Wanderlust

I just got back from an amazing weekend at the IPPA photo conference in St. Louis. I am feeling more inspired, excited and enthusiastic than I have felt in awhile and I can’t wait to get back to work and start on some new projects. I just want to personally thank everyone who came and supported the organization and to everyone for all of their hard work. Speaker Erik Lunsford made us all laugh with his stories and taught us the importance of learning to “verticalize” our pictures, Liz Baylen touched and inspired us with her amazing multimedia work, David Eulitt shared some amazing portrait and personal work and made us all want to run out and buy a Diana camera and Josh Meltzer showed us how to be “content aware” and shared his work from Guadalajara, Mexico. If you missed anything, the contest and speaker presentations are all online on the IPPA website.

It was a fantastic experience and I don’t think anyone could possibly forget Chris Sweda’s hilarious photo of a monkey riding a dog…

I didn’t take many photos over the weekend but here’s one I really like of John L. White mimicking Lewis Hine’s iconic powerhouse mechanic photograph at the City Museum yesterday. Keep in Flight!

Spent the weekend in Madison at the IPPA-WNPA conference soaking up lots of New Glarus and amazing work from all over the world. Ami Vitale had great advice for starting photo stories and finding grants to do them, Dai Sugano made us all laugh with his methods of multimedia production, Lisa Krantz unveiled her deep dark secret: she really loves shooting parades, and Eric Draper made us all wonder what it would be like to see the world alongside President Bush. We filled our ‘free’ time drinking out of boots and dancing to polka at the Essen House, listening to Suzanne Tennent‘s piano requests at the Edgewater and watching Rob Hart try to capture Caravaggio-esque lighting. Here are some of my favorites from the weekend: