Shutter Sisters

wish list for december

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Hooray! It’s a brand new month and you know what that means. It’s time for a new word for our December One Word Project. And since it happens to be the season of holiday magic, why not Wish a little? Or a lot.

That being said, we present you a Shutter Sisters’ holiday Wish List full of cool gifts and gadgets (for every budget) for the photo enthusiast in all of us:

Stephanie is wishing for a 30mm f/1.4 lens and a Funky Camera neck strap.

Jen is wishing for The Super-Wide Conversion Lens for her Lensbaby Composer and a Polaroid Camera of any kind (with film).

Irene is wishing for a print from chocokat and one from Alicia Bock and the book Little Italy by Jenifer Altman.

Paige is wishing for a Mod camera neck strap.

Kristin is wishing for the Golden Half Green Trees Edition half frame toy camera.

Meredith is wishing for a GetReadySetGo messenger bag for gear and a mountain of film for her Kodak Brownie Hawkeye.

Maile is wishing forthe Fuji instax-camera.

Chris is wishing for the same Fuji instax-camera as Maile.

Sarah is wishing for a hand-knit, generously cushioned dSLR camera cozy in robin egg blue (know where she can find one?) and a super secret spy lens from Photojojo.

Alex is wishing for the Mona Kuhn: Native book, Polaroid 600 film & 120 film for her Holga and the Polaroid Frames from Photojojo.

Tracey is wishing for the Fisheye Optic for her Lensbaby Composer, a Camera Necklace from Urban Outfitters and the HP MediaSmart Server.

And while we’re wishing…here’s a few more wish-worthy ideas for Shutter Sisters everywhere:

The Shutter Sisters Flash Bulb Necklace (with the brand new sparkly chain!)

Maile’s new Camera Bags (a little bird told us that if you’re on the mailing list, you’ll be notified as soon as the holiday gift cards are available for these coveted bags. OMG!)

The Dreamy Diana lens at Photojojo

Digital Mini Case at Delight.com

Kirsty Takes a Bow (it might not be a book about photography but there are lots of amazing photos in it which is good enough for us!)

Seat Belt Camera Straps at Photojojo

Lightware Compact Flash Media Wallet

The Emma Photo Ring by Kimbra Studios

We encourage you to send the url to this post along to friends and family with the subject line ‘wishes’ or ‘hint hint’ or some such thing. They’ll get the idea! And if you’re wishing big this year and hoping to get some new photo equipment, send them to B&H Photo before the holidays. We pretty much guarantee they’ll have what you’re wishing for!

So, let’s have it. What are you hoping to find under your tree this year? Come on, you can share your wish with us. Wishes are a wonderful thing!  B&H Photo sure thinks so and are giving away 2 gift cards (for $25 each) to 2 of you today to help your photo gear wishes come true. Isn’t December starting out grand? Just leave a comment to be entered in the random drawing. Yay!

And we’ll be watching for your Wish images in our OWP Flickr Pool all month long.  If you’ve never participated in the One Word Project, we do wish you would join us! With all these wishes swirling about, some are bound to come true!

so much gratitude!

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1. Untitled, 2. wonder, 3. Countertop cuteness not being knocked over (Gratitude day 28), 4. Our single Black Friday purchase (Gratitude day 27), 5. all gone, 6. warmth, 7. Gifts, 8. Happy Thanksgiving (Gratitude day 26), 9. christmas is coming., 10. anticipation 2, 11. anticipation, 12. 328/365, 13. Untitled, 14. Frolic, 15. cobweb bokeh, 16. The holiday season (Gratitude day 25), 17. crunch, crunch., 18. 24.30 ~ re-Connecting with Old Friends, 19. nostalgic warmth among strangers, 20. Random cuteness (Gratitude day 24), 21. Believe in Gratitude, 22. Believe in Gratitude, 23. 322/365, 24. treasuring these moments, 25. blue morpho, 26. thanx Dad, 27. little bear, 28. november 20: the rose bloomed, 29. At the beach, 30. Karma? Or at least reciprocity (Gratitude day 21), 31. gratitude/ day19:30, 32. gratitude/ day18:30, 33. eeking out fall color, 34. Untitled, 35. 316/365

What else to say except we have been totally inspired by all of your gestures of gratitude this month! Seriously, good stuff in our One Word Project stream. The images tell the true story of what we are all grateful for. Thank you for all of your amazing photographs!

And do share your Memolioalbums with us so we can admire your handiwork! We will soon share the Gratitude Memolio book that we are making from the images in our pool. The proceeds will be going to Tweetsgiving which is all the sweeter!

Congrats to the winners of last weeks Memolio giveaway; Claudia, Jade Sheldon, Iris, Trude and Darrah.

To end this month of Gratitude, Memolio is offering 5 more of you a chance to win an album so leave your comment here today! And never fear, we have an awesome new word for December will be announcing in the next few days so stay tuned!

friday’s featured resource – live, laugh, celebrate

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During yesterday’s festivities of doing a whole lot of what I should be doing more of…eating, laughing, strolling, chatting and even swinging I took a few minutes to honor the day to give thanks through my lens of what matters most. It was a delightful prompt from Kristin yesterday that helped keep me in the right state of mind.

It’s images like this that remind me to live, laugh, celebrate.

And Live, Laugh, Celebrate is exactly the title of the latest National Geographic book of photography. 

The new release is an extraordinary visual celebration of the human spirit, by legendary author Ferdinand Protzman that offers a radiant and compelling collection of celebrations from around the world that captures the miracle of human life and the bond between parents, families, and friends.  

Like love, the urge to celebrate is common to every culture around the globe. Live, Laugh, Celebrateoffers a fascinating array of shared moments of love and togetherness as it celebrates the lives of friends and families at play and at home.  Whether it’s a new baby, a first birthday, losing a tooth, a bar mitzvah, a quinceanera…a debutante ball, an evening at a night club, a wedding.  This beautiful book will make for a wonderful gift this upcoming holiday season and should hopefully inspire all mothers and parents to take photographs and capture images of their children, their families, their friends.  It is also a beautiful book to share with children, as it captures children from around the world in tender moments with their parents, friends, and each other. 

What better way to further celebrate our lives and what we are grateful for than a giveaway of this extraordinary visual journey of life?  Show us how you Live, Laugh, Celebrate between now and Sunday at midnight PST by leaving a comment here (and of course a link to an image is a bonus). We’ve got 3 books to giveaway which is 3 good reasons to celebrate together.

rare form

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All work and no play isn’t good for anyone. These days it seems like work is taking precedence around here. To remedy that I woke up early, packed lunches, woke the kids and tossed them in car for a day at Disneyland. Although the park was packed full of families that had the same idea, we made it a great day doing the things we don’t normally do. Why wait in long lines when you’ve got Tom Sawyer Island to explore, the new Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee to entertain you and the Innoventions experience (a massive interactive model home of the future) to lose yourself in?

This is us, cutting loose (needless to say), getting our sillies out (my youngest has it down to a science)and enjoying a work free day of merriment, make believe and magic.

Show us how you throw caution to the wind and act like a fool if only for a little comic relief once in a while. A little levity never hurt anyone.

landscapes of the season

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We all know that as the seasons change so do our surroundings and our scenic landscapes. Although here in California the changes aren’t always by the hand of Mother Nature and can be harder to find, I am still delighted by the visual signs of the season.

Show us how your landscapes are being transformed this time of year. What scenes are sweeping you off your feet?

Fridays Featured Resource – Photoinduced takes lunch

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I met the amazing Damon at an event sometime ago and was immediately impressed with his jovial spirit and his larger than life personality. It didn’t hurt of course that he was so supportive of what we were doing over here at Shutter Sisters. A guy after my own heart. On top of all that, he’s a fantastic photographer and the man behind Photoinduced, a great photography resource site. Tech stuff, events, contests, interviews, photo gear, expo coverage, videos, you name it, Photoinduced covers it.

Oh, and then there’s the yummy contest he’s are hosting over there right now. Let’s do Lunchis a cleverly themed contest (love this idea) which has a charity driven focus. In other words, you enter your images of you ‘doing lunch’ (I told you it was clever) so you can be entered to win some pretty awesome prizes and a percentage of your entry fee goes to local food banks. With a great way to give back and a creative contest to shoot for, I told you Photoinduced is cooking up some cool stuff over there.

Today, show us how you do lunch.  And be sure to enter the contest and show ’em how us Sisters do it!

Celebrating Gratitude

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My soul is in the sky. ~William Shakespeare

photo by Childplay (Tiffani)

Happy November (already). October was so illuminating! Thank you for participating in the One Word Project and bringing to light all the photographic wonders that the month had to offer.

Alas, it’s time we shift from the frolic of Halloween to the festivities that November boasts; family, friends and gratitude. What a great and giving season! 

Isn’t it perfect then that our word for November is gratitude? We think so!

We are giddy about it actually as we are partnering up with Epic Change and getting into the giving spirit with the ever-exciting ultimate give-back Tweetsgiving. By getting involved here in our One Word Project and submitting your images of gratitude you are helping us get the word outabout Tweetsgiving. And be sure to join the communityover there to see about other ways you can get involved. The whole wonderful scoop on Tweetsgiving can be found on their site.

And if you can believe it, there is so much more to it this month! Remember our recent write up about the adorably awesome and affordable photo books by Memolio? We thought you might. Well, the fantastic folks there are totally into making a difference too and are sponsoring this month’s One Word Project! Totally Sweet!

Here’s the plan: You submit your images of gratitude and we will work with Memolio to create a Gratitude Book featuring a collection YOUR images from our One Word Project Flickr Pool. The book will then go on sale through their site and all the proceeds from book sales will go to Tweetsgiving. Talk about full-circle awesomeness all around! To have your image(s) considered for the book you’ve got to tag them accordingly. The tags to use are OWP, November, Gratitude, Memolio AND Tweetsgiving.

And to add a finishing touch on the excitement of this project, I personally want to challenge you to create your very own Gratitude book at Memolio to share with all of us sisters and with your friends and family. Once you pop over to the site and create your book, your creation will live at Memoliowhere you can then share the link to the book with those you love (like us). Of course having your book printed as a tangible reminder of gratitude is great and and giving them as gifts is yet another fab idea! We simply cannot wait to see what you’re grateful for. Once links to books come in we’ll gather them up and do a Gratitude Book Round Up just in time for Tweetsgiving and Thanksgiving.

Each Sunday this month we’ll be giving away gift certificates for free Memolio books! It is all about giving after all.

Tweetsgiving, Memolio, Thanksgiving and an abundance of gratitude! What a month!

So…let’s just dive in. I’m grateful for all of YOU. What are you grateful for?

Between Us Sisters

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I was so inspired by these young, hopeful girls at Shepherds Junior School in Arusha, Tanzania. They are just full of life. Watching them gather in a circle to dance and sing Swahili songs together, reminded me that the essence of sisterhood is a universal concept.

Let’s see images that represent sisterhood for you.

self-talk

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I have not stopped thinking about Meredith’s post about our mantras. By the response it got I know I’m  not the only one who enjoyed it.

Words are powerful things. The words we use in our life to describe ourselves help create us. They not only can define who we are, they can also accentuate who we want to become. I read a recent post over at The Gypsy Girl’s Guide that reminded me of something I once heard from Karen Maezen Miller, that the things we give our attention to are the things that grow, flourish and thrive. I certainly know this to be true with self-talk.

Today, I encourage you to be mindful of the language you use with yourself. Use your own inner dialogue to nurture, empower, encourage yourself. Whisper sweet nothings into your own ear. As my dear friend Myriam shared recently, “You are the one you’ve been waiting for.” Indeed. We are.

So, go ahead, tell yourself the story of your own magnificence. The more you say it, the more it will be.

What are your favorite words of empowerment? I need a good dose of super-power today!