finally! i'm able to squeeze in a short little vegas recap :) in total, we spent nearly 5 whole days in las vegas (give or take drive time) and i personally had a fantastic time. it was great seeing new friends i hadn't seen in a year, exploring the huge tradeshow floors, and listening to some of the best in the industry. here is a little day by day recap.
sorry, you get watermarked images today since they're going to be posted on two different blogs :)
saturday we got in to vegas right around 6pm and checked in to our hotel. our hotel booking allowed us two tickets to the recycled percussion show in the hotel theater, so once we unloaded everything from the car in to our hotel room, we got in line. dad volunteered to go up on stage at one point during the "training camp" section - that's him drumming on the trash can with some weird mask on. the show was great! full of energy and pretty incredible to see what four guys can do with a ton of random junk.
sunday was the first day at the convention, and boy was it jam packed. we checked in and got our badges right around 8 and then headed up to the third floor to wait in line. the speakers that day were zach & jody gray, the guys from tricoast photo, and the ever enthusiastic doug gordon. his posing tips are amazing. cannot wait to utilize them with couples! after a hop & skip down the road to in-n-out for dinner, that night was the photographers ignite presentation which was pretty amazing. each set of speakers had 5 minutes and 20 auto advancing slides to give a short presentation. the youngest speaker was maybe 18... having started his business at like, 15. what the crap?!
monday was another busy sort of day. 8am was jerry ghionis, and he talked a lot about light. this kid was at his talk last year. no joke, made the whole audience cry when jerry talked about him. adorbs. wandered the tradeshow with stephanie, and then we headed up (or tried to) to get our seats for jasmine star. yeah, she's already been refered to as my girl crush on facebook... i'm telling you, she's shooting my wedding even if i have to become an indentured servant for the rest of my life. she was amazing as always, and after her i headed down and met up with some of my "fusion group" peeps for the last talk of the day by tamara lackey. BACK up to the third floor for the sony party. last year we met nigel barker. this year, it was pretty much a total bust. minus the free food.
tuesday was a slower paced day. i got to sleep in a bit, and then went to the rainforest cafe for breakfast with the aforementioned "fusion group". and i won a book! finally something good came from these dang business card raffles. instead of going back to wandering the tradeshow, i hung out with kelliana, katie, lori & alej in their hotel room while kelliana photographed each of them. i was a pretty bomb reflector holder, that's for sure. though, it made me miss two chances to win an ipad. oh well! went down to see jessica claire talk (with stephanie) and then dad and i made a dash to chipotle down by harrah's for dinner. made it back just in time for his last platform class, so i randomly chose one to go to as well. after the last platform class, which was on senior portrait photography i headed up to the canon 80s party... not in 80's dress at all because even though i was intending to bring my pink shirt from 80's bowling... i totally forgot it at home. that's okay though. i wasn't the only one not in 80s dress. ate some cupcakes, hung out with stephanie, and then when the party "shut down" at like... 10:20, headed back to the hotel.
wednesday was the last day in vegas, and boy was it my slowest day! slept in a little bit, and once i woke up, i found out from twitter that i had won a camera bag! i guess i can't say i never win anything in vegas anymore. once we checked out of the hotel and loaded up the car, headed over to the tradeshow for one last day. wandered a bit here and there, and then since the weather was so nice, sat outside and ate lunch on the grass. after the final platform class with dane sanders, we began the 9 hour voyage home. overall, it was a great trip from my perspective. i got to reconnect with friends i've only seen online for the past year, become inspired by some of the greatest in the industry, and win free stuff! haha. oh, and drool over camera gear, that's for sure. another good part? besides food, i wasn't DYING to buy anything this year. well, i guess i mean realistically dying... since i could always go for some new camera gear :)
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