My trip to Las Vegas for the WPPI, Wedding and Portrait Photographer’s International, conference was nothing less then fantastic. I could have done without the smoke and craziness of the city itself, but will go back year after year just for this conference! Can you believe I also didn’t even spend a quarter gambling?! Truth be told, I can’t tell you the last time I HAVE gambled while in Vegas! As far as the conference goes, I am a firm believer in continuing education, and I feel the best education comes from many area’s and angle’s.
I went to a “shootshop” the last day of my trip called “Leavin’ Las Vegas” that was put on by some fantastic people. The purpose of the shoot was to get photographers to continue thinking OUTSIDE of the box to nurture our creativity as artists. There is even a website tuned into this- determined to pull from the unique and extraordinary in wedding photography! Don’t Box Us In. (By Sophie who you will hear about soon…)
I met Sophie and her wonderful husband, Paul, while in Vegas, Jason, Tana and Eric and I all met on a photography forum and since meeting on the forum, Tana and I now live in the same city! (What a small world this is!) L-R Sofie Louca, Jason Domingues, Tana Huffman and Mark Eric,worked very hard on the shootshop and it was a definite success! Thank-you all for your hard, hard work.
This workshop was one of those “education times” I took to really sit back and watch some of the masters of this art get to work. Some truly phenomenal photographers were at this event and I just felt very blessed to be in their presence and watch them do their thing!
John Michael Cooper has a phenomenal mind and is so creative. I have followed his work for years and am amazed by how his mind works. Not only is he a fantastic photographer, but he is creative beyond any stretch of imagination. On the day of the shoot, he brought along one of his models and had a concept in mind that he conjured up from a Marliyn Manson video. This is the shot I took of what he was doing. Go to his site and see what HE pulled from the shoot. UN-REAL!!! I knew his wheels were turning, and it was so amazing to be a part of that.
At another point in the day, I spoke with Mike Fulton of Tri-Coast Photography about Kevin King’s stellar new photography lighting must-have: “radio poppers”. They are going to be for sale very soon and I am patiently waiting the release. Mike gave me a one on one tutorial on how they work and the in’s and out’s of the whole thing. Below you see a shot of some of the photog’s who were at the shoot testing out the Radio Poppers. Mike is holding the off camera lighting “stick” and radio popper- he is in the orange and black shirt on the left of the frame.
There was so much talent in Las Vegas- this is only the tip of the iceberg! Just wanted to mention the couple things I observed and I will post about more later. (Including a few of my own shots with the models!)
I also want to put a plug-in for the video that was made for Leavin’ Las Vegas. If you watch the video you will see some great footage of what goes on at events like this. You will also see my friend and WPPI Roomate, Sara and I hanging out in the background of the “Bride of Darkness”. Sara is wearing a red shirt and I am in bright blue.
