013-I went back to school (for a week!)

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I've mentioned before that my guiding word for 2023 is "Experiences." I am trying to take advantage of all the cool experiences that are coming my way. One of those was attending the Texas School of Photography with my bestie, Sandi Petersen. She is a Fortuna CA based professional photographer (check out her website HERE) so she went to learn for her business and clients. I, on the other hand, went for fun and to add to my fun experiences for 2023.

Texas School is an intensive, educational week-long experience. Each attendee chooses one photographer to work with for the week. There are a wide-range of photography topics that attendees can choose from. Sandi chose to learn more about senior photography and I chose boudoir photography. This particular boudoir photographer that taught our class, Jen Rozenbaum, is also a breast cancer survivor. I've always been intrigued by boudoir photography and offered it when I had my photography studio open, about 10 years ago.

My class titled, Boudoir Photography from the Ground Up, had about 17 or 18 people in it. Some of them already offered this genre of photography, but most of my classmates wanted to add this to their offerings. I was the only one in the class that was only there for fun, for the experience of it, and had no desire to get back into the photography business world again. I am happy to stay a "retired" professional photographer.

We spent time in a classroom setting in the mornings and spent most afternoons in the hotel's presidential suite shooting volunteer models. I admit I am a watcher (hello, enneagram 5!) so it was fun for me just to watch the other photographers shoot and pose the models. I preferred watching how everyone else operates rather than worrying about taking a lot of photos. I did take some, though. My favorite kind of boudoir is classy, leave-it-to-the-imagination, shots. Here's one of my favs...

I learned a lot, but the real highlight of the Texas School week was being able to have Jen Rozenbaum photography ME in a breast cancer survivor shoot! I will share some of those in a separate post at a later date. Stay tuned... ;-)

Not only did Sandi and I both learn a lot, we had a really good time. And lots of good food! Our favorite place we went was called Ida Claire. It was so good! We also went to the Melting Pot, a fun fondue restaurant where I always eat way too much! Our Texas School tuition fee also included an evening at the Red River Dance Hall with live music and authentic Texas BBQ for dinner! It was really fun. The school bussed us there and back so we didn't have to worry about getting lost ;-).