Hi there, welcome to my very first post on my new exciting “Bettina’s Blog”!!

I would like to share this unusual and amazing story with you. “How I became a Professional Photographer In Two Weeks” thanks to Facebook. Social media is just amazing.

The sister of a good friend of mine owned a book company in the United States. And as it happens, her company was publishing a book called “Arena y Mar” with a plot taking place in Argentina.

The book was ready, but they were still missing the perfect cover photo for the book, because they hadn’t found a girl yet, who looked like Laura, the main character of the story.

So, one day and by pure coincidence, the publisher noticed a photo on Facebook. It was a photo on my timeline that I had taken of my daughter on the Famara beach here on Lanzarote.

She told me, that from the moment she saw that picture, she knew she had found “Laura”. She just needed my permission to use my daughter.

She also asked me if I knew any professional photographer on the Island, to do a photo shoot with my daughter. Unfortunately, at that time I didn’t, so I offered to take the responsibility myself, and take over the photo shoot.

I was completely over the moon, as you can imagine, when they agreed to give me that chance.

I love the photography and I have been taking photos since I was a little girl, even to the point where it drove my family crazy.

They sent me all the instructions by email. What photos to take and where. And since volcanoes are nonexistent in Argentina they specifically stressed that NO volcanoes were allowed on any of the photos.

Which was quite a difficult task, since we live on a volcanic Island!

Another one of the instructions, and the funniest part really, was the 300 year old book they wanted “Laura” to be holding in her hands

They didn’t send me one and I didn’t know of anyone who owned a 300 year old book. Not even a 100 year old book for that matter.

So, I came up with the idea to make one myself. It`s amazing how creative one can be when it’s urgently needed!

So what I did was that I took a brand new hardcover book from my very own bookshelf and went down to the beach, which luckily is just about 50 meters from my house.

I then put loads of sand on every single page and left the book on the shore for about an hour letting the foamy shallow waves wash over it.

After sitting there watching it for about an hour I went home and left it on my terrace, in the sun, for a week, in 30º Celsius.

That treatment was just what made a brand new hardcover look 300 years old in a week! Amazing.

Now, everything was ready and the most important part of the photo shooting with my daughter could begin.

We shot some pretty nice pictures that day and the US publishers were more than thrilled with the results, everybody were extremely happy with the result.

If I may say, the front cover of “Arena y Mar” was a smashing hit.

So this is the REAL power of  social media and thanks to Facebook, I can add Creative Artist and Professional Photographer to my Curriculum.