I love being involved in my local community and specifically with the Filipino community in Kansas City. My mother is from the Philippines and has always instilled in us never to forget “where we came from.” So even though my sisters and I were born here in the United States, we hold true to a lot of the traditions and cultures from the Philippines and are active in the local Filipino community and events.

I was honored when my friend, past client, and editor-in-chief, Nescelle Caberto, asked me to submit an article to be featured in the “Meet Our Faces in the Community” in the Tambuli Newsletter, a monthly newsletter sent out to the members of the Filipino Association here in Kansas City where I discuss my career path in photography and how I got to where I am today.

Read my article in the “Meet Our Faces in the Community” section of the Tambuli Newsletter.

Download the April 2012 Edition of the Tambuli Newsletter. I am featured on pages 12-13.

In Hawaii they say Aloha. In the Philippines we say Mabuhay. It is a warm welcome from a truly sincere and hospitable people. Filipinos are a sociable group with strong family ties. So join us and share the joy and togetherness that is the Filipino Association of Greater Kansas City!

My very first attempt at making a video! Enjoy!

Starring: Katherine Summers
Paul Mitchell The School – Overland Park (Kansas City) Beauty & Cosmetology School

Song: “I Gotta Feeling” – The Black Eyed Peas
Photos & Video by Pure in Art Photography
Shot with Canon 5D Mark III and 24-70 2.8

So we paid our lunch bill and went to the ER at Shawnee Mission Medical Center where they rushed me to the back after we told them the blood results and they did numerous blood tests and a full body exam. They confirmed what the blood test results was true. They sent me to a room upstairs to keep me overnight for observation and to infuse platelets into my blood and start me on heavy dose of a steroid called prednisone. I found out that platelets are blood cells whose primary function is to clot your blood and to prevent bleeding. Well a normal platelet count is 150,000 to 400,000… and that morning they were 28,000. They told me that at 10,000, people can bruise all over their body and at 5,000, you can start to bleed through your skin. So basically I couldn’t move without getting scared that if I got hurt or hit my head, that I would have bleeding that potentially wouldn’t stop, because my blood wasn’t clotting.

They told me I have an autoimmune disesase called ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura) where basically my body is attacking and killing my own platelets. It is seeing them as foreign to my body and trying to get rid of them. Idiopathic means unknown cause. Great. So now I have something that isn’t good and we have no idea what caused it.

The next day they said my platelets had risen to 60,000, which is still very dangerous, and that I will need to continue on my prednisone treatment. I started seeing a hematologist at Kansas City Cancer Center once every two weeks and they instructed me to start at 60mg/day and eventually I would taper off, as with this steroid you do not want to immediately stop taking it after long periods of time, otherwise you can relapse. So this steroid treatment went on for 4 months, meanwhile my platelet count went back to the normal range. I really struggled being on prednisone because I ate… a lot… and consequently I had gained about 20 pounds and my face got very round in shape, they call it “moon face,” all symptoms of taking prednisone for extended periods of time. I was very embarrassed about the way I looked and felt, because I couldn’t do anything about it.

In April, they did a blood test one month after I ended treatment and all my counts were still normal. Then I went back in the summer at my 3 month follow-up and I got devastating news. My platelet count had dropped down just below 40,000. At this point, I felt like I went through so much and had such strong faith that everything was going to work and then I hear that the treatment was unsuccessful… I felt the world crashing down around me. I sat in my car and just cried. I had never felt so angry at God for putting me through all of that for it to just. not. work. I then picked up my head and cried out that I know he has a plan for me and that I know he is taking care of me and prayed for the strength to get through this. Because at this point, prayer and hope is all I had.

Over the next couple of months I had gone back to my hematologist every two weeks to get my blood drawn just to be told over and over again that my numbers aren’t getting any better. They said you can live with low platelets, you just have to be very cautious about what you do and to make sure you don’t get hurt. I didn’t want to live a life that felt so fragile, I wanted to live it to the fullest.. and in this body… I just couldn’t. So I asked him about other treatment options. I didn’t want to go through the prednisone treatment again. So he suggested something that I didn’t know was possible for my condition… chemotherapy. Well what I have isn’t cancer, so I didn’t understand. They told me it’s not the same type of chemo that is given to cancer patients, but it is a drug called Rituxan, which targets specific cells that are killing my body’s platelets. So with a lot of anxiety, I said yes, let’s do it. It’s the only chance I have at living a normal life again, free of worry. So over the next month, I had four rounds of chemotherapy. Every Monday morning I would show up at the cancer center and they hooked me up to an IV and dripped this drug into my blood stream. The first round was rough. I had IV cords draped all over me and needles in both arms. It started out well.. just like receiving saline solution. Well every 30 minutes they would increase the speed of the IV drip and see how I tolerated it. Well after about 3 increases, my eyes immediately started itching and my throat got tight and itchy and my chest hurt. I was scared. All of a sudden I was surrounded by nurses and doctors and they were giving me lots of allergies medicines and telling me to calm down. They stopped the treatment and gave me a heavy dose of benedryl. They said I had an allergic reaction to the drug and that the benedryl should help with that and so they had to start the dripping back at the beginning. The first day I was there for over 8 hours. The last three treatments went smoother and quicker (for me) because they gave me a ton of benedryl to start off with, and it put me right to sleep, and my treatments from then on were about 6 hours long. I was so thankful because my husband, parents, and sisters all came to stay with me, bring me food, chat, and take my mind off of the treatment. I think the scariest part was that I was surrounded by numerous patients every time who were being treated for cancer. It was very sad to me to hear some of their stories, but a blessing because it showed me how much hope and faith people still had, despite what they were going through.

Now… today… it is exactly one year to date since when I completed chemotherapy. I had my one year follow-up this afternoon. I had a lot of anxiety going into my appointment today. As soon as I walked into the building, the smell of the office immediately revoked memories and it almost brought me to tears thinking about everything I had experienced in this building.

Today… I can joyously say that, as of right now, I am healed. My platelet count today was 193,000.  Praise be to God.

Writing this is one of the hardest things I have done in a very long time. It took a lot of strength to hold back tears the whole time I was writing it, as I had stored these memories in the back of my head for so long… and today, as I wrote this, I feel like I relived it all over again. So this is my testimony. It is with this that I share the amazing power of prayer and to tell you how he has a plan for each and every one of us, even if we think that we can’t live through another day or that life is too tough at the moment.

I had been debating whether or not I wanted to post this on my photography business blog page, but I wanted to testify that what happens in my personal life can and has affected my photography business and why I do what I do. If it wasn’t for me going through this, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have the same outlook on life and same perspective in my business. I have met so many inspiring people along the way and have developed wonderful relationships with both local photographers and my clients. I value life so much more and I love to capture people for who they are and to tell their story… timeless pictures that even their grandkids and great-grandkids will cherish long after they’re gone.

This is a story I have shared with many and because of that I have had abundant prayers and support from all of  my friends and family. And why I have such faith in God and the power of prayer.

It is what drives my passion.

If you are just getting into photography or you have been in the field for awhile, I would strongly encourage you to make friends in this industry, they will be there to push, strengthen, share, teach, and encourage you. Plus it’s really nice to have other people to talk about photography with that share the same passion. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for my great group of friends I have made this year. Love you all!

I also do wide range of freelance graphic designs for clients all over the country.

Here is a brochure I designed this week for a chiropractor in South Carolina on the topic of childhood vaccinations. You can find out more about their story and mission at ChildhoodShots.com and BioNutritionalCare.com.

One of my good friends is a youth pastor at a church in Overland Park, Kansas. I designed a t-shirt for their youth group for a mission trip they will be taking this summer to Springfield, Missouri at The Kitchen Inc.

And one last design I recently finished is a peacock-themed wedding invitation for Keith Short and Keighsy Vitug, whose wedding I’m shooting later this summer! Can’t wait!!

When your camera’s sync speed is only around 1/250th, shooting fast-paced action in locations with lots of ambient light means working around some tricky problems, like balancing color temperature and dealing with motion blur. Photographers are usually forced to use smaller apertures, taking away an element of creative control.

PocketWizard’s HyperSync technology allows you to fine-tune the timing of your flash to achieve the maximum possible sync speed of your equipment, which could be as fast as 1/8000th of a second on full flash power. Real life example: if you would like to light your subject with a flash while using a wide-open aperture to keep distracting background elements out of focus, high speed flash sync can solve this problem! Your flash unit can provide the light to properly expose your subject, and the high shutter speed will allow a correctly exposed (or even underexposed!) background to dramatically separate your subject from the background. Check out Mark Wallace’s video about the HyperSync Technology.

My beautiful sister, Katherine, modeled for me while I did my first practice shots with my new PocketWizard. Having an off-camera flash allows for great control of ambient light and can also create really pretty pictures and drama by not having the flash directly pointed at your subject.

We thought it would be funny (although Lincoln didn’t find it too humorous) to throw my puppy in the air. He did this weird pose every single time we tossed him in the air, he would put his front legs straight down in front of him and his back legs right out to the sides to balance him. He surprisingly never freaked out… he just acted like he was really pissed at us after we did it each time. Oh well.. it was fun! And Cody had fun treating him like a basketball throwing him several feet in the air.I love when my husband, Cody, let’s me photograph him.. since it’s once in a blue moon. His main motivation though was because I could make him look like he’s an alien dropping down from the sky, which turned out pretty cool! hahhaha

I loved those little salt and pepper shakers hugging each other!! This café is located RIGHT behind the entrance to the Overland Park Farmer’s Market, located just west of Metcalf between 79th and 80th Streets. It is a thriving open-air market that offers produce, flowers, specialty foods and entertainment for the entire family. It is open right now from 7am til about noon (just make sure you go on a Saturday morning, at least until June, otherwise there won’t be anyone there! lol).

They have some delicious coffee and specialty drinks here! My favorite is the Black and White Mocha!

What a perfect *and oh so delicous* breakfast! They also have really good breakfast sandwiches and oatmeal!

Great-Day Greg plays the flute, clarinet, and sax every Wednesday and Anne Marie Timmons plays her accordion on third Fridays.

My beautiful gramma waits patiently for her food *and the server thought I was asleep because my head was down to the table, looking through the lens, while I was taking this picture* haha!!

We spent the first half of each day at Silver Dollar City, a theme park in the Ozark Mountains where you feel like you step back in time to an 1880′s craft village filled with the crafts, thrill rides, carnival attractions, southern gospel music festivals, and the best food ever! There I saw the biggest dutch apple pie I’ve ever seen, a 40 pound monster of a pie! We also spent about an hour on a half a mile walk down under the earth touring Marvel Cave that had the most beautiful natural formations, located beneath Silver Dollar City.

One of our favorite attractions was the world famous blown glass! They make several bowls, cups, etc. right in front of us and their collection of all the glass work was just breathtaking. Even though it was like 50 degrees and cloudy most of our vacation, the sun started to pop out at the end of the first day + I had a poncho = me shooting little kids on the River Blast with water guns for about 30 minutes!!

My dad and Cody were off watching a saloon show while Cynda and I went to a pie baking class at the Culinary School and the boys told us that they got some kettle corn.. kettle corn is one of my favorite things so I couldn’t wait til we met up with them, so we each got 2 large bags of kettle corn, YUM! I loved all of the carnival rides at Silver Dollar City!

We saw this sign posted up at Silver Dollar City for this dangerous couple of a sexy cowboy and saloon girl.

We finished off our vacation at Lambert’s Cafe, home of the throwed rolls, located in Springfield, Missouri. The food was delicious and we almost all caught some rolls (except my dad wasn’t very good at this part, so he had to throw one to himself, lol). Overall, our vacation was a nice break from regular life and we had so much fun going back to my favorite childhood town and acting like we were kids again!

Daddy’s Girl. That’s me. Me and my daddy have always been really close. I’m the oldest of my sisters so I took on the role of mentoring (and sometimes torturing lol) my little sisters. They looked up to me like I looked up to my daddy.

I remember going on vacations every year, especially to Branson, Missouri. There was something very comforting about traveling with my daddy at the wheel. I’ve always had really pretty bad anxiety being in a car but I always felt safe when he was driving and knew he was in control. I knew that even though I was scared at that moment that he would always get me/us where we needed to be. The more I got to places safe (and in one piece) I would be reaffirmed that I would be okay, and felt comforted because I knew I could trust him. A song I frequently think about and just about brings me to tears every time I hear the lyrics is “Jesus Take The Wheel” by Carrie Underwood.

Jesus take the wheel
Take it from my hands
Cause I can’t do this on my own
I’m letting go
So give me one more chance
Save me from this road I’m on
Jesus take the wheel

I don’t know about you, but I know I have had several moments in my life when I thought I knew and felt like I was in control of everything, and then something would happen and all of a sudden life would start plunging down hill like a roller coaster. Those are the moments when I realize that I am helpless by myself and that I can’t do it on my own, I just have to trust that God is watching over me, and will help me back up.

Cody and I have are a little behind with watching popular TV shows but now that we have Netflix, we have been catching up on shows that our friends were always talking about. Right now we are watching Grey’s Anatomy from the beginning. In season 2, Cristina is upset and struggling with herself when there’s no more, medically, that they can do after the little boy’s body won’t accept the new heart. Dr. Burke responded, “The way you’re feeling right now, it’s why I have to believe in something bigger than me.  Because if I didn’t, that powerlessness would eat me alive.”

I truly believe that if it wasn’t for my faith, I wouldn’t be where I am now, as a person and as a photographer, or perhaps even a photographer at all. Because of it I have a true passion for life and a desire to touch other people’s hearts through my work. It has helped me take risks and be genuine, not to be afraid through all of my insecurities. I know he has a plan for me.

Interestingly, and on a completely different note, this weekend my dad and step mom are taking Cody and I on a mini vacation to Branson! We are going to go to Silver Dollar City, Kirby Van Burch’s Magic Show, Shepherd of the Hills (an outdoor theatre presenting Harold Bell Wright’s epic story of love, loss, power, hardship, and the true meaning of life) and ending the weekend stuffing ourselves at Lambert’s Cafe in Springfield, Missouri… home of the throwed rolls. I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time now… can’t wait!!

Thank you daddy for always being there for me through prayer and support. I love you.

I present to you the many faces of our maltese: Afro pup. “I didn’t do it.” Testing out momma’s newborn prop. The never-ending long and never-stop-licking tongue. You only tell me to roll over, daddy teaches me how to play Playstation. I hate baths. Static cling. Gramma Lezlie dyed me green with food coloring. I’m trapped and I can’t get out. Ebony and Ivory. Mohawker. I want you to take pictures of me mommy, not that baby in the luggage. Ptoooey I don’t like you daddy.

So one day she asked God, “They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow.
But how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?”

God replied, “Among the many angels, I chose one for you.”

“But tell me, here in Heaven, I don’t do anything else but sing and smile.
That’s enough for me to be happy.”

God said “Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you every day.
You will feel your angel’s love and be very happy.”

“How am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me?
I don’t know the language that men talk.”

“Your angel will teach you how to speak.”

“And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?”

God said “Your angel will place your hands
together and teach you how to pray.”

“I’ve heard that on earth there are bad men. Who will protect me?”

“Your angel will defend you even if it means risking its life.”

“But I will always be sad because I will not see You anymore.”

“Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach you the way
for you to come back to me, even though I will always be next to you.”

At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices
from earth could already be heard, and the child asked in a hurry,
“Oh God, if I am about to leave now, please tell me my angel’s name.”

God silenced all fear when He said, “Your angel’s name is
of no importance. You will simply call her ‘Mommy’.”

Mommy, today we celebrate you. You are my angel.

And to the other special mothers in my life, including my step mom, Cynda, my mother-in-law, Lezlie,
my Gramcracker, Gramma Meman, and my sister Beth, who is expecting her second child this year:
I am very thankful you are all in my life, you are so special to me and I look up to all of you as role models for
how I want to love and treat my children, if God decides to bless me with one of my own some day.
Thank you for all you do for our family and I hope you had a wonderful mother’s day.

… Something I designed for my mommy to remind her of how important she is in our lives.

I remember mine. For some reason, I ALWAYS had a runny nose and watery eyes on the first day of school growing up. Always. Never the day before. Never the day after, just the first day of school. I remember specifically bringing two boxes of Kleenex the every year to be prepared. My friends and teachers always thought I was sick or something. I think ( in combination with season allergies) my nerves got the best of me, my body tensed up and then the waterworks started.

That’s how I feel RIGHT now.

I feel like it’s the first day of school all over again. I’m nervous starting out on this journey of photography and blogging.

I’m not a writer, nor do I promise I ever will be. But who knows, maybe going through this process of writing a blog will help me overcome that. I may say some things that embarrass me (i.e. the beginning of this post), I don’t live life too seriously and I like to tell it how it is, but I WILL do this because have high goals and aspirations for my photography business and that is why I’m pressing on through all of my anxiety to not only bring you beautiful images seen through my lens, but also to find out more about photography to really appreciate its value, and to learn some about me and what inspires me.

If you want to come along for the ride, come back here once a day, check out my new blog posts and leave me comments. I will be posting recent photo shoots,  some personal posts about my puppy and my faith, photography tips, and more. Let me know what you like, if there’s something you’d like me to blog about, or to just let me know someone is listening.

So here it goes. My first official blog post. And since I’m a photographer, I can’t end this without some pictures of course. Here are some I photographed my absolutely beautiful friend, Bekah, a children and family photographer in Olathe, KS. We’ve been going to the same church for awhile, we had just never ran into each other, but it was fate that it happened sometime. We go together like two peas in a pod, PB&J, we never have a dry moment, we can just talk and talk and talk and we had a blast together! We had a practice photo shoot where we took pictures of each other to learn more about our new cameras (we both just got a 5D Mark II!!), using reflectors, posing, learning about “good” light and how to deal with it in any situation (such as this day when we shot at high-noon, a photographer’s absolute worst nightmare because the light is so harsh. Anyways, here are a few:

Isn’t she just stunning! Look at those gorgeous brown eyes!

And just for kicks.. here is her being silly using the reflector.

Take a moment and check out my new website. Here you can learn a little bit more about me, my style, and my vision. I will be posting all of my recent photography work as I embark into the world of photography. Also, you can view some of my recent work on my portfolio page.

Also don’t forget to visit my facebook page at www.facebook.com/pureinart!