Some nights I go to bed with this fear…. this fear that I settle for mediocrity way too easily. Then other nights I go to bed with a different fear…. this fear that I might have to actually rise above mediocrity!

This is a blog that I (Breanna) wrote on my personal blog about a year ago and I decided it was time to bring it back because it’s such a great challenge to me! I also want to give a glimpse into what drives me… it’s for all the people out there (you) who have gone out of your way to follow Radiant and support us. You’ve given us your time and energy, so I figure you deserve to see some vulnerability and genuineness on our part.  So here goes, here’s the real Breanna… chipped nails, frizzy hair and all.

For the past year or so I’ve had this persistent nagging feeling that I need to live an extraordinary life. My religious convictions definitely tell me this, but it’s all too easy to lie to myself and say that I am following my beliefs. I keep being faced with this challenge of being extreme. This idea that I can’t settle for comfort, for safety, and for a life wasted on my own pleasures.

I have long had a taste of disgust in my mouth for the “American Dream”. But no matter how bad the flavor, I keep eating it. I swallow more and more every single day, and now it is the nourishment that sustains me and drives me. Unfortunately my “nourishment” is really a poison that kills me slowly each minute.

OK, so enough of the drama here…. I got going and I couldn’t stop with the strong analogies of death and doom (it’s fun sometimes). Really though, I keep feeling that I need to live an extraordinary life, but everything inside of me longs for ordinary at the same time. I happen to be a very fearful person who uses high levels of control to attempt to block anything I fear that might threaten my own personal happiness in the little world I’ve created around me. This is a terrible, horrible thing to do by the way…. so if any one else out there is guilty of this you should definitely stop before you push away everyone and everything of value by trying to hold on to them too tightly.

(Man, I keep trying to make this light-hearted and it keeps coming back down a notch. I’ll keep trying, bear with me!)

Anyways, so here you have this fearful, controlling, high-maintenance (yes, I can finally admit that), lazy girl who is so scared of the unknown and of pushing herself when she doesn’t have to, who’s content to stay right where she’s at….. being totally dragged into an extraordinary life. I’m sure if I ever get to the place deemed “extraordinary” (I have no idea where that actually is or what it entails by the way) I’ll be able to look back on the things I gave up (comfort, security, an easier life) and say it was all worth it. But…. I’m just…. not quite….. there yet (those dots are meant to represent the tug of war going on inside of me).

I do want it though. I do want to be free. I want to be free of worrying about all the things that are not mine to worry about. I want to be able to stand for something bigger than myself and really make all the sacrifices that are necessary to accomplish the goals associated with that. I want to be free of seeking things that will only leave me empty in the end. I want to instead, pursue things that fill me with the breath I was meant to breathe…. with the life I was meant know.

It’s so big, you know? Life is so huge! Sometimes when I’m worried about all the little things and stuck in the cycle of useless, unimportant obsession in my head…. I stop and think about how many facts a person could learn about puppies, or about wallpaper, or about bone marrow. There is so so so much. So much to talk about, learn about, do, and experience. And I get stuck in my own safe routine, in my own oh-so tiny world. It confines me and it traps me. My own measures of protection, my own safety defenses, are what attack me. I’m working so hard to let them go. To let them go and to just trust.

For so long I have trusted only in myself…. only in my knowledge and my abilities. I need to start to trust in my LACK of knowledge and abilities. In the world that is bigger than I, in the people that have lived more than me, in the God that actually created all of it. I know nothing and I am nothing. But there is a ton out there to become and to be. And I want to go after it.

I may never get a house. I may never have a 401K (still don’t know what that means really but I think it’s something people want). I may never please everyone and I may never feel completely comfortable ever again…..

But I need and want to be OK with that. I want to be excited about trading in the mundane for a life of extraordinaire. I need to realize that as long as I pursue my stability, comfort, and personal happiness above all else…. I will never get any farther than that. I will never know what life was meant to be and how it was meant to be used.

Oh holy crap…. I’m terrified.

We finally have a good answer to that ever so popular question, “Do you guys offer photography classes?” Well I think we at least have a better answer than our old one which was, “uh, um, I…. maybe?  Eventually, I think….. hmm” (Some people call that stuttering, we call it being so busy that we don’t even have enough time to formulate complete sentences!).  Now the answer to that question is a resounding “YES!!!!” Oh wait I mean, “Yes, we are offering photography classes” (I just wanted to show that I can in fact answer in complete sentences now!).

It’s official… we finally pulled everything together and out came the details for our photography class!  That’s right, Scottie and Breanna Chanson from Radiant Photography are now both photographers and teachers (does this mean we get summers off? Or at least a teachers lounge that’s always stocked with cookies?)! So here is the official word you’ve all been waiting for…

What it’s all about…

Learning to see light the way your camera does will completely change the way you approach photography and we want to teach you how to do that!  This class will give you the chance to learn how to manipulate various lighting situations to your advantage, have a Q&A time with Scottie & Breanna from Radiant, and to meet other photographers who can continue to encourage you as you learn.

The Need to knows…

• Sunday, March 28th from 3-6pm at SOLA Coffee Bar (7124 E 5th Avenue Scottsdale, AZ, 85251). And just so you know, Sola is really hard to find!  You have to look on the actual glass on the door, they don’t have a sign above the building like most of the other places in Oldtown Scottsdale do. So leave early and be prepared to use your eagle eyes! ;-)
• $35 a person.  You can pay by check or cash at the door.  The cost includes a drink of your choice and a pastry from Sola!
• Bring. Your camera, a notebook/pen, and happiness.
• RSVP by March 25th. Just reply to this email.
• Questions or lost? Call 480-284-5973.
• Who’s invited? Anyone with a basic knowledge of their own camera that allows manual control of aperture & shutter (preferably a digital SLR).

We hope to see you all there!!!!  I know people always say that, but we mean it! ;-)

I have to say that as Scottie and I have been thinking about Radiant lately, we’ve been getting more than just a little excited.  We are incredibly happy with where we are and where we think we’re going so we just want to take a moment to bask in that relief/excitement… ahhh.  We also have been so overwhelmed with the sheer volume of people who have been coming out of the wood works to show us a ridiculous amount of love and support.  As overused as this phrase is “we wouldn’t have made it here without them”, it is undeniably the truth.  I think there are plenty of people who have done so much and have no idea how much they’ve changed our lives and then there are others who have done things that may seem very insignificant to them, but have been a big deal to us.  Since we’re never going to give an acceptance speech for a Grammy or design an album cover for a CD, it’s unlikely that we’ll have the opportunity to publicly thank the people who so dearly deserve it.  So we’re taking this opportunity to do just that.  I am so afraid to put individual names in here because it is inevitable I will forget some since I’ve only been planning this blog for a few hours rather than a few years and my memory is not always the best.  But I do want to use names because I do really want to honor the individuals who deserve it.  So forgive me if I forget your name, it’s not because I don’t value you, it’s just because I’m not quite as smart as I wish I was!  I do want to warn you that if we were doing this as an acceptance speech, it’s long enough that they would start playing the music to get us off the stage in the first half of it… so no hard feelings if you just want to scan for your name and move on, we know you have a life to get back to. ;-)

Just for the sake of being unconventional and keeping you on your toes, we’re NOT going to start by thanking God, our family, or our best friends.  We want to start with thanking some very specific couples who chose Radiant Photography to shoot their wedding in the past and then have been some of our biggest supporters, referrers, encouragers, Facebook commenters, and are at this point our good friends.  These are the people who have made us realize that we really are doing something valuable with our time and our lives when we invest in the memories they have from the most significant points in their lives.    They value and cherish every single second we’ve spent pouring over their wedding photos and they deem our creative touch as worthy enough to want all their friends to have the same experience they’ve had with us!  These are the people who have gone way out of their way to say more than just “thank you”, but who have told us (though maybe not in these exact words) “we want to devote our time and energy into helping and supporting you because we love who you are and what you do for people”.  So thank you with all our hearts to:

Tracy & Paul

Wes & Moriah (and the rest of their family)

Krystal & Dave

Julie & Andrew

Emily & Mike

Katie & Lawrence

We would’ve quit a long time ago if all of you weren’t in our lives.

So since all of those people I just listed are our friends now, I guess I’ll move on to friends!  We have such amazing friends that I have the same things to say about them as I do about family so I’ll combine the two! These are the people who listen to all the complaints, work around our over busy schedules, suffer through our short fuses that come with too much stress, and most of all… celebrate our success with us.  We try to focus on the good whenever we get the chance and thankfully, we have an amazing family who really does care to hear about that.  Every once in awhile we get really really excited about the things going on with Radiant and we get the urge to share.  Luckily our family gets excited with us and lets us be honest about our successes without thinking we’re just full of ourselves!  I call my mom on a regular basis and say “OK I’m going to brag for a bit, because I know you and dad are probably the only people who brag about me more than I do about myself so I’ll give you some material”.  So thank you from the bottom of our little photographer hearts for listening to both the bad and good, reading our success story emails, proof reading boring stuff for us, lending us things, storing things (props to my mom and dad for letting us fill up their garage), and taking the time to look through the many links to photos we send you. Thank you for choosing to care about the things we care about because you love us.  Our relationships to all of you guys are the highlight of our lives.  In fact, we should probably be sending success stories about our relationships with you all to everyone else, instead of sending success stories about our business to you! :-)  Thank you to both sets of our parents and grandparents… we could never even begin say enough to thank you… there truly are not enough words in the world to explain (so we’ll spare our readers their time and leave it at that!).  Thanks to the rest of our family: aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins (especially to Jeff, Amy, Bethany, and Kelly for your excitement about Radiant).  Thanks to our friends: Erik & Chelsea, Amanda, Sharon & Pat, Jay & Chelsea, Sandy, Mark & Meg, Chuck & Toni, Molly & Ryan, and Tim & Liz.  You guys are all UNBELIEVABLE and we hope to learn how to be as good of friends to all of you as you have been to us!

Here are some pics of our family playing around in our photobooth at Christmas…

(My cousin Bethany and me!)

(Bethany’s husband Brandon, Scottie, and my cousin Jeff)

(Cousin Jeff, Brandon, Cousin Ashley, my brother Ross, and Scottie)

(My cousin Amy and her daughter Tatum… I love any pics of the two of them playing together like this!)

(Best pic of my aunt Gaylene ever!)

(My mom Kathy, my nephew Jimmy, and me)

This next group are the people who might be the most surprised to be included because many of them have no idea what a great impact they’ve had on our work and on our spirits as we’ve pushed through day to day struggles with our company.  These people are other photographers who have in one way or another encouraged us, helped us, lent us things, taught us things… and done so many other things for us both big and small that have helped us get to where we are.  Since these people may unsure as to exactly what they’ve done to help us, I’m going to explain a little bit about each one.  Chelsea Hudson… you have become such an amazing, wonderful friend to us and it is SO good to have someone we know and trust to talk business with or just to relate to on normal life issues.  Thank you for your immediate acceptance of us as friends and for teaching us how to have great relationships without the sting of competition!  Jefferson Todd (the photographer who shot OUR wedding)… thank you for spending time with us and helping us figure out the ropes when we were newbies.  You saved us so much pain and work (and tax penalties!) by allowing us to learn from your experience instead of having to learn the hard way.  Thanks for caring enough to get involved.  Becca Knight (from Studio 222)…. I know you may not think you’ve done much for us, but we want to assure you that you have!  You were the first photography that we truly admired who began commenting on our blog.  You made us feel “big time” even if it was just an illusion ;-)  and we would get so excited every time you sat down to read our blog and comment.  It was a big encouragement that someone who is as talented and cool as you are, really liked our work and our blog!  Thanks for taking the time, we hope we’ll make it down to Florida and get to meet you one of these days!  While I’m at it… thank you to ALL the photographers who comment on our blog.  It’s a huge compliment to hear from others in the industry who are fans of our work.  And as I’m sure you know well, we all have days where we just need that ego boost!!  I feel weird thanking a messaging board, and maybe it’s lame but I don’t care because it’s absolutely necessary if this list is to be complete because really, we learned most of what we know about photography and the business from Open Source Photo.  So thanks to David Jay and all those great working minds behind it that have brought us to where we are.  Without OSP, we’d just be 2 people who liked looking at pictures a lot during our rare spare time between our 9 to 5 jobs that we hated.  And most of all, we want to thank Tim and Shauna (from Visionyard Studios)… all of this started with them.  Thank you guys for all the time spent working with us, helping us, critiquing us, and pushing us to be our best.  And also thank you a million times over for all the laughs and the unforgettable moments.  We never would’ve considered photography as a career and we never would have succeeded in making it one if it wasn’t for the fact that we got to start it all off with people we love so much.

(This is us with Jefferson Todd at our wedding!)

(This is Tim and Shauna with Visionyard. You have to just imagine Tim smiling… because he usually is! Ha ha).

And I’m not done yet!!  We have a lot of other vendors who refer us to brides and who encourage us regularly as well (can you tell yet, that we REALLY value encouragement?!).  Some of these people have worked with literally hundreds of photographers and have decided that we are one of their favorites.  These people put their neck on the line every time they tell a bride to give us a call because it is a huge step of faith to recommend another company.  If we mess up in any way… the reputation of the person who refers us gets damaged.  So THANK YOU to all of our vendors who trust enough to put their reputations and the work they do on weddings into our hands to take care of.  We are forever mindful that you are such a major part of our success and as a result, we are forever grateful to you for that.  Thank you to:

Carrie (at Stonecreek Golf Club… see her on our blog)

Dawn (at Ancala Country Club… see her on our blog)

Nic and Gina (at Eagle Mountain Golf Club… see them on our blog)

April (at Arizona Golf Resort… see her on our blog)

Sue (with Suzan M. Flowers… see her on our blog)

Molly (with A Simple Touch Wedding Decor… see her on our blog)

And also Margie (with Party Presentations) as well as Sandy (with In Awe Weddings and Events).  Thank you all for your badge of approval… we wear it proudly!

The people who put the most confidence in us are the actually couples who choose us for this oh so important task! I definitely have to thank all our brides who have put faith in us and trusted us with something that is so unbelievably valuable to them. Our couples have worked with us through all sorts of circumstances and they see us go through a gamete of emotions on the wedding day… and they still love us through it all!  Thank you… all of you… for being so fantastic to work with.  We really have yet to have a couple that we haven’t felt some sort of connection with.  We’ve definitely been blessed beyond belief that you all have treated us so kindly and have always had nothing but grace, compassion, and encouragement to extend to us.  You are ALL wonderful and we truly mean that with everything in us (from the top of our heads to the bottom of our tippy toes).

There’s no way to thank God without it being cheesy enough that everyone reading will roll their eyes (definitely overdone) but let me just say that I wrote a list in my journal when we first started Radiant of 50 HUGE things that worked out just perfectly, at the exact right time, fitting together in the most opportune way, that can’t be explained, that affected the functioning of the universe… all that made Radiant possible.  Radiant is nothing short of a miracle, so thanks God.

And as any good award acceptance speech would say… “I’d like to thank our fans”.  But to break the mold just a little bit I’ll say, “I’d like to thank our FACEBOOK fans” as well as our loyal blog readers. Your comments make our world go round.  And in true Facebook fashion, I’ll keep my comments about you short and sweet… but very deeply meant.

I also want to thank Bearhug for letting us use their SWEEEEET music on our website.  We looked the whole wide world over for the perfect sound for our site and we were positively elated when we found it (especially since they’re right here in good ‘ole AZ), but even more so when they actually said we could use it!!!!  Help us repay the favor and fan them on Facebook!

If you made it all the way to the bottom, be sure to put a little smiley face as a comment before you leave just as a badge of honor that shows you made it all the way through our long-windedness, that way we can be sure to thank YOU for your patience next time! :-)

Much Love,

Scottie & Breanna Chanson

In 2009 Radiant Photography….

• Got 1,100 Facebook fans (the most popular Facebook languages: English-US, English-UK, English- Pirate).
• Had 4,794 first time visitors to our website (from 55 different countries!).
• Had 2,679 first time visitors to our blog.
• Had 2 destination weddings (we count New Mexico and California!).
• Paid off  all debt to become a debt free company.
• Financially supported 6 different non-profit organizations.
• Started doing “Unique Sessions“
• Launched “The Radiant Photobooth“
• Re-designed and launched a new website.
• Was a LOT of work.
• Was a LOT of fun.

And my favorite part of all of 2009….

People found our blog when they searched the following phrases on google (all spelling is exactly how it was searched):

• “giggling bride”
• “a picture of a baibre trampoline with numbers on it”
• “America’s got talent zebra hat girls”
• “barbie shoes wedding”
• “carried off into the sunset photos o wedding days”
• “dear Mr. Technology”
• “gooey peppermint”
• “help get rid of foster care”
• “how to man up a little brother”
• “pool table cake picture”
• “pregnancy picture poses outside in white gown with older brother”
• “prostitute chandler Arizona” (there’s a good reason for this one, so don’t freak out!)
• “what is genuine love” (this person actually spent awhile on our site, so maybe they found the answer!).

Thanks to all our fans, family, and friends who supported us this year!  Thank you for telling everyone you know about us to help create our success this year! We love you all!

I would like you to meet Matt.

We were the photographers at Matt & Amy’s wedding.

(see, this is Amy).

Matt was also a groomsman at a wedding with the Radiant Photobooth.

Where Amy was a bridesmaid as well.

Then Matt was at a party with the Radiant Photobooth….

…a Christmas party…

…with Amy.

Now Matt has earned the title “King of the Radiant Photobooth“!Amy is of course (by rightful earning), Queen.

Thank you, Your Majesties, for helping the Radiant Photobooth be all that it can be!

We want to see you in there again sometime very, very soon.

If you are one of the many people who have recently asked yourself “are Scottie and Breanna still alive”?  Now you know why we’ve been MIA for so long.  It takes a lot of time to create majesty.  Okay, that MIGHT be overdoing it…just a little bit.  We’ve been heavy under the task of re-doing our website!  Rather I should say Scottie has been redesigning the site, I was more what you’d call “creative director” aka “annoying-detail oriented- nit picking- control freak”; something more along those lines.

So please, please, please make all of our time spent locked up in our cave (office) worth it and go check out our new website!  We’re more excited about it than anyone should ever be about a website… so we want to share it with the world!

I’ll give you a few teaser photos so that you can’t help but go check it out, even if your kids are screaming, your boss is looking over your shoulder (show him too!), or your to do list is a mile long.  Take a load off, fill up your coffee mug, and kick back while you get immersed in all the beauty and emotion of a wedding day.

(These are all photos from the Unique Session in our portfolio so make sure you check that out!)

CLICK TO GO SEE OUR NEW WEBSITE!!