Alex the Photo Blog

I’m back from my first photography convention.  I’ll be honest- it was a bit intimidating first seeing over 6,000 wedding and portrait photographers in one place.  I’ve seen extremely discouraging inspiring work by some amazingly talented professionals. The WPPI convention in Vegas has to be the largest assembly of photographers in the world all coming together at the MGM Grand for just a few days.  In addition to the masses and the classes, there were two grand ballrooms full of just about every type of photo vendor you could imagine.

I flew in on Saturday and stayed with an old college friend I haven’t seen since 2005. As it turns out, the best way to adjust to Vegas time is apparently to stay up until 3am on the first night- check!  Though it makes for a long first convention day. Day one of the convention started out with a 9am platform class with Zack and Jody Gray.  I would say out of all of the classes I attended, this class had the most tips for how I should be running my business. Their topic was outlining their above-and-beyond customer service- something I need to get better at. They always stay in touch with their brides throughout the booking process so that on the wedding day, the bride is super excited to see them and she has already informed all of her bridesmaids about their awesome photographers. They also went into a little bit about their social networking and pointed out that the only way to effectively utilize facebook is through immediacy- getting a few photos up the night OF the wedding, friending the entrire bridal party, and tagging everyone. I guess I just need to suck it up and instead of exhaustedly crashing after a wedding, get a couple of photos up from now on.

Later in the day I took a class from Kevin Kubota on lighting. Very informative, but probably boringly technical for the blog. Day two began with an 8am class given by Jerry Ghionis. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t sold on him for the first 30 minutes of the class. He spent a lot of time talking about himself and not teaching much. However, when he got into showing his photos, along with behind the scenes videos- it was incredible what he could do with a very blah setting. Not that he didn’t also shoot in amazing locations, but those are relatively easy to make beautiful. So much of his talent (in my opinion) was taking a small, boring bridal room at a church or a 2 star hotel room and making it into a portrait fit for the cover of a magazine. He utilized all kinds of natural backdrops and lighting from sources that normally scare off other photographers (like dappled or direct sunlight). For me, his work was inspiring and discouraging at the same time because it was so incredible.

Day two also included a trip out to Red Rocks National Park just outside of Vegas with my old college friend, Phil.  He was nice enough to drive me out there and hike around for about 4 hours with me while I snapped some photos. As far as photography goes, I think I have the furthest to go in the arena of landscape and nature photos, so I was glad to take the time to get some shots out there- even though I accidentally wore my dress shoes instead of sneakers… a very bad idea when climbing rocks.  I came very close to falling a few times (don’t tell Keri).

And here, you must note the length of spring and fall in Nevada:

Later that evening was a surprise for me when I landed a ticket from the WPPI facebook group to a private concert by Ingrid Michaelson. You may remember her song “Take me the Way I Am” from Keri and my save-the-date video last year.

Day three was essentially the trade show… all day. It was overwhelming to see and speak to all of the different vendors that I had even the slightest interest in. I spoke to album-printers, web designers, camera and accessory manufacturers, printing companies, and just about everything else under the sun. They had live demonstrations all day at numerous booths. There were multiple models at each of these shoots dressed in tuxes and wedding dresses (and I always wanted to yell “congratulations!” but never did).

Proof that even models eat McDonald’s fries:

To top off the day of being on my feet from 9am to 5pm, I decided to take it easy… and got out with Chelsea Patricia, Tamee Renee, and Kelly Lane for four hours of dancing at the VIP party at Tabu in the MGM.  This is after hanging out the night before with these girls and Tiffany Wayne.  We ended up making friends with Bradley Paul and Larry Reeves. It really was an incredible feeling to be surrounded by that many fellow photographers in one place- everyone I talked to was refreshing and genuinely excited to be there as well. Everyone loved shooting- whether it was their full time job for 20 years or part time for the past 2.

It was an incredible few days, needless to say. What I need to do now is go home, gather my notes and figure out how sculpt a plan for my business and passion going forward. With the knowledge I have from just these few days, I have plenty to keep me busy. First and foremost, I need to get out there and shoot with what I’ve learned! Who needs photos?!?

Bonus- me making a very cool thumbs up in front of Sigfreid and Roy’s house in North Las Vegas.  According to my friend Phil who grew up around the corner, before they kept the animals off site, you could hear tigers roaring at feeding time every night.

I will be catching up on the blog while I’m out in Vegas next week for the WPPI convention (Wedding and Portrait Photographer International) as I have a few shoots to update ya’ll on.  I also wanted to update everyone that wants more convenience in their lives and with Alex the Photo Guy.  ATPG is now accepting all major credit cards through this nifty company called squareup!   Pretty neat-o, huh?  Sure it won’t be for everyone, and it charges me a fee- but convenience is worth its weight in gold for my clients!

Here’s a portrait I shot in Eutaw, Alabama (yes, that’s a place) a few weeks ago.   I was out on a farm with some friends and just thought this turned out to be a priceless facial expression from a Great American.  

For those of my three avid blog readers, you may have nocted a week went by without any fun pictures posted on the blog from Alex Boyce’s Wedding last week.  Well, to make a long story short, a full glass of red wine was spilled on my 2-month-old laptop.  Lucky I always follow the rule of not deleting photos until I have at least two copies of all of them.  Usually I run with 3 copies at all times- hard drive, external hard drive, and the cloud (probably a cumulus, but perhaps cirrus).  All of the info on my tempranillo-flavored laptop is safe and sound, but the work I had done to the photos will be slowed a bit as I revert to my old computer to handle the job.

If I can give advice to anyone depending on technology for their business, my advice is to spend the extra money on rugged items that last.  All but one of my Canon lenses are the professional models- not just because they help with better quality pictures, but because when I’m shooting a wedding and accidentally kick a lens behind me skittering it across concrete, dangerously close to an olympic-sized pool, I want to know it’s going to work for the reception afterward (this actually happened).  However, no matter how much you spend, these professional items do have their breaking point.  I bought my laptop from Lenovo (formerly IBM) because their ThinkPads are meant to be some of the most reliable out there.  You can see an example of their water-resistance here.  Unfortunately for me, it was a full glass of red wine dumped all at once into a speaker, rather than a few flowing ounces of crystal clean water on the keyboard.

The lessons learned here are: 1) that you should always backup, then backup again; 2) great hardware is nothing without a great accidental coverage warranty; and 3) make sure you and your friends drink Argentinian wine from sippy cups if around your fancy pants laptop.

Here’s another teaser from the Boyce wedding.  More to come.

… you’d want these guys on your team.

Actually they’re not an especially trained group of fighters, I just thought this picture turned out kinda badass.  This is a little teaser from the Boyce/McCollister wedding this weekend at the Woodstock Baptist Church.  More to come on this in the coming weeks, but in short it was a lot of fun and we captured a lot of great photos.

Last month I got to have fun with a couple of newly engagedes (is that a word?) in Kennesaw Mountain Park.  The weather was perfect and judging by the overflowing of traffic, everyone in the city was out for a stroll.  Alex and Ryan are one of those couples that knew from the start that they’d end up together.  They’ll be getting married in January- just a year from having met.  It’s pretty amazing to spend time with a couple as sweet and sure of their love as they are.  Plus they were a heck of a lot of fun to hang out with.  I’m really excited for their Roswell wedding!

“Hey- let’s see if he’s tickelish!”

It’s amazing how a “real job” can take away from things like blogging.  These photos were taken just 15 minutes from the Jack Daniels distillery at the Griner/Rongey wedding back in October.  It was held at the bride’s parents’ beautiful mountain home in Winchester, TN on a hill overlooking the Appalachian Mountains.  The Griners did an amazing job converting a garage into the reception venue by hanging lights, renting tables, and hanging big white sheets to cover up tools and farm equipment.  If I could shoot laid back outdoor country weddings for the rest of my life, I would be a happy photographer.  :)

It has been almost one month since Keri and I were married.  That Friday was absolutely amazing and wouldn’t have been the same without the help of many friends and family- you know who you are and we thank you!

One of the best things to come of that day (other than the whole marriage thing) are the final images from our photo booth.  Steve Porter was gracious enough to set up and man the photo booth all night.  As you’ll be able to see in the video below, it was an incredible night full of eating, drinking, dancing, and hand puppets.  If you’re looking to download photos, you can do so here!  Just click on the folder icon on the right side of your favorite pic.