Voor de Introductie op 4 juni ben ik op zoek naar een koppel (verliefd, verloofd, getrouwd) dat van 15:30-16:30 naar Amstelveen wil en kan komen om “model” te staan.

Heb je interesse neem dan contact met mij op – info@florencebavinck.com

“Ik sta niet zo graag in de belangstelling en ik was (van te voren) ook best zenuwachtig. Florence stelt je heel erg op je gemak en door te doen wat zij (of een van de andere fotografen) van je vraagt, raak je gefocust op je partner. Je hebt de mogelijkheid om een paar bijzondere momenten met hem/haar te beleven, alsof er helemaal geen groep fotografen omheen staat.

Ik vond het heel leuk om te merken hoe bij een aantal fotografen het kwartje viel en hoe enthousiast ze daarvan werden. Beloved ‘werkt’ en het resultaat is een serie unieke foto’s waar in ons geval liefde en plezier vanaf straalt.” – Marsha

Het bericht Gezocht: “modellen” voor Introductie tot Beloved 4 juni verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

Alles is ontworpen door de fantastische Renee van Ribbons of Red. Wat was het een genot om met haar samen te werken. Absoluut de moeite waard. Ze wist precies wat ik zocht, wat ik wilde, soms zelf voordat ik het wist. Geniet, neem een kijkje en laat me weten wat je ervan vind!

Om de nieuwe web site te vieren wil ik jullie iets geven. Om jullie te bedanken voor alle steun, voor al het enthousiasme en omdat ik geloof dat iedereen een keer een Beloved sessie gedaan zou moeten hebben.

Wat geef ik weg?

Een Beloved fotosessie t.w.v. €400,00 (fotosessie incl 6 digitale afdrukken) op een lokatie met bijzondere betekenis voor jullie. Maar ik geef ook 1x 2 bioscoopbonnen en 1x 2 theatherbonnen voor jou en je geliefde weg! Je maakt dus 3x kans op een prijs!

Wat moet je doen?

1. Like mijn facebook pagina, deel je het bericht dan verdubbel je je kansen op 1 van de prijzen.
2. Laat via de comments van deze blog post je naam en e-mail achter.
3. Geef aan waarom Beloved jou aanspreekt en waarom jullie een Beloved sessie zouden willen winnen.

Voorwaarden:

• Iedere deelnemer (door het liken van mijn facebook pagina en het achterlaten van een comment hieronder) maakt automatisch kans op 1 van de prijzen, het is niet mogelijk om meerdere prijzen te winnen.
• De Beloved fotosessie mag plaatsvinden op elke gekozen lokatie (zijn er kosten aan het fotograferen op een bepaalde lokatie verbonden dan zijn deze voor eigen rekening). Er worden geen reiskosten berekend.
• De Beloved fotosessie dient plaats te vinden in de maand September of Oktober 2013 en is alleen voor koppels (verliefd, verloofd, getrouwd). Geen families of ouders met kinderen of kinderen alleen.
• Het is niet mogelijk de prijzen om te wisselen of in te ruilen.
• Het is niet mogelijk de prijzen in te wisselen voor contanten of voor een ander product.
• Het verzenden van de prijzen is op eigen risico.
• De winnaars worden 1 juni 2013 bekend gemaakt.

Het bericht Nieuw, nieuw, nieuw, maar toch helemaal vertrouwd… verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

“Deze ervaring moet je mee maken. Ook jij bent mooi zoals je bent, helemaal als je verliefd bent.” – Elvera en Cors

Wat houdt het in?
Het Bloesempark staat momenteel in bloei — een van mijn favoriete plekken om te fotograferen! Daarom bied ik deze week 4 mogelijkheden voor een Beloved sessie aan. Boek vandaag nog je sessie!

maandag 22 april – 11:00
dinsdag 23 april – 11:00 en 13:00
woensdag 25 april – 11:00

Waar is het?
In Bloesempark in Amstelveen.

Kosten?
€250,00 voor een Beloved sessie van 1uur, online premiere en 10 digitale bestanden.

Het bericht Beloved sessies in het Bloesempark te Amstelveen – 22,23 en 25 april 2013! verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

My dear Friends,

A few years ago, a young family appeared on the Oprah show. A mom, a dad and two young kids. The mom was dying of cancer. And she had decided in her last months to make videotaped messages for her young children teaching them what she so wanted them to know as they grew older. Simple things like how to steam an artichoke, and more complex things like how to know when you’re in love. It was heartbreaking to watch her think ahead to leave these messages behind. What strength that must have taken.

And they also took the kids on all kinds of adventures, to swim with dolphins, to Disneyland and beyond, hoping to impress on the minds of these young kids the memory of this mother who wouldn’t be with them long.

After she died, Oprah welcomed the family back to her show and asked the kids a question: “What is one of your favorite memories of your mom?” I’m sure Oprah imagined they would talk about swimming with dolphins or one of their big adventures with her, but the little girl said very quietly, “I remember one time when my mom asked me to get her a bowl of Cheerios, and we ate them together.”

It’s not the big things, it’s those little ones. This is a big day, and it is an important one to celebrate, but truthfully, the bowls of Cheerios in your life – those quiet moments with people you love – are far more meaningful and memorable and grounding in the long run.

I asked my 8-year-old daughter, Tess, what I should say here today, and this is what she suggested I tell you: “Be free, have fun, bye.”

And while I imagine that 5-word speech might be more memorable than a longer one, I do feel compelled to elaborate just a bit on what Tess suggested.

My talk is entitled “The Geography of Verbs” for two reasons: First, I believe our lives are atlases of experience. The different maps we walk and live into – our work map, our friend map, our partner or spouse map, our passion map, the maps of our deep sadnesses and greatest joys, the maps of those shadow selves we dare not show anyone else – all these are loose pages, seemingly unconnected sometimes, and yet they are bound together in ways we cannot fully appreciate until we reach the end of this life. There is a messiness until the volume gets bound. And the binding often comes only with the ending, that last map into a frontier we might fear or welcome, but never know. A paradox, that.

A few years ago, my stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he died just 37 days later. Those last pages of his atlas of experience were bound very quickly. It was a time frame that shocked me, and humbled me. I woke up on day 38, the morning after he died, asking myself one question: “What would I be doing today if I only had 37 days to live?” It is a question that changed my life. I recognized that I needed to change my maps, that the atlas I was living was an atlas created by other people, not me.

At that point, I had written two business books on global leadership and global diversity, and when each of those books appeared in my mailbox from the publisher, and I ripped into them to see my work made whole, I felt nothing. The first of them was a Fortune magazine “best business book” for the year it came out, so it was applauded by many people, but as I sat on my front porch with it in my hands – my first book! – I felt nothing. I knew after my stepfather’s death that I needed to create my own maps, find my own voice, follow my own heart.

“Map-making is almost as old as human beings,” writes John Noble Wilford in his book Mapmakers. “No one knows where or for what purpose someone got the first idea to draw a sketch to communicate a sense of place, some sense of here in relation to there.”

Where is your here right now? And where is your there? How can we map between those places, through the gorgeous place in which you sit today – this liminal, in-between space that is so potent, and so feared. I believe these liminal spaces are where the power is. On a map they might appear as a desert, but in a desert there is much life and much learning.

We orienteer through our lives like explorers, or not. We leap, or we don’t. We see the space at the edge of our seeing as either a boundary – or horizon. And explorers are only explorers if they don’t know. Safety is not part of the explorer’s world – it is not knowing that forms their ground truth. That’s what it means to explore and to map new places.

If our lives are maps waiting to be drawn, the longitude and latitude of those human maps are story. As Jerome Bruner has said, “We are story-making animals. We make meaning of our lives through story. We tell the stories of our travels from here to there, both literal and metaphoric. We journey into dark caves and bright sunlit mountain tops in our lives – and our lives are made up of the stories we tell about those journeys – and what we bring back from those places, and how we are changed by them, just as your journey here to Guilford has changed you.

And as writer Robert Olen Butler has said, “The definition of story is a yearning meeting an obstacle.” The story of our lives is the story of what we wish for and the obstacles we must overcome and learn from in order to get there. But we try to avoid those obstacles – and yet they are vital to our story moving forward. Little Red Riding Hood needs what character to be a compelling story? The wolf. But we try to minimize the wolf in our lives, keep it in a cubicle far, far away from us, ignore it, deny the wolf – when the wolf is the catalyst for movement forward in the story.

The verbs we live – that is, the actions we take – create the landscape of our lives. The verbs we live, the actions we take, the story we frame over those actions – all those things together create the structure of our land – those valleys and mountains of our atlas of experience. And like any hike up any mountain or through any landscape, the process is messy while you’re in it, and there is just no way you can see a clear path, not until you’re finished. So it is okay to be lost. That is what I’m telling you. It’s okay to be lost and not know – because that’s what learning is, that’s what life is.

The great and beautiful physicist Herman von Helmholtz talked about something he called “the royal road.” The royal road is the straight line back to where you started that you can only see once you reach the top of the mountain. In the journey up, you zig-zag back and forth, and it isn’t a straight line.

Three short stories with three verbs:

Squeeze in next to someone arm to arm

The first is a story about the Jungian analyst and writer Marion Woodman.
During a stay in India, Marion became very sick with dysentery, captive in her hotel room for weeks. Finally, desperate to escape the room, she gingerly made her way to the hotel foyer one afternoon to sit and write a letter to her husband. Sitting near the end of a long, empty couch, she began to write.

Soon, though there were many other seats available, a very large brown woman came and squeezed between Marion and the end of the couch, so close that their arms were touching, so close it made it difficult for Marion to write.

Marion scooted away, angry at the invasion of her space. The woman scooted closer, pushing up against her. “Every time I moved, she moved,” Marion said, “until we ended up at the other end of the couch.”

Once she stopped moving away, Marion realized what a nice, big, warm arm the woman had, and so they sat, a thin bird of a sickly white woman and a big brown woman, arm to arm. Not sharing a common language, they couldn’t speak, but sat in silence. Marion gave in to the broad warm arm, the presence of the other, and relaxed into her.

The next day, she went again to the hotel foyer to write. And, again, the woman came and sat touching her, next to her, silently. And the third day. And the fourth day, as Marion’s health improved.

This couch dance continued for a week. And one day, a man appeared as the two women finished their silent, warm-armed vigil.

“You’re all right now. My wife won’t come back tomorrow,” he said to Marion, nodding toward her couch compatriot. “Your wife?,” she thought to herself, startled at his intimacy. “Why is she here in the first place?”

She was unprepared for his quiet and simple answer.

“I saw you were dying and I sent her to sit with you. I knew the warmth of her body would bring you back to life,” he said.

It took a moment for the magnitude of his message and the enormity of what these two strangers had done for her to sink in.

“She did save my life,” Marion said quietly in recounting the story. “That this woman would take the time to sit with me…and, most importantly, that I could receive it…” That is relatedness.”

That is what it means to hold presence for others.

So the first verb is to squeeze in next to someone, arm to arm – to hold presence for others.

Follow your desire lines

In the park where we play, there are nicely laid-out concrete paths leading from the swings to the picnic tables, from the castle to the soccer field, from the water fountain to the bridge. And then there are the real paths, the dirt ones, the ones that shoot out from the concrete to connect where people really go. In the business of landscape architecture, these impromptu, unofficial, renegade paths have a poetic, wonderful name.

They’re called “desire lines.” Desire lines indicate a yearning to go our own way, to make a new path, to see the results of our own agency through space. Some have suggested that desire lines are an ultimate expression of human longing and natural human purpose. As Frank Zappa has said, “Without deviation, progress is not possible.”

Thanks to the generosity of my publisher, Globe Pequot Press, headquartered in none other than Guilford, Connecticut, every graduate here has received a copy of my latest book, “What I Wish for You: Simple Wisdom for a Happy Life.”  I’d like to read a short excerpt from that book to explain what following your desire lines looks like, a piece by a woman named Carol Sanders, who writes, in part: “Follow the idea that calls you. As you start on your own life’s passage, follow the idea that makes you wake in the morning without an alarm, that calls you to scribble ideas on napkins and scrap paper and to lose all sense of time, that makes your heart beat faster at every corner with the endless possibilities.”

It’s great to have a map. But don’t forget to follow your desire lines, whether they are on the map or not.

Look over the edge

The son of one of my husband’s colleagues was killed recently while rock climbing. A renowned climber, Pete Absolon has gone with a friend for a challenging climb, but not a serious one. He had a six-year-old daughter at home, and wasn’t taking any changes. Right in the middle of a conversation as they climbed, something came hurtling down from above. There was no warning, his friend recalled. Just a sudden crack, and then he saw Pete hanging from the ropes, staring straight ahead. “His face was perfect,” he said, “but I just knew he was dead.”

This would be a tragic story even if the rock has simply come loose and fallen on its own. It is all the more tragic because the rock was thrown by someone on the ledge above them. Only after throwing the rock did the young man look over the ledge and see two men in white helmets, 200 feet beneath him. And at the same moment he registered their presence, the plummeting rock struck Pete directly on the head.

We must see ourselves as part of an intricate ecosystem. Before you throw that rock, look over the edge.

Hold presence for others
Follow your desire lines
Look over the edge

All of these require love: love for others, love your yourself, and love for community.

As the great 21st century philosopher, Johnny Depp, has said, “There are four questions of value in life … What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.”

Love is the most important verb.

Change your verbs and you will change the landscape of your life:

Instead of knowing, I hope you will question.
Instead of accumulating, I hope you will give.
Instead of playing to win, I hope you will play to learn.
Instead of competing, I hope you will collaborate.
Instead of hating, I hope you will love.
Instead of remaining silent about inequities, I hope you will speak up.
Instead of despairing, I hope you will be happy in advance.
Instead of fleeing, I hope you will walk straight into all the days of your lives.
Instead of avoiding, I hope you will sit next to someone arm to arm.
Instead of diminishing, I hope you will know, deeply, that every human being you meet is as fully human as you are.
Instead of asking, ‘what will I get from this’, ask ‘what am I bringing to this’?

In addition to working, play.
In addition to protecting, open.
In addition to saving, give.
In addition to dreaming, do.
In addition to doing, dream.

Because it is your dream that matters now. Don’t feel panicked if you don’t know what that dream is yet. It is like those old roadside signs that used to spell out an advertisement one sign at a time as you went down the highway. While you’re navigating the landscape, the atlas of your life, the signs will come to you one by one. The way they connect isn’t known until you get to the last sign. The map is only complete when you stand at the final page of the atlas.

David Orr has written: “The plain fact is that the world does not need more successful people, but it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.”

I would ask you to choose being significant over being successful.

Wisdom sits in places. And it is clear that Guilford College has been for 175 years a place in which wisdom sits. But it doesn’t remain here, that wisdom. It wanders through landscapes unknown and unmarked, doesn’t it? And the wisdom that sits in this place now sits in you. I hope you will follow the desire lines of your life, through the geography of all those verbs that will make up your life, knowing deeply and fully – and without a doubt – that the wisdom from this place goes with you as you create your own atlas of experience.

My older daughter, Emma, is with me here today. When Emma was six and in the first grade, I picked her up from school at the end of the first week and we stopped by my husband’s bookstore. He came running out and said, excitedly, “How was school today, honey?”

She answered immediately and very happily: “I had my first test today!” Oh, good, my husband and I were thinking, a whole lifetime of testing has just opened up for you! Of course, what was our first question? “How’d you do?” What’s the bottom line, we both wondered. Again, without hesitation, Emma shouted, “I got 30 percent!”  The body language between me and my husband was undeniable. We were looking over this tiny girl in the backseat at each other thinking, “Oh my god, she’s an idiot!”

I’m thinking, how hard could the first grade be? Wouldn’t they make it really possible to succeed on your first test? I nearly said the first thing that came to me, which was “Oh, honey, you must feel terrible.” But instead, what I did say, through some divine guidance, was “How did that make you feel?” “I GOT SOME RIGHT!” she shouted.

What a great way to see the world. I’m not suggesting that you shoot for 30 percent, but as you leave on your next journey, you’ll get some right, and you’ll get some wrong. Here’s another verb for you: Celebrate them both.

To the parents and loved ones of these men and women before me, congratulations on being the willing sherpas for this amazing journey.

Het bericht Woorden ter inspiratie – Persoonlijk verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

De volgende Introducties staan gepland op 4 (VOL) en 18 juni 2013. Voor 18 juni zijn nog een aantal plekjes beschikbaar. Nieuwe data zijn nog niet bekend. Deze zullen pas na de zomervakantie bekend worden. Mochten ze dit jaar nog plaatsvinden dan zal het eind november/december worden. Mocht je interesse hebben dan kun je me altijd mailen: info@florencebavinck.com

Het bericht Marsha en Coen | Beloved – Amstelveen verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

“We value photographs because of the way they make us feel. The stronger the feeling, the more we value the photograph.

In the Best of Both Worlds seminar, Jesh de Rox will be discussing and demonstrating techniques and tools that give photographers a simple and powerful way to evoke feeling during their wedding and portrait sessions, greatly enhancing their client experience & the value of their photographs.

If you’are interested in creating meaningful, valuable images for people who deeply appreciate you and get paid well for it, this presentation will be a turning point for your journey.”

Er zijn nog plaatsen beschikbaar als je interesse hebt — en ik kan het je zeker aanraden! Je kan je hier aanmelden.

Het bericht Seminar Jesh de Rox (10 april 2013) verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

Het bericht Tanja en Marcel | Beloved – Amstelveen verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

Als eerste dit prachtige stukje emotie tussen 2 mensen. Ik kan je aanraden te kijken zonder geluid. Geliefden die afscheid van elkaar hadden genomen en elkaar op dit moment voor het eerst in jaren weer zien….

De laatste tijd ben ik me er bewust van dat gelukkig zijn en voelen een bewuste keuze is. Iets waar iedere dag aan gewerkt moet worden. Leuk was dan ook het volgende stuk te lezen over wat gelukkige mensen anders doen.

Een aantal dingen waarover gesproken wordt:

• Treat everyone with kindness.
• Express gratitude.
• Dream big.
• Don’t sweat the small stuff
• Never make excuses.
• Get absorbed into the present.
• Avoid social comparison.
• Eat well.
• Exercise.
• Tell the truth.
• Accept what cannot be changed.

More love letters….. Zomaar een brief ergens vinden, met de juiste woorden die jij op dat moment graag hoort. Wat bijzonder! Brieven verstopt in de metro, op een bankje in het park, onder je ruitewisser, in het boek dat je leende uit de bibliotheek….. Een handgeschreven brief (wanneer heb je voor het laatst een handgeschreven brief ontvangen?).

Volgend weekend is Pasen. Ieder jaar hebben we wel paastakken, maar dit jaar kwam ik op Pinterest een plaatje tegen van Zweedse paastakken - Paskris. Prachtige kleuren. En wist dat ik dit dit jaar ook wilde maken. Gisteren zijn we aan de slag gegaan. De kleintjes hebben alles in de takken gehangen en met dun ijzerdraad hebben we alle veren bevestigd. Wat een fijn gezicht!

Het bericht Inspiratie – Persoonlijk verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

Marsha en Harold waren vanuit Amersfoort naar Amstelveen gekomen om “model” te staan tijdens de Introductie tot Beloved van begin februari. Koud, guur, en een onverwachte hagel/sneeuwbui. Maar het plezier en de humor en gezelligheid bleven!

Lieve Marsha en Harold, dank jullie wel.

Het bericht Marsha en Harold – 16 jaar samen (5 jaar getrouwd) | BELOVED – Amstelveen verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.

Wanneer je pas verliefd bent is alles mogelijk, je kan de hele wereld aan. Je kan een hele nacht opblijven en toch nog de volgende dag gaan werken. Je laat je door niets of niemand van je stuk brengen. Je geniet van alles om je heen, maakt je weinig zorgen, je leeft in het hier en nu. Alles wat hij zegt is bijzonder en prachtig en de moeite waard om naar te luisteren. Hij brengt het beste in je naar boven – prijst je de hemel in. Samen luisteren jullie met volle aandacht naar elkaar. Ieder woord, ieder gebaar, iedere aanraking is van bijzondere waarde. Alles is nieuw, alles is de moeite waard om ontdekt te worden.

En dan als je langer bij elkaar bent gebeurt het. Een drukke baan. Nog een drukke baan. Kinderen. Financiele verantwoordelijkheid. En alles wat toen mogelijk was is opeens een stukje moeilijker geworden – een hele nacht wakker blijven om uren met elkaar over je dromen te praten gebeurt bijna niet meer! Je gaat je ergeren aan de kleine dingen – de vuilnis die te laat of niet buiten is gezet. Die lamp die al maanden vervangen moet worden. Het te laat thuiskomen. Als je met elkaar praat is het om agenda’s naast elkaar te leggen en logistieke afspraken te maken – veel minder romantiek, veel minder spontaniteit. Het gebeurt gewoon. Het gebeurt vaak zonder dat je je er bewust van bent.

Een relatie (huwelijk) is hard werken — ontzettend hard werken. Het gaat niet altijd even gemakkelijk, het is niet altijd rozengeur en maneschijn. Het is niet altijd lachen, gieren, brullen. Je krijgt te maken met verdriet, onbegrip, ziekte, boosheid. Niets is makkelijker dan het tijdens die momenten op te geven  – om alleen maar te blijven denken aan datgene wat je nu hebt, wat er nu is. Maar er is zoveel meer. Er is een basis van liefde, van geluk, van genieten.

Het is belangrijker om je af en toe te realiseren waarom je bij elkaar bent, waarom je verliefd geworden bent. Het is belangrijker om door de ergernissen, het verdriet, de boosheid heen te kijken en te zien wat het is wat je samen hebt opgebouwd. Wat je samen doet. Wat je samen bent – het is belangrijk om samen te genieten, samen te lachen, samen te huilen, samen te zijn. Het is belangrijk om elkaar lief te hebben. Iedere moment, iedere dag, wat er ook gebeurt.

Onlangs zag ik deze video en dit is liefde voor mij — samen zijn na 50 jaar. Door dik en dun. In goede en slechte tijden. In ziekte en gezondheid. Er voor elkaar zijn. Elkaar ruimte geven. Elkaar in waarde laten. Samen blijven genieten van kleine dingen. Samen blijven lachen. Samen blijven huilen. Nooit opgeven.

Het bericht 50 jaar liefde | BELOVED verscheen eerst op Florence Bavinck Beloved Fotograaf.