Dallas, I Heart Faces Workshop

I just took a trip!  “What,” you say? Yeah, I know.  I haven’t gone on a trip in forever, at least by myself!  This trip was all business though.  I am serious.  We didn’t laugh, we didn’t get to know each other, and we didn’t do anything but take pictures and listen to boring… I mean BORING, lectures!  Can you see from the picture below how BORING it was?

I am soooo just kidding!

I HAD A BLAST!!!!!  It was so nice to get away for some me time! Thanks Drew, for this great picture too!  I love it!

I went to this workshop hoping to make some new friends, and to become a better photographer!  Well, I think I did both!  We laughed until we cried (yeah, I know that is a song, but that is what we did).  We made new friendships.  And, we all became better photographers.  We learned a ton!  We met some great photographers, that include D’Ann Wright, Amy Karp, and Pete Lacker.  They taught us so much.  And we had so much fun hanging out with Pete on the photo walk on Saturday.
We got there thursday, well most of us did.  We met in Amy and Angie’s room.  They are the co-founders of I Heart Faces.  We all got together and met some of the other girls who had come in that day!  We got to know each other and talked photoshop, bags, and photography. 
On Friday, we took a van down to the Dallas Arboretum, where we met up with the children that would be our models for the day.  D’Ann Wright was our teacher for the morning, so we followed her and the children around and just took pictures all morning long. 
In the afternoon, Amy Karp, and the model, Kim, met us for lunch and an afternoon photoshoot!  Amy made us shoot in manual all afternoon, which was a new thing for a lot of us!  But, it was a blast, and it was nice to learn how to do it!  I need to start focusing on doing that more often, because I noticed quite a difference in the quality of my pictures!  We had such a great time with her, and Pete Lacker also joined us that afternoon to give us some tips!
That night we went out to eat at Chuy’s, a Tex-Mex place down there.  We laughed and got to know each other, and just had a lot of fun!
The next day we met in the conference room, and Pete came to teach us all a few things!  We learned a lot about lighting, and a lot about photoshop.  He was so easy to talk to, so no one had a hard time asking questions or anything!  Then Amy, Andrea, and Angie taught us some more photoshop tips.  It was so much information, but good information!  We learned a ton!
Then we went downtown on a photowalk and learned some more!  But, first… we got lost, but then we found everyone, but that is another story!  We had so much fun that night.  We tried a real BBQ place, and seriously laughed until we cried.  It was so much fun!
One of the girls flew in from Germany, and she had never had doughnuts before, so after dinner we went down to Krispy Kreme so she could experience a doughnut!  They were nice and hot, and she had such a great time!  We also took her to Wal-Mart so she could experience that great store!
Then we had to say goodbye!  We all wished we could have had a few more days.  We were just getting to know each other and come out of our shells!  But, hopefully we can all remain friends through blogging and e-mail!  It is so great to be able to have this wonderful technology!  It was so awesome meeting everyone!  And… the trip was seriously all business.  NOT!!!!
Oh… and how could I forget!!  The trip was even more amazing… “Why,” you ask.  Because I won a new lens!  A new Tamron 18-200 mm Macro!  WHOOO HOoo!!  I never win anything, so it was quite the surprise to win the BIG prize!  So thanks Tamron.  And thanks Amy, Angie, and all the girls and photographers for an AWESOME weekend!  Stay posted for some more shots from this weekend as I get them edited!