Earlier this month I head out to Albuquerque, NM for the 76th Photographer’s Society of America (PSA) Conference. PSA is a huge week long conference where photographers from around the country meet up for photo tours, workshops, guest speakers, as well as special social events to meet and greet. A great time with great people.
My goal for the conference was to bring some exciting products at great prices to the attendees (that’s always my goal). Thanks to my friend Ray Nason from Mac Group, we were offering Mefoto and Induro tripods at really excellent prices. And thanks to him, we have extended the pricing to this blog post!
Mefoto Walkabout Monopod 10% Off
Induro BHL2 + BHL3 Ballheads 20% Off
Induro CT203 + CT304 + CT404 Professional Carbon Fiber Tripods 15% Off
The true hot seller at this show was the Mefoto Walkabout Monopod. After a seminar explaining the importance and ease of use a monopod can offer compared with a tripod for the Balloon Fiesta, in combination with the low price we had to offer they flew off the table! Kudos (as Ray would say) to Ray Nason for all the help and the product! Always a blast to work with you.
Also, great to work with John Walrath from Datacolor again. Always a pleasure!
It was great to see Darrell Gulin again, it had been so long. Darrell spoke at the conference and is a Canon Explorer of Light. Such an excellent photographer – check out his website! www.gulinphoto.com
To cap off such an exciting week, I attended the annual awards dinner Friday night. It’s always amazing to me when I see the quality and craftsmanship that goes into the prints at PSA dinners. There’s so much great photography online, but seeing a collection of photography printed and framed cannot be beat. Great job to everyone who entered a photograph.
Thanks to the PSA board of directors and committee for putting on such an awesome conference. I look forward to next years conference in Yellowstone, 2015!
Somehow I was able to stumble out of bed at 3:30am the next day to head out for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta! Friends Kathy and Shirley (you may remember them from my last blog post) and new friend Missy accompanied me, and wow. If this event is not on your bucket list, I recommend you add it because I have never seen anything like it in myl life!
We arrived around 4:30am and the crowd had to have been around 20,000 people. By 8am it seemed to have doubled to at least 50,000. Wow.
There was so much to see! I think I will be adding one of these seats to my office soon. What do you think?
And a quick photo with Kathy and Shirley. A picture frame: how appropriate!
Once the sun started setting, the real show started.
Hundreds of balloons glowing with fire! Again, if you have never attended the Balloon Fiesta, you’re missing out. Seeing all of the balloons at night was incredible. Totally worth the sleep deprivation.
Maybe you remember from Photoshop World blog post, but Krispy Kreme is always welcome in my book!
And to cap off the night, fireworks!
The next day, it was my turn to plan the adventure. With the help of Michael Hanauer – Kathy, Shirley, Missy, and Myself got a tour of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge.
Bosque del Apache is home to the annual Festival of the Cranes (organized by Michael Hanauer). Hunt’s is a sponsor of this event and this year the festival is running from November 18th-23rd with plenty of photo and video related workshops and seminars. I will be attending and you can find me at the vendor booths – come say hello!
After a long day within nature, where better to end it than the Olive Garden? We all went out to lunch and couldn’t have had a better day.
What a week! It’s hard to believe that I will be back in Albuquerque in about a month. I look forward to seeing you all again.
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