Through Wendy’s Lens-shaped Heart

Can we talk about Rumi’s brilliance for a moment? As always, he articulates so poetically and efficiently how we each celebrate life with this single line – “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

If you are anything like me you know the heart thumping, soul calming, sight clearing joy that comes with revering the present moment. That seed of thought that sings “CELEBRATE NOW”, this moment right here and everything that it has taken you to become the bright, smart, capable and successful individual you are.

If there was one thing I would want to be famous for it was that each person I touched completed their day having felt, expressed and known that today is an outright MIRACLE. That it is the gift of generations before who are responsible for our even existing and for our own lifetime of experience and choices that have led us to this moment right now. What a wonder that we get to live this day in a way of our choosing and that how you pass your time is your particular flavor of kneeling and kissing the ground.

Can I be bold? I suggest you take the next few moments noticing and acknowledging what a fu**ing marvel your life is and to celebrate it! Right now, give it a go, as loud and lovely as you’d like it be!

And just like that in hundreds of ways, we kneel and kiss the ground!

Exuberantly in celebration with you,

p.s. HEY, did you hear about our celebration special? Our brand beautiful new website launched this week and we are celebrating by offer $500 OFF YOUR DEPOSIT when you book your 2018 Brand Photoshoot. We have dates available in Florence, Paris, New York, San Francisco, London, Vienna, Amsterdam and Los Angeles! Contact us today at service@wendykyalom.com to learn more about my capturing you in celebration of your life and your brand!

To photograph is to hold one’s breath and all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

I’ve never before heard the act I perform so often described so accurately as Henri Cartier-Bresson did here.

This is my fifth summer spending a month is Paris and even writing that I get a huge smile on my face and think “OMG, holy-huh? Seriously?!?! Wow! Wow! ” Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined this gorgeous experience would be my life. That my time, my precious life, my day by day would be spent feeling as at home on the road and in beautiful Paris as I do anywhere, that my work would be spending luxurious days with incredibly smart open inspiring women, that I would get to use all my faculties and creativity to capture a fleeting gorgeous moment in their lives, one that defines them, their brands, their success and inspires other to say yes to dreams, to boldly, courageously and to recognize that they too are able to live beyond their wildest dreams.

Around this time of year, do you start to take stock of where life has led you, of what you have accomplished and what more there is you want to fulfill? I do and with just a few months left in 2017, I find myself focused to make each day, each photoshoot, each adventure one that is exceeds even my wildest dreams.

Here is to you living the last few months of 2017 with joy, courage and a whole lot of YES!

Humbled, Happy (beyond measure) and Grateful for the continued adventure,

p.s BIG NEWS!!  We have just FIVE 2017 photoshoot dates left ; LA, San Francisco, New Orleans and Miami. Is one meant for you? If you are curious to discover if one is, contact us today for more details at www.wendykyalom.com/contact or by emailing us at service@wendykyalom.com

Saying that I feel satiated from my weekend on the Amalfi is an understatement. More like feeling uplifted, relaxed, energized, happy, fulfilled. I spent the weekend doing most of the things I love most marveling at the no words for how beautiful it is landscape and sea, I ate soo well, I had more than one adventurous workout, I read, I laid in the sun, I wore dresses and my Bikini and yup, pretty much did exactly as I wanted in each moment. Now, home to Paris for 10 shoots in the next two weeks and 1 this week in London! Could not be more excited and energized!

A year ago I was on a small boat in Positano headed to a restaurant/beach club and on the way passed this incredible spot. I soooo wanted to be here on that sea side deck. It was an “omg, I want to stay there. I’m going to take a picture to remember it” moment.

I had plans this coming weekend to be in Cinque Terre, non-refundable tickets bought, hotels secured with deposit and the more I exploredcinque terre on line the less excited I felt, I kept thinking “it will be fun, you’ll explore, you’ll find great stuff”

I was talking myself into going. Do you ever do that? Try to talk yourself into being excited about something you are not. AND as much as I travel it is rare that I choose to go somewhere just for me and not for a shoot so what was I doing? I asked myself where would I WANT to go and all I could think was Amalfi, I kept coming back to Amalfi so I hopped on hotels.com and started to explore what was available and this exact hotel kept coming up again and again and I kept thinking “nooo, too expensive.” “nooo, I already booked all that travel to cinque terre, just go” and “nooo, you’ll have to buy another train ticket and return flight and then a car to get you to Positano.” AND my God, I couldn’t get it out of my head so I decided to go for it, to splurge and it wasn’t until I booked and started to explore the website that I remembered this moment on that boat thinking to myself “I want to be there”.

Feeling so much fortune in this moment to have a rewarding career, strong and loving friendships and the opportunity to fulfill a dream such as this. Wow. So anyway, yup, ecstatic.

As a spiritually awake woman with a message, a calling, a purpose, do you ever noticed how the wisdom of many spiritual teachings is actually holding you back instead of pulling you forward? That it is easy to think that having a spiritual life is somehow antithetical to having a successful business? How did we get those so confused? I imagine that in the 1970s when many Westerners turned toward the wisdom of the ancient spiritual traditions it was because culture had swung so far away from living a holistic rich life that we needed as a culture to swing in the opposite direction. We needed to want for something other than a life where we worked 40 hour weeks, came home to the same stuck routine and eventually retired, where success was hooked into a culture of competition where our achievement was dependent on someone else’s failure. We needed to want for something OTHER than climbing a ladder to a career that may offer us financial comfort but little in the realm of health, happiness or fulfillment! We turned to the Christian principles of living a life of virtue, we looked to Buddhism’s doctrine of doing everything in our lives with present time awareness and acceptance, Yoga’s 8-limbs taught us to cultivate a path of devotion to uniting the body, mind and spirit.

Sounds great, right? But too many threw the baby out with the bathwater and here is why that became a problem for us purpose driven women entrepreneurs with big hearts minds and dreams –

Desire was anathema to appreciating the present moment. Striving for success was inherently aggressive. Having a well developed sense of self was egoic. Temperance was a virtue and Pride was a deadly sin.

Some of us may not even recognize how these ideas are keeping us from being the influential women we were put on this planet to be. I didn’t.

It was 6 years ago and I was by all accounts an accomplished physical yogi, my body was adept at all kinds of miraculous postures that I never imagined it would be. I was in a 9am class on a Saturday morning with one of my favorite teachers and I noticed that I was holding back, I felt this inkling of pride at what I was capable of and decided it was better not to fully actualize the pose then risk coming across as “show-offey”, striving, egoic or “unspiritual”.

It hit me, I had made PRIDE a dirty word. That not wanting to stand out was making me contain, hold back, not GIVE everything I had to give, not be all that I could be. It took some gentle belief rejiggering and more than one external affirmation from another yogi (“Your practice is so inspiring!”) before I was able to truly OWN it.

Today, I think the pull of pride might actually be the creative impulse of the universe goading us to realize our fullest potential. The whisper that encourages us to design an envy-worthy brand, that asks us to express fully in our eka-pada rajakapotasana (for you yogis out there!), that coaxes us onto that stage to share straight from the source, that puts our mind to writing that book proposal and submitting it to our dream publisher, that wants us to say YES to our hearts desire even if our logical mind has a million and one reasons not to! I’m curious if I would have gotten anywhere on this journey of success if I had not embraced the feeling of pride.

This week at Wendy Yalom Photography, we’ve been going through the personal branding gallery and selecting images for marketing and I feel soooo flippin’ proud! Like “OMG, look at that! I made that? Omg, this woman that I am created so much beauty I can hardly believe it.” I’m doing my pride dance right now. The part that gets me every single time is that most of my clients don’t even know how beautiful, inspiring, photogenic and courageous they are. Before our working together, they hadn’t realized how proud they would feel of their photos, how gorgeous they would recognize themselves to be and how those photos would become a physical expression of the great work they were put on this planet to do.

Now, I’m on a mission to put the bootie-shaking joy back into feeling proud of ourselves, into making succeeding a cause for celebration and to being bold with our brand and willingness to be seen a HALLELUJAH-worthy action! Want to join me? I hope so.

Feeling damn proud,

p.s We want to add your gorgeousness to our gallery! Curious about having a personal branding photoshoot in 2016? We are now booking July – October (Holy wow!!) with a small handful of photoshoots available in April and June. Contact us today by clicking here if NOW is your time.

When John Lennon made iconic the proposition to “be called a dreamer” nearly 45 years ago, it was assumed that by becoming a dreamer, we would dream of a life without separating beliefs, desires, attachments. We would find harmony through letting go of our individual need to succeed, to achieve, to create. We were encouraged to give up our independent desires in service to a collective consciousness of love and peace and freedom for the whole.

Who doesn’t want a world of love and peace and freedom for the whole?

But what if John Lennon had it wrong? What if every dream to succeed, to achieve, to create (however illogical) that you are currently entertaining was seeded because your mission, your life of purpose and the Freedom of the whole is intrinsically linked to it’s realization? What if it was Robert Frost who nailed it when he said Freedom lies in being bold!

If you had asked me a decade ago if I could imagine my life looking, succeeding as, being what it is today, I would have to say YES, Of course I could imagine it. It all begins with a dream. In the case of my business, it was the dream of being a globe trotting photographer who serves women that she loves in locations that excite and inspire her and together collaborate on bringing out their unique essence, their unique physical, spiritual and professional gorgeousness for the camera, the world, her to see. I sometimes have people ask me if I ever still take photos for fun anymore and I look at them slack jawed and say “You know what I do, right?!? What could I possible photograph that would be more fun than that?”

Now when you ask me about my dream, it’s a dream where each of my clients is thriving and inspired and where their particular flavor of bootie-kicking brilliance is being actively sought after. It’s a dream where I continue to serve the dreams of you and women like you who are leading with chutzpah and style and making a real difference in the lives of your friends, family, community and the world. It is a dream where together we continue to boldly shape the future into one where everyone we meet is living a happy, healthy and awakened life.

Ready to capture iconic, dazzling “OMG, I LOVE THEM” photographs in a location that leaves you ecstatic?? We have just a handful of Personal Branding Photoshoots still available the first half of 2016. Contact us today and let us hear about your dream!

To your dreams,

In the last 12 months, I’ve traveled over 75,000 miles (by air?!?!!?), captured close to 80 successful and spectacular Personal Branding Photoshoots, half a dozen omg-so-beautiful weddings, 4 kick-a** live events, hundreds of miles purposefully wandered through 7 different countries and I feel more content than ever before. I love my home, my incredible clients, my gorgeous friends. In 2015, by the Grace of God and necessity itself, I gave up worrying and it is impossible to quantify the positive impact this has had on my well being. I’m in awe, each year at this time of year, I’m left with that “drop to my knees tears in my eyes thank you” and just now for the first time in my life do I get that the spiral continues onward and upward as long as I’m willing to let it take me.

What 2016 has to hold, I am in anticipation and delight to discover.