A mentor’s wisdom on finding the joy

In the coming weeks and months we’re going to be talking about living life lux – what it means and why it matters. A mentor once shared a story with me that became a governing principle of my life. This story is the foundation of Live Life Lux. So I’ll share it here. 

Don’t lose sight of the big picture

There was a man that went for a walk. On his walk, he passed by a building under construction. As he passed by he saw three men performing the same tasks working on the building. He asked the first, “What are you doing?” The man replied, “Laying brick.” He asked the second “What are you doing?”. “Making a wall.”, said the construction worker. He asked the third man, “What are you doing?” and the builder shared, “I’m building a cathedral.” 

It’s easy to get lost in the monotony of the day-to-day and lose sight of the big picture, what we’re working toward, what we’re building, why we’re doing all this. It’s easy to get lost in laying the brick and lose touch with the pride and joy (and even fun) of building the cathedral. The foundation of our cathedral is the principle of Live Life Lux.

By acknowledging the good we find abundance

The philosopher Eckhart Tolle says, “Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.” Cultivating gratitude is the first tenant of Live Life Lux. Today we want to focus on our gratitude for you. You are our why. Every celebration in your life deserves to be honored and immortalized. It is our greatest joy to share in your journey through your photo session experience. 
In 2022 we celebrated over 150 cathedrals being built through transformational photo experiences. Thank you for trusting us to help you honor the story of your life. Here we’ve compiled some of our favorite moments from a year filled with creating timeless heirlooms, helping you, our clients, stop to reconnect with your why and affirm your life and paths that brought you to where you are now. You’ve come so far.

The importance of showing up for yourself

Every moment you show up for yourself and those you love is you building your cathedral brick by brick. We’re happy to be here to help you stay connected to that truth and remember the big picture by immortalizing every brick you place. From courage, strength, and resilience expressed through a boudoir photo experience to the joy, fun and beautiful chaos of family and pet photo sessions. From honoring the legacy and the indelible mark made on our hearts through a senior pet session to celebrating personal achievement, goals met and dreams yet to come true through personal branding and headshot portfolios. These are the moments that make up your life well lived. This is how you Live Life Lux. 

In 2023 the words of Abraham Hicks guide our gratitude forward. “You have to be satisfied by what is while you’re reaching for more.” Here’s to a year of moving forward and reaching for new heights.

Author:

Kristen Kidd is founder and co-owner of Lux Summit Studio in North Wales, Pa. She specializes in pet and family photography. She and her husband David, along with their two rescue dogs Hudson and Nito, call Lansdale home in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Together their full-service photography studio serves Bucks County, Chester County, Philadelphia County as well as the tri-state area, including New York, Maryland, and Delaware.

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In January of 2019 Philadelphia photography studio Kristen Kidd Photography launched a project that received an overwhelming response. The Woman’s Best Friend (WBF) Coffee Table Book project was started to support Harley’s Haven Dog Rescue. The profits from the sales of every single book go directly back to the rescue. The project sought to tell of the dynamic bond between women and their canine companions while poking fun at the masculine trope; “Man’s Best Friend”.

I wanted to create a tome that directly opposed this feeling of isolation and created a community of inclusion and understanding.

Woman’s Best Friend was born following two years of photographing women and their dogs. During that time I heard innumerable harrowing accounts of four-legged family & friends showing up for their humans in ways that other humans could not. In our darkest times they’re there for us, unconditionally and without judgement time and again. On our best days, they’re there to elevate and celebrate with us. I wanted to create a testament to these stories.

Also, just enjoy some adorable photos of magical dogs and powerful women living their best lives.

Forty women and their dogs are featured in this beautiful, fine art 12×12 hard cover. Each story celebrates the life changing joy of welcoming a dog into one’s family. This collection of stories also stands up against a myriad stigmas associated with depression, anxiety, infertility, grief, breed discrimination among other important issues. This book is full of hope, resiliency and life.

No matter your life experience you’re not alone.

Here on the blog, in the coming weeks leading up to the official book release we’ll feature some of the photos from the sessions featured in the book. We’ll also feature one of kind blogs with some of the participants that could not be featured in this edition of the book.

Pre-sale releases today. Your purchase will help save the lives of countless homeless dogs. Stand along side these women and pups and stand up against stigma. Stand up for compassion and empathy. Also, just enjoy some adorable photos of magical dogs and powerful women living their best lives. Order before July 31st and receive your copy at the book release party on September 7th (otherwise you’ll have to wait until after the party and who wants to wait?!). Reserve your copy now and save $25.00.

Your purchase will help save the lives of countless homeless dogs.

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I want you to know Wendy, because to know Wendy is to know hope and the resiliency of joy. Wendy has known the death of multiple loved ones, abuse, PTSD, depression and despair so great that she attempted an untimely exit from this world more than once. I only spent a few hours with her, but even I can’t imagine the world without her in it. Now, her joy beams. Her laughter booms and she throws her head back to submerge herself in the delight of life.

The Journey has been a lifetime. Tragedy found her and followed her throughout her life and she nearly succumb to her sorrow, but her children granted her the strength to get the help she needed. This is not a magical story – one in which all goodness is restored with a healthy dose of warm fuzzies and the darkness never creeps back in, because it just doesn’t work that way. This is a story of years of work to claim life, to extinguish the lies of shame and a continual war for the truest self.

Wendy found a therapist she derived tremendous perspective from – a therapist who encouraged her to join a running group. She says it took everything within her to get her to that first running meet up. She could barely hold her head up, but she showed up, which is the definition of vulnerability. Eventually, she began to thrive.

As she journeyed on, she met someone. She was convinced that the more he heard of her story he’d turn on his heels. She was wrong. The more of her truth he heard, the more he loved her. Clearly, tremendous strength and courage had brought her this far. He could see that. He could see her. They married and blended their families.

Along the way she found Yoga. This became the tool to alleviate her anxiety. When she’s on the mat she says she “feels like it doesn’t matter if you’re perfect…It feels like letting go of perfection.” On the mat there is belonging and a safe space. When Wendy is flowing from posture to posture one can’t help but feel the profundity of each movement flow through her. She speaks of postures that she couldn’t complete for years because they were too open and left her feeling devastatingly vulnerable. Yet, she remains intrinsically drawn to them and finds herself flowing toward them in some subconscious determination. Even while we photographed she decided to take on two of the more challenging positions in addition to her repertoire that inspires strength and confidence. When she conquered those two postures (one signifying extreme openness and vulnerability and the other signifying the cusp of mastering some truth in becoming), she erupted into a volcano of laughter and joy. On the mat she is her truest self and journeys forward in becoming.

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Don’t miss a great time at these back to back rescue events! I’ll be there with multiple opportunities to win a $500 gift certificate towards a photo experience and one big $1000 gift certificate towards a photo experience.

Also, at this event and at this event only, save $450 on on a photo session when you purchase a $500 gift certificate for $50 (think Groupon). You’ve been wanting fall photos or thinking early for Holiday photos or the perfect Holiday gift. There’s no better time than here and now. See you there!

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These are a few of my favorite moments from recent sessions. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more stories of each of these sessions. I felt I didn’t want to move on until I fully honored, with undoubtedly insufficient words and prose, the love that’s captured in these photos. I hope you enjoy these moving, fun and often hilarious pieces.

Over the past few months I’ve learned to keep a box of tissues close while I talked with dog parents about their fur babies. Listen, I know some of you are cringing at terms like “dog parent” and “fur baby”, but the sentimentality for the care takers of these mutts runs so much deeper than any silly terms we may try to ascribe to it. We grapple to adequately express what these beasts mean to us, but we fall short. The truth is there are no words that do it justice, but that’s part of the point. They don’t need words to show us every ounce of their tremendous love. Why would we be so naive to think we’d find enough words to express how that unconditional love makes us feel?

That’s why I threw myself into this adventure of capturing the relationship between these humans and their canines. It’s the most exquisite and important part of pet photography. Yet, I find the market remains saturated with pet portraits of pups all stoically poised and perfectly composed on a white or black backdrop. I often think, “That’s a beautiful picture, but it tells me nothing about the dog’s unique personality. Nor does it capture the love of their family.”

Family lifestyle photography has grown in well deserved popularity. We should be asking what makes a family tick and setting ourselves to capturing their intrinsic essence. It’s no different with our pets. The beauty of the pet is in context with the adoration the dog and his human hold for one another. That adoration is displayed uniquely and should be honored in a unique photo experience.

So, I have my tissues handy as I chat with pet parents about the dog that got them through the divorce or greeted them with he same unconditional love no matter how shitty they felt or their day was. Or the mutts that came along in their darkest hour or simply bookended an era of their lives (as David Sedaris so eloquently said) with warmth and goodness.

It’s true. They won’t be with us forever and there will be others that will take their physical place, but there was only one of that dog. You know, your dog, during that time. The one that knew you like you were then and loved you no matter who that person was. The one who kept all your secrets and whose fur soaked up your tears. The one who you never felt stupid wrestling or singing or dancing with. The one that you loved in that very specific way. The one that gave you that gift that you needed everyday to get you through. That dog only lives once and there is no replacing that emotional space. All the more reason to capture that finite moment and anchor it in your heart and home.

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I’m so excited to announce the next big thing at Kristen Kidd Photography: The adventurous couples model call.
Enter to win a $1000 gift certificate towards your unique photo experience and wall art – all tailor designed to capture what you love most. There will also be five $500 gift certificate winners.
Bring me your quiet nature enthusiasts, your adrenalin junkies and every couple in-between! What could be a more fitting way to celebrate your love for one another than capturing that love in the places that bring you the most joy, doing what brings you closest together? Let’s go!

Check out the details and enter to win here: https://kristenkiddphotogr.wixsite.com/couplesadventure

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I’m so very excited about this new chapter of the photographic experience that I have the joy of providing to each of my clients. Wall art collections have become my new passion and the passion of each personI have the honor of immortalizing. I wanted to share my most recent collection designed by Beth and her family. These pieces tell the story of her and her first rescue – Harley which led her through her journey into becoming a veterinarian and founder of the rescue; Harley’s Haven. The story crescendos as her son, Connor adopts his first puppy and declares his desire to carry the torch and become a second generation veterinarian. The warmth I feel in my heart in having the honor of telling this story simply can’t be adequately explained in words. The most important part of all of this is the insurmountable joy that they feel every time they lay eyes on this moment in their history.

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I want to tell you story about a boy and his dog, but I can’t tell the story of a boy and his dog without first telling you about a girl and her dog, Harley.

As a child Beth loved animals, as many children do, but in the journey to adulthood, she decided to set about becoming a veterinarian. As with all pursuits worthy of anyone’s time; there was difficulty, worry and doubt. She wondered if she could succeed.

Then she met an obstinate mutt without a home. She snuck him into her dorm, named him Harley and promptly fell in love with him. He became the first dog she every owned, the first dog that ever owned her, the first animal to ask all of the world she could possibly give. She fell in love with saving the helpless, homeless and unloved in the animal community. She fell in love with becoming a doctor that mends and protects the ones that unconditionally love us. She embraced it all – the pain of limitations to how many can be helped and saved, the victory of the ones that can be saved, healed, nurtured, given a home and the journey to becoming the best she could be at helping as many in need as possible.

Harley was the catalyst – the alpha. He affirmed the desires Beth held deep inside and propelled her to persevere. He inspired the rescue she founded that bears his name, Harley’s Haven. Over 500 rescues later, 100 of which Beth, her husband Tom and, eventually, son Connor fostered. After thirteen years, he’s still the same inspiring curmudgeon and, undoubtedly, still the alpha, keeping everyone in line. As Beth shared with me, “ Harley is my man. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a pain in the ass. I’m his person. He’s my dog. He gives me confidence.“

Harley has marked the era of time (as all of our beloved pets do) – the time when Beth and Tom met, fell in love, united in marriage and when their son Connor entered the world. He marks the years Connor has grown amongst the 100 foster puppies and their other dogs; Sawyer and Fiona. Here in lies the great importance of bestowing the honor of immortalizing the Harley’s of the world in photographic beauty and celebrating them with space amongst the other precious memories of our lifetime that we so readily display.

It is no wonder that Connor has made his proclamation that he too wants to become a veterinarian. Recently he asked for his own puppy. With resounding support Beth and Tom agreed and vigilantly kept a close eye out for a foster pup that would match well with Connor. Croy entered as one of the 100 fosters and never left. Beth describes the bond that developed between the two as unparalleled amongst the many dogs that have graced their home. Connor learns the ropes young. He walks Croy, feeds him, dotes over him, and molds him into his best friend, in the way that only a dog can be.

The next chapter has begun. A boy and his dog, begun by a girl and her dog. Before there was Connor and Croy, there was Beth and Harley. *

*I’d like to take a second to acknowledge Tom’s often (literally) unseen hand in all of this. He manages to evade my lens often (Though I might be wearing him down. We’ll see next time.). It is my experience that behind those taking on great endeavors such as founding a dog rescue and establishing a veterinary practice, is someone who, like a pillar of strength, has, undoubtedly, got your back. Tom strikes me as that guy. So, while this was a story about a girl and her dog and a boy and his dog; these things find their place because of the beautiful family unit that is Tom, Beth and Connor.

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Guys! Come run with me!
Also, stop by my booth at the fall fair that follows the run (same location). I’ll be taking complimentary snap shots of you and your pups! Plus, I’ll be running an exclusive offer at this event only: $50 for a $250 luxury gift certificate! Pay $50 and you’ll reserve your claim on a portrait session of your choosing. Following your session, you’ll have $250 to spend toward your beautiful wall art that you design at your very own design consult. Ooh la la!

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