Our second Vegas shoot {see the first one here!} took place along the Vegas strip. Loved all the colors, lights, and reflections we stumbled across! Again, the models were totally amazing, braving crazy wind & bitter cold for the sake of awesome photos.

The wonderful people who made it all happen…

Shoot organized by Alice Hu
Models: Shelli Anderson | Natalie Brewster | Marissa Knudsen
Hair: Hair by Shelli
Hair Accessories: ban.do {with styling by Ever Ours}
Wedding Gowns: Bonny Bridal

And a very special thank you to Lydia of Ever Ours for sharing these shoots on her blog last week! :) Her blog is one of my favorites and it’s always so much fun collaborating with her!

WPPI! 2011! It was my third year attending this convention and as always, it was jam-packed with fun and friends and food and fotography. (See what I did there? Alliteration!) Some highlights of this year:

– Rooming with the sweetest ladies {Lydia, Serena & Alice!} and grubbing on shin cups late at night like we’re in the dorms or something
– Dancing so hard at Airplanes and Blazers I broke one of my heels (WOO HOO)
– Sipping pretty pink greyhounds with the lovely Traveling Heart ladies
– Walking away from the trade show with a shiny new Kelly Moore camera bag (I got the hobo! the mustard one!)
– Grabbing Mad Greek for lunch on the way back (a must when visiting Vegas)
– Coming home with the annual inevitable WPPI SARS and being out of commission for about a week. (OH WAIT, that is the opposite of a highlight, that is definitely the lowest of all lowlights, I’ve pretty much figured out that I can only exist in Vegas for 72 hours, any longer and I catch the bubonic plague.)
– Participating in two amazing shoots, one which you shall see below!

For this shoot, we drove out and out (and out) into the Vegas desert, and just when we were all pretty sure we’d be the stars in a “Nine Photographers Go Missing, 237 Weddings Now Photographer-less” article, we arrived at the most amazing little ghost town. They’ve shot all sorts of movies and commercials and ads there, but all you really need to know is that an Anthropologie catalog was photographed there once. THAT’S HOW CUTE IT IS.

Thank you so much to Alice Hu for being an organizational wizard and bringing everything together, to the amazing models for coming out, to Lydia for helping to style, and ban.do for providing us with the sweetest box of accessories to jazz up our shoot. So much fun!

Models: Shelli Anderson | Natalie Brewster | Marissa Knudsen

Wedding Gowns: Bonny Bridal

Hair: Hair by Shelli

Hair Accessories: ban.do {thanks to Ever Ours!}

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 caught the bubonic plague there and it followed me all the way home to Los Angeles. Lame.

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!