Friday morning at about 2am I got back from Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.  It was my first time there and boy was it a great first!  I was there for one of the largest photography conferences in the world.  I was helping my buddy Kenny Kim cover the entire conference…it was crazy.  We had another photographer, Kenny Nakai, who rocked out some images as well.  Both Kenny and Kenny are from Chicago, IL, so I was the lone MI photog.  It was such a great way to experience WPPI and Vegas and I’m not sure much else can come close for me over the years.  I met an amazing amount of awesome people and awesome photographers and partied a little bit like a rock star.  I totally get why people say Las Vegas never sleeps.

      The conference was hosted at the MGM Grand Conference Center and was such a great venue to host such a large conference.  I honestly could talk for hours about all the experiences I had and all the sweet people I had the opportunity to meet.  I want to thank Kenny for giving me this huge opportunity and also thank everyone with WPPI and all of the attendees for making this experience unforgettable.  BE SURE TO CHECK OUT KENNY’S BLOG FOR LOTS OF PICS AND MORE INFO!!!

Here we are!

Awesome wedding photographer and business guru Becker from Orange County, CA is less than a month away from launching what is said to be one of the best things to happen to wedding photographers in years!  It’s called, [b] School and I’m stoked for opening day and really looking forward to how it can help me grow my business, which will do nothing but enhance the experience for myself and more importantly, my brides and grooms!  WOO-HOO!!!

      Right now I’m in Chicago for the Free To Succeed tour with David Jay and the uber-fab Jasmine Star (j*).  My train was delayed by 1 million hours yesterday (6.5 hours) so I got in way behind schedule.  I needed to get here pronto as I had an engagement session with one of my September couples, Zayna and Rani.  We made the best of the time we had and I’m looking forward to going through and posting some pics!  Zayna and Rani, thank you for showing me a little bit of Chicago, you were absolutely awesome to photograph and hang out with!!!!  I am so looking forward to your wedding!!!!  

      I have another engagement session to post as well, so stay tuned!

WOO HOO!!!!  One of the best tools available to photographers today, has just been officially updated…Adobe Photoshop Lightroom!  I have been using Lightroom 1.x since it’s early BETA’s and purchased it the day it came out back in February ’07.  I also have been using Lightroom 2 BETA since it came out and love it, love it, love it!  I have been recently tempted by Apple’s Aperture 2.1 and do like the program quite a bit, but I just love Lightroom too darn much, so I’m locked in for good now.  For you Aperture users out there, I do like Aperture and gave it a solid 2 months of playing around to ‘prove’ itself and there are definitely some sweet features, but for me, it’s Adobe all the way.  I mean they do have this product that maybe you’ve heard about called, Photoshop.  Also, I use what I believe to be the best piece of software available for album design, InDesign…Adobe is killer!!  So if you’re sitting there wondering why you don’t have Lightroom 2 yet, stop wondering and buy it…it will make you one happy photographer!  I just had to share my happiness with all of you!!!!

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 is $299 for first time purchasers, or $99 for students or to upgrade from Lightroom 1.x.