For the last two years, our award winning DVD series has brought holiday cheer to thousands of parents!  Starting today, we are offering FREE SHIPPING for the holidays on both Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box!

The Back Story on our DVDs

When I first started learning how to use my camera, I was so frustrated with the camera manual.  The terminology, illustrations, explanations, NONE of it made any sense to me.  I just wanted to be able to look up “How to Get Blurry Backgrounds”!

As time went on I wondered if other people, women in particular, could relate.  I decided to offer a workshop on our blog.  It would be two days long, held in my home, and limited to ten women.  What happened next changed everything. Within twenty four hours, my first workshop was sold out and eight out of ten women were FLYING IN from out of state.  Yes!  I couldn’t believe it!   There were plenty of women who felt frustrated with their camera manuals!  I wasn’t alone!  That is how our CONFIDENCE Workshops grew to become what they are today–still selling out in every city four years later!

But Brian and I knew that not everyone could afford the workshop.  And if they came to the workshop, we wanted them to have something to watch when they went home to help enforce what they had learned all weekend.  What else could we do to help empower parents?

Instructional DVDs was our answer.  But the photography market felt saturated with DVDs already.  This series had to be different.  It would be for consumers not pros.  I wanted moms to no longer feel intimidated by the camera but be empowered to capture what they experienced every day with their kids.

I started teaching myself how to write scripts.  And Brian and I set out to do something we’d never done before, produce a DVD series that would break the barriers for anyone who wanted to grow in their photography passion.  With a bed sheet covering the window in our kids’ play room, we filmed Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box.  We never imagined the response that would follow!

The Unexpected Response!

Sony got their hands on the DVD series and asked if they could license the script and have me write their own version (thus, the Kids in Focus DVD that you get when you purchase a Sony 300 series DSLR)!

The whole experience with Sony had to be what an author feels like when her book is made into a movie.  Imagine going from our humble beginning of a play room with a bed sheet covering the window to a lighting crew, Director, Producer, Props crew, Food crew, you name it, they had a crew for it. 

Random House also watched the DVDs and asked me to consider writing two books for parents who love taking pictures of their babies.  (The first book is due this March!)  FOX News was so excited about the DVDS, they featured the complete set as one of their Top Ten Holiday Gifts.  And NAPPA gave BOTH the DVDs their Gold Award, one of the most prestigious awards for parenting products with past Gold Awards given to Baby Einstein DVDs.

But the best part was and continues to be ALL the emails I receive from countless parents, moms, photo enthusiasts, and aspiring photographers who watch the DVDs and see their photos change overnight!  They walk through every chapter with me and finally feel like their camera makes sense.  Blurry backgrounds are only the beginning, and they don’t have to decode their camera manual!

That, in a nutshell, is the back story to how these DVDs came to be!  In the heart of Thanksgiving, I’m so thankful we took a risk four years ago with our baby idea of workshops and a DVD series.  And I’m even more thankful that it has led me to so many of you!

Wondering What to Buy Her for the Holidays (or even Him! )?

LOOK NO FURTHER!

CLICK HERE to order our award winning DVD series for your loved one!

FREE SHIPPING is our gift to you this holiday season!

*Due to unexpected increase in orders from “certain” TV appearances this year, not naming any names…

Please allow “up to” three weeks for delivery.  Thanks for your understanding! 

Monday’s question:  What “baby ideas” are stirring inside of you?  You never know what they will grow into!

xoxo,

m

p.s.  The SOAR! Scholarship opened last week!  Applications/Video Submissions are now being accepted!  Year Two is underway!

CLICK HERE for all the details, check out the new program, the new cameras being given away and MORE!

Our meetings with Sony yesterday were unreal. I am so overwhelmed with how AMAZING it was that I’ve been in and out of tears. Every thing will be officially announced on Monday to the press. So you better believe that I’ll be sharing the good news on Monday morning with all of you, right here!

In the midst of an unforgettable day, we have even more crazy news to share!

This is actually another DREAM come true for me and Brian! It’s one of those dreams that your almost afraid to wish for, but you hold your breath and go for it anyway. (What do you have to lose, right?!)

Here it is…Our instructional, photography DVD series, Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box , has won one of the most prestigious parenting awards ever! The National Parenting Publication GOLD Award! To give you an idea of who else submits their products for this award…Last year, the 10th Anniversary Edition of Baby Einstein won! Can you believe that! Our DVDs are keeping good company!!!

We submitted each DVD on its own to be judged and scored independently, and I can’t tell you how excited we are that they BOTH won the GOLD award!

On June ST, NAPPA and their partner, Parenthood, will have our DVDS and the other winners appear in over THIRTY magazines! Brian and I are so excited to see what this will be like to have that much exposure at once! Check out the list of magazines! It’s going to be crazy! Do any of you receive these magazines already? If you see our DVDS in them, will you cut it out and send it to me? My grandma and I would LOVE to have a copy of the features!

NAPPA Editorial Partners Coverage of NAPPA winners is featured in these trusted, local parenting magazines: Akron Family – Akron, OH Albemarle Family – Charlottesville, VA Bay Area Parent: East Bay – San Mateo, CA Bay Area Parent: SF & Peninsula – San Francisco, CA Bay Area Parent: Silicon Valley – Los Gates, CA The Boston Parents’ Paper – Boston, MA Brevard County Moms (formerly Space Coast Parent) – Melbourne, FL Carolina Parent – Durham, NC Central California Parent – Fresno, CA Central Penn Parent – Harrisburg, PA Charlotte Parent – Charlotte, NC Chicago Parent – Chicago, IL Child Guide – Berryville, VA Cincinnati Parent – Cincinnati, OH Cleveland Family – Cleveland, OH Colorado Parent – Denver, CO Family Life – Mendocino, CA Family Times – Syracuse, NY Family Magazine NJ: Morris County Family – Morris County, NJ Family Magazine NJ: Union County Family – Union County, NJ Indy’s Child – IN Kids VT – Shelburne, VT L.A. Parent – Los Angeles, CA Lake/Geauga Family – Eastlake, OH Lowcountry Parent – Charleston, SC Metro Augusta Parent – Augusta, GA Metroparent – Milwaukee, WI Neopolitan Family Magazine – Naples, FL Newsday’s Parents & Children – Long Island, NY Our Kids San Antonio – San Antonio, TX Palmetto Parent – Columbia, SC Parenting New Hampshire – Manchester, NH Piedmont Parent – Winston-Salem, NC The Parent Paper – Paterson, NJ Sacramento Parent- Sacramento, CA Saginaw Valley Family- Saginaw Valley, MI South Florida Parenting – Tamarac, FL Tidewater/Peninsula Parent – Norfolk, VA Upstate Parent – Greenville, SC Washington Parent – Washington, DC / Bethesda, MD Westchester Family – Mamaroneck, NY Your Child Today – NJ

For those of you who are unfamiliar with NAPPA, here is a quick summary. (Check out NAPPA’s website to learn more! They carry a big influence on what is hot for parents!)

NAPPA is one of the oldest and most prestigious Children’s Products and Parenting Resources competitions. Expert judges and family testers select from hundreds of products that embody innovative design, quality construction, and make parenting easier.

In regards to the DVD winners, Judges evaluated programs for their overall appeal, production value, quality of content and benefits – which may be pro-social role models, educational content or pure entertainment. Every winning title is one that you could happily add to your collection and enjoy sharing with the children in your life.

Is that AWESOME or what!

If you haven’t seen our DVDS, or should I say “Award Winning DVDS” , you can check them out and purchase them at our product site, Refuse to Say Cheese! If you are a friend that lives abroad, Downloadable Versions are available too!

Okay, keep voting for your favorite Finalist! We are almost to 300 votes, and we only need 500 total by Sunday night for a Random Voter to win Adobe Lightroom 2! Click HERE to vote today!

We will be back Monday for the most amazing news ever on what Sony has done to change our world! Hint: some of you helped inspire it!

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We only have FIVE SPOTS left for the Seattle June workshop. The enthusiasm, nervousness, willingness, and openness of the attendees so far is going to make this a fantastic workshop! If you are looking to take our workshop on the West Coast, this is your best bet before the summer ends! To see all the details, check out THIS BLOG post. To grab a spot and get the early bird special, GO HERE! The Early Bird price ends this coming Wednesday, so make sure you get signed up before the special is over!

We were up till 2:30am wiping down all the walls and cupboards throughout the house. Did you know you have to vacuum out all your vents too? It’s just a “fun, little project!” Lots of dust and clean up, but wow, the hardwoods are BEAUTIFUL!!! Just jaw dropping! Your going to hate me, but no photo yet. We need to finish cleaning the layers of dust and emptying the Uhaul before we have company for dinner tonight. Yep, tonight!

FYI, If you emailed Brian because your coupon code for our One Year Anniversary discounts wasn’t working (or posted the problem on our blog (LAUREN! ), he will get back to you soon. We were a little swamped with clean up here so Brian didn’t have a chance to get to your emails yesterday. We’ll be sure to honor the coupon code if by chance he doesn’t get back to you until after Wed. If you haven’t emailed Brian and ran into problems with using the coupon codes, email him at brian@merakoh.com so he can help you too! Oh boy, was that too repetitive? Lack of sleep here.

But good news is that LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of you had no issues with the coupon offers and got your orders in! Yeah! We’re so happy to do this for our One Year Anniversary! And thanks for all the congrats yesterday!

I’m also loving all of the nominations for the Running on Empty Contest. Since the workshop is this weekend, the cut off for submitting nominees needs to be tonight at midnight PST so people can have time to vote for the winner. Get your nominations in today by midnight!

Photos of the hardwoods will come soon, and I can’t wait to show you what I did with these eight foot branches my friend found! Oh, the suspense!

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The ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Sale is happening on all our products and the Atlanta Workshop!

It ends Wednesday at midnight PST!!! To see the details, click here!

To celebrate, we are offering these CRAZY!!

We’ll run these discounts until this Wed., December 3rd, midnight PST. If you’re planning on getting any of our products as gifts for Christmas, the next three days are the days to do it!

The Crazy Discounts are…drum roll….

DVDs (hard copies shipped to you) are 30% off! Coupon Code: thirty

DVDs that are the downloadable version are also 30% off! Coupon Code: download

All 101 Kits are 40% off! Coupon Code: forty

The upcoming Atlanta Workshop in January is 20% off! (We’re going to continue the Early Bird Registration Price until Wed, no coupon code needed!)

Enjoy! And thank you for making our first year of having the Refuse site so AWESOME!

Now, here’s some catching up we must do! You won’t believe our last seven days.

If you follow me on Facebook (MeRa Koh) or Twitter (merakoh), you’ve heard me mention our hardwood floors project this last week. Brian and I are home for five weeks straight! (YEAH!) We thought, ‘Hey, let’s get our hardwoods refinished on the whole main floor of our house! Why not! That will be a fun little project before the holidays start!’ Are we stupid or are we just STUPID putting “fun little project” with “refinishing hardwood floors” in the same thought?! Yes, the answer is we are STUPID!

We had no idea until 2-3 nights prior of all this starting that we would have to move every thing out of the main floor of the house. I mean that makes total sense, but for some reason it never occurred to us. The common sense of it all wasn’t there at ALL! We rented a Uhaul and moved everything into the Uhaul. Then we find out that we can’t stay at the house because of our dog and cat. We need to relocate for 7-8 days. I was totally stumped. But then my friend, Karen, says she is off to Cabo with her family the morning we have to move out. Talk about a total gift to us! We get to move into her place as they leave for Cabo, and in turn they have a house sitter for their dog.

Now let me ask you this. Who do you think had the best week of all? Us, the cat, or the dogs?

And who do you think had the worst week of all? If you guessed Prince Philip, the cat, you are right!!!

All in all, it’s been wonderful to be at Karen’s house. Aside from their dog having OCD and licking every inch of this house only to throw it up, and our dog having a bacterial infection in her colon that causes her to @#$% everywhere, it’s been so awesome (emphasis on “so”). I can’t imagine all this happening inside a hotel room. Wow, that would have been insane!

But today, today we get to start moving back in. I’ll try to post a photo of the NEW floors so you can get a peak of them! I can’t wait to slide across them in my socks!!!

How was your Thanksgiving week?

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Upcoming Blog Posts for This Week!

Do you know a Running on Empty Mom who lives in Seattle area? We’ve had such a crazy schedule that I forgot to post this nomination. If you have someone you know, that is local, we have saved a spot for her this coming weekend. Go ahead and nominate her in today’s comments.

If you attended the Chicago workshop, I’ll try and get that post up this week so you can see your shots and shooting conditions! And then everyone can sing your praises b/c of how amazing you all did!

We need to run a new Photo Contest. And yes, we need to post the Five Finalists for the Inspirational Object Contest. You are all so good to me for being patient. What do you think our new Photo Contest Theme should be?

Give you a hint…

There are three things total! And if you hit refresh, you can see each one!

It’s been a work in progress for a couple months.

We’re so excited to have them live! What do you think!!

We love getting your emails and love that you join us daily! Many of you have emailed about our DVDs because we don’t offer shipping outside of the US. We’ve tried to figure shipping options out, and it’s the craziest, most expensive situation.

So we’ve done something for you that we are excited about! Save yourself the crazy shipping prices and check this out! You can now purchase the DVD series as a DOWNLOAD!!

Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box can now be purchased as downloads on our product site! (see below for details)

You can now downloaded right both DVDs to your computer or IPOD!

In fact, here is some fun news! The hard copy of DVD 1, Refuse to Say Cheese is on BACKORDER right now!

Isn’t that cool! We are selling so many copies that we’re actually on backorder! Yeah!! That is why it says SOLD OUT on the Refuse site. But we should have more DVDS in stock by the end of the week. In the meantime if you can’t wait, you can purchase the download.

I always think we’re selling more copies of DVD 2, Beyond the Green Box

because the second DVD is more focused on understanding the technical stuff like aperture and shutter speed (from a woman’s perspective that is ). And DVD 1 is about composition and how to tell a story with your photos. I guess I’ve been proven wrong because DVD 1 has sold out first!

Thanks to all our International friends who have been so patient and excited for this option! We love you guys and can’t wait for you to access the DVDS too!

To read reviews of the DVDS, check these out!

The popular Z Recommends website surprised us with an AWESOME review! Click here to read it!

Kim is one of the moms who was invited by Sony to be at the Sony Mommy Blogging event that I spoke at. She recently wrote up a great review on her blog. Her blog is In a Shoe: the Methods and Madness of one Family of 11. Yes, I didn’t make a typo. Kim has given birth to NINE children!

To order the

To order the Downloadable Version of DVD 1, click on

To order the Downloadable Version of DVD 2, click on

Happy Monday Friends!

After a full weekend, I decided to sleep in this morning (very nice ), and now I’m off to hang out with the kids and catch up on mommy/kids time. But as I checked emails this morning, our friend Dane Sanders had sent a link to his blog. It made me want to cry!

Dane is a wonderful photographer, speaker, writer (the list goes on and on). He called on Friday and said he watched our Refuse to Say Cheese DVD and had one of the best times with his daughters while putting the DVD photo exercises into practice. Then he emailed me his blog today with the results. His call and email meant the world. You can’t ask for a better endorsement among your colleagues than the one he gave on his blog!

Check out Dane’s photos!

This one is my favorite!

Dane took a lot more than these three images. To see the rest, check out his blog. And while you’re there, take a look at the new project he’s got going. It’s called Fast Track Photographer. He read Brian and I the first chapter this summer, and it’s amazing. For those of you wanting to break into wedding photography…you want to be hooked up with this project.

Thanks Dane! We love you!

And Happy Monday everyone! Full week ahead, and hopefully we’ll have the okay to make a BIG announcement soon!

We also started booking our new Associate Company Photography, Yuriy Manchik!

Every week, we receive a few emails from all over the world with photographer’s resumes to be considered for an Associate position with Me Ra Koh Photography. We decided to ask Yuriy to join us because not only is his work phenomenal, but he is a great guy in countless ways. Our clients are loving him, and his calendar for 2008 is booking away. Yuriy will be shooting weddings in Seattle area, as well as flying out of state for wedding coverage. Check out his website to see his work, and you’ll know why we asked this guy to join our team! www.yuriymanchik.com Again, I’m speechless.

The feedback from the DVD series is coming in this week with so many of you receiving DVD 2, Beyond the Green Box. Your emails make me want to cry. I’m so thankful we’ve touched something in you.

And yet, as I write this, I feel like all this is only a beginning. A prelude to much bigger things. I must be careful to not limit the impossible happening because I can’t dream big enough. I also know this isn’t true just for me. It’s true for many of you right now. You’re on a similar path to the impossible happening with your photography business budding and your confidence rising.

Let’s journey together!

Have a wonderful weekend, and don’t forget to check out the 5 finalists for the thankful contest. You can vote and become the winner of DVD 2. Voting ends on Sunday night.

Any ideas for the theme of December’s photo contest? All ears!

And if you’re looking for a different website to inspire you in a new way, check out Jesh De Rox. His site is one of my favorites. I guarantee it will make an impression on you.

Next week, let’s talk more about the rest of the cities for the 2008 City Tour. Is there really 40 plus people in Georgia who want a workshop!

But at 2am this morning, I had to stop working on the bugs and head to bed. When I woke up this morning, Brian wasn’t next to me. He WAS STILL GOING!! Even now, he is STILL GOING! Can you believe this man! He never went to sleep last night! He’s AMAZING!!

Because of Brian, and only Brian, www.refusetosaycheese.com is live!!

We’re super excited about 4 of our 101 Kits being ready! And the great thing is they are all downloads! Again, Brian blows me away and how he took what I wrote and configured them!

And to top it all off, he was working out bugs the night before until 5:15am! This means he has slept only 2 hours in the last 48 hours. Unreal! The kids can’t stop talking about how amazing dad is, even now we are writing ballads and singing his praise!

The Refuse to Say Cheese website went live this morning, but we were still having shipping errors and credit card processing issues. Even now, the Workshop page is working but not looking “just right”. So me being a total coward…couldn’t bear to check my email and the blog. I turned on Nora Jones instead and tried take a few deep breaths while Brian kept going. “Sunrise, Sunrise…”

Brian sighed with a smile, and it looks like we’re running okay! YEAH!! Orders are coming in without problems. But definitely email us (brian@merakoh.com) if you are having a problem. You’re the first to see this which means your the first to see it AND the lucky first ones who get to encounter any bugs we missed.

So all this to say, I jumped on the blog and was blown away by all your wonderful posts. I totally started to cry. Thank you so very much for all your feedback! I can’t tell you how much it means! We’ve been working on the look and feel for months, and your feedback and excitement brings me to tears.

You all rock!

Okay, this is a little glimpse of how beautiful the new site for parents and aspiring photographers, www.refusetosaycheese.com, is turning out! There are 101 Kits, DVD 2, or the Set, Workshop Registration, a Giving Back page, Gift Certificates that are pretty, yikes! I can hardly stand this waiting!

Our bank wants to do a couple test runs on the Merchant Account process, and then we are live and running. Yep, that’s right, we’re going live with the site sometime TODAY! Ask me how many times I’ll be refreshing the screen for www.refusetosaycheese.com?

And if anyone at the bank is reading this, I’m seriously going to cry if we don’t go live today (but will it be over disappointment or staying up so late? or both! ).

Besides this new site, www.refusetosaycheese.com, going live, we also had TONS of WONDERFUL images submitted for the thankful contest! We’ll post the finalists this week, and let you start voting! Wait till you see this. Kleenex may be required.

We’re also almost done with confirming details for the San Diego workshop, so registration will open soon! Thanks for your patience on this! I just want to make sure we know where the location will be before we go live with registration. But I can tell some of you don’t care. I think I’ve received a dozen emails from San Diego moms ready to sign up. You ladies are fantastic, and Brian and I can’t wait to meet you all!

And thank you, thank you, thank you, for the wonderful comments on Thanksgiving Day’s post! We too are so thankful for you, and I’m overwhelmed with how many of you are emailing and posting about DVD 2! We are thrilled that you are loving Beyond the Green Box!!! Words just don’t do it justice! Oh, I almost forgot, be sure to use your promo codes from the booklet in DVD 2 for great discounts on the new site!

Better head to bed, but I’ll see you all later when the new site goes live! If you see it before I see it, post a comment and let me know!