Bohemian style beauty portrait of Viktoria at Mission Trails

Mission Trails, San Diego

Last week, I've decided to give a present to a friend of mine Viktoria. She is mama to 4 beautiful children and she is taking pictures of them mainly. So I just wanted this present to be for her  and her kids as well. Because once they'll be big, they will ask her, where are her pictures, and she will be able to show them pictures I took of her. I believe, that everyone deserve beautiful portrait, that will stay in the family for generations.

We've been talking about it for a while, she did her "homework" and looked up some pictures that she really liked - outdoors.

Mission Trails, San Diego

I've seen some incredible pictures from the Mission Trails at the exit of Mast Blvd. Plus nature there looked very similar to those pictures she picked and showed me, how would she like to be photographed. Since I've never been there, I asked Viki, if we could meet there.

Mission Trails, San Diego

She didn't have a babysitting, so she brought her kids with her. Neither did I. We simply thought, that it will be ok, having the kids playing on the blanket or with the rocks. Her older kids (David is 10 and Dalia 8) are great helpers. So we kind of had an idea, that it will be all good.


Well.. it took us great deal of time to find the right place first. Plus in the heat, going to the location was little bit challenging, with 5 kids on our hands. But we managed to find really nice place and were setting up to capture some pictures. The problem was, that the youngest kids were pretty tired, there were some flies that wouldn't leave them alone (we didn't bring any insect repellent) and so they started crying at some point and wouldn't stop.
We had to stop and brestfeed, stop and calm them down. Well.. it was definitely the most challenging photoshoot up to this date I would say. But I'm still very happy with the result. We even managed to take some behind the scene pictures. Some of them was taken by Viktoria's son David and some of them I took for just the fun of it.

Mission Trails, San Diego

Mission Trails, San Diego

Mission Trails, San Diego

Capturing these precious moments that will become a family legacy for generations to come is both a great honor and a privilege. The natural beauty of my incredibly strong, loving and carrying friend Viktoria, her strength and vigilance inspires me every day.
I'm so grateful for our friendship and her love and care that she has given me over the years we've known each other. She is a family to me here in San Diego.

Mission Trails, San Diego

Mission Trails, San Diego

Mission Trails, San Diego

My hope is, that she will cherish those pictures for lifetime and her family too.

Have a wonderful day everyone and stay tuned for more posts!

Warmly,

Barbora

PS: You can check a slideshow with some behind scenes pictures bellow!

Wedding of Raiza and Ken at Steele Canyon Golf Club

Ken proposed to Raiza on their 8th anniversary in La Jolla above the cove. Very romantic place, that shows their romantic hearts and sweet devotion for each other. She likes his patience and being able to do compromises. They really like their sense of humor of each other. They are both very caring and sensitive people, working as nurses. 

The couple met at the library where both were studying individually for their college courses. Raiza needed help on one of her classes and asked Ken, who was tutoring according to her friends. He gladly accepted. They talked for hours and hours ranging from classes, hobbies, and life itself until the library closes. They found each other that day and the rest is history.

After almost 10 years of being together, they finally tied the knot and their greatest adventure is about to begin.
Ken has been rewarded as an employee of the year - among all the other coworkers that worked at the hospital longer, he's been working very hard and tirelessly. It shows his diligence and wonderful work ethic. They are both very sweet, thoughtful and very easy to talk to.

Raiza looked like a princess in her beautiful gown, that was custom made at Philippines and delivered just a week before she was getting married and Ken was so handsome in his dark blue suit.

Ceremony and reception took place at Steele Canyon Golf Club in Jamul and everyone had a blast. What a fun celebration of these two along their lovely family and friends and two cute dogies.

Have a wonderful day and stay tuned for another post!

Warmly,

Barbora

Making of V-Flats for my studio

Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. If this is a first time for you, you can check out some of the old post to see, what I've been up to lately.
And if you have seen my other posts, you know, that I've decided to go back to the basics and just

start doing fine art portraits for people, so I can share my gift with others. My whole family helped as they could ;-)

I got really inspired, when I was listening to the videos that Sue Bryces has on her website www.suebryceeducation.com
By the way, best decision in my life to invest in my education and learn new things. I believe, that you cannot be old enough to learn something new and I love educating myself about something, that I'm so passionate about. How to capture the beauty within everyone. I love to connect with people and mirror and capture their story, that shows in their eyes.

It wasn't all that easy, to create the V-Flats, that I would hope for. To be truthful, I almost felt like giving up at some point, because the black color was just pealing and would peal, even if I scratched it just by accident little tiny bit.
I started with the white. It was pretty easy, but I realized early enough, that I cannot do it in our apartment and I have to take it outside. I had to redo one whole board, because instead of painting on the unpainted side, I painted the black on the white painted side already.. Long story short. It took me two trips to Lowe's, because I just had to return the black paint, that wouldn't stop pealing. I bought another black paint, this time, it was the Charcoal black paint, that should be ok.

I also had to tape them together - the boards, that I bought at Lowe's are this: Lowes Insulation Board
So the total cost of the used material was about $90. And my hard labor. It wasn't easy to do it with Eli, but I did it and felt so accomplished and really proud of myself.

I have been using the V-Flats since I've made them several times and I love it. I hope, you'll have fun watching the Timelaps videos that I've captured about me doing the work. I hope, that they will last some time and I won't have to make new ones for some time though.

Have a wonderful day and stay tuned for the next post.

Warmly,

Barbora

What happens, when you disconnect your devices for few days..

What happens? You just are. No distraction, no constant "unreal" interactions and you are actually able to be fully present to here and now.

My husband and I are part of Wake up community for few years. Ever since I moved to US, I was part of the Plum Village tradition community. It's so loving and nurturing and challenging and supportive community, practicing mindfulness - teaching of Vietnamese Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Wake up community is primarily for young adults from 18-35 years of age. It's because once you have kids, your priority and value changes, naturally. But since we've been part of this awesome group for so many years, this might have been probably the last time, we could go and camp with the likeminded youngsters ;-) And enjoy the love, compassion and mindfulness together. As some of you may know, we've been founder and creators of the Wake up house in San Diego since 2013. Just recently, we moved out and have our own place, transitioning in a different face of our lives as parents.

First of, Big Sur, California is amazingly beautiful. What's even better there, there isn't reception. Which helped so much to just naturally disconnect from the virtual reality and to be simply present to our surroundings and people around us - face to face.
It was so refreshing, the sense of togetherness, love, community, care and true presence was so nurturing and amazing. I have no other words than that.
I would write super long article about it. So if you are interested, whats this all about, look up Wake up community, Plum Village tradition and you'll find out so much more information out there, so you can experience it for yourself.

Wonderfully organized event, that went so smoothly as you can ever imagine. At the end of the retreat, we sat together and shared our experiences, briefly.. When you have almost 70 people together, practicing mindfulness in everything you do, it's simply powerful experience. When we shared, what we had in our hearts, I've experienced very interesting insight. All of a sudden, I was thinking about some Native American tribes, living in this way, in the sense of togetherness, community, love care and compassion for each other, support and openness. I realized, that if we want to live in peace with ourselves and others, we have to come back to our true nature of goodness and love. Because when we are watering those seeds within ourselves and nurture it through and with others, only great outcome can sprout from that.

I definitely encourage everyone to disconnect from the technical devices once in a while and JUST  BE. It is so nurturing, refreshing and loving towards ourselves and others.

I feel so much gratitude for this beautiful Mother Earth that holds us and provides for us. We are really children of this Great Mother and when we feel that love and support, great things manifest and come to fruition.

Wonderfully spent Labor Weekend. How was your weekend? I wanna know. You can leave a comment if you feel compelled to!

Have a great week and stay tuned for more blog posts.

Warmly,

Barbora