Las Vegas!
It is that time of the year again, time to go back to Las Vegas! I never expected to return to Vegas a year after my first time visiting, but I did exactly that. The first trip to Vegas I took was to check out my photo on display at the WPPI 2019 Expo, after meeting so many nice people and having such a great time, we decided to head back and experience a lot more things Vegas and WPPI had to offer. This time would be different though, we had more time and a little experience under our belt so we had a full itinerary of things we planned to accomplish. Things ended up working much better than we expected and the trip was a resounding success. Check out some of the highlights of our trip!
WPPI 2020
I will admit that the first trip to WPPI didn’t seem like anything special, but that was largely my fault for not knowing everything they had to offer. I just thought it was an expo, kinda of like CES for photographers. The expo was great, but there seemed to be several things we couldn’t access. This time we wanted to experience everything they had to offer, so after a little bit of research we found everything we needed. We got the conference pass this time and signed up for some really awesome events.
First, we did a couple of photo walks - “Cinematic Lighting for Dummies with Jeremy Chan” and “Creating Something out of Nothing with Rocco Ancora”. We enjoyed both photo walks; however, the 2nd photo walk with Rocco was incredible. We learned so many things during our time with him, it was great! As a bonus - We got to hang out with Pye Jirsa from SLR Lounge before and after our photo walk with Rocco. He is a great guy!
Next up, we were scheduled to have our portfolio reviewed by some world-renowned judges from all across the world. Both Brad and I chose Joe Edelman to do our portfolio review; however he wasn’t able to make it so we were able to choose another judge. I went with James Musslewhite, and what a wonderful choice that was. James was very thoughtful on his feedback and completely honest. His feedback has absolutely made me a better photographer, no doubt about it.
Last, I ran into one of my favorite photographers of all time, Lindsay Adler. She is an incredible portrait and fashion photographer based out of New York. She was preparing to do the final lecture of the expo on the main Canon stage and I managed to chat with her for a good 5 to 10 minutes before she went on stage. She was able to look through some of my work and gave me some incredible praise and feedback on my work. She even mentioned that one of my photos should have won an award (it didn’t, but she said it should have!). She was such a wonderful person, I could have picked her brain all day if she would have let me. Shortly after meeting her we attended her lecture, and her knowledge was just as amazing as meeting her in person. I was a little starstruck as she kept eye contact with me in the audience as she spoke on a few topics, even Brad mentioned that it seemed like she was talking right at me on a few things. ( I hope! )
I will admit that the WPPI 2020 experience was arguably one of the best experiences in my photography career so far. I can’t wait to do it again and see where it takes me next time!
Death Valley
There are some things that happen in your life that you don’t fully grasp the scope of it until it’s over. Taking a trip to Death Valley was one of those times. The views were INCREDIBLE and not to mention the photos we brought back….. I mean come on! SERIOUSLY?! There were several us who met up and went as a group, and each person in that group at least once, said “The view, the scale of this place, just goes to show how insignificant we truly are as individuals in the grand scheme of things”. That comment wasn’t meant as a bad thing, it was just how small we felt in the vast beauty of where we were. It was inspiring, incredible, breath-taking, and it was AWESOME!
Now, I don’t mean to exaggerate how great it was to me, I am sure there are plenty of people who would be laughing at my comments, but this was truly an inspiring trip for me. I don’t travel much, and never really experienced something so different. I do know that I will definitely do this again!
While we were in Death Valley, we first hit the “tourist” destinations. The first stop was Zabriskie Point, CA. (as pictured below), and it was breath-taking. It was A LOT of walking uphill, but worth the effort in the end. We left Zabriskie Point and wanted to find somewhere “off the beaten path”. This led us to 20 Mule Canyon Road. I can’t stress enough how “off the beaten path” this was, our first experience was thinking one of our cars got stuck on a rock, luckily that wasn’t the case! We ended up finding a place in the middle of nowhere and decided to take some photos. It was a 360 degree perfect view of wonder, seriously. We spent at least an hour there before we left. The journey out was almost as interesting as the trip in, it wasn’t suitable for a normal car, that’s for sure!
Zabriskie Point - Death Valley, CA.
Red Rock Canyon
The last place we visited on our trip to Vegas was Red Rock Canyon. We almost didn’t make this visit, and by the time we did our group was down to only Brad and I. We did a lot of reading about Red Rock Canyon, but nothing we read was even comparable to the variety and scale of the different views.
Red Rock Canyon, NV.
Red Rock Canyon was much different than our Death Valley trip, we stuck to the main road and hit up all the visitor points of interest. It was still an incredible day, each place we stopped was like a completely different area. We tried to hit as many of the stops as possible, but there were just so many and we really wanted to find a great spot to catch the sun setting. Each spot we stopped at we were like Ok, this is the spot” and then we would go check out another just to make sure, and it was the same, “This is the spot!”. We ended up at one of the last stops on the trip around the canyon and did our sunset photos there. ( check the picture posted above).
I did have to take a minute and truly reflect on how amazing it was to be standing someplace I’ve never been and just take it all in. It was a great experience, and I really had an amazing time. It was fun to experience how quickly it got cold in the desert once the sun went down, we definitely weren’t expecting that!
I won’t lie that we weren’t exhausted and ready to go home, but after reflecting back on our trip, I am truly blessed to have the opportunity do something so amazing. This trip did give me the drive and desire to expand my horizons, I want to go out and experience most things like this and I am looking forward to growing as a photographer and capture more photos of these incredible places!