Day #3 was so exciting. I honestly laughed, cried, and officially hit information overload. I loved it. I felt that I had officially taken an active role in realizing my dreams, and in the words of Dr. Seuss, “with brains in [my] head, and feet in [my] shoes, [I] can steer [myself] in any direction [I] choose.” I am ready to be great. I am ready to put myself out there. I am ready to try new things. I am ready to evoke emotion in my pictures. I am ready to be confident in my work. I know how to use the features of my camera, I know about lighting, and I understand different situations more and more as I take pictures. I take pictures SOOC (straight out of camera) that really need no editing. I am in my third year of doing this, and I am more excited than I have ever been. I feel WPPI changed me, and I reached the peak of that on day 3.
We rode the monorail daily between our hotel and the conference center. This was the only time we were ever alone, so we took the chance to have a photo shoot. This is actually one of my favorite pictures that was taken the whole trip. I feel like it is so tourist, and photographer, and I just love looking at it.
Jerry Ghionis taught the last workshop we attended. It was absolutely fantastic. We both cried through multiple parts. We both left understanding his sentiment that if you want to be a better photographer, you need to be a better person. He has a beautiful way of evoking emotion in his photography. He understands the special moments in peoples lives and he knows how to remind them of the beauty of it before he photographs them. I never thought I would go into a photo workshop, in an arena of people, and be moved to tears. He is an amazing photographer, and I am so glad Kristen and I took his class together. The picture below was taken by Kristen during a non crying part of the workshop where we got to learn about posing (but don’t worry, we got to cry before the whole posing section was done too..). The picture on the right is Jerry Ghionis a little more up close and personal. He was at the tradeshow doing a presentation at one of the booths.
The next three pictures capture one of the highlights of my trip. Kristen had already met Jasmine Star at a night that she did in Texas. We knew from reading her blog that she was going to be at the Kubota booth doing a photoshop presentation, so we went. She is so fun to listen to. Even when she thinks she is nervous, she is great at hiding it. We were pretty close to the front of the presentation because we had gotten there a little bit early, so after I was able to say hello, tell her I was sorry she got stung by a jelly fish (I read her blog), and take a picture with her. The most awesome part was, she remembered Kristen, and Kristen’s awesome hair. Needless to say, I was a little Star struck (total pun intended).
We got to meet awesome companies. Some Kristen had already known about, some were new to both of us. These are some of the ones that stuck out to me, and you will definitely be hearing a lot more from me about two of the companies that are pictured below.
1. Pinhole Press. Feel free to go to this LINK, and browse or buy something. I love them. All their products are so classy looking. I want a journal, a calendar, some thank you notes, and a notepad. Now I just need to have an awesome photo shoot done with my husband so I can buy some.
2. KISS. I am so excited to work with them for albums. They are a fantastic company and they were the subject of a lot of buzz at WPPI this year.
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