WPPI 2008 :: Mike Colon's Plus Class

I am finally getting to my blog entry on WPPI 2008 in Las Vegas. After I returned home after 8 days of being away... our entire family was struck with the stomach flu for Easter and pretty much the entire week after. Andy and became healthy enough to attend another two seminars in Chicago last weekend. My brain is SO full of so many ideas I feel like I am going to burst!

I would like to tell you about my experience at the world's largest photography convention and trade show and to help me stay organized I will write recaps of each day.

Day 1 - Wednesday
I arrived in Vegas late at night. I was unable to get a hotel room for that night... luckily Danielle was kind enough to let me stay in her room for the evening. We ended up chatting about photography until after 1:00am... little did I know this was going to be an early bedtime compared to the rest of the week!

Day 2 - Thursday
It took forever to find the room for Mike Colon's Plus Class. But once I arrived I was finally able to see what the "man" is all about. The class was pretty awesome. We talked about some of the fundamentals of photography. It was a good review for me and he also challenged us to shoot completely in manual mode - as well as manual white balance. I was up for the challenge.

The class had two models come after lunch. The group of 20 photographers headed outside and shot the models on the grounds of Bally's. Shooting alongside of Mike Colon was pretty cool! His colleague Ray Santana (aka Uncleray) was very helpful and encouraging to us. After a long day of sitting in a classroom this 2.5 hour shootout was a ton of fun!!!

Day 3 - Friday
This was the second day of the Plus Class with Mike Colon. Just a background on Mike, he is a "rockstar" photographer. He is all around awesome. His approach to shooting, his technical abilities and his all around charm make him one of the best photographers in the industry today.

On this day Mike actually took time to critique some of the images from the day before. He choose several of my images to critique. I am going to be honest and say some of them were not very good. I was sooooo focused on the technical side of shooting in complete manual mode that I lost touch with the artistic side. I learned a lot from his critique.

Right after lunch two more models came and we were able to go out and shoot again. This time my game was on. I had sooo much fun shooting. The technical side came sooo much easier for me and I was getting some rockin' shots.

Here are some of the highlights: