NH Wedding Photographer Stephanie Wales

(Wedding and Portrait Photographers International)
Las Vegas, NV

(photos from my iPhone)

We drove to the airport in Manchester, NH at 4 AM. I LOVE living only about 20 minutes from the airport. As I arrived at my gate for my non-stop flight to Las Vegas, the desk clerk announced that we would be making a fuel stop because there were intense winds and well, there was no way were going to make it non-stop. Ugh. 175 MPH winds as a matter of fact. I knew right then we would be having an interesting flight. Little did I know exactly how interesting.

As we sat not moving on the runway, the plane pitched from side to side: Yup, it was windy alright. As the Pilot pushed the power for take-off we slid & skidded back & forth as the wind seemed to hit us from every direction. As the plane attempted to pitch steeply into the air, the wind had other ideas. For the next 10 minutes, I gripped the seat in front of me. The wind was hitting the plane HARD. This was turbulence x 100. I sincerely thought the Pilot would put the plane right back down and abandon the take off. As the plane struggled to gain altitude, the wind knocked us down, sideways, forwards, backwards. People screamed. People gasped. I prayed a lot: and I will be the first to admit that it has been a looooooong while since that has happened.

A flight that normally takes 5 hours and 55 minutes ended up taking just over 7 hours (not including our fuel stop in Chicago, because where else would we stop when it is really windy out? The “Windy City” of course). That take off was a repeat of the Manchester take off. More gasping. More praying (all around, I’m sure).

Well, obviously I made it safely to Vegas. I was greeted by a strung-out cabbie in the long line for cabs. I couldn’t move forward or back, but I sure wish I could have. I got a nice little narrative on my way to the MGM Grand. Cabbie started telling me some of those, “I’ve seen it all and done it all” stories because of course he had! He was a Cabbie in Vegas.

I was missing Seth already. I traveled alone because of previously laid-out plans. I knew I needed to get away and focus totally on work and business without other distractions though so I immediately begin my plan of attack on the Convention classes and trade show upon checking into my room.

The first day (Saturday) I spent at the Spa. I deserved it! Relaxing before what was a crazy week will surely become a tradition. Sunday the Platform Classes kicked off. Since this was my first WPPI, I decided to do as many free things that I could. In retrospect, I really would have loved to have shot on the strip & in the desert, so next year I am definitely going to arrive in Vegas sooner and take a couple of Master Classes and perhaps one of the independent workshops that are offered by the big name Pros.

Oh The Big name Pros! You can rub elbows with the biggest names in photography at WPPI. My heroes are all the old white guys: you know, the ones who have actually used a film camera before digital came around. Robert Evans, a celebrity photographer that makes himself available for 1-on-1 Mentoring which I have greatly benefitted from, David Beckstead who has a 70’s mustache and incredible composition in his work, Joe Bussinick, who’s images are so emotionally moving (as is his own personal story) that it will make even the toughest tough-guy wonder if he should even keep shooting.

I started at 8AM Sunday with a workshop called “Wedding Packages that Sell” by Sal Cincotta. I learned 100% nothing. Sal is a guy that has been in business for 4 years and had a million dollars in sales last year. But his work is not impressive (he starts the class by stating this) and I found him to be full of fluff. Sorry, but I personally believe in photography as an art form and Sal is so far away from this I just couldn’t respect anything he had to say. Sure, he’s proven he is a money maker, but a great photographer, absolutely not (again, he states this several times throughout his presentation so I am not dropping any bombs on anyone here).

As you might imagine this was not a great start to my experience. Thankfully, other speakers such as Sarah Petty, Joe Bussinick, and others were excellent speakers and touched on everything they claimed there were going to. It was a complete revelation to see so many different business models all achieving various levels of success in such a crappy economy.

The trade show kicked off on Monday, and it occupied 2 HUGE conventional halls (you had to actually walk outside the building to travel between the 2 set-ups) full of every major professional printing house, album company, camera brand, and other random booths. It was awesome to be able to sample so many different types of product.

And then there were the parties……..! I took it easy the first few days to ensure 8AM class attendance, but then headed out to the Airplanes & Blazers party at The Rio, which was fun but overpriced and the line for drinks was 45 minutes long. The Pictage Party my last night in town was outrageously fun, as I met up with a couple of fellow NH Photographers Peter Claymen of NH Images and Rebecca & Mike Garone of Garone Photography. We had WAY TOO MUCH FUN! It was hard to comprehend getting on the plane the day after that night out, but I missed my Hubby and little girl so home I flew.

Thankfully, the trip home was one of the smoothest & fastest flights ever. I was happy to be back, but already knew I would extend my stay next year and that WPPI will be an annual pilgrimage from here on out.

I gained a LOT of perspective on this trip. Not exactly what I expected-but exactly what I needed. I’ve already started implementing a lot of what I learned & observed, and I am excited to see how it works for me and my business from here on out.