A bit belated, but wanted to do a quick post on WPPI 2010! It was a fantastic experience in so many ways & since rehashing everything will be a bit overwhelming, I’ll do a quick recap on what I learned in lovely bullet-point style:

- Having a fantastic second-shooter boyfriend to hold your hand through your first WPPI experience is totally amazing & invaluable. But leaving the guys behind and making it a girls trip is also a good call :) Road-tripped it to Vegas with the best roomies a girl could ask for - Serena Grace, Caroline Tran, & Sarah K Chen. It was so fun & inspiring sharing the trip with them!

- Take some classes. I only browsed the trade show last year, but took 2 classes this year - Elizabeth Messina & Jonathan Canlas - which both blew my mind. They are both utterly fantastic film photographers, and though I’ve been infatuated with the depth & color of film forever, I never strongly considered shooting it until I heard them speak. I don’t think the change will be happening in my professional work anytime soon, but I am definitely hoping to start shooting film personally.

- Bring a point-and-shoot to capture all the fun moments & DON’T FORGET THE CHARGER. My 5D was charged up all nicely but I didn’t quite feel like lugging it all around the MGM. My point-and-shoot died literally 1 hour upon entering into Vegas city limits. Sad day!

- And lastly, what happens in Vegas apparently does NOT always stay in Vegas, since I basically came home with the bubonic plague. I promptly passed it on to Scott, because sharing is caring. The saddest part was hearing him say, in the midst of his sickest hour, “I didn’t even GO to Vegas!”

Some quick photos of a few of my favorite memories…

Roomies before the Airhorns & Lasers party..

One of my few shots with my 5D.. Sarah & Serena peeking out the window upon our arrival to our suite:

So happy to finally meet Tey Garcia & Karen Atrero - the sweet girly halves of amazing husband & wife photog teams!

A shot from the Fuji booth… with the cost of Polaroid film starting to cost me all my limbs, I would love to get my hands on a Fuji Instax!

Fun at the SmugMug party (my first time donning a Snuggie!)

A pic with my SD girl Jackie Wonders.. I [heart] her!

On the way home from Vegas (after a quick stop at the delicious Mad Greek), we stopped off in the middle of nowhere for a quick impromptu portrait session. The light was gorgeous!

Sarah’s Contax.. you can see some of her lovely film captures here:

And one of yours truly, courtesy of Serena. It’s been ages since I’ve had a portrait taken of me, but these girls are excellent at making you feel as un-awkward as possible.

And a quick last group shot before heading back into LA!

Hello from WPPI! I’m here at the convention in Las Vegas until Thursday so my apologies ahead of time if email replies are a bit slow the next few days! My roomies {Caroline Tran, Serena Grace, Sarah K Chen} & I drove in yesterday afternoon and are looking forward to classes, parties, & meeting lots of new people! You can follow all of my adventures over the next few days on Twitter.

Leaving you with a quick picture of us before the Airhorns & Lasers party last night (because a camera phone pic is better than no pic at all!)

We stepped out of the cars and were immediately greeted by a sharp whipping wind. The sky was a wide expanse of bright blue and although you could see the highway in the distance, the sound of the zipping cars was barely audible. It was just the photographers, the cameras, the models, the desert!

A huge thank you to Ohana Photographers for organizing this spectacular shoot! They’re an AMAZING and ridiculously talented and kind family and it was so great to get to hang with them! And of course a huge thank you to the amazing models who breezed right through the 40 degree temperatures. I’m a TOTAL wussasaurus when it comes to cold and was all bundled up in boots and a puffy jacket, but the models were not only withstanding the frigid temps - they were looking smoking hot the entire time!

I wanted to blog WPPI in order, but could not wait to share these shots with you! I actually started editing them the night we got back from WPPI (seriously it was like, walk into house, drop suitcase on floor, open laptop, EDIT) because I was just so excited about them! More of what we were up to at WPPI will be coming up soon!

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Also, thank you to everyone for all your kind words and encouragement in my last post! I was overwhelmed and amazed by the incredible support - thank you!