Last week was a pretty exciting around here.  Typically our days consist of working from home between doing dishes, loads of laundry and the random checkers tournament, so imagine how thrilled we were to be part of WPPI’s (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) “On the Road” workshop in Chicago!  It was our first opportunity to teach at the national level, and we had a wonderful experience meeting a lot of terrific people (most of whom just happened to also be terrific photographers).

Monday we taught a 90 minute class on sales.  Tuesday they turned us loose with our cameras for two outdoor shooting classes!  It was only our second time shooting with a group, but thankfully our students were gracious and our model Laurean was just stunning (and smart too!  Her “day job” is accounting!).   We were working in mid-day sun – part of the challenge AND the fun.
Have to give a shout out to our awesome assistant Alexis!!!
By the time the second class rolled around… things started getting a little crazy!Everybody wanted to be a model….We even pulled Corlis & Megan out of the class to pose for us!  They just happened to be ridiculously adorable.AND, being wedding photographers/videographers themselves, knew how to work it for the camera!To the poor guy who was enjoying his book on a quiet day in the sunshine until our group showed up.  I’m sorry.  But honestly, you make this picture really awesome.We spent some time playing with different lenses – like the fisheye I used for this shot.  A big thank you to Ryan from Sigma for bringing along some “toys” for everybody to play with!A few shots with the Lensbaby….We also played with shadows from the patio furniture out in the bright sunlight.  LOVE these!!!

A big thanks to WPPI and Black River Imaging for bringing us to Chicago to play, and to all the attendees who were such great playmates.  Let’s do this again, real soon!