PictageU- the whirlwind review

Okay, so sorry for the delay in the story! The Week of Insanity continues :)

So we arrived safe in sound in Minnesota after the kids first flight, and Nathan’s brother and uncle came by the airport to pick everyone up. I said my goodbyes, and headed straight back into the airport. I was to be flying immediately back to Atlanta. The timing had ended up being crazy, and our trip to MN coincided with my opportunity to teach at PictageU.

Unfortunately, when I arrived at the check-in counter, I found out that all flights into Atlanta that evening had been cancelled due to weather. It was 5:00pm, and I was a million miles away from the location in which I was due to be giving my presentation in less than 18 hours. My happy happy day was immediately replaced with slightly elevated stress levels… but thanks to a very friendly Delta counter guy, I arrived at a plan. It was a crazy plan, but it would at least be a way to get myself to Atlanta by 8:00am the following day.

I flew from Minneapolis to Knoxville… and then I rented a car and drove to Atlanta. It was comical… I actually drove directly past my house sometime around midnight. I considered stopping and sleeping there, but realized that I had given my house key to a friend who was checking on the cat for us while we were gone! So I kept on. I didn’t arrive at Rachel & Andrew’s Atlanta home until sometime after 4:00am. The final leg of the trip turned into a complete comedy of errors. I received a speeding ticket just before I arrived in Alanta. I found myself completely lost, 3 different times, in all different areas of the city. The best moment (sarcasm intended) was when I was sitting at a stop sign, trying to figure out where in the world I was, and suddenly this man, who had been talking to himself on the corner, apparently decided I had been sitting there for too long, because he walked over and punched the front of my car! At that moment, I was a little sad that I hadn’t just stayed in Minnesota. Finally, I arrived at the correct location, and crawled into bed with Rachel and Andrew’s hysterically needy cat to grab about an hour and a half of sleep before it was time to be on and ready to go for PictageU.

Whew. I’m really glad to get that story out of my system… thanks for bearing with me :)

So PictageU kicked off with Tuesday morning, jam-packed with teaching. Jim Collins opened up with a short introduction, and then we immediately got started. Three different speakers (including myself) presented about various different aspects of family & children’s photography.

Liana shared her awesome tips concerning pricing and business strategy. She is a financial wizard, and I truly hope everyone who was listening was taking note of her advice.

It was then my turn… I was running on pure adrenaline from the crazy travel day and lack of sleep, and I hope I was coherent :) (Thanks to Shari for this image.)

Alice Park (founder of NAPCAP) shared some of her marketing strategies. I found it to be interesting that all three of us had very different philosophies and strategies for our businesses, yet I feel like we presented a very well rounded overview of the family portraiture world. I really enjoyed hearing the different perspectives.

After the presentations, we broke for lunch, and then we headed to the shooting sessions. I can’t imagine how Pictage managed to work out the logistics for this part of the workshop. There were 30ish photographers, 5 instructors, and enough models to go around. Everyone broke into groups, and then cycled through the photographer “stations”. We weren’t working with professional models (because that’s not helpful to real life shooting in the slightest), and we weren’t in the families natural environments (a kind of big deal for me, I’m sure you all realize ;)), but the amazing Pictage crew managed to keep everyone happy and refreshed and organized. Seemed like a miracle :)

I snagged a couple of images of me shooting/instructing during this time… I don’t get a lot of pictures of me shooting, and it’s entertaining to see how silly I look when I shoot.

Andie sent me this one.

Shari did a ton of photographing during the entire PictageU event. She posted these fun images on facebook.

Here are just a few images of the models from Day 1… you can see more on my facebook page :) What you can’t tell from these images is that we are in a downstairs den (aka, darkest room on the planet), and I am accompanied by about 10 photographers who are watching/asking questions/listening to my “instructions” while I am simultaneously trying to engage with the family. It was pretty tough, but I’m happy with the results.

Family #1

Family #2- Wyatt wasn’t very excited about me at first… but his mom was a serious rockstar, and totally turned him around in record time!

Family #3- LOVED this little guy.

Family #4- Whew… what a day.

Okay, this post has gotten a bit long-winded, so I’m going to wrap it up, and post day two on a separate post.

-amber