I am deathly ill.

Ok that might be a slight exaggeration… but it does feel that way. I haven’t felt this sick since I had malaria… and that’s saying a lot.

Anyhow… besides the sickness it led to, WPPI was awesome. Shootsac did very well (which was the only true goal I had for the trip) and I met lots of great people. Ally Stepp was one of our volunteers and she turned out to be very cool. Lee was of course fun and great. Hanging out with Orbie Pullen, Rebecca Meredith and Aaron Dieppa was one of the highlights of the trip (oh and thanks to Orbie for teaching me to play craps). I met some great people at Becker’s party and tons more at the booth itself. Too bad I can’t remember half of them, but luckily I got business cards!

The craziest thing from the trip besides the blackout was that it was snowing on the drive to Vegas. Actually… snowing is an understatement… it was practically a mini-blizzard. I haven’t seen snow come down like that since I was but a wee lad in upstate New York. Crazy.

I didn’t really have much time to shoot anything while we were in Vegas outside of the video we did at Becker’s party… but I did snap off a few stills while we were testing the the new Arri fresnels I bought (they were brand new and I had only turned them on once) while we were still in our room the night before the big event (see below). I love these lights! I chose a 650W and two 300W. I got barndoors for each of them, a couple scrims and filters… and a really nice softbox that works perfectly with the 650W. You’ll get to see some examples of our final lighting setup on the B School Blog soon.

Lee Keller, Ally Stepp, Bonny Pierzina:

Ally Stepp and Lan Bui:

The drive home was uneventful and a little sad… there has been months of buildup to this event… I literally did nothing more than prepare for it for the week and a half preceding it… and then suddenly it was over. Keats had warned me it would be this way, but I didn’t believe her. It’s not that I don’t have anything to do… there’s lots to do with Shootsac, there’s lots to do on The Bui Brothers side of things… and I even have some Vu Bui photo shoots coming up. But I feel a bit lethargic despite all that… then again being deathly ill may have something to do with it.

Ok, so I’m not very good about keeping up with blogging. I have never been much of a blogger, I always figured that no one really cared much for what I had to say unless it was something really important. Considering, though, that I have very low readership here… I guess I might as well just start saying whatever the heck I want to, and maybe I’ll even start posting videos again. Maybe.

Anyhow, Lan and I have been working on a project with wedding photographer [b]ecker, we shoot daily videos for the [ b ] School blog, they teach new and experienced wedding photographers tips and tricks to help out their business. We actually had a great shoot yesterday, which included a visit from Jasmine Star. She’s very sweet.

Working on the [ b ] School project has exposed me to lots of information and people in the photography world. It’s an invaluable experience. If you are interested in starting a photography business or even if you already have, you will love the free tips and info you can get on the video blog. The videos will be posted daily until WPPI in March, at which time we’ll be launching the main site. Check it out!