Vegas Baby!

It was our first Wedding and Portrait Photographers International conference. At last count, there were 10,000 photographers from over 35 countries that attended the event. Imagine, TEN THOUSAND photographers! It was HUGE! There were a couple of Filipino photographers aside from us. The WPPP was represented by Lito Genilo, Emil Buencamino, Ariel Javelosa, Jorge Maniquis and Danny Ignacio.

We also met up with Auey Santos and her husband Andreas. Auey, Mimi and I used to belong to the same camera club. Auey has since migrated to the US and is now starting her studio in San Francisco.

Aside from the regular conference classes and trade show talks, Mimi and I booked one on one mentoring sessions with two awesome photographers, Becker and Huy Nguyen.

Huy is “THE” Wedding Photojournalist. He’s so good that he can tell so much of the wedding story with just one photo. Huy showed us on how he shoots a typical wedding day and gave us tips on how to let the bridal party not mind the photographer.

Meanwhile, Becker is not only a gifted photographer but also runs a solid photography business based in Orange County, the most competitive high end market in the US. He has at one time mentored wedding photography heavyweights such as Mike Colon, Jessica Claire and the Boutwells so we were really honored to meet with him. The [b] rocks, he’s very friendly and it was amazing how we covered a lot in an hour’s session. Hopefully, we can apply everything he taught us and elevate our business to the next level.

Becker also invited us to come to his famous party where we were able to meet some of our idols. I admit I was starstruck. These are the people whose blogs and forum posts I read, whose images I see in magazines and whose tutorials I watch. It was overwhelming and inspiring all at the same time. And like fanboys and fangirls, Mimi and I couldn’t resist having our photos taken with them.

With party host Becker and Jessica Claire:

With Nate and Jaclyn of The Image is Found:

With The Nudds, Garrett and Joy:

With The Holritz, Nathan and Amber:

There were a lot of photographers we wanted to approach but the suite was packed and was difficult to navigate around. Anyway, there’s always next year! 😉