Afternoon T.E.A at WPPI
As it has been for many years, the best part of any trade show or convention is the opportunity to be together with the photographic community.
That said, there are times when you just need to escape the trade show floor and let creative people do what they do best. This year SmugMug and Flickr escaped WPPI for a little while and took a select group of Ambassadors and friends to a wonderful little ghost town in Nelson, Nevada to shoot and create together.
We asked the amazing Emily Teague and Tina Eisen to help us co-host the event, and it couldn’t have gone better. Not only did we create an awesome event together but we had, probably too much fun while doing so.
After days of being cooped up in the windowless world that is the Las Vegas convention experience, it was tangible just how excited everyone was to head for the desert and be in the great outdoors and the fresh air.
With vehicles rented, models booked, and camera gear prepped, we loaded up and took the hour-long drive south to Nelson.
Nelson is a strange little place, but for a photographer, it’s an absolute gold mine (well, it quite literally is an old abandoned gold mine dating back to the 19th century.). The family who owns the land has stocked the grounds with an eclectic collection of old buildings and barns, dilapidated cars and trucks, and even some crashed airplanes for good measure. It was perfect.
However, as is typical with a group of photographers together it is not just the models who ended up posing for the camera. It did not take long for many of us to start recognizing what a photogenic group we had with us and soon photographers became models. The beautiful light, the amazing location and the very talented creatives meant that we all took advantage of the time to get some new headshots or to use some of our peers as models.
There really is nothing like being together with likeminded people, who share the same passion for photography, in an amazing location to create photographs.
Our road trip to Nelson, Nevada was probably one of the best afternoons I have ever had the pleasure of spending in Las Vegas, while at WPPI. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come along with us and create such wonderful images but more importantly who took the time to be together doing what we love.
Thank you to all the photographers: Emily Teague, Tina Eisen, Pratik Naik, Anya Anti, Ella Grace Bell, Brandi Nicole, Sarah Rocca Vento, Joshua Simmons, Michael Friedman, Susan Rockstraw, Kishore Sawh, Rianna Lorelle Price and our amazing models, Bri Payne, Jasmin Claure Amendola and Shonda Mackey Cavalera.
So let's do it again….next year!
