Introducing: PiKtoGraphy Mobile Studio

Pete and I do most of our planning, brainstorming, and dreaming while driving in the car. And we often start discussions with "What if we..." One afternoon, we were talking about the photobooth business that our good friend Lyra recently started with some of her friends in Ho Chi Minh.

"What if we set up our own photobooth business?"

The photobooth industry is just starting out in Vietnam, that in fact Photo Oi! may well be one of the pioneers over there. Here in the Philippines, however, photobooths are a dime a dozen and the competition is really tough.

"But...What if we market it with your brand?"

"We have a barely-used 21-inch LED monitor that we can use."

"And we can use your extra cameras."

"If we do this, I want the quality of the photos to be really good..."

"And the set-up to look really cool..."

We thought that was the end of that. But things just have a way of falling into place because a few days later, I got a message on Facebook from a young friend who said she had this plan in her head to put up a photobooth business and if I could maybe help her out by referring her to my clients. To make the long story short, we decided to team up with that friend (whose name is Karla, by the way) instead and put up the business together. About a week after I got Karla's first message, we had our first business meeting at Starbucks, and everything else went smoothly from there...NOT!

You see, we really were serious when we said we wanted the photo quality to be top-notch and the set-up to be great and cool-looking. And it wasn't so easy to achieve all of that. We knew we wanted to have studio-quality lighting. And we also wanted to use purely green screen backgrounds. So, for weeks we tested and tweaked the lighting, the set-up, the over-all design. We didn't stop until we liked the kind of photos that we were getting...

Finally, about a week ago, we officially launched our photobooth when we had our very first event.:) So everyone, please allow me to introduce our new baby: PiKtoGraphy Mobile Studio! And just to start things off, we're offering 20% discount to our first 10 bookings (valid for 2012 events only), and a few slots have already been taken!;) So, if you're interested or if you know anyone who is, you may email us (Karla will be handling the inquiries) at pkg.mobilestudio @ gmail.com.

And just to make this post a wee bit more interesting, here are the shots we took of ourselves during our first event.;)

Here's our young, energetic, and pretty business partner Karla.;)

And here we are.:P

5 years!

When Pete and I got married 5 years ago, I knew our 5th year anniversary was going to be a big one. We were going to spend it on a tour of Europe. There was going to be wine. And fireworks! And I was going to get a new and bigger diamond ring! Ok, I didn't really think all that (except maybe for the diamond ring. Hehehe.). But I always thought we were going to have a grand celebration. Well, the day finally arrived last Saturday, and we celebrated it exactly the way we wanted to; by spending a quiet weekend at some of our favorite restaurants, not caring about our cholesterol levels or calorie intake just for two days. And watching a movie again after...uh, I don't even remember how long it's been!

Pete and I were together for 8 and a half years before we got married, and we had Paco over 4 years after the wedding. So for more than 12 and a half years, it was just the two of us. That's 12.5 years of watching movies whenever we felt like it, eating anywhere and anything that we wanted (because we were younger and we didn't have to watch our diet yet;)). 12.5 years of not worrying about anyone else but ourselves. 12.5 years of peace and quiet, before the beautiful chaos that is our life with Paco came.

The past year has been the most challenging, craziest year in our life as a couple so far. And we wouldn't want it any other way...(Ok, a housemaid would be nice though. Anyone with referrals, please email or text me.;)) Having Paco has given us one of the best reasons to celebrate this year. And we're looking forward to celebrating more years together. And yes, maybe we will go on that European tour someday! And the diamond ring...maybe next year?:D

Here are just some photos from our anniversary weekend. These were taken with my Nokia E6 because I still don't own a compact camera.;P
   

To recap: We slept late Saturday morning (which is a luxury we like to enjoy whenever I don't have an event to shoot) and had late lunch at one of our favorite restaurants in Tagaytay. And we also had ice cream afterwards.;) Saturday night, we had dinner at ATC. Sunday morning, we woke up early and headed for my parents' house in Q.C. where we dropped Paco off so Pete and I could watch The Avengers at Trinoma.:) It's been sooooo long since we watched a movie together. There were only about a dozen or so other people inside the movie theater because apparently, every one else on the planet has watched the movie. Hehehe. Then Pete and I had late lunch before picking Paco up again. Oh, and it's also been our mission to try out the best sellers of every one these tea shops. We were able to try out two last weekend.;)