Black and White Wednesday - "Workshop Weekend"

I am finally coming up for air after a TRULY FANTASTIC weekend!!! It exceeded my expectations in every way. The group of ladies that traveled across the country and one from Canada(Hi Wanda) were just incredible!! The weather was absolutely gorgeous....a little hot, but not too bad in the shade...and everything went according to plan without any glitches.....phew.

Let me give you a quick rundown of the our weekend.......

Friday night I made dinner reservations at a great Italian BYOB right on Main Street.....walking distance from the hotel. It was a wonderful meal except it was EXTREMELY HOT. It is tiny and they had a big brick oven running the entire time. We dominated most of the restaurant and we all had a great meal despite the heat.

After we finished our dinner, I was getting antsy to leave and everyone told me to just relax and we would take our time getting back to the hotel. Little did I know that they had a little surpise up their sleeves.....



I was so shocked that I couild barely compose myself and did not do a good job of holding back the tears. Many of these ladies I had just met for the first time only moments before and they were giving me gifts and a beautiful cake. I was so touched by their generosity that I was completely speechless.......something that rarely happens to me.

After the festivites came to an end, we headed back to the hotel so I could hand out the binders and goody bags that I had put together for everyone and even though we hung out gabbing in the lobby, we didn't stay up too late because we all knew that we were going to have a long day ahead of us.

Saturday morning we started learning bright and early......By 8am we all piled into the conference room to learn about exposure, aperture, ISO, shutter speed, metering, and light.

After about two hours of technical instruction and lots of "ah ha" moments, we headed outdoors to work with models, putting what we learned to the test! We had an action packed day and shot from 10am until 4:30pm with an hour lunch break. It was an awesome day!

Once everyone had some time to cool off and clean up we headed up the street for a very nice dinner and a few cocktails. We were all starting to drag a little bit, but we still managed to hang out in the lobby of the hotel until midnight until we all finally turned in and called it a night.

Sunday we had an intense 4 hour photoshop session and then it was time to say goodbyes. Something I am not good at...... I hate good-byes...... but we all promised that we would get together again soon!! Most of the ladies are ready for workshop number two.

I am BEYOND proud of these ladies and all that they accomplished in one short weekend! They learned so much and really utilized their new skills.

A lot of the girls are still working on their photos and editing, but some of them were very speedy and started posting their pictures immediately.

I was so BLOWN away as I looked through them and really wanted to post their pictures instead of my own this week.

I did throw in one or two and so did my parnter in crime, Marla:) Just want to give her a quick shout out and a GIANT thank you for coming up to help me run this workshop. I could have never done it without you girl!

Okay....on to the MANY MANY photos taken during the workshop. I know the amount of photos in this post probably borders on obnoxious, but I counldn't help myself because I really wanted you to see what these ladies did. I think their work speaks volumes and I couldn't wait to show it off.

Take a look......

Some of the behind the scenes photos of all the girls in action thanks to Felicia and Donna.



Maddy and Dita


Wanda, Marla, and Terri.


Marla, Felicia, Denise, and I just before dinner Saturday night.


Our First Beautiful Model, Catherine.........








Anthony, a handsome young man who happens to be Catherine's brother.






A very cute moment between brother and sister....captured by Wanda:)


My beautiful friend Lina who posed for a few while her children(catherine and anthony)were being attacked by the mamarazzi!!


Our beautiful Bride and Groom, Kelly and Tom.










The lovely Alicia!!! The girls are still amazed that she is only 13 years old.








Our adorable skater dudes...Will and Zach. Aren't they the cutest?










Will and Zach's gorgeous Mom, Tiffany. She and I went to high school together and recently reconnected through facebook. I am so glad that we did, it was so nice to see her again after all these years!





Well, this concludes the longest post ever.

Thanks for hanging in there with me......and a special THANK YOU TO THE ATTENDEES and MODELS that made this workshop a huge success.

The wheels are already turning for the next workshop, if you have an interest make sure I have you on my email distribution list.

In my opinion, this workshop weekend went so well that it will be very hard to beat, but I am certainly going to try.