This is coming very late, but with all of this downtime, I thought it’s better late than never. Last November, I attended Showit United, a photography conference I’ve been wanting to attend for YEARS. I’d been so excited all year in anticipation of it. A few days before the conference, I started to feel sick. Of course…my luck…perfect timing.

I had been to the doctor and was told that it didn’t seem like I had anything wrong at the time. I was not going to let that ruin my trip so I pushed through. I got to listen to and meet some of my biggest inspirations in the photography community. Katelyn James, Amy & Jordan, Montana Dennis…just to name a few. I was most excited about meeting Jasmine Star.

I began obsessively following her work back in 2009 when I was just a freshman in high school. I spent a lot of my free time back then watching her videos and learning as much as I could from her blog posts. A lot of what I know about photography, I’ve learned from following her for all of these years. She’s an incredible public speaker and I’m so glad I got to experience her keynote in person.

Part of the conference was the opportunity to take part in styled shoots. I signed up for a senior styled shoot with smoke bombs led by Jen Driesbach, and a wedding couple styled shoot (I’ll post a separate blog post with photos from that shoot) hosted by Chris & Micaela Sosa.

The senior styled shoot was really fun, but it was the day I felt by far the worst. I had waited in line to get a photo and meet with Jasmine Star after her keynote and that led me to run a little late for this shoot. I had missed the group meeting up in the lobby of the hotel, so I wasn’t exactly sure where they were at on the hotel property shooting. (BTW, this conference is at The Buttes Resort in Phoenix, Arizona. It’s beautiful and most styled shoots actually take place on the property.) So I had to hunt down the group…in the process, someone had told me they thought they were on the hilltop (pretty much a mountain) on the property. I hiked up to the top which took just about everything out of me…only to find out they were actually just on the other side of the mountain….so I had to walk back down and meet up with them. Long story short – I felt really crappy, but I got a few shots I really liked out of it.

I left United feeling motivated and excited for what’s to come with my business. I was struggle-busing it the entire conference, but aside from that, I had an amazing time! Upon my return to Indianapolis, I immediately went back to the doctor because I felt like death. Turns out, I actually had Mono. Woof. 🙂

Stay tuned for more photos next week from the Wedding styled shoot!

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