WPPI and my FEAR of birds....well, anything that flies really

Earlier this month I spent a week in Las Vegas at WPPI, the big annual conference for wedding and portrait photographers. For anyone that has been there you can appreciate that a week is a long time to spend in Vegas. No matter how much you love the big fancy casinos, bright lights, gambling and the fact that while there you are never quite sure what hour of the day it is, it becomes a lot after a week to get home every night and realize that without even thinking about hooking, you do, in fact, smell as if you have been....hooking. For the record, I'm not exactly sure what a hooker smells like, but in my mind it is a mix of stale smoke and cheap perfume. And if there were a soundtrack playing as I put one of my many black cardigans to my nose each morning to determine if it could be worn again, it would be the sound of a winning slot machine with NICKELS flying out of it with that porn music from the Friends episode in the background. And to clarify, I was actually there for EIGHT days. And to make the point of how long this is, my cousin made a great point......God created the world in 7 days :- ). We were in Vegas for EIGHT!!!!

So for EIGHT days, one day longer than it took the world to be created, I spent time learning from photography geniuses. I spent 8 days soaking up the tips and techniques of people I can only one day aspire to be like. From photographers who have been in the business for years and have defined themselves as the best in the field to photographers who have just started in the business in the past couple of years but have established themselves as world class photographers with their styles. Over the coming weeks, i'll blog about them all as I make my way through the zillions of pages of notes I jotted down while trying to take it all in.

One of the speakers that really inspired me was Jasmine Star (www.jasmine-star.com) and mostly because just 4 short years ago, while in law school on a full scholarship, she figured out that wedding photography was her true passion. She quit law school, set out to be a wedding photographer, shooting 3 weddings in her first year, 40 in her second year and has skyrocketed herself into being a photography sensation. She does, in fact, take amazing photos at weddings but what sets her aside from most other "new" photographers is her web presence, her blogging and her honesty about who she is as a person. She worked her way to where she is, not by paying to advertise herself all over the web, but by joining online photography forums, blogging and referrals. When her clients look at her site and her blog, they instantly get a feel for her personality. I had heard about this "young gun" Jamine Star but it wasn't until I saw her speak (which led me to become a dedicated follower of her blog) that I really understood what she was all about. And bottomline......she's fabulous.....in fact, ghetto fabulous. This term she coined was the topic of her talk and within minutes of her taking the stage, I understood why more than HALF of the people who tried to see her speak were turned away from the 1200 person capacity room she was presenting in. She has spent a lot of time utilizing every social network, online forums, her blog, her website, etc. etc. to define herself as person and ultimately as a photographer all the while staying true to who she is and staying close to what she really wants from her career.

I took A TON of things away from her talk (and as not to bore you, i'll only highlight one in this post but expect more Jasmine Starisms in future posts).
But for me, the most influential thing I took away from her post was to be different and get personal. "Your website is your handshake but your blog is your voice" and use it to let your clients know who you really are....and this is who you will connect to people.

As someone who loves to write, blogging sounds amazing especially when most of what I'll be blogging about is photography related...and ask any of my friends, I cannot speak enough about THAT topic. But at the same time, blogging is intimidating. What if no one wants to read it? What if people are judging my words? What if people are laughing at my blog and not for the reasons I intended??? :- ) It has taken me being back from Vegas a few weeks to take her advice (and some of this is due to the 2 to 1 rule for Vegas....it takes 2 full days after Vegas to recover for every 1 day you spend there :- ). So make it personal huh? Connect with people? Blog often? Okay, okay...I will........ Now where to start?

Well....I've chosen to throw all worries about judgement out the window and at the end of this post, I will be posting the most unflattering, straight out of camera photograph of me.....but it tells a story about a big part of who I am......so I will, without shame or embarassment (although internally I will feel both)....I will post THE bird picture.

If you are going to get to know me, we should probably just go ahead and start with my irrational fear. Things that fly. Birds.
And many of you are probably now thinking.....really???? birds??? you are scared of birds????
Trust me....it's not irrational. Birds are oddly attracted to me.
It hasn't been published anywhere yet but in my experience, birds are attracted to it....the FEAR!!!!

I live in downtown Boston and so really my daily enemy is Pigeons....and while most people stroll through the common at ease, I clench and walk through with my hand near my head to bat away the flock which will, ineviatably, choose the moment I walk by as the time to take flight.

This fear is not exclusive to Boston. I went on a group trip to Paris and while in the Eiffel Tower explaining my bird fear to people I had just met as they asked why I was so tense, a bird swooped me. On this same trip, a group of fellow travelers witnessed a bird just abandon his comfy post to abruptly jet up at my head. While eating lunch on a safari in Africa, a LARGE bird with claws chose to swoop me out of the entire group and steal my lunch. (I later photographed this same bird swooping another victim. I did feel bad but I also felt i needed evidence). I knocked over a lovely couple on the 4th of July in Boston minding their own business trying to avoid a swarm of pigeons (as my sister tells it...just a, ONE, pigeon). I can't even begin to start telling stories here but, TRUST ME, I have been touched by a bird more often than anyone (i don't have official stats here, just a strong hunch).

Last summer while shooting a wedding with my cousin, she asked me to stand still so she could "test the light". So in a Radison parking lot in a pending thunderstorm, I stood in place........and as she was shooting to test the light it happened. A bird swooped me. I panicked....complete fear. And usually imediately after the fear comes the crazy scared incessant laughter at the combination of fear/ridiculousness of "really i'm being swooped again?????????????????". And we both came up from laughing, I said, did you get it??? did you capture it? Sadly, my cousin said" No I think I missed it" But later looking through her pictures she found this.......and really......"the most terrible, awful, unflattering, pasty white while wearing all black, stop trying to grow your hair long, why would you even think about posting this?" picture of me.....but here it is.....the closest documentation we have to my fear of birds.....as I stood there waiting, a bird swooped.



If you hire me to shoot your wedding and at our pre wedding meeting I hear that at the end of you nuptials, doves or butterflies will be released, I'll say "Oh that's going to beautiful". But what I'll really be thinking is making a mental note to pack a hooded black cardigan that day.....as as the ceremony draws to a close, I'll be pulling that hood up over my head to make sure I don't "HAVE TO" miss a shot.