Well, I am back from my travels.  No more beaches, palm trees or amazing sunsets, yet I am still feeling so inspired.  I am inspired by the people I met, the amazing speakers at United and the beauty in all that I have been so lucky to have seen in the past few weeks.  I am grateful for old friends, and new.  It is really overwhelming coming home from a conference like this, with so much knowledge and SO much inspiration.  It is so hard to know where to start tackling all of the new and exciting goals I have made! This post is a summary and a HUGE amount of thank you’s to just a few of the people who really inspired me at United.  This is a different kind of conference… it made my heart so happy.

Josh Newton (Haiti Passion Project Leader) stood up to present on Haiti and Passion Projects, and I am so excited to share the video and more info on that in another blog post.  Justin and Mary Marantz inspired me beyond words in multiple presentations.  Mary with her soothing voice, and powerful way of speaking and delivering her message, and Justin with his witty humour…. these two are really something special.  I could actually listen to Mary speak all day long… and when you speak to her one on one, she is truly the exact same. Trevor Daley, speaking about being the change.  His humbling talk went straight to my heart with quotes like….  he also left us with a pretty long reading list that I am so excited to jump into! Meg Courtney and Jackie Gannon talked a lot about specialization to attract the clients you want to work with.  They challenged me beyond words in our chats about specializing, and when it came down to it,  the focus was defining who I am… which was the most challenging, yet liberating part.    Mike Larson, an estate and vineyard wedding photographer just blew my mind in his short talk about “Saying YES to the right things”.  He talked about gaining clarity on what makes you happy and focusing on that.  I encourage you to check out his unreal work!  Kenny Kim talked about his road to being a destination photographer.  This is a path I am attempting to jump on, and his worldly advice and driven attitude gave me the push I needed to take big and bold chances.  Jeremy Kester spoke about our task as storytellers, and the real power of our work.  I had the privelage of spending a week in Haiti with this guy, and he inspires me in every conversation, but when he got up on stage and poured his heart out, it was impossible to not be inspired.  Thank you SO much for your passion Jeremy.  You have taught me so many valuable lessons and have redirected my path this year.  Kaihla was one of my roomies this year, and although we had never met before the conference, I felt like I already knew her.  I was fascinated by Kaihla.  She is such a beautiful woman, with a really unique eye for capturing quiet, intimate moments SO powerfully.  I loved every moment I got to spend with her, and I look forward to more in the future!!  Her blog on United was awesome 🙂 Montana Denis is a phenomenal artist, with an eye like I have never seen before or ever been able to understand.  I had the privilege of accompanying him and several other photographers on a sunrise Vineyard shoot at Grassini Family Vineyards.  I soaked in everything he said like a sponge.  He encouraged me to see things differently… and pushed me.  I appreciate him SO much, and I am so incredibly grateful to have spent time with such a giving, inspiring, and genuine person. And these are just a few of the people who really impacted me on this trip.

SO, if you are a fellow photographer reading this, and you were considering attending United this year, I hope this will inspire YOU to go next year.  Take a chance, meet new people, be inspired, and live it up.  You won’t regret it. (Toronto Share Group…. I am looking at you!!!! 🙂 ) I have linked to the websites of all the incredible people I talked about, and I really encourage you to click through their sites! 🙂

The following shoot was lead by the fabulous Montana Dennis at sunrise at Grassini Family Vineyards.  Thank you so much to everyone who made this shoot possible, especially our beautiful models Brenae and Daniel for rocking it out in the COLD morning!

Jodi of http://www.j-annephotography.com/  led a fabulous shoot on posing.  She made me laugh so much.  It is always fun to see how other people pose clients, and work with them to achieve natural poses.  Jodi had such a unique approach to that, and I was so happy she stepped forward to lead! These were a few of my favs from this shoot!

Then, we were supposed to do a Yacht shoot, but the weather was just not cooperating, so somehow, the organizers managed to pull off a shoot for such a huge group using fabulous models despite the rain.  Stacey Childers and KrisD… you ladies rock!  Thanks for all your hard work in putting this shoot together…. it was a lot of fun!

Meg took some fun shots of me one morning as well.  So grateful for this girl and her friendship, and SOOOO proud of her. She challenged my thinking in many ways over this trip, and I am grateful for that.  It is really nice to have friends who push you to be your best self.  I met her 3 years ago and she was just really starting out in her business, and now she is just rocking out and was a speaker this year at United and WPPI!  So proud of her.  Thanks for these 🙂

 And Santa Barbara…. you are just so beautiful 🙂  As always….

And just for fun…. A LOT of Photobooth photos with some of my favs 🙂  Photographers like photobooths ok?

Meg, Katie and Josh!!!  I miss you guys already!!!Andrew and Kaihla… I heart these two 🙂

This just got out of hand haha!

So much love 🙂  Happy Thursday!!! 🙂