Lauren Clark Photography » Blog

This was funny. Poor Meridian, always being bossed around and used by her kid sister, London. Ick, I need to pull out the ol Dyson, look at my rug!

Magen and I just got back this morning from spending the night with Grandma in Colorado City. We made a last minute trip yesterday afternoon and took the dogs with us (not really a good nights rest when you’ve got two great danes whining ALL night long, oh well). Magen mowed the yard for Grandma and I just kept the dogs wrangled the whole time. We sat around outside, watched a movie and had breakfast together. I love Grandma and am so glad that she is so close.

We STILL don’t have internet at our house. If you have internet needs and need something faster than a full month then DON’T use NTS here in Lubbock. I called today and they finally said they would rush my order since I have a home based business. Sheesh. I have had to come over to my mom’s once a day and use the internet just to answer an hours worth of emails and blog. I’m about tired of burning DVDs of things to upload on the Internet.

My mind won’t shut off lately. Now that I’m really going to move… a word on this first…

We have NOT moved to Oklahoma yet, the official move date is July 20th, but I will still be coming back to Lubbock once every 2 months for sessions! Everyone I talk to thinks that we have already moved there. We just “moved” into my mom’s rent house behind Starbucks, but we are still in Lubbock.

Ok, back to my mind not shutting off. Since we have decided to move and on top of that I am changing my entire business away from what I am established and successful  and into something scary and foreign, my brain hasn’t given me a rest. It’s number one goal is success and stability within 1 month of living in Oklahoma.  My mind is consumed with advertising and marketing strategies. Even when I want to just shut it off and watch some TV to veg, I find myself analyzing the commercials to see if they are hitting their target market and if I want to buy their product now. So I wrote down a huge list of to do’s for this week and then it hit me, my biggest To Do is to pray. The Lord wanted me to move, His plan is for me to not take anymore weddings, and even though I am really afraid that He won’t come through and bring me the business I need to survive, I have to trust. This is what it is all about. All things will work together for GOOD for those who are called according to His purpose. I was called to move to little old Stillwater, Oklahoma and I know He will take care of me.

Anyways, that’s all that is going on in my life. I get to go and see what Josh has been working on the last few months and see how good the land is looking!

New blog and branding coming from Into The Darkroom soon!! Yippeee!

Last night the weather and light were perfect, and I had an even more perfect subject, my newphew Jonah.

Isn’t she beautiful?

It’s my sister, Magen’s, 23rd birthday today. Happy Birthday little sissy.

I don’t have the brain power to write out what all happened in Vegas so I thought I would make a list for now.

-While standing in the booth (that amazing Joy made) a man drove straight into my leg on a motorized wheelchair thingy at full speed, he then crashed into the side of our booth, looked at me with a scowl and drove off.

- I met SUPER famous Jasmine Star and Bobbi Sheridan and they didn’t know who I was when I said hi (embarrassing for me! haha! They did know who I was once I introduced myself though). I guess my black hair threw them off (that’s what I like to think anyway:)

-A guy in an elevator asked me if I had made a couple hundred already that night. So I proceeded to run to my friends room and put my pants on under that ridiculous dress.

-Lots of wardrobe malfunctions. My cool belt that I mentioned, fell off who knows when during the first hour of wearing it, BOTH of my main staples for my outfits had giant RIPs in them all of the sudden, and my shoes gave me bunions (not really, but they were still hurting until yesterday).

-I dropped chocolate all down my shirt right when I went to Photog Unite, a Photographers Bible study. Embarrassing… again.

-Our booth looked awesome.

-People thought that Millie’s Get It Together Kits and my UNO DVDs were free with the Kelly Moore Bag, so I ended up loosing more to thievery than I sold there. I did sell a lot online though, so it made up for it, even though I was at -11 at the trade show.

-Josh Smith, Brent and Amanda Holloman and I all stayed up and watched LOST on the laptop while sitting in Millie’s king sized bed.

- I found my new FAVORITE fragrance : Marc Jacobs Daisy

-Went to one party for only 45 minutes, and once my entire insides started lifting against gravity because of the bass, I quickly left with another bad case of reception ear.

-Gambled $65 thinking I would win the $99,000 jackpot and didn’t win. Sad. Sad.

-Met a TON of cool Oklahoma people!

-Brittany, Ginny, Cristy, Lain and Courtney were some of the special few to see me bust a dance move in their room.

-Ate Peanut Butter Chocolate ice cream from Hagan Daaz daily.

-Blushed daily.

-Met Tamara Lackey. I like her.

-Met my Local Boost guys, JD and Barney for the first time. These two put me on the map as far as searching for local vendors on google.com !! Check them out at greentent.com

-Ate dinner at Diego with my Thirst Relief auction winner, Carli, and the next night with the Marfa Trip girls.

-Made fun of a few funny old men photographers, Lord forgive me. Amen.

I will think of more later, now onto ALBUMS and moving my house!

My friend Ginny came Thursday to second shoot a wedding with Shari and they stayed with me and we stayed up WAY too late. We had to make a trip to Sugar Brown’s, my bro-in-law’s coffee shop, at least once, but more realistically, 3 times …before Sunday. She loves Sugar Brown’s so much that she bought a t-shirt last time and wore it there the first morning. I bought one with a boot on it and plan on wearing it in Las Vegas, we will be representing!

So tomorrow I leave for Vegas! I am about 210% more excited that last time I mentioned it. I was dreading it because I was feeling chubby and out of style, but now I’m feeling a bit more confident and way more excited! I realized that it didn’t matter if I was a tad bit chubby, it’s just a shell and no one really cares anyway.

I also found a cute belt and grey cardigan at Forever 21 for $20 and it just magically worked with all of my current clothes. So I might be stlyin’ a bit more than I thought, but be checking out my manure smellin’ cowboy boots each day, because I will be wearing them! I went out and brushed the horses for 45 minutes this afternoon and it worked it’s magic back into the boots.

By the way, would you like to know what my funny idea for WPPI is? I want to secretly photograph the ultra “famouses” like In Touch mag would and have a blog about how they “shop just like us” and “Eat hamburgers just like us”. I just blew my cover. Sheesh. So if you see me lurking behind a ficus tree, you know what I’m doing, shhhh.

Sunday I leave for the biggest get together of photographers that I know of… W P P I. I felt like spacing the letters out for dramatic effect. Wedding Portrait Photographers International. 10,000 photographers on the Las Vegas Strip for 1 whole week. S  C  A  R  Y (I double spaced those letters for double the drama).

The last time I went I was another budding photographer trying to get famous and sight see the real “Famouses” walking around the dining areas (oh LOOK! There is JASMINE STAR and DAVID JAY! Over there is JOHN COOPER! WOW! I wish I could be as cool as them!).

Fame seeking, sheesh, that was real awesome (sarcasm) and extra shallow of me. This time I’m going half way emberassed and nervous. What to wear, what to say? How not to blush and get sweaty pits in front of everyone. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. First day of junior high ALL over again. Good thing I was homeschooled in junior high and all I had to see was Magen and Chris.

I think I’m rambling from all of these kids sessions lately. I haven’t had a whole lot of communication besides with my dogs and my sad, sad, keyboard in the last 4 days.

Ok, back to Vegas. Last time I went to Vegas was 3 years ago. I hired a trainer and lost 10 pounds, tanned my face off and tried to be cooler than will I ever be. It was lame and I felt empty. This year, you will get chubby, frumpy me. I’m not going to try to put on a show, some awesome clothes that I will never wear again, and a false sense of security. My friend Ginny has been calling me frantic about the same issues, “What are you going to wear to WPPI and all the parties?!?”, as lame as it seems to you normal people out there, photographers turn into different animals at WPPI. They play the part, attend the parties and try to rub elbows with the best or at least get noticed somehow.  I told Ginny that I thought we should dress up real country. Overalls and cowboy boots., but then we would still be trying to get attention. Oh well, it’s a lose/lose unless you are just yourself. I hope to be just myself. Approachable and quirky, with a little bit of tongue tied mixed in.

Alright. So if you are coming and you bring it and dress up all awesome and make me feel like a loser, I will try not to be jealous of your cool clothes and nice hair:)

Come and meet me. Just as I am.

I will be in the Kelly Moore Bag/UNO/Get it Together Kit Booth at the tradeshow almost all day every day. I will need a card game or something to do.

Quick commercial: Don’t forget that my Photoshop tutorial DVD will be the cheapest EVER! $99 all week long starting Sunday on the website and at the tradeshow!

We have signed the contract on our house. It is done. No more showings, cleaning, vacuuming, stealing the dogs away, and praying for an offer.

We move into my mom’s rent house on March 20th, and close on our house on March 25th. One of the scariest things about the move was the time frame, I knew that if we didn’t sell the house in the winter then we would be moving during the BUSIEST time of the year for me, Senior season. And guess what? We are moving smack dab in the middle of senior season.

Ugh, My heart is slightly overwhelmed and slightly apathetic. I wanted to get packing, but my list of to dos is just too long to get my butt moving. Josh is making 2 week trips to Stillwater to clear the land, and I am left taking weeklong trips to sell UNO, plan workshops and teach workshops. My life is chaos. If I can just make it to June then I will almost be in the clear.

So at lunch today I decided to get the ball rolling, and pack the movie room. This is my most favorite room in the house, but also the smallest and easiest to pack. I have packed almost everything into boxes in the movie room and it hit me, we are moving out of this beautiful, big, NEW house. I was a little sad, but trying to focus on my new life in Oklahoma. This year will definitely be one of the toughest I will ever have, not only are we moving into 3 different houses this year (current house, rental in Lubbock, then rental in Stillwater), but I’m moving away from my family for the first time, and changing my business from weddings to kids. A WHOLE lot of scary is coming my way this year.

It’s going to be good though, I just know it, because this is what the Lord is leading us to do, and we must walk by faith and not by sight. I haven’t ever really had to do this before, but I know that  for those who LOVE the Lord, all things will work together for GOOD, and I’m looking for that good!!

So during this huge transition I’m asking for just a spoonful of grace from everyone. I will probably be even harder to reach by phone, I might look a little more frazzled, frumpy, chubby, and I might be so overwhelmed that I might cry, maybe not, but I will do my absolute best to keep up with all of my deadlines and duties.

Anyways, I felt like posting… again. My blog is just lighting up with posts lately, maybe it’s because I’m making up for the winter silence.  I have friends spending the night all week long and hopefully can keep the packing going while they talk to me.

Sheesh, look at all of these magazines.

Action movies. Boxes and Boxes of movies.

I am about to have a TON of posts! I would be much faster if my server wasn’t about to crash. For the last month or two we haven’t been able to get our server up to speed and it has been slowly sucking the life out of our computers! All three of us have only been able to work off of Josh’s Mac and it hasn’t been easy coordinating that, and luckily, my awesome computer guy is coming over Saturday to work on it all for us. Josh spent the day yesterday backing up everything onto another hard drive just in case it went kaput, and this left me with no access to anything recent to work on. I found some old DVDs from the Honduras photos we took and started adding them to a gallery in a website that I bought a long time ago for seniors. I am going to turn it into my kid’s photography website, so go and check out the gallery that I made from Honduras yesterday!

Here is the link.

Lots of work coming up!!

90 minutes with me at WPPI in Las Vegas next month talking to you about anything in photography is up for bid to raise money for Thirst Relief. Also included is a KELLY MOORE BAG in the color of your choice and a FREE COPY OF UNO DVD!!

Want to bid? Click here: http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=thirstreliefinternational

If you win this bid and aren’t going to make it to Vegas then you can definitely call, come by or skype for it! We are in 7th place now! Keep bidding!

Last year I was able to participate in the Thirst Relief Auction to raise money to send clean water wells and clean water education to people around the world. I just happened to sell for above FULL price for a Brainwash and I do think that I was the only one to do that (uh oh! pride!:). Every year tons of photographers from around the world donate these mentor sessions and it is just an amazing thing to see how many resources are donated. It’s pretty cool.

So this year since I will be in Las Vegas to do the 90 minute mentor session with the highest bidder I want YOU to bid on me! Here is the link to read more about my auction and what all is included!

Josh just got home yesterday from his two week trip to Stillwater, Oklahoma to work on clearing our land and I am just ecstatic! I love my manly man! He knows how to use a chainsaw, build houses, do everything that I’m too dumb to figure out, and he loves me enough to live up there for 2 weeks every month and clear land for me. Thanks Josh. Here is the new pictures of the progress! Remember what it looked like before?

Everyone has gone to bed here in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and I have had a life change. No, really, a real life change… my business is going to directly reflect what has happened in my life tonight.

We were in our last time of talking about what the Lord had taught us this week and Maria declared that she is not going to become a photographer and another person was confirmed that he should become a pastor instead of the successful photographer that he was. That was shocking to me, that they would come to a photography retreat to hear us speak and then decide not to be photographers. I felt a stirring. I knew that the Lord was going to do something in my life this week but I didn’t realize how deep He would dig to uproot my fallow garden. He has started another phase of healing from my parent’s divorce, my pride in my marriage and completely revamping my business for a new season of passion for people and my job.

Did I mention that it’s completely revamping my business? Yes, dear readers, as Maria (love this girl) decided that everyone should pray over Erik, Ginny and I the Lord stirred in my heart and I felt it beat more than it ever has. He told me that I didn’t have to keep accepting weddings, that I could be finished as a wedding photographer. His peace covered me and a rush of  TRUST in Him for this decision immediately made it’s home in me. I knew right then that I had the answer I had been looking for. You see, I have had a year full of filling my life with the world, trying new things to fill my voids and getting rid of the interests just as fast as I find them, never fully satisfied and always wanting more. I have tried travel, success, movies, cooking, horse riding, painting, harmonica playing, working out, playing the wii, reading books, gardening, home decoration, chuck wagon cooking, and so many other hobbies and you know what? Revelation hit tonight and I knew that I have been searching because my life was feeling so empty. I was not honoring my husband as I should, digging a pit of worldly things and spending money to find happiness like no other desperate 24 year old that I’ve ever seen. All of that was met with a flood of peace tonight and immediately removed my fears.

So, I will no longer be accepting anymore weddings. I will passionately finish out the 32 I have booked with a new excitement that the light is finally at the end of the tunnel, and get this… I will become a children/family/senior photographer. Who would have ever thought that I would want to do that?!  God works in funny ways. Well, I have a new hope and passion for it, and  I can spend all of my Saturdays resting like the Lord intended, with my husband and family, and God will provide where I will fall short.  My life will have balance and purpose again. My burn out will recede and I will become all that God wants me to be.

So goodnight, for tomorrow I will wake up with new passion and purpose in life.

For The Love Workshop will rock your socks off if you are a Christian and a photographer. Do not doubt it. I have 24 people here who will tell you the same thing. Breakthroughs happen when people of like minds join together for a week seeking the heart of God.

Tonight we started off with dinner and worship here at For The Love, a christian retreat/photography workshop in Tennessee. As Ginny and her brother were singing I just closed my eyes: it was half out of pride and half because I didn’t know the words. I feel like the Lord gave me a vision when I had closed my eyes.

I saw a beautiful, colorful, high tower in a field and immediately knew what it represented.

My pride, in all of its loneliness and self-guarding attributes just keeping my spirit captive in the walls of its city.

Since my Dad blindsided me 6 years ago when he left my mom, I had decided never to trust anyone too much again, and I think this included not trusting the Lord fully ever again. It was Him, after all, who allowed this to happen to me and my perfect family. My christian “walk” since then has been guarded, but with only a tiny bit of surrender. I do not trust that the Lord will take care of everything, so I make sure that I’ve got it under my own control. I plan out all of the events in my life, how I can make them work and the backup plans for everything… there is minimal trust, but saying that you have it is a nice thought, you know. I then took on the role of the umbrella and provider for anyone in my family. I felt like someone had to fill the shoes that were left empty, and I knew that in my own strength I could accomplish it if I worked hard enough, got famous enough or was headstrong enough.

Tonight when I was seeing this tower in my head, it was really quite beautiful with different levels and colors sparkling and swirling. It was a masterpiece. I have built a tower of pride around myself, with very thick walls, to protect me from people who would hurt me and from the Lord’s scary, but never failing hand.

I have always known that I have tremendous pride, not necessarily in my photography, although there is some there, but mainly in knowledge, self- sufficiency and self preparation. Are you noticing all of the “Selfs”? Although I have known and will readily profess my pride to anyone who asks, I still haven’t wished them to pray for the Lord to break the walls of this fortress down. I am too afraid of what He will do. He could wreck my business and then I would be left with nothing, he could take someone away from me that is so precious, he could send me to a foreign country as a missionary and I would have to trust in Him every day to bring me the necessities of life. I have never asked Him to break down my walls, because I knew that He would, and that I would have to begin to TRUST Him again. He would break them down and come in and rescue me from my pitiful “self” sufficient self.

That is more scary than anything else I have ever been through. Tonight for the first time I asked the Lord to break down these city walls. My beautiful, safe, sparkly city and make me new.

My pride doesn’t want me to agree, but I know that if I trust in the Lord again, the spirit of fear and pride that haunts me daily and guards this city will evaporate and all that will be left is me as a weak, weak being.

His strength is made perfect in our weakness.

Send for Your light and Your truth, Lord, and break the bonds of pride in my life. Stir the waters of Bethesda and let me heal.