Sitty

Ben's beloved Grandma Garrison, or "Sitty" as we call her (the word for 'Grandma' in Lebanese), passed away yesterday morning, March 18th, after a 2 year battle with cancer. Her loving, happy, sweet spirit will be missed. As this is the first grandparent to pass for either of us, it is a tough one. We are so thankful that we were able to fly to Arizona after Christmas to see her before we came to South Africa.

Back page of Booklet for Funeral Service:
"Mary Sadie Kerby Garrison was born November 11, 1928 in Columbus, Mississippi and passed away peacefully on March 18th, her 58th wedding anniversary. She had a full, exciting life and was dearly loved by her family and her many friends.

She graduated with honors from Stephen E. Lee High School in Columbus earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1950 from the Mississippi State College for Women. Later she established a scholarship fund at MSCW.

She married the love of her life, Ulas Edwin Garrison, on March 18, 1951. Together for more than 60 years, they shared a life together filled with adventure, laughter, and an abundance of love.

Mary and Ed’s many close friends and great experiences there made Utah their adopted home state. An avid golfer, she was active in the ladies golf club at the Ogden Golf & Country Club as well as at the Boulders Club in Scottsdale. She was also a member of the Chareya Club in Ogden.

She was a lifelong and devout member of the Episcopal Church and she and Ed donated the Education Hall at her beloved Church of the Good Shepherd in Ogden, Utah. The hall will be dedicated next year in her honor.

Mary had a larger than life presence and her entrance would light up any room. She loved people and always had a kind word and a smile for anyone she met. Dancing was her favorite passion and no matter the time or the place she was always ready for a jitterbug with Ed.

She leaves behind many friends and family who will miss her greatly for her big smile, warm heart, and special Southern hospitality."

We love you Sitty! And we know we will be together again!!

I can't wait for...

MY NEW LENS!!

We ordered it this weekend!!! It was quite a dilemma deciding whether to get it now or not with the shipping and import fees for South Africa. Shipping would have been super expensive and then the import fees are like $300-600 dollars! So one of Ben's coworkers, Jude, lives in New York and he travels back and forth to see his wife once a month (he's just here for a couple months). So we shipped it to her. He's leaving this weekend to go home and he's going to bring it back over with him the first of April! Then we skip all the shipping and import hassle! YAY! I can't wait to have it. I love taking pictures of all the animals and with this lens, it's going to be a whole new world. I wish we had it for our trip next week, but oh well. I'll have it for all the rest of our time here! I'm also upgrading my flash and camera bag...very much needed.

This is my month-early birthday present from Benny. He's so great.
I AM SO EXCITED!
And we leave in 2 days for our TRIP!! (To Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe & Zambia and the Okavango Delta in Botswana!)

Back in Business

(This was the title of this post before all that crazy "Photobucket" stuff happened to our blogs. I guess there's a limit on how many photos you can upload on Photobucket, which is what I use, and I went over by .5mb so they shut it down for 2 days. But now we're 'back in business'! Ok onto the post that you can NOW READ!)

Ok. Let's be honest. So far, I have pretty much been a weekday-widow and a weekend-wife. We've had a lot of fun on the weekends, but the weekdays have been pretty tough. Ben has been working a LOT. And with no friends, no family, no cell phone, opposite time zones, new country, new culture, etc...it's been rough.

We've learned that things in Africa take about 4 times as long as the States. And we've also learned that there seems to be a trend of flakiness here. I applied to over 15 jobs...nothing. No responses. I've had a lot of success with marketing my photography business, but besides a couple of portrait shoots, all the weddings aren't for another 10 months. A few weeks ago though, I felt hope when a big photographer here had an add for an assistant. (Richard Simmonds is his name. No, not Richard Simmons, there's a 'd' in there. His site is www.videotech.co.za) I was super excited because it would be the perfect job. I'd be able to do what I love, and also learn a lot from him about photography and the area here in South Africa. I applied and he quickly responded telling me he loved my work and wanted to hire me. I told him I was available anytime to meet and then 3 weeks went by and nothing. I even wrote to ask if he was still interested and that I was available blah blah. Nothing.

After a bit of a breakdown, a long shower, and some heartfelt prayers this week, I got a call Wed morning from Mr. Simmonds asking if I was available the next day for a photo shoot! Uh...ya! I was super excited and went to meet him. He's way cool! He resembles Mr. Clean. He "heads all projects as Producer, ensuring productions are planned and executed to the highest standards." He told me the shoot tomorrow was from 7:30am till about 2pm and was an event for the Miss Earth South Africa girls. They were going to go to a school in Tempisa, very poor township and teach the kids about helping the environment and plant trees and stuff. They also got a tour from their sponsor, Console (a glass making company) of their glass factory. I was to kind of be a journalist photographer and photograph everything going on.

It went SO WELL! I loved it and I had a blast. You can see some highlights on my photo blog. This is the perfect job for me! The weather was beautiful and the kids were adorable. And the glass factory was fascinating. I had a photo shoot after in Pretoria:

and I have one tomorrow too here in Joburg. (Go to my blog and read this guy's story, it's amazing. What a great guy). I'm also meeting with a teacher tomorrow to see if I can teach some poorer schools Math on some days. Also, I'm joining an orphanage, Princess Alice as a volunteer to feed the babies 3 hours a day. What could be better!?

Life is good people. I'm back in business. Africa rocks. I'm so happy to be here. We leave for our big 8-day trip next Friday! We're going to the Okavango Delta and Chobe Game Reserve in Botswana and Victoria Falls in Zambia & Zimbabwe! WE CAN'T WAIT!

Let's talk Photography

Starting your photography business up again in another state is one thing, but starting your business up again on another continent is a whole nother ballgame. Wow, I've never written, "a whole nother ballgame" out before, is that how you spell it? 'Nother'? Weird.

Anyway. Prices. Theoretically, say I charge $1,000 to do a wedding in Utah (just wedding day), in California, you could charge up to $5,000. In South Africa.......guess what you can charge? Just guess!?

$500.

And that price always includes 2-3 hour drive one way (the typical venues are far away), a wedding album (costing anywhere from $50-$200), a few prints, and an all-day event. That takes me home with...$200??

So I guess I won't be the sugar momma in this industry. This friend at the gym, a fellow (commercial) photographer said, "Ya. If you do photography down here, you just do it for fun. Not to make any money." That's why so few people do it here! I am advertising on Google as well, and in Cali and Utah, I would never come up because it is so saturated with photographers. Here-I'm the first on the list everytime!

I started advertising my business on Facebook just to see what would happen. I almost did it in California, but it's $5 dollars a day to advertise, so I decided to hold off. I tried it for a week here and got over 500 clicks and MANY MANY emails requesting quotes for their weddings. Totally awesome! The weird thing is, the earliest one is in November! I've even had 5 wedding dates in 2010, that's AUGUST 2010. What?! It really is a different world down here. I thought wedding celebrations and traditions were pretty standard. But it's taking some getting used to.

The celebrations are different as well. The ceremony starts around 3pm, lasts a half hour or so, and then the celebration goes until well past midnight. Bride, groom and all! There's a dinner, and lots and lots of drinking and dancing. The client usually puts the photographer up for the night! How different huh?

Portraits however, are pretty comparable to back home. One of my photo shoots got rained out, so we rescheduled to this Wed, one was Saturday and another this weekend. I'm getting out and trying to find some cool areas. It's pretty hard though since parks are scarce, and anywhere with cool buildings is a death trap...but I successfully found a few and used them this weekend with these 3 girls. Different than anything I'm used to. But can I tell you how fun it was? They were natural models, loved the camera, and were beautiful!

It was so funny. We stopped at a fun graffiti wall (you can see them on my photo blog) to do some fun shots and I am not kidding, EVERY car passing by stopped to watch. They, of course, were all men and were blowing kisses, honking, barking & growling. It was a little hectic (the new word here for sketchy or scary). I kept yelling, "Keep moving! Keep moving!" And trying not to create a mess in traffic. I swear, some men almost crashed.

Anyway, I'm really excited about these pictures. I think they'll love them. More photos on my photo blog!