When we first arrived at this location, I chose it for all the dandelions.  I love the softness they bring to an image when they are blurred out.  My wife, Casey, was holding the reflector for me and before we left she started swinging it around which sent the dandelion seeds flying through the air.  I thought that was pretty cool but knew they wouldn’t really show up in a picture because they are so small.  Then I thought back to all the times we have thrown things through the background and backlit them (water, sand, dirt, etc) and knew that we could probably make these seeds stand out against a dark background.  At this point though, the sun was setting and we had one more location to go to.  I weighed the risk of trying a shot that was going to take at least 10 minutes to execute and decided we should move on.  I didn’t want to waste time on a picture that might not work out and then miss the sunset.  So we headed to the next spot but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about those dandelions.  I figured we better go back and give it a shot before they got mowed.

We got all the lights set and I had Casey run through the background, whipping those seeds into a frenzy.  Trying to get them evenly spaced is almost impossible but she did the best she could.  You can tell from the picture below that she was having a blast, haha (not really!)  By the end we were all covered with dandelion seeds but it was worth it for a shot unlike any I had taken before.

Sometimes it isn’t the final image that isn’t most important; it is the experience we provide in creating the image.

This post is for current juniors who will be graduating in 2014!!! I’m excited to officially announce our 2014 Senior Spokesmodel Program today!

Our Senior Spokesmodel Program is your chance to get discounts on your senior portraits and more importantly CASH! Senior Spokesmodels will also get their own custom smartphone app of their senior portraits!

Right now you are probably thinking “I can be photographed by Brett Jarnagin, get discounts on my pics, earn cash, AND I get my own app!? This must be a dream.”

Pinch yourself. You are awake and this is real.

Your next question (because I’m a mind reader) is probably “Well what the heck do I have to do? Get a Brett Jarnagin Photography tattoo or something!?”

Well, while we would love for you to walk around with a BJP tat (check with your parents first) it certainly isn’t a requirement! Our Senior Spokesmodels help us spread the word about Brett Jarnagin Photography to their fellow classmates. We supply you with all the epic images and tools you need to represent BJP to your friends and for each friend who books a session with us, you get rewards!

Let’s break it down before your mind explodes.

You’ll get a 45 minute Spokesmodel Session, a free 2 hour Senior Session later in the year when you refer a friend to the program, your own smartphone app, and a bunch more awesome stuff!  PLUS, if you refer just FIVE friends, I’ll buy you an iPad Mini!  No strings attached!

Check out the slideshow below of some of our awesome seniors!

CLICK HERE TO APPLY!

This is very time sensative so don’t wait around!  We have already started photographing our models!

Here are a couple recent testimonials from seniors!

“Not only are Brett’s pictures spectacular and make you look awesome, but he also makes the entire experience entertaining. With an outgoing personality the session takes on a fun, laidback environment rather than the boring stereotypical serious, posed photo shoot. I had a great time doing my photo shoot; with Brett’s hilarious personality and going to various places you would never think of that create awesome and unique pictures. Afterwards I was really satisfied with how amazing and flawless my pictures turned out. I couldn’t have been more pleased with my decision to have my senior pictures taken by Brett Jarnagin!”

-Liz W. St. – Anthony HS

“I’ve known Brett for a long time and I didn’t want anyone else to take my senior pictures. Brett is sooo talented and my senior pictures were amazing! Everyone that saw them said how gorgeous they were. Brett is hilarious and during my senior session it was hard not to laugh the entire time. I actually had a blast during my sessions. I can already tell you that the super talented, Brett, will be taking my wedding pictures. ”

-Dylann W. – Shelbyville HS

“Senior pictures are always a big part of your last year in high school. I myself am a little more on the unique, and creative side. None of the generic stuff. When it came time to getting my pictures done I wanted to make sure that no one would have any like mine! As soon as I saw Brett’s pictures I knew where I wanted to go. The entire time I was there he made sure I had a genuine smile on my face, and definitely kept me laughing! We went to many different places, all very unique, but also right there in Pana. I had so much fun during my session and if i had to do it all over again I wouldn’t go to anyone else!”

-Darien C. – Ramsey HS

“I always wanted to be different than everybody else. I got a brochure in the mail from Brett Jarnagin Photography and knew this was the place I needed to get my senior pictures done. His pictures weren’t just unique compared to the other photographers of central Illiniois, they were unique to the person as well. I got to the studio and was whipped into the spot light. Everything was perfect. My pictures turned out better than great and I couldn’t have expected anything more!

-Samantha Bolt, Cerro Gordo HS

Back in January I took another month long road trip for work and this time, I got to take my wife!  It definitely made the whole experience much more enjoyable.  When I travel alone I often go from city to city and workshop to workshop without ever stopping to actually do anything.  It is traveling only in the sense that my geographical position is changing, but every day is just a warmer or colder version of the day before because I rarely get to explore any of the cities I visit on a tour.  On this trip Casey and I first headed down to Destin, Florida to photograph Alexis and Matthew’s wedding.  I have known Alexis since she was little because she was best friends with my sister (my sis was also in the wedding.)  It has been amazing to watch her grow and mature into the girl she is now.  I’m very happy that her and Matthew found each other because you can tell just by watching them interact that they are completely head over heals for one another.

After the wedding and the day after session, Casey and I headed to New Orleans.  We went last year and loved it and since we were only 5 hours away, we figured we might as well head back.  We spent our days wondering around the city, eating Po’ Boys, and hanging out on Bourbon Street.  It was a nice little break from the norm.  We spent about 5 days in New Orleans and then we headed up to Atlanta for Imaging USA.  I was an exhibitor in the trade show for Life. Camera. Actions. for the 3rd year in a row.  This time was a bit different because I only had Casey helping me out instead of another photographer who really knew the product.  It worked out though because she is cute and she can swipe credit cards, haha.  When the show was over we headed down to Florida again and decided to make a pit stop at Disney World.  We got to see the Blue Man Group which had been something I wanted to do for a long time.  We were in the front row in the “splatter section.”  They essentially gave us trash bags to wear to keep from getting messy.  They shot something out on stage and a piece of it landed in my mouth.  It was gross.  I’m still not sure what the heck it was, haha.  Most of our time in Disney was actually spent playing pool.  If you follow me on Facebook you know I’m a huge pool hall junky and we stumbled across a really cool place that had incredibly nice tables.  I think Casey started to get a small pool addiction by the time we left.

After Disney, Casey had to get back home to work so I put her on a plane and sent her off and then I headed down to St. Pete Beach, FL.  I spoke about off camera flash at the SYNC Conference down there.  It was an awesome experience and a real honor because I think vary highly of that show, the people that run it, and the photographers that speak there.  I also had my Life. Camera. Actions. booth there and this time I had my buddy Troy helping me out with that.  It was a good time having him around to get into trouble together with, haha.

Anyway, that is about a month in a nutshell.  Now here are some pics from Alexis and Matthew’s wedding in Destin!

We love to do a day after session with the bride and groom when we shoot a destination wedding.  Not only do we get some awesome pictures, but we also have a blast, as you can see in the photo below!  Trash the bouquet

This past year was another crazy year filled with travel and new experiences. I went on tour for 40 days, taught workshops all over the country, spoke at some conventions, did some trade shows for Life. Camera. Actions, made new friends, and survived the end of the world. I also started to transform the look, feel, and concept of my studio. Phase one was the brand and what it really means. The realization is that my photography is somewhere in between high fashion and a rockstar vibe so I am bringing that style into the full experience and treating my clients like rockstars (I did this before… but now it is on steroids.) Phase two was the physical transformation of the studio space, which is still in progress. I painted the entire inside and outside of my building by myself (6,000+ sq ft), built some custom furniture, and I’m working on some more surprises. When people walk in, I want them to think they just crossed the threshold from our small town to big city style.

So looking forward, 2013 is about stepping up my photography business. I’m also working on a new project that I think will really make in impact in the photography workshop industry. That’s top secret though so you’ll hear about it when the time is right

—

Here are my 21 favorite shots from 2012 in no particular order.  I’ve included backstories for some of them.

This image was a recreation of a shot I took years and year ago.  You can see the then and now HERE.  This one if definitely my favorite shot of the year.

I’ve had the idea to do an Andy Warhol inspired wedding photo with a modern twist for a long time.

My wife and I took an anniversary trip down to Cancun and I snagged this shot of us before going out to dinner!

We had to go pretty far out of the way to shoot in this barn.  Unfortunately it will probably be torn down this year

For awhile I barely showed off any natural light images on Facebook.  I usually just posted my one favorite picture and it was almost always taken with flash.  When I posted the image on the left I got a massive response and it made me realize that I didn’t show off that type of photography nearly enough.  This is a pretty basic type of shot for me from a session or wedding but since I didn’t show them often, people didn’t realize I even took pretty pictures like this anymore!   So thank you guys for your comments!  As an artist, I live in a bubble and forget that people only see a small fraction of what I create!

I love this shot because right when we were going to go take the pictures of the bride and groom, it started POURING down rain.  Luckily I had picked out a dry spot to shoot in case that happened.  Towards the end it was only sprinkling and I mentioned that there was a field I really wanted to take pictures in.  I told the bride, Kim, that if she was up for it we could go and I promised some epic shots.  I warned her that her dress might get wet and muddy but that it would be worth it.  Without hesitation she said yes and we got a series of really awesome shots.  Her dress really didn’t get very dirty either!  If you look really close above and to the right of the couple you can spot some raindrops.

I took this photo at a conference I spoke at in the Lake of the Ozarks called FotoChaos.  I demonstrated this technique, live, in one of the most random places on the property.

I’ve shot at The Arch plenty of times and I’m always trying to make it unique.  Side note, I can’t wait for Matt and Jen’s wedding!  Matt was actually a groomsmen in my wedding!

This image was taken on my workshop tour in Dallas.  We stumbled across all these lit up trees and I wanted to go outside the box and show what you could do in a location like this.  It took a bit longer than expected because the lights were so dim and so spaced out, but the end result is pretty cool!

Another shot from the Flashfire Workshops Tour.  This one was taken in San Francisco.  The weather had been calling for rain all week leading up to the workshop and miraculously, the weather was absolutely perfect.  This image was to demonstrate something I call “cheating the curtain” which lets a photographer shoot past the maximum sync speed of their camera without the use of high speed sync.  If you aren’t a photographer, that probably makes no sense.  If you are a photographer, there is a 50/50 chance it makes sense.

This image was a fun little challenge for me.  The couple wanted to recreate this old photo of their grandparents so we put a modern twist on it.  We all forgot until the end of the session so we ended up taking this picture at a grain elevator.  It worked out pretty well though!

This location was my favorite of 2012.  A storage unit was being built in our town and for a couple months it was just open and I could shoot in there.

Now it is finished and the images I got will be the only ones like it!

I love taking pictures of people in places that they think are stupid.  Nadine was pretty apprehensive to have her picture taken next to a grain bin… now she is not

A lot of people wondered how I got the ball up there… several people thought it was photoshopped… (long pause) I just had her toss it.

Another image from the San Fran workshop.  Alcatraz was actually just off to the right in the background but a barge blocked it from the shot.

When I teach workshops, I always try to show how you can make something from seemingly nothing.  This image was taken at the hotel and there were just a few strip lights that colored the building blue and green.  When I slowed down the shutter speed and twisted the camera, it streaked those lights across the shot.  I put a blue gel on the background and a flash on the model so after the flash fired, they went black and only the bright lights showed up which is why the model is not blurred.

Every time I travel it is like a blueprint for Murphy’s Law.  In fact, I’m petitioning to get it renamed to Brett’s Law.  More than likely, however, I would get the necessary 50,000 signatures only to realize I made a typo and I have just successfully petitioned to have it renamed to “Bert’s Law.”

My latest ill fated traveling experience took place in an airport.  After being dropped off at terminal B by the cab driver I dragged my 3 suitcases and 2 bags all the way up to the ticket counters.  I had all this luggage because I had a bunch of equipment with me.  The only way to handle three suitcases is to put two of them back to back and drag them with one hand and pull another with the other while the other two bags criss cross on your neck and choke the life out of you. As I struggled with my bags and limited blood flow to the brain, I realized I didn’t see US Airways anywhere.  I reluctantly asked someone for help and they said, as if trying to hold back laughing in my face, “You’re in the wrong terminal.  This is Terminal B.  You’ll have to go back outside and take the silver shuttle to Terminal D.”  So the cab driver had dropped me off at the wrong terminal… the irony here is that HE was talking about Murphy’s Law while driving me to the airport.

Annoyed, I tried to turn around to head back out (not an easy task with three 50 lb suitcases and 2 bags full of equipment, computers, and a projector) and made my way to the shuttles.  I sat on the bench where he said the shuttle would come.  After a ten minute wait, I saw the shuttle approaching.  I stood up to signal that I wanted to get on and watched the shuttle blow right passed me as if I were one of those annoying mall kiosk workers trying to sell knockoff sunglasses.  He went down a good 100 yards to another bench where 2 people were sitting.  I was running behind schedule and now literally running behind a shuttle bus hoping that he would see me and not drive away.  Running with all these bags was no easy task because every 15 feet or so one of them would hit the back of my heel and trip me up.  I fully expected to face plant on the sidewalk at some point.  Luckily he waited.  I caught up, stowed my bags, and nodded with an apologetic smile to all the people on the bus who were now looking at me like I was a total moron because they just had to wait a whopping 30 seconds.

I was trying to hurry through the airport but based on the speed people move, I’m pretty sure the zombie apocalypse is already here.  People just seem to shuffle their feet as they walk in a group 4 wide and block the entire path around them.  I finally got to the ticket counter and awkwardly tried to maneuver my way through the zombie travelers to the next available self serve, check in kiosk (I fail to see how these makes things more time efficient… half the people need the ticket clerks to walk them through every step of the check in, anyway.)  Once I got my tickets, I placed my first bag on the scale – 60 lbs… 10 lbs over the limit.  Wonderful.  Next bag – 40 lbs.  They said I could try and distribute the weight between the two so I once again made my way through the crowd.  I flipped open my suitcases and spent 5 minutes trying to move things around but all I seemed to be accomplishing was showing off a variety of my dirty boxers to the people standing in line.  Luckily I left my leopard print thongs at home, haha.  Eventually I gave up and just decided to pay the heavy bag fee.  Unfortunately, for a bag that is 10 lbs too heavy, they charge $90 dollars extra!  I just told them that was fine because I was tired of dealing with it.  This is why I prefer to just drive everywhere.  It takes longer, but it is usually cheaper, less of a pain in the ass, and I can be in control instead of counting on a bunch of random, incompetent strangers (like the cab driver who dropped me off at the wrong place, the shuttle driver who blew right past me, and the flight attendants who act like you being on the plane is an inconvenience to them.)

From there, I headed through security.  I have a myriad of electronics and I’ve learned that if you run a projector through in your checked bag, they will flag it every time.  This time I went ahead and took it out and put it in a separate tray with my flashes and I separated out my laptop as well.  The only part of airport security I do enjoy, is watching newbies go through the full body scan machine because they look extremely confused as to what these machines even are and why they have to do the “A” pose from YMCA.  I go up, do my thing, and then exit the machine.  Security stops me briefly and I look over at my stuff.  Someone is holding their bag in place on the conveyor which is causing all the bags to back up. The trays to start raising up on their sides as the person running the x-ray machine pushes more and more bags through.  I see the bin my Macbook is in start to tip and my computer starts to slide out, as if in slow motion.  Someone yells as I try to weave through the security and sharply cut back to my computer.  The floor is a slick concrete and I attempt to dive for my computer.  I slip and fall flat on my face… hard.  Luckily the woman standing nearest to my computer grabs it just in the nick of time.  I stand up and everyone is really concerned that I am injured.  A TSA agent asks if I am ok and I said that I would much rather I take a spill than my computer and that I’m fine.  Laughing to myself at the situation, I say pretty loudly “I tried to dive for it but I couldn’t get traction because I have no shoes on!”  Everyone cracks up.  This one agent is laughing hysterically in my face and trying to apologize that she is laughing because it isn’t funny.  I said it was fine and that it was the highlight of my day so far.

I dust myself off, get all my crap together, and head to my gate.  Somehow my gate is always the furthest one.  I trudge along for what seems like a mile through the massive Phoenix airport and finally stop to get a quick bite to eat.  I get a soda and when I go to put the straw to my lips, the cup implodes, the lid falls off, and Dr. Pepper spills all over my crotch.  Awesome.  Now I get to walk around looking like I pissed my pants… all the cool kids are doing it, right?

As we get on the plane, they make me check my carry on bag because it is too big.  I explain to them I have thousands of dollars worth of gear in this bag and that I would really prefer not to check it.  I ask if I can see if it fits and if not, I’ll gladly check it.  They begrudgingly oblige and I get on the plane.  Of course, the bag doesn’t fit by about an inch and now I have to awkwardly go against the flow of people getting on the plane and try to get it up front.  The flight attendants are rightfully annoyed.  I tell them I’ll have to check it and ask if they have any tags that say “fragile” that I could put on it.  They don’t.

Before I got on the plane, they called me up to the counter and moved me to the emergency exit row and put me in the middle seat.  Now I can neither recline nor move my limbs.  I’m a fairly broad guy and I physically can’t sit in the middle seat without taking over the armrests.  The plane mostly fills up and I’m still alone in the row.  Of course, right before they close the doors, two big fat guys start making their way back and they are looking directly at me.  You know those fat twins that ride small motorcycles in the Guinness Book of World Records?  Ya, that’s what these guys looked like.  So they ended up sitting right next to me and one of them reeked of BO.  So I got to sit with this guy’s nasty armpit a foot from my face for a couple hours.  I wanted to take out my gum and stick it under my nose like a Hitler stash air freshener.

We finally land and I can’t wait to get off the plane.  We are stuck there for awhile as I watch them send the suitcases up a steep conveyor belt.  I see my bag going up (you know, the one with all the breakable valuables?) and it is wobbling back and forth.  There is about 20 feet between it and the bag behind it… I know it is going to happen and I can’t do anything.  I watch helplessly as my bag gets nearly to the top of the conveyor and then starts tumbling back down.  It picks up speed, hits another suitcase, and is on the teetering brink of falling 12 feet to the ground.  The song “United Breaks Guitars” is playing in my head.  Finally they stop the conveyor and throw my suitcase back on the belt.  That was close.

I’ve landed safely.  Now all I have to do is drag all these damn suitcases outside and get a taxi.  Hopefully they drop me off at the right place.

If you know me (and especially if you have ever travelled with me) you know that this story isn’t really all that uncommon.  I figured I would just share one of my experiences with you guys in entirety.  I hope you got a few laughs out of my misery.  I’m always annoyed when these things are happening, but can laugh them off afterwards.  I’m pretty used to it at this point!

Casey and I had a couple days to explore San Francisco and Saturday was my birthday so we hit all the main attractions – The Golden Gate Bridge, the giant redwoods, Fisherman’s Warf. etc.  We actually went and saw 3 movies while we were there (I’m a big cinephile)  We saw Looper and it was actually pretty incredible.  Maybe the best movie of the summer.

Here are some shots.  I had to include Casey so you could see the scale of the trees.  Even with my wide angle lens, I couldn’t fit the entire trees in the shot.

The day after my birthday we headed out for lunch… we quickly realized we had a flat tire (and we were in a friend’s car… not ours.)  I pulled into a parking lot to get out and look.  An old man named Bob happen to be walking by and asked if we needed help.  I told him that would be great but the trunk wasn’t working to get the spare out.  Of course, it opened right up for him.  I told him I was going to keep him around because he must have the magic touch, haha.  We put the spare on and then I went about trying to find a repair shop that was open on Sunday.  After a dozen or so calls, I finally found a place.  They said the tire couldn’t be repaired so they would have to put a new one on.  As much as that sucked to find out, we did find a pool hall a few blocks away while were were waiting for it to get fixed.  So I essentially paid $150 to play pool for an hour.  City life is expensive

Monday was the day of the workshop and they had been calling for rain all week.  I woke up to a downpour and assumed that is what we would be dealing with all day since it was calling for an 80% chance.  I expected rain in Seattle, but San Fran?  Really!?  Luckily I finally caught a break and the weather just magically cleared up.    The workshop was supposed to start at 10 but there were only 3 people there.  We waited and waited and after 30 minutes of just getting to know each other, people still weren’t showing up.  Finally one of the attendees came in and as I shook her hand I realized I only shook three fingers.  Her hands were wrapped up and she told me how she had cut herself pretty badly at work and had to get stitches and a tetnis shot.  She said she had to leave to go straight to the hospital because she was feverish.  I felt bad for her (hope she’s doing better now!)  So that was weird.  I then started calling people to see if they were coming.  It turns out, when it rains in San Fran the traffic gets pretty bad because people aren’t used to it.  So everyone eventually showed up and we got started.  For a bit I thought it was just going to be 4 of us, haha.

So even though the day started out weird, the workshop itself was awesome.  We had a great class, great weather, and got some really cool images.

 At the very end of the workshops I teach how to do my light trail images… of course at that moment it started pouring down rain.  I ended up having to demonstrate it in a white room that looked incredibly plain.  This is about the worst possible location to try and do this at but I made it work.  I put gels on the flashes to color the wall and snooted my main light to keep it from hitting the background.  Below is the room before and the shot that I got.  Not bad for the worst spot I’ve ever done this at!

Benny is owned by my friends Scott and Kelly Crosby.  They actually bought him after he was used as a prop in a movie.  He is entirely hand painted and the inside has been completely remodeled to match the style of the hippie era.  I’ve taken a couple trips on this bus and it is always a good time hanging out with the Crosby’s.  When I announced that I was thinking about doing another tour, Kelly commented and said that Benny would love to take a trip.  I told her that I thought this one might be too long for Benny because I was looking at the West coast.  She said they had been thinking of heading west and to send her the dates.  Well, I got to mapping out a route and sent it to her that day.  Within the hour they messaged me back and said they were in.  Just like that.  40 days on the road… why not?  That’s just the type of people they are.  Go with the flow and find the adventure.

So we made the drive to Denver and had our workshop at the Aloft Hotel (which is a super cool chain of hotels if you have never been!)  They had a pool table so of course, I played for a few hours

We had a really fun group of photographers that had come from all over (the most crazy being Geraldo who flew in that morning from Chicago!  He had to get up at 3 a.m. to make it, haha.)

The shot on the left was taken at the hotel pool.  We gelled pink lights and shot them on the white wall in the background.  The image on the right was taken at the bar in the hotel.

This shot shows what this setting would look like normally.  I have one flash on our model and one flash gelled blue shooting into the chair thing behind her.

This one was taken at the exact same spot with the same lighting.  The effect was created by twisting the camera with a slow shutter, which streaks the lights across the shot.

After Denver, we headed to Seattle.  This drive was the longest and most grueling of the entire trip.  We only had two days to get to Seattle in time for my workshop and we had 30 HOURS on the road to do it.  We drove all day, slept on the bus for a couple hours, and then drove all the next day to make it.  It was pretty brutal.  Scott did a majority of the driving because he is a machine.  I got the privilege of driving a 35 foot bus into Seattle… at night…. in the rain.  Scott said he would never let anyone drive the bus at night or in the rain, or through the mountains.  I did all three at once!  Some people would freak out driving this thing (my mom would have a heart attack) but it doesn’t really bother me much.  I just turn my music up and cruise.

I had been watching the weather in Seattle on my phone for the week leading up to it.  It had been really nice every day and then, of course, on the day of the workshop it rained… all day.  Luckily there was a parking garage next to where we were having the workshop so we went in there to shoot.  I actually would have shot in there whether it rained or not.  Parking garages offer up a lot of different backgrounds for pictures and they are perfect for a workshop environment because they are fairly quiet and everyone can stay close.  I always tell people, if you can rock a parking garage with flash, you can make anything work.  Being stuck in one location forces you to be more creative and to look at things differently.  All the shots below were taking in a parking garage, except for the last one which was taken at Salsa N Seattle where we had the workshop.

Fellow photographer, Jason Domingues was kind enough to let me stay at his house while I was in KC.  A mutual friend put us in contact with each other on Facebook so I hadn’t even met him in person before I got to his place!  I also rented out his studio in Kansas City to have the workshop.  It is an incredible space and one of the coolest studios I’ve ever been in.  If you need to rent a space in KC, I would highly recommend the W Studio.

I won’t have a whole lot of images to show from this tour because I only take about 30 or 40 images during a workshop.  I set a shot up to demonstrate how I do it and then the students set up their own shots and I make sure they understand everything.  My focus is making sure they get their shots and that they will be able to nail the lighting when I’m not there with them.  That being said, here are a few shots from the workshop!

This background is actually a dumpster surround!

The image on the left is demonstrating how I use gels to make boring walls look cool.  The one on the right was taken using a homemade snoot that gives us more control of where the light is going.

This one was taken on a street corner at night.

After Kansas City, I made the drive back home to pick up Casey.  We headed to Lake of the Ozarks for FotoChaos, which is a photography conference I got asked to speak at.  I was honored to teach alongside photographers like Brian DeMint, Scott Crosby, Damon Tucci, Jessica Edwards, and many other awesome photographers.  I taught three classes while I was there – Rock Your Flash, Rock Your Business, and My Bag of Tricks.  Two of those were on location shooting and I could go on all day about working with flash.  The Rock Your Business talk was an hour and a half of me standing in front of a crowd giving my top 15 tips to build a successful photography business.  This was the only one I was a bit nervous about because you never know how an audience will respond to a brand new presentation.  Not to mention that I only had about a page of notes to refer back from in case I got stuck.  Luckily, public speaking has never bothered me.  I actually really enjoy it.  Once I got going I think I only looked at my notes a few times in the full 90 minutes.  I was pretty happy with that, especially since my slides only have about 5 words max (I posted a couple below)

In my shooting classes, I was trying to teach how to use flashes to get dramatic fashion lighting.  This is what I’m on tour doing and we typically have a full day to explain everything.  At FotoChaos, I had 90 minutes.  I boiled everything down to the most important and most basic information so people could go out and try it that night.  I didn’t take a ton of images because each shot needed to be explained in detail, especially since the students weren’t shooting as well.  Here is my favorite as well as a couple behind the scenes shots from Instagram.

Rocking a parking garage!

Matt DeBackere is an excellent photographer in his own right, an amazing friend, and an amazing person.  He was actually a groomsmen in my wedding!  He and I have shared a ton of experiences together.  He essentially helped me launch my other company, Life. Camera. Actions. by driving to Vegas with me and helping me run the booth at WPPI back in 2010 (he also painted and assembled tables that we made for the booth on the bathroom floor of the MGM… only for us to end up throwing in the dumpster because they looked ridiculous, haha.)  We’ve traveled all over the country together and I’m hoping that I can get him to tag along a few more times in 2013!

I’ve only met his fiance, Jen, twice now but I feel like I’ve known her as long as I’ve known Matt.  These two really are adorable together.  I’ve photographed a staggering number of couples and the way these two interact and look at each other is definitely something special.

I had a blast with you guys and I can’t wait for the wedding!

I announced the dates last night and within 14 hours we had already sold out our first city!  I was absolutely blown away and quickly announced a second day in the same city (which is probably going to sell out too.)  It is a really incredible feeling and I’m thankful for all the photographers who have graciously spread the word!

On the last tour it was just Casey and I driving around the midwest.  We had fun but she felt really guilty leaving her clients behind so for this tour, she is going to stay behind for most of the time.  Luckily she is going to fly out and join me for San Francisco, San Diego, and Vegas.  She has never been to California or Vegas so I’m excited for her to get to see the West Coast!

As most of you know, my incredible friends The Crosbys own an old hippy bus (aka Benny the Bus.)  When I posted on Facebook that I was going on tour, Kelly said that Benny was up for taking a trip.  I mentioned that it was going to be on the west coast and that it was probably a bit too far for Benny to go.  Well, long story short, they are crazy and up for an adventure so we are going to be riding the bus for the entire tour!

Benny the Bus

So the tour kicks off with me speaking at the new Fotochaos conference in Lake of the Ozarks on October 7th and 8th.  Then we take off on the bus and the madness will ensue!

The craziest part of the tour is that I will be teaching a workshop in Seattle on October 14th.  The next day I have to get up and get on a plane at 8:25 am to fly to Madrid.  I’ll land in Madrid at 8:25 am the NEXT DAY and then go teach our SHOOTERS Workshop at 11 am!  That is a 2 day workshop and then I have to fly back to the US and teach in San Francisco!  I’m tired just typing it

Flashfire_01 Flashfire_02 Flashfire_03 Flashfire_04 Flashfire_05 Flashfire_06 Flashfire_07 Flashfire_08 Flashfire_09 Flashfire_10 Flashfire_11 Benny the Bus