And we’re back! I never thought that I would say this but we were happy to the see slushy, snow covered road on Sherbrooke street because it meant that we were home. If you follow either me or Tim on Twitter you’ll know that we were in Vegas several days too many – partially my fault for not realizing that February is the coldest month in Southern Nevada and pressing to stay an extra day after the WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photography International) convention was over.
The convention itself was only 4 days long but Tim and I opted to take additional 2-day classes that started before the convention and then we had a photoshoot over Valentine’s Day weekend which then segued into more classes, inspiring talks and a gigantic tradeshow that lasted from Monday until Thursday morning. Tim and I went into this to be inspired, to learn and to soak up new things. And we were very much inspired, and we learned new things – it is so important to us to never get stale and to always be honing our craft as artists.
This is what surprised us though – even though Tim and I attended different classes and talks, we both came away with a strong conviction to understand ourselves better as photographers to be true to ourselves. Here’s the thing – just as it is in practically every other industry, there are trends and fads in wedding photography. It becomes so easy to get caught up in all. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admiring other people’s work but you lose a little bit of yourself when you try to blindly emulate other people without trying to put our soul into your own. Tim has always marched to the beat of his own drum and forges his own path but I, on the other hand, have a tendency to want to keep up with the Joneses, as it were. But during the course of the convention, as I listened, looked and observed the work of many different photographers, and certain images gripped my heart and moved me and others left me appreciative but indifferent – I remembered why I am a photographer. It is the pursuit of truth, capturing the vulnerability, raw emotion and the beauty that flows out of all that, that really drives me.
So its somewhat ironic that I’m going to be posting some images from the class I took with Parker Pfister during the photoshoot with our lovely models Ed and Russella. It was a good stretch for me, trying to be creative while jostling with 20 other photographers and then doing all the post-processing myself during the class. Tim is generally the one who does all the retouching, color correction and general magic while I am usually terrified of anything anything Photoshop related. I took the plunge though, and made Tim proud. Here are some of my favorites from the shoot:
There are more images from our awesome multi-day shoot with Jen and Joda in Vegas which we are yet to go through – they will be up by the end of this week once Tim recovers from the nasty cold he caught on the trip home and we’ve both recovered from the trip. We are so excited to share them so stay tuned!
