Wedding and Portrait Professionals International is the place to be in March for professional photographers.  It will overwhelm you, delight you and outright frustrate you.  Your brain may suffer from information overload.

Day 1.

I arrived on Saturday night, got registered at the MGM Signature Convention Center, picked up my badges. Badges, we don’t need no stinking badges. Your badge is your key to all the information that you brain can absorb or can stuff into those nifty Nikon shopping bags (You’re Welcome, Nikon).

Day 2.

This is what it is all about, the education.  I don’t care how cool or how fantastic you are in your corner of the world.  There is always someone better than you.  Try 14,000 at least.  At times, today, I felt like a small fish in a big pond.  Other times today, I felt just about where I should be at this point in my career.  To illustrate that; my second instructor for today was Chuck Arlund, fashion photographer.  He is absolutely amazing and I could totally understand what he was saying about lighting principles, off camera flash (OCF), the use of light modifiers and high speed sync.  However, I could tell the two gentlemen sitting next to me had no idea what Chuck was talking about.  So, I know I may not be the biggest fish in the pond, but I am no baitfish either.

The first instructor, I had was Dane Sanders, A fantastic wedding and portrait photographer out of Orange County.  His talk left me in tears; he had a segment of his talked focused on the importance of family portraits.  Well, his story went like this:  His dad and him where in a car accident when he was three, his dad did not survive.  Shortly before the accident they had a picture taken Dad, Dane and his two other brothers all in bed together and Dad is looking over at Dane, Just a little 2×2 inch photo is all that remains to remind them of their dad.  Dane continues the story by putting up a recent photo that Jeremy Cowart took of Dane and his family in bed together; very similar to that of the last memory Dane has of his Dad.  Tell me, is that not fantastic.   I have a story of my own.  As some of you may know, my mother passed away last spring, her brother, my uncle passed away this past December.  Guess who has the last family portrait of them together, that’s right, this guy. that family portrait I took was at my mother and fathers 50^th wedding anniversary. Guess what other portraits I took that day.  Of course, I took a portrait of my mom and dad together, and one with all my brothers and my mom and dad. Big thank you to my son, KeeAiren for pulling the trigger on that one.   So, who has the last portrait of my mom and dad together, again, this guy.  Who has the last portrait of my family, I think you can figure out the theme here.  However, the theme isn’t that I took all of them.  The point is that someone has these images, all my aunts and uncles have them printed and soon all my brothers will have the images printed large to pass down to their family.  A true family heirloom,  What price would you put on that?

The last instructor for today was the hilarious, Michele Celentano.  Brooklyn born and raised, now a transplant to the valley of the sun, out in Arizona land.  At first, due to the projector, in the conference hall, I thought her images where good, not over the top great, but once she turned the light down and got the projector dialed in the images were spectacular.  But what was even better than her images was the way she interacted with her clients.  You see as professionals we offer things, intangibles that the amateur cannot offer.  Professionals can pose you without you even feel like you are being posed. Professionals can make you look 10 pounds slimmer by just choosing the right camera angle, or various other techniques we use.  She said something, today, that really meat a lot to me.  She said,  “Family portraits are an investment, these are what is left behind.

Junior Crew members.
1 free session

the two group session

25% off all products

everyone receives facebook images all day long.

You will also be on all studio marketing that leaves the studio.

Sound like something interesting to you.  then apply>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Apply today.