Hopefully most of you saw the previous post, WPPI Experience Part 1. If you haven’t please take a few minutes and check it out, I’ve even included a video.
So back to Part 2 of my WPPI Experience. As I mentioned in the previous post, I thought last year was a tad bit better. It seemed they offered more to all that attended with the mock wedding and concert. And I don’t know if was my state of mind last year or what? But hearing Catherine Hall, Mike Larson and Dane Sander’s speak blew me out of the water. I left Vegas with one direction and that was Photography ALL THE WAY. See last year I was on the fence of going 100% photography or going back to a 9 to 5. After the conference it was like I was a thoroughbred horse with blinders on and as you can see here I am.
NOW this year it was a different experience, I got inspired not only by different speakers but even by my new friends. Going into WPPI this year with such a good group of photography friends made this experience awesome, last year I didn’t know one person. This year I was at all the cool people parties, hanging with my friends and just having a good time. Shot outs to Danny Mendoza for allowing me to crash in the room, Jeff Almquist for rolling up to Vegas with me, especially on the way back home, Emily Ivey for kicking it with us when she wasn’t working for Dane, Amber Fox for being my partner throughout the whole event (you rock!) and last but not least my fellow Filipino photogs Alfred Bertulfo and Jason Zalameda. THANK YOU all for being rockstars with me last week, I had a blast because of all you!
As for Speakers this year, stand outs were Beth Forester (Senior Photographer), Dane Sanders and Doug Gordon. The others I saw were just ok. I was bummed to miss Jesh de Rox, Kevin Kubota, John Michael Cooper, Justin and Mary Marantz and Lori Nordstrom. It’s tough to decide who to see when they put two or three good speakers on at the same time, never the less still LOVED the experience.
Oh yeah, thanks to Alfred, because of him I did the photography for Dane Sanders Platform class, hopefully they will post the images. Speaking of shooting, while we were up there Alfred put together 2 separate photo shoots 1) Monday evening we did a shoot on the strip using our flash, I mean ambient light, LOL the idea was to shoot with flash, but with all the bright lights we couldn’t help but to shoot with the available ambient light. 2) Wed. evening on the south side of Vegas a few of us did a Senior shoot, it was pretty cool and freaking cold I might add. Check out some of the pics below.
To conclude this short story, I LOVED this experience in a different way. My new friends all kick ass and I am stoked to know them. And finally Thank you Alfred for putting on the shoots, how do you go out to a Photography convention and not take any pictures? Well thanks to him we got 2 cool sessions in.
Final shot out goes to my boy from back in the day, Travis McCullough for coming down to visit me on Tuesday night. It was good to see you brutha!
Make up and hair by: Rose Anne Towers
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