WPPI 2010 :: Las Vegas
This was our first trip to Vegas. We were prepared. We each had a little roll of quarters with us, intent on using these to build our future. I mean, we were going to win big, right?
As it turns out, we’re back in Ohio, and I’m staring at two unopened rolls of quarters sitting on my desk. We never even touched them. Unless the quarter has magically gained value for no apparent reason, we didn’t win a thing. But on the bright side, we didn’t lose anything either.
We may not have “won” anything while we were away, but we certainly gained a semi-truck worth of ideas and concepts. WPPI (which stands for “Wedding and Portrait Photographers International”) was so incredible. The conference was held at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and we stayed in the ‘West Wing’ which as it turns out is at the complete other end of the hotel from the Convention Center. And this isn’t a normal hotel. We’re talking 20 minutes of walking one way every day at 8:00 am. But I’m not complaining… it was a great place to stay.
The convention was part classes part trade show. One word can be used to describe the trade show floor: OVERWHELMING. SO many products from so many great companies. We made stops by some of our favorites including Canon, Mpex and WHCC. What we didn’t expect was to fall in love with Finao and their albums. Just wait until you see these bad boys in person. They’re going to blow you away! We also got a bunch of crap from a bunch of companies everywhere we went. Something like this:
We seriously learned so much great stuff from some amazing photographers. Kevin Kubota, Jasmine Star, Doug Gordon, Kirk Voclain to name a few. That’s quite the list. They were all fantastic, but there was one class in particular that really made our jaws drop: Justin and Mary Marantz. Ugh, I don’t even know what to say to describe how awesome they are. Our business will certainly never be the same.
The whole trip was amazing, and it was a great place to network with other photographers from all over the place. There are so many great photographers that we follow online and it was great to finally meet most of them!
After almost a week of non-stop on the go “conferencing” (hence why we still have our quarters), we took Wednesday night and did the tourist thing. We walked up and down the Vegas strip with our good friends Shannon and David Perlow of Locke Innovations. It’s quite a sight at night.
