ImagingUSA 2011 - San Antonio

I'm writing this from the Emily Morgan Hotel in downtown San Antonio.  Loving the name of the hotel, as two of my best friends are Emily (aka werewolf girl) and model Trix Morgan.  San Antonio is a pretty awesome city with great places to go to, and because we got here a few days early to stuff the bags that all the attendees get, I got a chance to explore.  There's an AMAZING sushi restaurant called Sushi Zushi; the Korova, a bar which gets its name from A Clockwork Orange; and a pretty intense mall.  There's also the Alamo, which is directly across the street from the hotel (super weird that it's just this little building in the middle of a big city and right next to the mall.  I'd kind of expected it to be secluded in the desert), and the River Walk.  Everyone was saying "oh, you have to go to the River Walk while you're there!!"  Yeah.  It's true, even if partly because it's pretty difficult to avoid.  For example, it's easier to get to the mall food court from the convention center by using the River Walk than by taking the street.  It's a pretty neat little walk though, and I'll probably take some pictures of it tonight.

Speaking of shooting, earlier today I got out my tripod and photographed a bit of the ImagingUSA Expo (trade show).  Once I get back to Pittsburgh, I'll put the pictures up.  Also when I get back, I'll do what I meant to do before I left for San Antonio and put up a nice little blog about my first photoshoot of the year with Lady Sutton.  She's a friend of Trix's from New York and super awesome, so of course the two of us had to combine forces and make great images.  But she'll get her own blog post, so back to the photo conference.

I've been learning a good bit at Imaging.  Some of the classes have been kind of lame - a lot of it's basic stuff that I already know (like have a facebook page and tag clients in images of them), but it's good for refreshers and reminders, and I've gotten some cool ideas too.  It's also pretty nice to see when the speakers go over things I've been doing, because it gives me hope that I'm doing something right and once I get my name out there a little more, clients will come calling.

Confession: I'm really REALLY hard on myself and because photography is so much who I am, I tend to get  depressed when I have troubles building my business.  Not sure you guys knew that.  But coming to ImagingUSA is definitely a spirit lifter - a reminder that I AM just starting out and WILL succeed.  I'm good, and I'm on the right track.  This might be my last year as a member of the Student Photographic Society and as student volunteer, but there's no way it's my last year of Imaging.  Tomorrow is the last day of the conference, but New Orleans next year, yeah!!!