Beckley, WV: Mpix Conference

I had the great opportunity to go teach at a photography conference in Beckley, WV with our lab Mpix. I teach a class called "The Business Side of Photography". Unfortunately (for my blog, but fortunately for them), everyone was paying so much attention to what I had to say that no one took any pictures of me teaching. LOL The one above here is one that Jessica took of me. (Thanks Jess!) Jessica is the owner of Jessica Edwards Photography in SE Kentucky. Oh well, I am going to share some of the images that I captured that weekend of our models.








Now...when a bunch of photographers get together in one place with nothing to do but socialize and learn, fun and crazy images are bound to happen! This weekend, it was elevated even more because we had a Photo Scavenger Hunt that we were doing as well, so there was plenty of craziness happening. (If you have never done a photo scavenger hunt, I HIGHLY suggest it! It was so much fun! It didn't matter if the pictures were in focus or composed right, all that mattered was that you got one for each clue!)

So here are some casual images from the weekend.

These are my friends, Debi and Cheri. They are both from here in Northern Ohio, but oddly enough I don't see them that much except at these conferences! LOL

This is Margie! She was a hoot! (And not just because I made her give me owl eyes! LOL)
She is Tricia's Roadie!

This is my friend Tricia. Talk about a hoot! LOL She is so crazy and fun. I only wish I had a picture of what she wore when we went bowling on Saturday. Her socks were black and white striped and reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the East from the Wizard of Oz. (And Tricia is far from the wicked witch...most of the time! LOL)

This is my friend Brenda. One of the clues was "We all want to be big rock stars" so I asked Bren to play air guitar for me! And she did it!!!! LOL If you have some prayers handy, say a few from Brenda. She just underwent surgery for cancer on Monday and could use all the prayers that we can spare!

These two crazy ladies are Mary and Gro. (Yes...her name is Gro!) Gro is the owner of Images by Gro in Bryn Mawr, PA. They were so fun to sit out on the porch with and just laugh! I hope that I get to see both of them again soon!

This is my new friend Jessica! She is the one that took the fab picture of me at the beginning of the post. Here she is doing her pose after bowling a frame. She told me that she was going to start posing everytime she turned around because someone was always taking her picture when she finished a frame. LOL

This is my friend Shelly! She is so much fun to hang around and a very good listener. This was Shelly striking a sexy pose for me while wrapped up in some kind of brown scarf thing that someone brought to use with the models! LOL

I put in websites for the people that have them. (At least as far as I know...if you are pictured here and have a website and I didn't post it, please let me know! And shame on you for not sharing it more! LOL)

I really love getting together at these conferences. It is a great time to catch up with friends that we have made over the years, meet new people that we haven't met before and just kick back, relax and have a great time! The next one that I am scheduled to speak at is in Oklahoma in March!

MPix Midwest Conference

Shan and I are very active on the forum at MPix. MPix is one of our favorite labs and we love the friends that we have made in their community forum.

Since we love to teach so much, we organized a conference for photographers from MPix to get together and learn some photography techniques, practice with some models and learn some of the business side of photography as well.

We had about a dozen photographers that met for the weekend and we had an absolutely amazing time. Our friend Chris Baldwin from Graham River Productions came up for 2 days of the conference and video taped us teaching and put together a little video with some highlights of the weekend.




Here are some images that I captured of our models!





It was an amazing weekend (although it was exhausting! LOL). I had a great time with everyone and loved getting to share what I have learned in this business. If you are looking for a great place to learn photography, the MPix forums are great! (I am the Nerd Husband's Wife on there and we are affectionately called "The Nerds" by the group! LOL) I am proud to call my MPix friends my family!

Steph

Exhaustion....

This past week has been fairly quiet....but the previous few weeks is what brought on the exhaustion!

As you all know, I got back from Disney on Wednesday, April 9th. All was well. I was tired, but surviving and just trying to focus on getting some business done. What you probably don't know is that I had a birth client who was due on the 8th, but hadn't delivered yet...so I was still on call. A few crank calls from a guy named Chicco in the middle of the night while I was on call didn't help me get rest! LOL

The weekend passed quietly. I was working on the finishing touches for our MPix Midwest Conference that Shan and I were hosting from April 17th-20th about an hour from our place.

Then the week started....LOL

Monday night, my birth client, Jen, went into the hospital to start her induction since she was now a week overdue and the baby was showing little signs of coming out on her own any time soon. So Monday night, I recharged all my batteries and got ready for the next day.

Tuesday morning...I get the call from Brian, Jen's husband, so I head on up to the hospital so that I am there for this baby's entrance into the world. It was a long and hard labor for Jen that eventually ended in c-section, but I was determined to be there for it all. Tuesday ended up being a very long day for me...about 20 hours long!

Wednesday...I still had to find wedding dresses to put models in for our conference on the weekend, had a meeting with a bride and groom for an upcoming wedding and stopped back at the hospital to see Jen, Brian and baby Claire. (All of this is taking place about 45 minutes from my house!) I still had to pack everything for the weekend and to top it off...I still had not babysitter for the weekend! Talk about stress! We finally conceded that our only option for babysitting would be for Shan to drive the kids to his Mom's in KY after Ian got out of school on Thursday and then drive back for the conference that same day.

Thursday...I took Ian to school. Tried to finish up laundry so that we would have clothes for the weekend and worked on getting all the finishing touches ready for the conference which was scheduled to start that night. I packed a suitcase for the boys, kissed Shan and sent him to get Ian at school to start the 4 hour trip to KY. Shan took the boys to KY and didn't end up getting back up to the conference location until 11:30pm that night. I packed everything for the conference and was on my way....but I had to make a stop at the hospital to do the Day 2 pics of Claire. Then I was on to the conference.

The weekend went by fast and we averaged about 4 hours of sleep a night. Saturday night we only got about 2 1/2 hours of sleep because we were up most of the night tallying up the print competition results. (Over 800 score cards that we had to count!)

After the conference ended at Noon on Sunday, Shan and I drove to our storage unit to drop off the equipment that we don't keep at home, stopped at home to drop off more equipment and stuff, and then immediately got on the road to KY to pick up the boys. We were so tired on the way down that I had to get off the highway to keep from falling asleep at the wheel!

We stayed Sunday night at Shan's Mom's house and left late on Monday to come home.

So I have spent the last few days just trying to recover from the madness of last week. It was a great week, but it definitely wore me out! I'm getting too old for this! LOL

So forgive me for not blogging. I still need to put up images from Claire's birth and from the conference, but I just haven't had it in me. Maybe next week I will feel up to it!

For now...I just need to rest! LOL

Steph