I recently attended WPPI in Las Vegas for the national wedding and portrait conference for my second year.  Four days in Las Vegas is really about seven when you consider the fact that I was up by 7am each morning and only went to bed by midnight on one night.  So I was a little tired when I returned.  I was amazed at how different this year was from last.  Facebook and Twitter have given people the green light to come up and talk to people that they have never met.  “I am your friend” became somewhat of a funny and yet at the same time weird phrase.  Or I would meet people and they would say something like “I think I follow you” or “I think we are friends” because honestly it is hard to keep up with everybody.

I want to thank Victor Sizemore and Emma Smith  and Eric Guideng for setting up some awesome shoots.  It is funny how I have met some great people on these shoots over the last two years in Vegas.

I really enjoyed my master classes with Kenny Kim, David Beckstead, and Alycia Alvarez.  I like the set up for these classes so much more because you get to find out a lot more about the photographer as a person.  I enjoyed listening to Kenny a lot.  He is a very genuine person.  If you can go check out this video for the Thirst Relief fund and help out.

I was able to go to see Mike Fulton and Cody Clinton with Tri-Coast on their lighting session.  I think these guys love what they do. 🙂 I also got to see John Michael Cooper and the mariachi band going at 7:45am.  I need to find a pair of pants like those guys wear.  He mentioned  “booking his mariachi package.”  I think I could pull that off.  I could figure out some way to hang one of my cameras off of the chains down the legs.

Here are a few shots that I took at the shoot in the dry lake bed.  Yes it was freezing by the time the sun started to go down.  But so worth it…I will post the other shoots in the next few days…more to come.

 

Here are a couple of shots that show some behind the scenes looks…

It was getting so cold that they were trying to warm up their hands from the lights…

Styling by Summer Watkins: http://greylikesweddings.wordpress.com
Historical Jewels: http://www.historicaljewels.com/
Make Up & Hair: Jill Guin of Darling Bride: http://www.darlingbride.com
Video: Elysium Productions http://blog.elysiumproductions.com/

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