Another awesome day in Las Vegas!

Monday was a fabulous day here in Vegas. The convention started and I had a huge list of things that I wanted to accomplish.

I had the honor of hearing Me Ra Koh speak on Monday morning. She is such a warm person and so willing to open up and let us see how she has become so successful. In the afternoon program, I was able to hear Sondra Ayers and Jerry Deck from Power Consulting (They are currently revamping their website). They helped me see that I already have a lot of the right business practices in place, but also helped me realize that it is possible to get to the next level. And for the evening program, I had the pleasure of hearing Jose Villa. He was extremely helpful with specifics on what magazines are looking for in submissions. This year I will be focusing a lot more on getting published and Jose provided wonderful, solid information on how to do this. Thanks Jose!

In the afternoon, we had the chance to meet Becker. He was doing free headshots outside of Paris and Shan and I got the chance to get our headshots done together. We also saw our friends Wendi and Devon and grabbed a couple of quick shots of them too!




After a full day of seminars and a couple of hours of walking around the trade show, it was time to get ready for the Giveaway Gala at the iBar in the Rio. This was a cocktail party that was sponsored by Photo Lovecat and Pay It Forward. Throughout the whole night, white beach balls with giveaways taped to them were thrown out into the crowd and people received a lot of great stuff! (We didn't ever end up catching one! LOL) More than anything, it was more of a chance to hang out with some of our photographer friends and get to know them better. You will see some silly pictures from us throughout the night!







I'm sure you can tell from the images, but we are having a great time and meeting great people! I will try to post later today some images from yesterday and I think that tonight we will head out on the strip and take some shots of Vegas! (Last night we stayed in and went to bed early because we had only gotten about an hour and a half of sleep on Monday night! LOL)

Steph

Viva Las Vegas!!!

I am in Las Vegas for the WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) convention and having an absolutely great time!

Shan and I flew in on Friday night and spent most of the day Saturday and Sunday morning sitting in on the 16x20 Print Competition Judging. I had submitted 5 images in the Premier category. (Meaning that I had never competed in an International 16x20 print competition before) It was extremely enlightening to hear the comments the judges were making and to learn what they are looking for. All of the comments that they made about my images I completely agreed with...good and bad. Having this information will really help me in my future print competition submissions.

I am pleased to announce that I did earn an Accolade of Excellence for one of my images and it may be published in WPPI's Album 2008. This is the image that received the Accolade of Excellence. (I think that technically I am not supposed to know this, but I was sitting there when it was judged so I have early information!)


We have had the pleasure of hearing a number of amazing speakers already this weekend. We have heard from Me Ra Koh, Pepper Nix, Jules Bianchi, Sara France, Mike Colon, Joe Buissink and Denis Reggie.

We have also taken some time to relax and have fun. We have really enjoyed meeting up with our photographer friends from around the world and hanging out with them. We went to a party at Club Rouge in the Celebrity Suite at the Palms last night and had a great time socializing and getting to know some of our new friends better. Here is a quick collage of our first couple of days here in Vegas and some highlights from the Club Rouge Party.


We were also able to get some shooting time in with 2 models at the Club Rouge Party. The models were there for us to be able to practice our Couple's Boudoir photography and to gain some amazing images for our portfolios! Here is a collage of the work that I got last night. (Keep in mind with the boudoir images that I was shooting with 9 other photographers in the room at the same time shooting and we only shot for about 10 minutes! So these were quick captures and very on the fly! Of course...it helps when you have drop dead gorgeous models to work with! LOL. Thank you Brittany and Justin! You were a blast to work with!)


Anyway...that is just a little update from me. We will be going to a formal cocktail party tonight, so I am sure that I will have a lot of great images from that to post tomorrow!

Steph