About a month ago, I gave you a sneak peek into the Photo Pro Network Summer School.
I was given a crazy amount of time to speak both about wedding and boudoir photography. I was just awed by the whole experience. I couldn’t believe it was me there in front of all of those people. The first thing I did was explain where I came from and I shared two images. The first one was from the first wedding that I ever shot, which happened to be in film. I know I have shared it here before when I had the amazing change to photograph the Stolyarov family again a few years ago. This image gave me chills when I first saw it – we went my film catching in the camera spool, to this perfect moment of love between Yury & Gala (and not to mention the perfect amount of sunlight on them!)
The second one is one that none of you have seen before. It’s from my second wedding, and it is THE image that continuously mesmerizes me. Instead of putting the image up on the screen, I brought the tattered 8×10 print that I have had hanging in my office since I produced that image. It’s change locations with me time and time again and yet I still find myself absently staring at it throughout the day while I am working at my desk. The image moves me. It gives me passion. Paul Goodman took a few images while I held the image and explained its significance. Luckily, he took these shots after the presentation because I lost it up there, holding that image. I stood in front of a room of people and just cried. The image isn’t sad in the least, it’s happy and hopeful. And it felt good to feel those feelings again. It really did.
I want to take a quick moment to thank everyone who came to me after the program to tell me about the images that moved them. That’s why we are here, folks, to be inspired to our fullest potential. Having a reminder of our potential and our passions is something that everyone should have, no matter what their career is. Which brings me to the focus of the wedding program – it dealt with the evolution of a new shooter to an advanced shooter. Photographers start with all of these huge ideas and amazing passions and yet we get comfortable along the way and forgot all of that craziness that told our heart to pick up that camera in the first place. I urged everyone in that room to remember where you came from and to go back to the place where you took risks and had huge ideas again. Even make some stupid mistakes again, why not? I also focused on managing your business and how to look at it as a project – assessing it’s weakness & strengths equally and focusing on the risks that could throw a photographer off their successful path. My project management program being utilized to it’s fullest. Woo hoo!
Tomorrow I will share image from the Photographic Safari (which started at dawn) that I got to take 30 students on! It was quite the adventure!
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Trey Smith
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