Next weekend Matt and I will be headed off to Vegas for the annual WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) convention.  It’s the time of year where we take a few days to catch up with our photographer buddies and network with some of the vendors that we use on a daily basis such as Pictage, ShootQ, Cypress Albums, Think Tank, Nikon and many more.  As a photographer, it’s super important to stay on top of the new services, products, gear, etc. that is available to us to help keep our businesses running smoothly and efficiently.  We will spend an afternoon walking the trade show floor, making sure we hit up a few of our favorite booths as well as scope out what’s new.  This is only our third year to attend and if you’re coming along for the first time ever we know exactly how you feel.  It’s horrifying and overwhelming and exciting all at the same time.  But trust me it gets much easier.  If you are a first timer and haven’t checked out these great tips from the Youngrens yet then you should definitely do so now.  They’re really helpful.

Though we usually don’t make much of a schedule for ourselves ahead of time, there are a few places throughout the week that you can for sure find us.  During the day on Monday we will be joining our wonderful album company, Cypress, at their booth (#1229) to help answer questions and let photographers know how amazing they are and that we couldn’t live without them. : )  Because we really couldn’t. We love them dearly.

We will also be at AIRPLANES & BLAZERS!! on Monday night.  Yep, we wouldn’t miss it and we are excited to help out as sponsors this year.  It’s going to be the talk of the show and if you know what’s best for you then you’d be heading over to the website now to get your tickets.  They are starting to sell out fast and there won’t be any tickets available at the door.  We’ll be there dressed to the nines dancing all night long with good friends and the Flashdance crew and hitting up the Smilebooth in between.  Be there or be square.

And finally, our wonderful friends at Pictage and ShootQ are hosting their annual celebration at Studio 54 on Tuesday night.  Last year was quite the production and I have no doubts this year will be the same. Get your ticket here.

As all of this pertains to clients we will be out of the office between Feb. 20th – Mar. 7th. After WPPI we will be keeping the office closed for an additional week to process everything we bring back from the convention and prepare for our upcoming wedding season (i.e. sending off all our gear to be cleaned and tweaked, updating software and workflows, and just plain getting organized). We can’t wait! We’ll be checking email and messages periodically but won’t be guaranteeing any responses until Monday, March 7th.

For now, we are headed out of the office until Monday.  Tonight we are excited to be bringing the Smilebooth to an extremely awesome James Bond themed open house party at The Ivy Room!  Then early tomorrow morning we are darting off to NYC for an engagement session with one of our 2011 couples.  Hard to believe wedding season is already just around the corner for us.  Thank you to all of our clients who have given us so much to look forward to this year!