Our good friends, Jon-Ryan and Christy Schlobohm, adopted Ethiopian twins last year – Moses and Elsabet. It’s always fun to take pictures of friends, and even more so when they have a brand new family.

JR and Christy waited so long for these guys to come home… I can’t wait to see who they become as they get older!

For more pictures check out their slideshow as well

- Cheryl

I am so excited to be a part of the Thirst Relief International Mentor Auction this year to help raise money and bring clean drinking water to people around the world.

Nearly 2 million people die each year due to waterborne-related disease (90% of which are children under the age of 5) This is a staggeringly scary number, and we want to do anything we can to help fix such an easy to fix problem. Thirst Relief has come up with an AWESOME system for helping people get clean drinking water, a filtration system that flat out works. Definitely check out their website for more info.

The auction only has about 7 hours to go, so go to the auction page on ebay and bid asap!

The mentor session is set to take place in March at WPPI in Las Vegas. If for some reason you can’t make it to WPPI, I’m happy to host at my place in Santa Barbara in the next year, or over the phone, whatever works for you.

This mentoring session is wide open, if you need an hour or you need 2-4 hours, if you win the auction, my brain is yours for all the info I can provide. Let’s grab some food, a drink, a cigar, a comfy chair and dig in and see how I can help you move forward with your photography business.

Click here to bid now.

Matt and Wendy were married at the Resort at Squaw Creek in Squaw Valley near Lake Tahoe. With a little bit of weather the day before, the sun popped out just in time for their wedding, lighting the valley behind their ceremony beautifully.

You can see their entire Squaw Valley wedding slideshow here.

What better way to spend a Saturday in Santa Barbara with Cheryl than a hike, some yummy wine and cheese and then finished off with a bit of shopping then a movie on the couch at home!!

Via my iPhone

We’re quickly approaching the big day, the first of several Business, Marketing and SEO workshops for wedding professionals will be taking place on January 23 in Santa Monica!

Seats have been steadily filling up, if you want to book your seats before the price goes up, try and get signed up before this weekend hits.

Kenny and I have been going over the program and I’m amped for the things I’m learning about seo just from talking about what we’re going to talk about… I can’t wait to actually hear his presentation! (there’s always something new I learn from Kenny, he’s a HUGE wealth of knowledge in this department) Since announcing the workshop we’ve been putting some effort into getting our website ranking for “destination wedding photographer” with google, and we’ve made some AWESOME progress, from never having ranked for the term before, quickly to the middle of page two, and now on most people’s search results we’ve made it onto page 1!! (something new I’ve been learning from Kenny, depending on where you’re located and how often you search a specific phrase, your search results can be skewed, and the results take a little while to update to servers located in different parts of the country/world) wild stuff!

Can’t wait to see you at the workshop!

For the past several years I’ve gotten regular requests from friends, fans and fellow photographers for a workshop. Up until now I’ve mostly ignored those requests. Well, this week we are excited to announce our first ever full-day workshop.

2009 was a wild ride for a lot of photographers, and I heard from lots of shooters who were having a tough run of it this past year, and even a few who said their had to close their doors because of a lack of business. We have kept busy all year, and I was asked repeatedly how we were doing that. Well, this workshop will teach you just that, and exactly how to do the same for yourself.

Correctly running your business as well as marketing yourself and your photography are KEY to your success. If you are not marketing, you are in for a scary ride, a ride you have no control over.

I’ve partnered up with my good friend and Search Marketing industry leader Kenny Hyder who will be presenting not only on online marketing, but also Seach Engine Optimization/SEO. Kenny regularly works with and consults for Fortune 500 and Fortune 100 businesses, helping direct their online marketing and SEO efforts.

We are super excited to share our combined knowledge and experience with photographers throughout the United States over the next year.

Our first workshop will be on January 23, 2010 in Santa Monica. We have a limited number of seats available. Reserve your seat today and find out more about the workshop at hhworkshops.com – if you can’t make it in January, stay tuned for future dates/locations being announced soon.

(Be one of the first 5 attendees to sign up and you’ll get half off your seat at the workshop!)