WPPI 2010 was another amazing time. Aside from coming home with all my clothes smelling like smoke and a lack of sleep from running around the MGM all day and night for 3 days it was a very inspiring time. Putting 13,000 wedding and portrait photographers together in one place really creates a perfect atmosphere for creativity. This year was a little different from the last few years for me. The last few years so many of the speakers and overall talk of the show was focused on the business end of photography. So much buzz about blogging, marketing, social media, etc… But this year I really felt a shift back to the Art of photography. Some people I had a chance to sit down and talk to were a little tired of hearing about the business side of things and wanted to get back to what got them into this business at the start…. ART. I met people that are shooting only film, creating really unique products and loving every minute of it. It fired me up to do what I first set out to do with my business 11 years ago, create works of art for brides. When I first started my business my goal was to provide fine art wedding photography to my brides, for them to have work that could be hanging in a gallery of their wedding on their wall.

I know that marketing in today’s age is very important, you have to be a good marketer to run a business. No matter how great your work is if nobody knows about you then you won’t be able to shoot and be creative. But that really shouldn’t be the main focus of our business, focus on the art first and marketing second. Remember why you got into photography in the first place and don’t loose that vision! It was very inspiring and I hope to share some information from a few of the speakers here soon.

For everyone who went to WPPI what did you learn? Who were some of your favorite speakers you heard? Let me know in the comments!