Hello, Hello!

Welcome to 2011; Goodbye 2010! We hope everyone enjoyed their holiday season. We want to thank all of our supporters and followers for making this last year one of the most wonderful and memorable years that fickleZeal has had so far. We appreciate all the encouragement and assistance that you have given. We have a very bright outlook for 2011 and would love to continue to hear from you individually.

With that said, we’re excited to share that we are entering this New Year [2011] with a new

Blog + Website… as well as fresh branding that is more suitable for both Andre and I. We would love for you to regularly visit our new blog+site and let us know what you think, especially now that the comments work (whew). Feel free to CLICK ON OVER and check it out:D www.fickleZeal.com

But first, since we we not able to keep up with things on this blog we wanted to highlight some of the many special and exciting moments from 2010. This year has been an incredible year filled with so many exciting, heartfelt and emotional moments. We have been fortunate to photograph a variety of people and events that have been near and dear to our hearts. Below we have tried to quickly recap some of those moments, but it is not nearly enough to fully detail the entire year.

Again, thank you all for the amazing support. We hope this new year brings everyone more happiness, hope, appreciation of life and lots of remarkable memories that need to be captured for a lifetime!

Jenna + Andre
fickleZeal

I wanted to take a moment to share this inspiring video about being “disabled”.

… but not necessarily in this case.  We’re suffering with the loss of my hard drive.  This unforeseen setback has caused me to run behind with ALL of my clients.  For this I am deeply sorry!    I do not have access to past emails, email addresses, or recent images.  We’re preforming an 8+ hour back up of over 560GB of data and once this completes we will rebuild my computer and then if all goes well I will get back to the swing of things on Monday.  If you are waiting for something from me PLEASE, I beg you, be patient.  This is unfortunatly out of my control right now.  And if you know me at all you know I HATE not being in control.  LOL!

On the flip side of this horribly inconveniencing experience we have come up with a long overdue rather great backup system that will protect us from this occurring again.  Which puts my little stressed, sleep deprived, mind at a bit of ease.  It’ll be at great ease once this process is all said and done.

On a personal note this happening right now has given me more time to spend with my family, which is lovely.

So, all things considered I guess this is for the best… well it could have happened during my slow season instead of my busy season… yeah, that would have been nice!

Until next time, I hope you all have a Happy Easter weekend!

We’re feeling the spirit! With October being Down syndrome (Ds) Awareness month I felt lead to create a special to promote the incredible beauty and awareness for the over 350,000 individuals living with Ds, including my daughter Lana.

GIVE-AWAY TIME!!!

In honor of Ds Awareness Month we’d love to give back and photograph as many people with Ds as possible, so spread the word!  We’re giving away a beautiful 8×8 custom hardcover album ($440 value) with a paid session to the lucky “Spread the Word” winner.

To enter the contest simply blog, tweet, facebook, myspace, email,… you get it, spread the word! Here’s how you get your name entered into the contest for a chance… ahem, many chances to win.

3 chances: contact us right away to reserve your session

1 chance: follow us on twitter @ficklezeal then tweet the following

Win a Custom 8×8 Album from your Down Syndrome Awareness Portrait Session @ficklezeal for details visit www.fzphotography.com/blog

1 chance: become a fan of FickleZeal Photography on Facebook and post some Ds Awareness Portrait Session love

1 chance: leave a comment on my blog with why you’d like to win this beautiful memento with your session

3 chances: email us a sweet photo for us to share on our blog of your loved one(s) with Ds

5 chances: for each referred session that is completed

Contest ends October 31st and the winner will be announced November 10th!

It was another HOT Texas day, Nate and I were enjoying a little time together.  We went to check the mail when I noticed the neighbors sprinkler start.  I encouraged Nate to ride his bike and ran inside to call for Lana and to grab my camera of course.  They didn’t know what I was up to, but once they were ready I told them to run/ride through the sprinker.  Nate was delightfully perplexed, but it didn’t take him long to see the potential.  We had a great time recycling my neighbors water that would have otherwise been wasted on the sidewalk.

We decided to begin our summer with a fun family stay-cation.  We stayed near our home and together for 9 days.  Enjoying the adventure and laziness that the summer brings.  We had intended to go-go-go, but after an awesome day at the lake a wonderful lake water induced stomach bug defined the rest of our stay-cation to throwing up tents in our living room instead of on the camp grounds.  I think we all appreciated 74º instead of the dreadful 105º that it was outside.  We ended up thanking the stomach bug that defined our cozy time together.

We’ve been keeping a little secret, because I was feeling really under the weather and a LOT hormonal, but now that I’m feeling GREAT, I’m ready to reveal a recent photo of me that Andre captured which made me realize that I can’t keep it to myself anymore.

Today is a national awareness day to promote awareness and initiate change of the hurtful effects of the word “retard(ed)”, the r-word.

Something that has been pressing in my heart since Lana was born.  After speaking with countless doctors and therapists, I quickly learned that a word that is used throughout society to describe someone that is acting dumb or goofy was now tied to my beautiful daughter.  I must say, it hurt.  At first, it hurt that the doctors would dare describe my daughters condition as such, but after much thought and research I wanted to reclaim the word for it’s intended definition.  I wanted all of my friends and family to stop the misuse of the r-word.  I posted blog posts, sent emails, had many conversations informing people of how hurtful the word was when used in inappropriate careless ways.  I also designed and created t-shirts to hand out and sell.  I’ve been spreading the word for over three years now, but today I’m happy to see the cause is nationalized.

Soeren Palumbo has made a huge impact in creating awareness since his brilliant speech that he delivered to a gymnasium full of his high school peers and faculty and received a standing ovation.

The use of the r-word is offensive and hurtful, even when it is inadvertently used.  It is hurtful to the millions with mental retardation as well as their loved ones.

I find it interesting that insulting somebody by using such words as “Alzheimer… Cancer… AIDS… etc” carelessly would not be taken as a joke nor lightly yet, using another disease such as retardation as an insult is common among society.

It is NEVER appropriate to use the words “retard” or “retarded” in a careless or an insulting way.

I encourage you all to be more conscious of the words that you use and hope that you will take a pledge to stop saying the R-word on www.r-word.org.

Andre and I were posed a question yesterday that made me think  a while before I could answer.  “When and what was the last crazy thing we did?”  We were both slightly puzzled, but then answered, “We started two businesses within a year, not even two years ago”.  
 
Honestly, this question caused me to think beyond a simple answer.  While it is not serving in the Air Force, traveling throughout Italy, living it up from one crazy adventure to the next, this has become our crazy life.   (Wow, those four years in Europe seems like a lifetime ago.)
 
My life now can be defined by essential times with my wonderful husband, my two amazing kids that are only in school three hours a day, Piano Lessons, Martial Arts, Therapy, etc., add to that the businesses. My life is GOOD, better than good…my life is extraordinary!  I feel blessed that I get to do what I am truly passionate about and get paid doing it.  
 
It’s been an amazing two years filled with so much excitement, education, soul searching, self-doubt, self-reward, unexpected opportunities, growth, and LOVE.  
 
A few weeks ago, I came across this video that “struck-n-stuck” that I can’t seem to shake.  This is a “MUST SEE” for all photographers.  I think being a photographer or not, we can all relate.
 
This is from Zack Arias:

 
Watching this brilliant video helped me realize that I am not alone in self-doubt, being overwhelmed, affected by seasons, etc.  There’s something reassuring about knowing this.  Maybe the fact is that it’s normal to feel like you’re not doing enough and/or think thoughts of being mediocre.  

While creating FickleZeal, I had to reinvent myself even though I thought I knew where I wanted to take the business and who exactly I was.  I constantly compared myself to other artists, and on my dark days, smothered my creativity with self-doubt and negativity.  
 
Maybe because I am such a perfectionist, I felt as though I needed everything to make me great when all along I had it all within myself…well…plus the camera, lenses, printers, MAC (yay!), etc…you know what I mean;-)  
 
I’ve been overwhelmed by setting WAY too many goals of which some were unachievable. All this I’ve tried to stop and I feel great about doing so.   I’ve been able to explore and use what I’ve learned to incorporate into FickleZeal, how I want it to be, and what I want it to stand for.  I’m changing the way things look and feel (check out the new blog and logo) and am excited about some new WONDERFUL eco-friendly products that we’ll be adding to our already established eco-conscious business.  
 
I’m excited to share what I am passionate about verses what the norm is in the photography industry.  
 
I’m thankful, that in the past few weeks, I’ve booked a lot of shoots and weddings for the year which hopefully is a good sign that this economy is not going to affect us too badly…another item on my “overwhelmed” list.
 
I’m EXCITED and ready for this winter to end!  I’m a spring gal!!! Needless to say, I can’t wait for the spring to arrive and STAY (crazy Texas weather).
 
Happy Spring Break! I will continue hoping for Happy Spring Weather, Sunshine, and Growth!