippy place in between sleep and being awake–think heavy breathing)

me:  hey! i just made up another joke, you want to hear it?

marty:  ughhhoo

me: okay. what do you call a panda in a swimming pool?

marty: whaaaaaargggh?

……………….wait for it

me: a panda in a swimming pool! (insane, obnoxious laughter)

martin: (in spite of himself): hahahahahahahahahaha

me: i am totally winning!

martin: winning what? who are you playing against?

me: the panda!

martin: hahahahahahaha

me: see, i win again!

*we both fall asleep smiling

…….

what i love most about marriage is the silly nonsense. the ability to make the lamest joke in the world and be appreciated for it.  then the ability to follow that joke with something that makes absolutely no sense—to anyone but you and him. happy sigh.

what do you love most about marriage?

and speaking of marriage, i’m working on editing this loveliest of lovelies wedding:

so.

much.

odd (odd but it makes you feel amazing, but you kinda know that in the long run it might not mean anything at all, actually)

recognition.

except my recognition was for sucking. ha. how ’bout that. not the way i’d always fantasized about a viral yan post going down, but it is what it is.

and your support?

has been incredible. beyond that. its been miraculous.

yeah i knew this business was hard. but i didn’t know my experience would resonate with so many-i didn’t know, didn’t want to think that so, so many of you were going through the same thing, or worse.

your words and support left me in a literal state of shock. i couldn’t eat yesterday. i couldn’t move from my couch. i couldn’t pay attention to my kids –okay, i probably could have and should have tried harder there to do so, but i’m making a point here—it just felt like every single last bit of me was engrossed in trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. and that meant i had to stay on my couch. glued to my computer.

for like 4 hours.

to me it went like this: i had blogged, i poured my guts out, i clicked post and in the first 3.7 minutes i began to question what i had done. wondered if it was as momentous as it felt, wondered if anyone would ever read it.

and i started to feel silly. and insecure.

but you did read it.

a lot of you did.

and you linked it.

you tweeted it.

*i realize i don’t really need to give you a recap here, but for the sake of flow, let’s keep going*

you reposted it.

and before i knew it i had 200 comments, an overflowing inbox, regards from south africa, hater posts written on the subject, and someone asking me to do a workshop in sweden.

yeah.

all of which made me feel a million times more silly  than i had in those first few minutes when i thought no one might read it at all.

silly and overwhelmingly grateful.

THANK YOU.

i can’t help but feel i should spend the rest of my life saying thank you.

but for now what  it comes down to is the decision i made yesterday. a decision i made before writing that post, before spilling my guts, before all the eyes in the photo world suddenly turned to me–

and its that i want to let people reading this blog know me. whether 5 of you are reading it or 5,000, i want you to come here and find something real. and i guess that means letting you all love me and hate me some too.

i hope you stick around.

lastly, here’s a song i’d like to dedicate from me to you, hot 9 at 9 – call in to your local radio station- style.

please listen. its an old fav of mine and i feel it speaks to all of us who are struggling.