Guys! Lots of exciting things are happening!
1. Today JZP was featured on the Society Bride blog in two posts. Huzzah!
2. I’m in the works with the WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL, SUPER-SWEET Elise of Hey, Sweet Pea on getting a new logo designed. It’s gonna be awesome and I can’t wait to release it when it’s finished. Double Huzzah! Here is the mood board Elise put together based off the ideas/words/vision I expressed to her.
3. I KNOOOOOOW I’ve been the worst slacker blogger in the world, but would you believe me if I told you that I’ve just been so stinkin’ busy with shoots and weddings that I can’t keep up with my blogging in the midst of all the editing? The GOOD news is that I’ve been keeping the JZP facebook “like” page well updated with all of my most recent weddings and shoots. Have no fear! You can see my recent work HERE:
 
Buuuuut while I’m herrrrrre . . . Here are just a few of my most recent favorites:
Don’t I just work with THE loveliest people?! Yes. The answer is yes.
4. What was that? Oh, the husband and second-shooter James is still awesome, handsome and I get to work with him EVERY SINGLE DAY?!? That’s definitely worth a few heartfelt “huzzah”s.
5. But what’s extra-attractive is when he’s super-dedicated to getting a shot. I’ve been sitting on these photos I snagged of him shooting some details at a wedding back in February for MONTHS now, just waiting for an opportunity to share them with the world. Now’s as good a time as ever!
6. James and I will be going out of town on a mission trip to Mission, TX (funny, I know) all next week so we more than likely won’t be posting any new stuff for a while BUT we’re SO excited for the opportunity this trip will give us to use photography as a way to share Jesus with people. We’ll be joining a group of adults and students from Tolar Baptist Church (church I grew up in — holllllla) and what I’m in charge of is offering family portraits to families there who might not have ever had the opportunity to have one made before. I’ll be sure to let y’all know how it goes — prayers are very much appreciated . . . especially since I’m not exactly fresh on my Spanish-speaking.
So that just about updates you on what’s happening in the life of JZP right now! Happy Friday! (goshIcan’tbelieveit’salreadyFriday.)
Wednesday evening I had the absolute pleasure of attending Jasmine Star’s The Fix Dallas. It was a time for photographers from all over Texas to get together, meet each other, and all have conversations together with the internationally famous, California-based wedding photographer, Jasmine Star.
I was SO excited to run into the one and only Elise from Hey, Sweet Pea at the event! Or should I say, the-girl-with-the-blonde-streak? I had just met up with Elise and her fiancé, Scott, for their nautical engagement session on Sunday and James and I were thrilled to see them again at The Fix!
Now is where I explain a little bit about how big of a deal this event was for me. Storrrrrrytiiiiiiiime!
I first found Jasmine’s blog at a time in my life when photography as a career felt very, veeeerrrrrrrrrrrry far away. I remember that I was sitting at my dining room table, just browsing photography blogs, and stumbled across hers.
And I fell in love.
Yes, with the photos, but I was also captivated by her writing, by her ability to put her personality into words. Jasmine. Take it, leave it, love it, hate it — she was just her, just Jasmine.
I spent about six hours on her blog the night I found it. No joke.
I started pouring through blogposts in the late afternoon, starting with the most recent and going backward from there. I just kept going page to page and before I knew it, James was asking me if I was coming to bed!
I looked at James. I looked back at the computer. I looked back at James. Annnnnnd then I went to bed . . . but I brought the computer with me and continued looking at the blog sitting in the bed. I couldn’t get enough of it!
I only put the computer down only when I was about ready to fall over asleep on top of it. I was hooked.
From that day forward I was “Jasmine Star this,” “Jasmine Star that.” Within a month or so, James, my best friends, my mom all knew who she was, so that I didn’t have to add any explanation when I mentioned “Jasmine Star” in day-to-day conversation, ya know, like she was a good friend.
I’ve been trying to figure out WHY I felt such a strong connection to Jasmine from the beginning. And the best thing I could think of was that she was the very first person to cast her vote of confidence in me.
She didn’t know it, but through her writing, through her story that’s what she did.
Before I could even fathom the possibility of being a full-time photographer, much less SPEAK the idea aloud to my husband or friends, Jasmine told me it was possible.
So let me tell you, when I’m approaching my opportunity to talk to this famous photographer/dear friend/person-I’ve-never-met as this mildly star-struck stranger I didn’t know how it was going to go.
The first words out of my mouth were suuuuuper-profound:Â My heart’s beating really fast right now.
But O. My. Word. She immediately took hold of both my arms and told me how she kept seeing me in the audience while she was making her presentation and thanked me because she felt so encouraged every time she saw me nodding and smiling. At least I knew SOMEONE was with me!
She went in to give me a hug and then apologizes because she hasn’t even asked me my name.
Jillian Zamora . . . I feel like I recognize that name . . .
(internal squeal!) I explain to her that it might be because she’s said my name in two of her Shooting Star video segments on her blog: Jillian Zamora asked . . .
She can hear the excitement in my voice and gets excited with me. Like friends.
So it’s at this point I feel the need to act out for her my reaction to hearing her say my name both those times in the videos.
I raise my arms above my head in triumph and whisper-yell, “SHE SAID MY NAME!!”
Well I guess that makes us best friends, she teased.
I’m okay with it if you are, I answered. And I meant it.
Let me clarify here for a moment.
I’m not obsessed.
I’m just really, really thankful.
I’m thankful that this woman shared with me her stories of struggle, of starting in the photography business, and of figuring out who she was along the way.
I’m thankful that, two years ago, when I was just a newly married, soon-to-be college graduate sitting at my dining room table with this teeny tiny notion of possibly, maybe, one day, BUT-NOT-REALLY playing any real role whatsoever in the photography industry, Jasmine reached through my computer screen via her blog, grabbed my shoulders and said, “I’ve been there. NO REALLY, I’ve. been. there.”
When I first found her blog, I had NO idea she was a renown wedding photographer.
I just knew that she was someone who had been where I was. And it gave me the strength to finally dream of what could be — not becoming Jasmine Star, but Jillian camera-in-hand-Yes-I’ll-shoot-your-wedding-thank-you-very-much Zamora.
 Thank you, Jasmine.
My heart is very, very full this season. Perhaps it’s because “Soul Surfer” is on in the next room of my parent’s home and is subliminally sending uplifting tones my way via the triumphal soundtrack. Â Or perhaps it’s just because ever since my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas this year I haven’t been able to stop thinking about my Christmas list last year.
Last year I had one thing on my Christmas list and one thing only:
Money .
To go toward buying a 5D Mark II.
(For those of you who don’t follow camera body makes and models, that’s the camera I use now — a huge upgrade from the first DSLR I had purchased my senior year of high school and had used up to this point in my life.)
Last Christmas James and I had been married for six months — the length of which I had been finishing up college and he had been applying and applying and applying to art teacher positions but to no avail. We were living off of painting commissions and the very beginning stages of “Jillian Zamora Photography” as we now know it. I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere near enough money to buy the new camera after Christmas, but I wanted to get closer to that goal more than I wanted new dresses or boots or . . . anything. I wanted to push through the photography stage I was in at that time. Because at this point, Â photography as a career still seemed out of reach. Unattainable. Not quiiiiite possible — at least not for me.
And money was what I got. By December 26th I was several hundred dollars closer to my goal . . . but still several thousand dollars away from it.
And that was okay. I was closer.
This Christmas when my mom asked me what I wanted, I just smiled. I thought back to that newly married, not-quite-a-college-grad girl reeeeeeeeeeeeeaching and straaaaaaaining toward a career in photography.
And I thanked the Lord for where He’s brought me.
I thanked Him for all the blessings He gave me along the way.
I thanked Him for where He has me now and where He intends for me to go.
And, of course, I gave my mother a Christmas list with dresses and boots on it.
Yes, my heart is very, very full this Christmas and I hope yours is too! Thank you for checking back in on the blog even though I have been a blogging-failure since September. I really, really appreciate that you’re still here. I am planning big, big blogging overhauls for the next few weeks (and months) so get excited. I know I am.
Because every post needs a picture — here’s a shot from a few weeks ago of me, James and our sweet little puppy Jack in front of the Zamora Christmas tree. I had to resort to an iphone shot because that’s the only one I have of the three of us (but this will soon be remedied).
Jillian Zamora Photography sends merriest Christmas wishes to the lovely blog readers, clients and facebook “like”ers. You all mean so very much to me and all play a big role in making my heart so full this Christmas eve eve.
Hello to my dear blog readers.
Yes, I know it’s been slow around here lately. Real slow. And I apologize.
I’ve been feeling the editing weight of the wedding season bear down on me. As if to prove this statement true, my blogging has gone to the wayside for the past few weeks, and that just kills my little blogging soul. But do not be dismayed! When I come back, I will come back with a blogging vengeance! There are so many great sessions and so many wonderful weddings to be blogged (I have a running list of more than 20 posts!) and they will all make it on here as soon as possible. You have my photographer’s word.
For now, keep up the patience. Thank you, thank you, thank you for checking back in on the blog. And if you’d like to see individual sneak peeks from all of my most recent sessions, feel free to visit my JZP Facebook “like” page — hopefully it can hold you over until the actual blogposts make it here!
I love you dearly!
Sincerely,
Jillian
And because a blog-post isn’t official without a photo  and TO PUNISH MYSELF for not blogging enough, I will share with you and awful photo strip of James and I from one of the weddings we shot a few weeks back.
Yep. Revel in it. Soak it up.
We are your photographers.
We promise that the only time on your wedding day that we will be completely bewildered and caught off guard  is in your photo booth.
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