You asked for it!  We are back with the 2nd part of Bri-Ahn Kor’s interview!

He’s going to answer the pressing question of why he never looks people in the eye.  Watch, listen and be inspired as a photographer to never look anyone in the eye again!

Bri-Ahn Kor wants to hear from you!  He tells me his speaking schedule is packed for the next three years!  To many TV appearances lined up to count.  To many sponsorships banging on his door.  To much Latin to still teach his kids while he finishes up the FIVE book contract with the biggest publisher!  But for Me Ra Koh blog readers, he is going to do something out of his usual character.  He is going to give us a chance to ask him a question!

Bri-Ahn Kor said today is your chance to post any question you want to ask THE Bri-Ahn Kor.  If you are lucky, he may decide to answer your question in Part 3 of his video interview!  Just tell him your question, first name and what state you are from. 

Ask away!

xoxo,

Me Ra (and Bri-Ahn Kor)

Ladies and gents,  (Let me first say I can’t believe we are doing this, or he is doing this.  But you are not that surprised, right?!  )

Today is a momentous day!  For the first time ever, you are about to meet the self proclaimed, world famous, award winning, wedding photographer, Bri Ahn Kor!  Make sure you pronounce it right, Bri Ahn Kor–like Brian Encore!  No, I’m not joking.  Should you be scared?  Possibly.  Do you know what kind of treat you are in for?  Nope, not really.  So prepare yourself as you push play on the video below.  This is your chance to hear direct from the famous Bri Ahn Kor!

Now that you’ve met Bri Ahn Kor, some of you may be looking at the screen in total shock.  Did you really just see what you did?  You may be thinking, ‘What the heck is going on?!  What is Brian doing?!  And why won’t this Bri Ahn Kor look the camera in the eye?’

Oh, it’s not over friends!  Tomorrow, you will get to see the second piece of our interview where Bri Ahn Kor opens up on why he purposely never, EVER, looks anyone in the eye–except–EXCEPT for one type of person.  Find out who that special person is.

We are not done folks.  Bri Ahn Kor has so much more to say!  If you want to see Part 2 tomorrow, post a comment to Bri Ahn Kor on the blog today! 

xoxo,

Me Ra

For those of you who don’t know Denis Reggie, let’s just say he is like the Godfather of the wedding industry. He basically coined the term, Wedding Photojournalism, thirty plus years ago. He has shot the last 30 Kennedy weddings, and starts at $65K for wedding coverage. Yep, he starts there. Plus, Denis often turns bookings away b/c he is fully booked up! He is a legend! Denis has also helped put us on the map in several ways. If you haven’t heard him speak or been to one of his workshops, it’s a must! Changed our business overnight! But this video, wow! Enjoy!

For the record Denis, Brian’s meds had most likely worn off by the time we got to this point in the interview.

Rachel or Andrew, what do you think? Was Brian’s impersonation anywhere close?

I wish he would have done his Mike Colon impersonation too! That one is freaking hilarious! Mike, I will make him show you the next time we see each other!

Last poll for the week! Should Brian be in front of the camera or behind the camera?

(I can’t stop laughing! I can’t wait to hear what you all say!!

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For fun photo exercises, check out our popular Instructional DVDs Refuse to Say Cheese (see the downloadable version that is now available if you live outside the US!), our 101 Kits for starting or expanding a business in photography, click on the words of your choice! To read a great review done on our DVDs, click here!

Upcoming Workshops: The Seattle December Workshop is open for registration with only a few seats left!! Click HERE to register!

Today is a much more serious topic.

This touches on an ongoing topic in our house: Why Brian thinks he could win the People magazine award for Sexiest Man Alive. Before I get myself in trouble as his wife, he is totally the SEXIEST MAN ALIVE! I mean if you don’t think so, just check out my baby here! And Brian’s theory on why the world would agree is interesting to say the least.

Check out the video! The end is my favorite!

Cast your vote below by answering the question: Do you think Brian could win Sexiest Man Alive if he only had more exposure?

I know the video was really about a new term we’ve come up with called Photo Coaching. This was the topic of our talk at Partnercon, plus the upcoming WPPI conference in 2009. Pictage has asked us to spend some time on the forums tonight to follow up with any questions you might have from the talk, or questions you have for Brian about being the sexiest many alive!

If your a Pictage member, Brian and I will be on the Pictage forum live today from 4pm-6pm PST to answer as many questions as possible. Hope to see you there!

P.S. Last I looked, we only need 119 more votes to hit 500 for the Pet Photo Contest! If you haven’t voted, get over to this post and post your vote as a comment! If we hit 500 votes by MIDNIGHT TONIGHT PST, we are going to give some copies of Adobe’s Lightroom Software away to RANDOM VOTERS!! Don’t miss out! Get over there and vote, and you may win Adobe software!!

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For fun photo exercises, check out our popular Instructional DVDs Refuse to Say Cheese (see the downloadable version that is now available if you live outside the US!), our 101 Kits for starting or expanding a business in photography, click on the words of your choice! To read a great review done on our DVDs, click here!

Upcoming Workshops: The Seattle December Workshop is open for registration with only a few seats left!! Click HERE to register!

Be prepared, it’s almost 13 minutes in length and the music is a bit choppy after we converted this for the web. So feel free to turn your volume down. Our kids are loving it, so you may want to grab the kiddos!

If you’re looking for Brian and I, we’re the goofy divers that are usually waving like crazy at the camera or giving a thumbs up. (we were super excited and still living off the high of it all) We are a group of three with our German instructor, Jan (pronounced as “yawn”). He spoke better Spanish than English and tried to help us understand what we would be doing, but once you’re in the water language barriers really don’t matter. Jan was awesome and helped me work through a lot of my initial fears, especially me needing to have some serious “mind over matter” that I could breathe under water! For a funny story of all this read below the line.

But my favorite part of this movie happens during our second dive when you see a clip of Brian using his underwater camera. A new type of photography has definitely come to life in Brian after learning to scuba dive! Look at Nemo!

If you enjoy the movie and want to see more scuba diving/marine type movies, check out the website http://www.theaquaplanet.com/.

Chelsea, the videographer, was a total sweetheart and has started this on line forum for all her diver friends to post their movies. The shark ones are great, especially fun for the kids!

Okay, check it out! Suiting up!

Here we go!!

And the movie!

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the funny story

Jan had told us, or at least we thought he had, that we would start in shallow water and practice putting the mouth piece in, then taking it out, putting it back in under water, then learning how to flood our mask so we can drain it if it ever did flood, and so forth. I could have sworn he said we would practice all this in SHALLOW water. But all of a sudden the boat stops, and he jumps in!

He yells, “Svine to JUMP!” (Time to Jump!) “JUMP NOW! JUMP NOW!”

I look at the water. I’m no dummy. This is not shallow water! I totally freeze. He yells again “Hold the mask and JUMP, Yes Me DA JUMP!”

I close my eyes and jump off the back of the boat, relieved to find that I’m floating. But Jan swims up to me and pushes the button that lets the air out of my jacket, “We go down NOW!” he says. And down I sink, and sink, and sink, and sink until we hit the bottom which is around 30 FEET!

He motions Brian and I underwater (Brian by the way is just eating it all up and not nervous at all) to take out our mouth piece, let go of it, find it with our right hand and insert it back in our mouth. I’m thinking, ‘you want me to open my mouth UNDERWATER, THIRTY FEET BELOW, and then open it back up again to put this mouth piece in.’ I look at him with the eyes of a deer in headlights and shake my head “NO!”, then I try to swim up, but I have a belt of weight on and it doesn’t take much effort for him to hold me there. With his eyes he say “NOW! Try now!” It’s only his eyes and hand motions, but I can still hear the thick German accent and it whips me into shape.

I take the mouth piece out, let go, grab it again, and put it back in my mouth. And I’m not drowning!

Then Jan points to his mask and let’s it flood with water. He pushes on the middle top and blows out all the water, but I’m thinking “holy crap, we are thirty feet below and he wants me to flood my mask! weren’t we going to start in SHALLOW WATER?” I look at Brian for support, but Brian is already doing the exercise and getting a gold star from Jan. (brother!)

Jan looks at me with that German accent look and says with his eyes, “NOW you! You try now!” I do it, and can’t believe I haven’t drowned when it’s over. Jan gives me a couple big pats on the back and the thumbs up. I’ve never been so relieved to see a thumbs up from anyone. This means we’re done with the preliminary safety exercises and get to move among the fish.

As we spend a couple hours diving together, I come to respect Jan. I’m trying to keep a good balance between not hitting the reef and not being a half mile away from the reef. He keeps telling me to hold my arms still, in front, hands folded, and relax. I watch Jan from the side and am amazed at how graceful he is. He may wear the look of a pirate,

but he is truly graceful when he’s diving. He uses his lungs to fill and empty at specific, effortless measures and this controls how close he comes to the reef while keeping himself suspended there despite the current. I’m speechless. Later in the day he says, “You do GOOD JOB, GOOD JOB!” I beam with pride. We’ve accomplished A LOT today! He later shares that today was dive number 1300–Koh Phi Phi, Cairo, Egypt and Costa Rica are his favorite dive spots. I’m thinking ‘diving in Cairo, Egypt…wow!’

We come out of the water and Brian is so amped up. He’s ready to spend the rest of our time in Thailand 30 ft. below. Me, I’m overwhelmed. To have been a witness to a world I’ve known but never visited to this measure, I’m not sure how to digest it. I can’t do another dive tomorrow. I need my journal!

(the two of us as we climbed out of the water! yeah, WE DID IT!!!–thanks for grabbing the pic Paul!)

For now, here is Part 2 of my interview with Ron Dawson.

In this interview, I talk about being self employed parents, balancing parenthood with work, and a little on our popular instructional DVD series for parents, Refuse to Say Cheese and Beyond the Green Box!

To hear Part 2, follow this link to Ron’s website!

Hope you enjoy!

It’s an interview I’ve been meaning to post for a few months…where does the time go!

This is a 2 part interview, so I’ll post Part 1 today and then Part 2 on Friday. Ron’s main business is being an incredible videographer in CA. His site is Cinematic Studios. Last month, he was awarded as one of the Top 25 Event Videographers in the nation! (He’s also got a great blog for all you blog readers!)

Ron wanted to do these interviews on the side as a personal project. He did a handful of interviews with different photographers, wanting to capture who they are and what makes them tick. If you enjoy listening to podcasts, check out the F-Stop Beyond website for a handful of wonderful interviews!

Okay, here’s Part 1! I hope you enjoy!

F-Stop Beyond

To play, just click the green arrow below and make sure your volume is up. It may take a minute to load and then the audio should come on for you.

You Asked. We Listened!

A Beginner’s Photography Workshop for Women that Lasts TWO Days!

taught by Me Ra and Brian

When: Saturday and Sunday, January 12th and 13th 2008

Where: The beautiful Villa B&B in Tacoma, WA

Time: 9:30am-4:30pm (both days) Breakfast served and open to everyone at 9am.

Meals: Wonderful catered lunches will be prepared and served to us by our hostess, Kristy House.

4 Things to Bring

1. Digital SLR camera if you have one (don’t hesitate to come if you don’t have one b/c I have 8 cameras and a number of lenses, so we should be good! J) What’s a Digital SLR? A camera that has the ability to swap out different types of lenses.

2. Notepad, Pen, Warm Clothing for Shooting Outside

3. Laptop with Photoshop Elements or the big version of Photoshop is great, but not necessary. (we’ll discuss post process “What do I do with these photos now that I’ve taken them?” the 2nd day of the workshop)

4. Last, but most important! “I’m going to go for it and have a blast” attitude! (even if this camera stuff overwhelms me b/c I know I can do this!)

Workshop Cost: $999 pp (a couple women are making this there Christmas or Birthday gift!)

The class size is limited to 20 women. We like to keep the group small so that we can maximize your learning experience. Twenty was a great number with the last two day workshop!

Day One Topics: We’ll spend the first half of the day going over the mechanics of your camera and learning about indoor lighting so you can get great shots of your kids in the kitchen, living room and bedroom! The second half of the day we’ll do some hands on shooting as we process all the things we’ve learned throughout the morning.

Basically, camera mechanics (‘how the heck does this thing work?’ fully answered ) plus, lighting, kid model shoots, and a photo assignments due for the second day.

Day Two Topics

Strategies for tougher lighting that confronts us in daily life (like all the frustrating indoor stuff of how to light the birthday cake or our family by the Christmas tree without a black cave behind them b/c of your flash ). We’ll also cover what to do with your photos (post process), editing photos (softwares to use and how), and the in’s and out’s of starting a side business for yourself, and much more that is signature stuff to me and Brian.

Extra Events that are Optional

Friday night, January 11th, we’ll have a cozy, casual Meet and Greet with Wine and Appetizers by the big fireplace in the Villa. If you can make it, it’s a wonderful way to begin this special weekend treat for yourself.

Saturday night: Depending on the group, we’ll either order in or go out together.

Payment Terms/Options:

1. You can pay the whole balance at once.

2. You can make a retainer (non-refundable fee) of $650 to reserve your seat. The remaining balance of $350 (total is $999) must be paid in full 14 days before the workshop date. You can pay by check or credit card at our e-store (the fastest way to ensure a reserved seat for yourself!). Call us if you have any questions at 253-468-8913.

Lodging: If you call Kristy House at the Villa and tell her you’re with us, she’ll include 15% off her already fabulous rates. We’ve been told from past attendees that they loved staying overnight at the Villa.

More Options for Lodging: Five minutes from the workshop is a new hotel on the waterfront called The Silver Cloud Inn. The room rate is $159 plus tax. This rate comes with a water view from every room (the whole inn is literally over the water ), complimentary breakfast, King Size bed or two Queen Size beds, Free Parking and Free Internet Access. The Silver Cloud Inn is only two miles from the Chihuly’s Museum of Glass, the Tacoma Art Museum, Point Defiance Park and Zoo. There is a beautiful boardwalk right outside the doors of the hotel that follows the beach (a 3.5 mile jog my husband and I often do! ). One block away is the center of Old Town, filled with coffee shops and tea houses, and a couple quaint restaurants. There are also bigger restaurants all along the waterfront boardwalk (The Lobster Shop, The Ram, Katie Downs, etc). There were a handful of people in the last few workshops that stayed an extra night to enjoy how sweet this part of the country is!

Reserve Your Workshop Spot! Every workshop we’ve held has Sold Out, and the Waiting List grows. Women fly in from all over the country from Vermont to New Jersey and Texas. I know some of you have been waiting a long time for this announcement! Yeah! It’s finally here! And we’ll have lots of fun surprises!)

Very Short “recent” bio: **Where can you see Me Ra and Brian and their work in 2007? VH1′s Fabulous Wedding, Martha Stewart Television, Microsoft’s Small Business Show, Northwest Afternoon, a spotlight “Master of Their Craft” in Grace Ormonde’s Wedding Style, featured spread in Pacific Weddings magazine, editorial spread in Seattle Metropolitan Bride and Groom and a featured wedding in Seattle Bride magazine, November 2007! Phew!!

To read our bio and see our work, visit the website.

For the latest news, click on the Press category in this blog to the left!

To see a fun trailer of them in action for the VH1 wedding click My Big Fat Fabulous Wedding!

**Click here to Register!!**

The guests were so awesome, the staff and film crew were just incredible to work with. A gal Lisa Margaret did our makeup, and she was AWESOME!! All brides, email Lisa for makeup on your wedding day! Lisa’s email is hellalov4u@aol.com.

But the best part, everyone had their kids everywhere! Here’s me backstage trying to french braid Pascaline’s hair. She needed her hair just right.

Then after the show Brian and I were totally blown away at all of you blog readers who came to be in the audience! It was so fun to see familiar faces and meet new friends!

The couple to my left flew all the way from Texas to be in the audience! Brian and I about fell over when they told us! Dana has the most amazing story of how she left her long career of real estate after our Texas workshop last April and started photography. I asked her to share her story in the comments (when she gets back home of course ). And the gal in white that is two over from my right is Amanda! She was the winner of the Pumpkin Contest and Sony Camera. It was so fun to meet her in person and her friends!

On an empty set, some little guy found his own empty Producer’s chair.

Thanks again for ALL your support, comments, emails and even coming to the show! You guys are awesome!

68% of you are MOMS!

Since you moms are a huge part of the visitors, this video is for you!! Get ready to laugh out loud! I have no idea who this mom is b/c the video was a forward, but she is AMAZING!!!

But, but, but, there is a growing audience of dads too!! This is so cool!!! This last week I’ve received a few emails from dads on how much they are loving the first DVD, and wow, I can’t tell you how thrilling it is to hear! Keep the dads coming…maybe we’ll do a Dad’s Beginner Workshop in 2008!

67% requested “More Photography Tips for Parents”. All I can say is “YIPPEE! You got it!!” I know I love posting them, but it’s so great to hear that so many of you love reading them.

The next two big groups said they wanted more personal posts on our family and more business tips to starting your own photography business.

This feedback is so valuable! You have no idea!!! My mind is flooded with things to post in the coming weeks! Expect a few more quick surveys in the next couple weeks. We are in the midst of building out our new product site www.refusetosaycheese.com (tentatively going live in November with lots of surprises!).

Instead of trying to guess what you all want, you can just tell us!