WPPI Las Vegas 2010

Andy and I recently attended WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographers International) held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. For anyone that doesn't know, "WPPI is a professional photography organization that puts on the largest professional photography trade show and convention every year". It's huge and although the convention is geared mainly toward photographers it's also super beneficial to videographers seeing as the equipment from the two industries is coming together. Another great benefit of the shows is networking!

We got to rub shoulders with some of the most influential people in the event cinematography industry including dinner out with THIS guy.

This is EventDV top 25 best in the WORLD event cinematographer, Travis Cossel and his beautiful and talented photographer wife, Candice!

The next day we enjoyed a meet-up with more amazing event cinematographers.  Somewhere out there (on the internets) is a picture of the whole group that I really wanted to post but I can't seem to find it.  But it was really nice to meet others with the same interests as Andy and find out about their successes as cinematographers.  Everyone was super nice!

Also included in the week was some serious GAMING, but not the kind of gaming you would think considering where we were :). Our first night there we bought 2 all day Game Works passes and played games until our hearts content. And as you probably guessed, we continued our forever long debacle over foosball.

We did a little site seeing one day and I had my very first experience with Hooters. Interesting... the food was good. Other than that all I can say is there is no way I could ever "qualify" to work there.

Each day we spent a good amount of time checking out the two huge WPPI showrooms. Andy certainly had his favorites so we spent a decent amount of time checking out all the cool new stuff and building up a pretty extensive wish list. And somehow we managed to get out without spending too much money, thank goodness!

Andy's super awesome cousin, Jenny, let us crash at her place. She was a great host and so much fun to hang out with. Thanks Jenny! They succeeded in getting us all excited about traveling and collecting patches (starting with the one in the previous post). I only wished we could have spent more time visiting with her and her family but hopefully we'll get our chance in 2 weeks when we head out there for NAB (National Association of Broadcasters).

The kids had a great time with their Fitzgerald grandparents. It snowed in Tehachapi while we were gone so the kids got to play in the snow and drink hot chocolate!  Something funny about Preston is that he doesn't just call my parents Grandma and Grandpa, he calls them "Grandma Fitzgerald" and "Grandpa Fitzgerald". He actually says their whole last name when he talks to them. That has to be hard for a two year old to say so it sounds cute coming from him. Thanks mom and dad for watching the kids!