It's hard to believe, but I've posted at least one blog post per week now for 3 years running!  

Now it's time for me to take a break. I've never been busier in my entire life than I am right now, both personally and professionally.  

Every minute I spend on this blog is a minute of attention that my family isn't getting, my clients aren't getting, and those darn overgrown weeds all around my house aren't getting.

Something has to give, so I'm cutting back on blogging for now. I'm not stopping entirely, but expect maybe one post a month rather than once a week.  Don't bother checking it every day - please just subscribe via the RSS feed and you'll know when there's new material here.

I'm still continuing with the workshops.

One-on-one workshops can be done:

• in-person in Seattle
• over the phone
• via Skype

My next live group workshop is the May 22 "Starting a Profitable Wedding Business" workshop in Seattle. Seats are still available.

Laurence Kim Workshops

I'm honored to have one of my wedding images published in the current issue of Newsweek!

This is the issue:  Jan 18, 2010

Here's my image - unfortunately uncredited:

How it happened:  I blogged this wedding about a year ago. A photo editor from Photo District News saw my blog post and asked to interview me and publish the photos on the PDN magazine and website.  I blogged about this here.

A Newsweek photo editor saw my images on PDN and kept me in mind for an upcoming article on gay marriage. Then they contacted me for some images and voila - I'm in Newsweek!

Since the image is uncredited, it doesn't really do much for me in terms of exposure, but it still is a nice feeling!

Laurence Kim Workshops

Location Lighting 101

Jan 23, Seattle WA:  Sold Out!

March 20, Vancouver BC:  seats available

Building a Profitable Portrait Business

Feb 27, Seattle WA:  seats available

I've written about how this year was going to be all about taking better care of myself. Part of that is having more fun, but another part is getting back in shape.

When I graduated from college I had 6% bodyfat. Over time I've gotten heavier and weaker.  

So a few weeks ago I went to get my body fat precisely measured so I'll have a starting point from which to measure my progress. By far the most accurate way to do this is with hydrostatic (underwater) weighing. Other methods such as body fat calipers can be off by as much as 100%. Simply weighing myself wouldn't tell me anything, because there'd be no way to tell the change in my body composition.  

Here is the body fat test mobile that I went to:

After you get weighed dry, you then step into this tank. That guy in the tank with the pasty, out of shape body is me.

Next: you completely immerse yourself underwater and then expel all the air from your lungs. Any air left in your lungs will throw off the measurement. Then you get weighed under water. The idea is that, since fat weighs much less than lean body mass, the comparison of the dry and wet measurements is used to  precisely compute your body fat.

My results? Embarrassing.

bodyweight:       184 lbs  (height 5' 11")

body fat:            32 lbs - that's just gross!

lean body mass:    152 lbs

body fat %:                    17%

The sad thing is that even though I consider this pretty bad, I'm actually leaner than 75% of all men my age! It just goes to show you how out-of-shape most people are.

My goal?  To get below 10% body fat while maintaining or increasing lean body mass.  I'll report back on this periodically so you can all keep me honest!

Things could not have gone any better for my business in 2008.  I made significant gains in both my business as well as my shooting and post-processing skills.

However, looking back on it I can't count it as being a successful year.  Every day was work, cook dinner, clean up, put kids to bed, sleep, repeat.  Even when I wasn't working I was thinking about work and about future plans.  You know, "once I reach goals XYZ things will be so much better".

Well this year things are going to be different. I'm going to work a bit less, play a bit more, and focus on squeezing some enjoyment out of every single day.

To that end, I was happy that my friend Maurice (who's an awesome photographer) invited me to attend a cooking class with him.  The class was at Blue Ribbon Cooking, and was focused on "knife skills".

Here's the teacher Mike Duppenthaler, chef and owner of Blue Ribbon Cooking:

Although you can cook a great meal with any knife (sound familiar?), if you've never used a professional cooking knife you're in for a treat! Here are the knives we worked with:

Here's Maurice making apple cobbler for dessert:

Yours truly working my new knife technique on these green onions:

And here's the dish I prepared - a tabouleh salad:

Go out there and have some fun!  Those images waiting to be processed will still be there when you get back, I promise. But once the day is over, it's gone forever.

I'm heading out to New York City (my birthplace!) to shoot what I'm pretty sure will be a fabulous wedding! I may be a little slow to return calls and emails the next few days, but I'll get back to you!